Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Hossein Ali Tabatabaei Borujerdi was a leading Iranian Shia Marja' in Iran from approximately 1947 to his death in 1961.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian Islamic revolutionary, politician, and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Iranian monarchy.