After more than 36 years of increasingly bloody repression, the reign of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has come to an end. Iran’s supreme leader died on Sunday at the age of 86 during the Israeli-American attack on his country. Although he ruled more than three times as long as his strict Islamic predecessor and teacher, Ruhollah Khomeiny, the country will not be plunged into deep mourning this time. For many Iranians, the stiff, uncharismatic Khamenei had become a hated figure, leader of a rotting regime that could only maintain itself through violence.
Tens of millions of Iranians have never known another leader. Also on the street – just like in schools and in government buildings – it was impossible to escape the stern look of Khamenei with his white beard, inseparable turban and bespectacled face. Everywhere there were wall-to-wall murals with his image, often next to that of Khomeiny, the founder of the Islamic Republic. State television followed his every public appearance. Less often in recent years, partly because Khamenei sometimes had to take shelter in bunkers from Israeli or American bombs.
Khamenei (center, with knees drawn) sits among fellow clerics during an audience with Ayatollah Khomeiny, in March 1982.
Photo Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images
Historians’ assessment of Khamenei’s legacy is not mild. “He is one of the worst rulers in Iranian history,” says Arash Azizi, a young Iranian-American historian from Yale University, in response to questions from NRC. “His policies have isolated Iran, brought misery, insecurity and economic decline. Iran’s per capita income is, by some calculations, lower now than it was 25 years ago.”
Obsession with headscarf
“Death to the dictator,” was increasingly shouted through the streets of Iranian cities, as another wave of deep discontent washed over the country and thousands took to the streets. “I saw children on the shoulders of their parents and a grandmother wearing her black hair chador ‘Khamenei dead’ chanted,” told a 19-year-old demonstrator during the January 2026 demonstrations. The suppression by the Revolutionary Guards, the elite forces loyal to Khamenei, left many thousands dead, more than ever before. Tens of thousands of people were imprisoned.
The previous wave of protests, in which Iranians raised the slogan ‘Woman, life, freedom’ and demonstrated en masse for weeks at the risk of their own lives, was still fresh in people’s minds. The reason for this was the death of a young Kurdish woman in September 2022 during a heavy-handed check by the vice police in Tehran. She is said to have worn her headscarf incorrectly, a cardinal sin in the eyes of Khamenei and his fellow clerics. Schoolgirls then raised the middle finger at Khamenei’s portraits in impotent anger.
Also read
“Shame on you,” Iranian schoolgirls shout and chase the principal away
Nothing marked the Khamenei era more than his regime’s almost obsessive attempts to force women to hide their hair under headscarves. As if the credibility of his government depended on it. The irony was that Khamenei also ultimately lost this symbolic battle. Especially in Tehran, so many women ignored the headscarf order that the regime could not put the genie back in the bottle.
“The system has recently survived more thanks to hard power than because it appealed to people theologically,” confirms Naysan Rafati, Iran expert at the International Crisis Group think tank.
Major role for Revolutionary Guards
According to many analysts, Khamenei lacked the self-confidence to implement much-needed reforms. Despite its oil wealth, Iran’s development stagnated and corruption became more widespread. Meanwhile, many Iranians, traditionally big meat lovers, could no longer afford that luxury.
“Authoritarian leaders like Khamenei generally do not make compromises, they see that as a sign of weakness,” Sanam Vakil, Middle East analyst at Chatham House, a British think tank, told reporters in 2022. NRC. “They try to suppress rebellion and stay put until they are overthrown.”
To prevent this, Khamenei relied increasingly on the Revolutionary Guards, which gradually outflanked the regular army. In order to keep the Guard behind him, however, he was forced to grant its leaders increasing control over the Iranian economy.
Khamenei was not just about power. “He really believed that the legacy of Khomeini and the Islamic revolution had to be saved,” says Dutch-Iranian historian Peyman Jafari by telephone from Williamsburg in the US, where he teaches. “Moreover, he was convinced that Iranian resistance to American dominance in the Middle East could lead to a tilt in the regional balance of power.”
Born into a family of clergymen
The young Ali Khamenei, son of a minor cleric, was born in the northeastern city of Mashhad, an important center for Shiite Muslims. There he also received his first religious training, after which he continued his studies in Qom, another holy city for Shiites, in the late 1950s. In Qom he came under the influence of Khomeiny, who became his mentor.
Khamenei, in January 2026, during a meeting with Iranian citizens.
Photo distributed by khamenei.ir via AFP
Through Khomeiny, Khamenei became involved in the resistance against the authoritarian rule of the Shah, who sought the modernization and secularization of Iran. Khamenei repeatedly ended up in jail for long periods of time, where he was also tortured. A then communist fellow prisoner remembered later remembered him as a pleasant cellmate with a good sense of humor.
“He was really a revolutionary then and that’s how he continued to see himself in later years,” says Jafari. In those years, Khamenei led a somewhat looser lifestyle. He was sometimes seen with a pipe in his mouth and even with jeans, highly objectionable practices in the eyes of conservative clerics. He also occasionally played the tara traditional Iranian stringed instrument.
At the time, Khamenei was considered the most cosmopolitan of Iran’s senior clerics. Like many Iranians, he loved poetry but he also read a lot of literature. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo mentioned he even wrote the best novel ever. “I’ve said it again and again, go read that book. Les Misérables is a book of sociology, history and criticism, a divine book, a book of love and feeling,” he said in 1993. His love for poetry also remained and, as supreme leader, he often took part in poetry evenings. Glistening with pleasure, the man, on whose authority peaceful demonstrators were regularly hanged, would comment on poems recited.
After the Islamic revolution in 1979, a turbulent phase followed for Iran and for Khamenei himself. He stood out for his fiery speeches, especially at the University of Tehran, which earned him the prestigious position of Prayer Leader at Friday prayers. He also led the newly established Revolutionary Guard for a short time.
Two years later, Khamenei was seriously injured in an attack with a bomb hidden in a tape recorder. He suffered damage to his lungs and neck and has since had more difficulty speaking. His right arm remained paralyzed and he suffered from recurring pain. While he was still recovering, Khomeini nominated him as president, a position with rather limited power.
Wars with the small and large Satan
It was by no means self-evident that Khamenei became Khomeiny’s successor in 1989. Although he was one of his confidants, he lacked Khomeiny’s theological stature. Only shortly before taking office did Khamenei receive the title of ayatollah (sign from God). Khamenei himself later stated that his survival of the attack showed him that God had a purpose for him: he had to defend the Islamic Republic at all costs.
Starting with external enemies such as Iraq, the neighboring country that Iran invaded in 1980. After that war, which brought the regime to the brink of collapse, Khamenei did everything he could to protect the country from new attacks. He did this by building a network of allies. This Axis of Resistance consisted of the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas, President Assad’s Syria and later also pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen.
However, his foreign policy increasingly became dominated by sharp confrontations with Israel and the United States. Khamenei harbored deep mistrust of both countries, referred to in Iranian revolutionary jargon as ‘little Satan’ and ‘big Satan’. He suspected them of wanting to subjugate his country, according to the classic imperialist model. Therefore, Iran had to become self-sufficient so that it would not be dependent on the West.
According to Khamenei, this pursuit of autarky included a nuclear program of his own. Although he always maintained that this was for purely peaceful purposes, Israel, the US and other countries feared that Iran was pursuing its own nuclear weapons. That is why they imposed even heavier economic sanctions than were already in force.
After much hesitation, Khamenei agreed in 2015 to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, as advocated by the reformist camp at home. However, three years later, President Trump unilaterally terminated this agreement, followed by new sanctions. In Khamenei’s eyes, this was proof of Washington’s unreliability and the reformists promptly ended up on the sidelines again.
After the outbreak of war in the Gaza Strip in 2023 between Hamas and Israel, tensions escalated further. Israeli bombing of Tehran followed in June 2025 and several top Iranian officials were killed. The US also bombed Iranian nuclear facilities.
Gap between the population
Not for the first time, Khamenei’s rule faltered. This also happened in 2009, when huge crowds took to the streets to protest what they believed to be a fraudulent election of a conservative presidential candidate. However, Khamenei also survived this crisis. “That was a pivotal moment for him,” says Jafari. “After that, his openness decreased and the regime turned more and more inward.”
Khamenei casts his vote in parliamentary elections in 2008, reformist candidates were excluded. The following year, major protests would break out after disputed presidential elections.
Photo Scott Peterson/Getty Images
In recent years, Khamenei has left his home on Palestine Street in Tehran less and less, which also included several other buildings that served as offices. As far as is known, he led an austere life there, as could be expected of a clergyman. He ate little and in the Khamenei house the walls were almost bare, revealed his wife Mansoureh once said in a rare interview: “We freed ourselves from such things years ago,” she said. Khamenei did like to potter in his garden. In some photos he is busy with a plastic watering can.
How long the Islamic Republic will survive – Khamenei’s main concern – is uncertain. “Iranian society has changed in recent decades, also due to better education,” Jafari believes. “Khamenei’s regime got that back like a boomerang. Many people have acquired a more secular mentality and as a result the gap between them and the Islamic regime has continued to grow.”
Also read
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: from cosmopolitan to religious dinosaur
