Montazeri, Hossein Ali
Montazeri, Hossein Ali,
1922–2009, Iranian Islamic scholar and political leader. A follower of Ayatollah Ruhollah KhomeiniKhomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 1900–1989, Iranian Shiite religious leader. Educated in Islam at home and in theological schools, in the 1950s he was designated ayatollah, a supreme religious leader, in the Iranian Shiite community.
..... Click the link for more information. , Montazeri objected to Khomeini's arrest and exile, and became involved in the opposition Muhammad Reza Shah PahleviMuhammad Reza Shah Pahlevi
, 1919–80, shah of Iran (1941–79). Educated in Switzerland, he returned (1935) to Iran to attend the military academy in Tehran. He ascended the throne in 1941 after his father, Reza Shah Pahlevi, suspected of collaboration with the
..... Click the link for more information. , which led to his arrest and imprisonment (1974–78). One of the leaders of the 1979 revolution that deposed the shah, Montazeri helped draft the new constitution and in 1985 was designated as Khomeini's successor as supreme leader. His sympathy for liberation movements and support for human rights, including opposition to the mass execution of political prisoners and the growing power of Islamic jurists over elected officals, led to a break with Khomeini and others in the government. Montazeri became a critic of Iran's theocratic government and the effective spiritual leader of Iran's reform movement; under Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali KhameneiKhamenei, Ali
(Mohammad Ali Hoseyn Khamenei) , 1939–, Iranian religious and political leader, b. Mashhad. A Shiite Islamic cleric who was the son of an ayatollah, Khamenei began his religious studies at a young age, and was briefly at Najaf, Iraq (1957), before he settled
..... Click the link for more information. , he was placed under house arrest (1997–2003).