Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash at the age of 63, was Iran’s president and a conservative cleric considered a potential candidate to become the country’s next supreme leader Islamic Republic.
RaisiIran’s journey to the highest levels of power was one of steady progress that began before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, culminating in his election as the country’s highest-ranking elected official in 1979. 2021.
His death on Sunday, when the helicopter carrying him crashed in the mountainous region of northwestern Iran as he returned from a trip to open a dam on the Azerbaijan border, cost his country fell into a period of unrest at a time when the situation increased. tensions in the Middle East.
Just last month, Iran launched the first direct attack on Israel from its soil in retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus, which killed several senior Revolutionary Guard commanders. Raisi is also a protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and could be his successor if he dies in office, a transfer of power that has been noticed even before the supreme leader celebrates his 85th birthday. last month.
Raisi was born into a modest middle-class clerical family in the city of Mashhad in 1960, and his early life was defined by perseverance in the face of adversity. Losing his father at the age of five left the family in dire financial straits, imbuing Raisi with a heavy sense of responsibility and dogged resilience.
He once said: “I have tasted poverty more than just heard about it.”
He pursued religious studies at age 15 and moved to the holy city of Qom, seat of Shia clerics, where he sold prayer beads to make ends meet and immersed himself in the teachings of Islam. Shia religion. He holds a PhD in Islamic jurisprudence and private law, which helped lay the foundation for his role as a senior member of Iran’s judiciary and one of the country’s leading clerics.
In 1977, Raisi began a long-term collaboration with Jamileh-Sadat Alamolhoda, a professor of educational philosophy, with whom he accompanied him for four decades and raised two daughters. He is the only president of the Islamic republic whose wife is highly educated and involved in social and political activities.
Alamolhoda, the daughter of a hardline cleric who banned women from riding bicycles, told the Financial Times in an interview that she consulted her husband about her political activities “like all Couples still do it.”
Raisi’s entry into politics began before the 1979 revolution when he engaged in limited activities by meeting with clerics who were promoting political Islam as the main ideology of the Islamic republic. After the revolution, he became a prosecutor in the cities of Karaj and Hamedan. He then moved to the capital Tehran in 1985 as deputy prosecutor and then deputy head of the judiciary.
However, Raisi’s tenure as a senior judicial official was not without controversy, as allegations of his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 cast a shadow on his reputation. him and remains the biggest stain on his record. In 2019, the US Treasury Department designated him subject to sanctions for his involvement in “extrajudicial executions” in 1988 and in suppressing regime unrest in 2009 .
Despite these challenges, Raisi remained undeterred in his pursuit of higher office, culminating in his appointment as head of the judiciary in 2019, where he tried to champion the fight against corruption of the republic. In the 2021 presidential election, Raisi won without any serious opponents, propelling him to the position of national leader.
As president, Raisi faced countless challenges, from economic instability to international tensions and chaotic street protests. However, he received guidance from his mentor Khamenei, demonstrated unconditional loyalty to the supreme leader and remained steadfast in his commitment to the ideology of communism. draw.
Raisi remains steadfast in his belief that his policies will pave the way for a brighter future for Iran and its people, despite facing increasing criticism from detractors, both within domestic and international.
He also maintained close ties with the elite Revolutionary Guard without challenging the country’s most powerful institution. “When Raisi chose members of his cabinet, he was reluctant to reject several candidates proposed to him by the supreme leader’s office,” said a regime insider.
This loyalty made him weak in the eyes of many analysts and people. However, it also makes him a strong candidate to be the next supreme leader if hard-line power centers seek to expand their power in the next chapter of the economy. Republic.
Raisi portrays a benevolent image of himself, a family man and a president who traveled to many parts of the country, often stopping to talk to ordinary men and women. , asked how they felt and ordered his assistants to solve their problems.
Shortly before his death, he was seen talking to some people in the countryside, asking them about their lives.
On his final day in Tehran on Saturday, Raisi reiterated his belief in the importance of family values and social cohesion as essential components of a prosperous society.
“We need to untangle the mental knots associated with family formation, childbearing and population growth, and this requires persuasion,” he said.
Death denies Iranians the opportunity to believe that having more children also requires good jobs and hope for a better future.
