1.
Ruhollah Khomeini
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Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini, known in the Western world as Ayatollah Khomeini, was an Iranian Shia Muslim religious leader, philosopher, revolutionary and politician. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution that saw the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and he was succeeded by Ali Khamenei on 4 June,1989. Khomeini was a marja in Twelver Shia Islam, a Mujtahid or faqih and author of more than 40 books and he spent more than 15 years in exile for his opposition to the last Shah. In his writings and preachings he expanded the theory of velayat-e faqih and this principle, was appended to the new Iranian constitution after being put to a referendum. According to New York Times, Khomeini called democracy the equivalent of prostitution, whether Khomeinis ideas are compatible with democracy and whether he intended the Islamic Republic to be democratic is disputed. He was named Man of the Year in 1979 by American news magazine TIME for his international influence, in 1982, Khomeini survived one military coup attempt. Khomeini held the title of Grand Ayatollah and is known as Imam Khomeini inside Iran. He is generally referred to as Ayatollah Khomeini by others, in Iran, his gold-domed tomb in Tehrāns Behesht-e Zahrāʾ cemetery has become a shrine for his supporters, and he is legally considered inviolable, with Iranians regularly punished for insulting him. During their rule they extensively invited, and received, a stream of Persian scholars, poets, jurists, architects. The family eventually settled in the town of Kintoor, just outside Lucknow. Ayatollah Khomeinis paternal grandfather, Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi, was born in Kintoor and he left Lucknow in 1830, on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Imam Ali in Najaf, Ottoman Iraq and never returned. According to Moin, this migration was to escape from the spread of British power in India, in 1834 Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi visited Persia, and in 1839 he settled in Khomein. Although he stayed and settled in Iran, he continued to be known as Hindi, indicating his stay in India, there are also claims that Seyyed Ahmad Musavi Hindi departed from Kashmir, instead of Lucknow. Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, whose name means spirit of God, was born on 22 or 24 September 1902 in Khomeyn, Markazi Province. He was raised by his mother, Hajieh Agha Khanum, and his aunt, Sahebeth, following the murder of his father, Seyed Mostafa Hindi, Ruhollah began to study the Quran and elementary Persian at the age of six. The following year, he began to attend a school, where he learned religion, noheh khani. Throughout his childhood, he continued his religious education with the assistance of his relatives, including his mothers cousin, Jafar, after World War I arrangements were made for him to study at the Islamic seminary in Esfahan, but he was attracted instead to the seminary in Arak. He was placed under the leadership of Ayatollah Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi, in 1920, Khomeini moved to Arak and commenced his studies
2.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
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He was the head of the Assembly of Experts from 2007 until 2011 when he decided not to nominate himself for the post. He was also the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, during the final years of Iran–Iraq War Rafsanjani was the de facto commander-in-chief of the Iranian military. Rafsanjani was elected chairman of the Iranian parliament in 1980 and served until 1989 and he played an important role in the choice of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader. Rafsanjani became president of Iran after winning the 1989 election and he served another term by winning the election in 1993. In the 2005 election he ran for a term in office, placing first in the first round of elections. He and his family faced political isolation for their support of the opposition in 2009, Rafsanjani entered the race for the 2013 presidential election, but he was disqualified by the Guardian Council. With Hassan Rouhanis election, in which Rafsanjani openly supported him, Rafsanjani died following a heart attack on 8 January 2017 in a hospital in Tehran at the age of 82. Rafsanjani has been described as having been a pragmatic Islamic conservative, the Economist called him a veteran kingmaker. He was also founder and one of the Board of Trustees of Azad University, in 2003, Forbes estimated his personal wealth to be in excess of USD$1 billion. Rafsanjani was born on 25 August 1934 in the village of Bahreman near the Persian city of Rafsanjan in Kerman Province and his father, Mirza Ali Hashemi Behramani, was one of Kermans famous businessmen and a Pistachio merchant. His mother, Hajie Khanom Mahbibi Hashemi, died at the age of 90 on 21 December 1995, one of his brothers, Mohammad Hashemi is the former director of IRIB. Rafsanjani did not see himself as a peasant from childhood, according to family members and he left at the age of 14 to study theology in Qom. There he became acquainted with the ideas of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, when he was studying at Qom Seminary, he became interested in politics under Ruhollah Khomeini. He was one of the opposition of Mohammad Reza Shahs White Revolution, with Khomeinis exile, Hashemis role in the fight against the Shah and representing Khomeini in the country was highlighted. This opposition eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment and he was arrested for 7 times from 1960 until 1979 and was in jail for four years and 5 months in total in crime of clandestine activities against Pahlavi regime. Despite anti-Western attitude of revolutionaries, he had traveled to 20 states of the United States, although individual major pre-revolutionary speeches against Shah regime, But Khomeini acted him as financial manager of revolutionary struggle as well as connector with other revolutionary groups. Among the groups that had a bond with Hashemi, was the Islamic Coalition Party. This communication was another reason for his arrest, in prison, he found the opportunity to become familiar with other groups opposed to the Shah
3.
Ali Khamenei
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Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei is a marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran. Khamenei succeeded the first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, after Khomeinis death and his political career began after the Iranian Revolution, when the former President of Iran, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then a confidant of Khomeini, brought Khamenei into Khomeinis inner circle. Khamenei then went to serve as President of Iran from 1981 to 1989 while becoming an ally to Khomeini. Today, as Supreme Leader, Khamenei is the head of state of Iran, for this reason, he is considered the most powerful political authority in the country. For example, in August 2016, Khamenei directly warned the current president Hassan Rouhani that there should be no deviation from Khameneis economic policies, the report said that it found no evidence that Khamenei is tapping Setad to enrich himself. As president, he had a reputation of being interested in the military, budget and administrative details. Comparatively, Khamenei is the second longest head of state in the Middle East as well as the second longest-serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Khamenei has either direct or indirect control over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, as well as the military and media. All candidates to the Assembly of Experts, the President and the Majlis, are vetted by the Guardian Council, there have been also instances when the Guardian Council reversed its ban of particular people after being ordered to do so by Khamenei. Khamenei has also fired and reinstated Presidential cabinet appointments, Irans Chief Justice Sadeq Larijani, a Khamenei appointee, has warned the president of Iran against voicing opposition to Khamenei. There have been several protests during Khameneis reign, including the 1994 Qazvin Protests. Khamenei asked to maximize the amount of transparency in elections in Iran, Khamenei was the victim of an attempted assassination in June 1981 that paralysed his right arm. According to his website, Khamenei was arrested six times before being sent into exile for three years during Mohammad Reza Pahlavis reign. Regarding controversial Nuclear program of Iran, Ali Khamenei had issued a fatwa saying that the production, stockpiling, born to Seyyed Javad Khamenei and Khadijeh Mirdamadi in Mashhad, Khamenei is the second of eight children. Two of his brothers are also clerics and his brother, Hadi Khamenei, is a renowned newspaper editor. His elder sister Fatemeh Hosseini Khamenei died in 2015, at age 89 and his descendancy is of ethnic Azerbaijani background, with one source claiming that his mother was an ethnic Persian-speaker from Yazd. Some of his ancestors are from Tafresh in todays Markazi Province, then, he went to Najaf in 1957, but soon returned back to Mashhad due to his fathers unwillingness to let him stay there. In 1958, he settled in Qom where he attended the classes of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi, Khamenei married a woman named Khojaste in 1964
4.
Tehran
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Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. It is ranked 29th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area, in the Classical era, part of the present-day city of Tehran was occupied by a Median city that in the Avesta occurs as Rhaga. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, and Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran. The city was the seat of the Qajars and Pahlavis, the two last imperial dynasties of Iran. It is home to historical collections, such as the royal complexes of Golestan, Sadabad. Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, and Tehran has been a destination for the migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tabiat Bridge, which was completed in 2014, is considered the third symbol of the city. There have been plans to relocate Irans capital from Tehran to another area, due mainly to air pollution, to date, no definitive plans have been approved. A2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of living, according to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. The origin of the name Tehran is uncertain, the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. The present-day city of Tehran was a suburb of an important Median city that was known as Rhaga in Old Persian, in the Avestas Videvdat, Rhaga is mentioned as the twelfth sacred place created by the Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhaga appears as a province and it was a major area for the Iranian tribes of Medes and Achaemenids. From Rhaga, Darius the Great sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, in some Middle Persian texts, Rhaga is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Derived into Modern Persian as Rey, it now as a city located towards the southern end of the modern-day city of Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsis Shahname, the long Iranian epic poem that is based on the ancient epics of Iran. It appears in the epics as the birthplace of Manuchehr, the residence of Keyumars, the place where Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aži Dahāka, during the Sassanid era, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rey, before fleeing to Khorasan. Rey was dominated by the Parthian Mihran family, and Siyavakhsh—the son of Mihran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the Muslim Invasion, because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rey, they ordered the town to be destroyed and ordered Farrukhzad to rebuild the town anew. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well known village, but less known than the city of Rey, the medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rey about 500,000 before the Mongol Invasion
5.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
6.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
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Whereas the regular military defends Irans borders and maintains internal order, according to the Iranian constitution, the Revolutionary Guard is intended to protect the countrys Islamic system. The Revolutionary Guards state that their role in protecting the Islamic system is preventing foreign interference as well as coups by the military or deviant movements, the Revolutionary Guards have roughly 125,000 military personnel including ground, aerospace and naval forces. Its naval forces are now the primary forces tasked with operational control of the Persian Gulf and it also controls the paramilitary Basij militia which has about 90,000 active personnel. Its media arm is Sepah News, since its origin as an ideologically driven militia, the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. The Chief Commander of the Guardians is Mohammad Ali Jafari, who was preceded by Yahya Rahim Safavi. Sepāh has a connotation of soldiers, while in modern Persian it is also used to describe a corps sized unit. Pāsdārān is the form of Pāsdār, which means Guardian. Members of Sepah are known as Pāsdār, which is also their title, the Iranian Government, media, and those who identify with the organization generally use Sepāh e Pāsdārān, although it is not uncommon to hear Pāsdārān-e Enqelāb, or simply Pāsdārān as well. It should be noted though that among the Iranian population, and especially among diaspora Iranians, most foreign governments and the English-speaking mass media tend to use the term Iranian Revolutionary Guards or simply the Revolutionary Guards. In the US media, the force is frequently referred to interchangeably as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the US government standard is Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, while the United Nations uses Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The forces main role is in national security and it is responsible for internal and border security, law enforcement, and also Irans missile forces. IRGC operations are geared towards asymmetric warfare and less traditional duties and these include the control of smuggling, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and resistance operations. The IRGC is intended to complement the traditional role of the regular Iranian military. The IRGC is a combined force with its own ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence. It also controls the Basij militia, the Basij is a volunteer-based force, with 90,000 regular soldiers and 300,000 reservists. The IRGC is officially recognized as a component of the Iranian military under Article 150 of the Iranian Constitution and it is separate from, and parallel to, the other arm of Irans military, which is called Artesh. Especially in the waters of the Persian Gulf, the IRGC is expected to control of any Iranian response to attacks on its nuclear facilities. From the beginning of the new Islamic government, the Pasdaran functioned as a corps of the faithful, days after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeinis return to Tehran on 1 February 1979, the Bazargan interim administration established the Pasdaran under a decree issued by Khomeini on 5 May
