Episode 2971
Ali Khamenei
Sat, 2025-Jun-21 02:56 UTC
Length - 3:20
Direct Link
Welcome to Popular Wiki of the Day, spotlighting Wikipedia's most visited pages, giving you a peek into what the world is curious about today.
With 173,385 views on Friday, 20 June 2025 our article of the day is Ali Khamenei.
Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born 19 April 1939) is an Iranian cleric and politician who has served as the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989. His tenure as supreme leader, spanning over 35 years, makes him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East and the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the 20th and 21st centuries, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Born in Mashhad to the Khamenei family originating from the town of Khamaneh, East Azerbaijan, Ali Khamenei studied at a hawza in his hometown, later settling in Qom in 1958 where he attended the classes of Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei became involved in opposition to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the shah of Iran, and was arrested six times before being exiled for three years by the Shah's regime. Khamenei was a mainstream figure in the Iranian Revolution (1978–1979), and upon its success, held many posts in the newly-established Islamic Republic of Iran. In the aftermath of the revolution, he was the target of an attempted assassination that paralysed his right arm. Khamenei served as the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989 during the Iran–Iraq War, when he also developed close ties the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). After the death of Khomeini in 1989, Khamenei was elected supreme leader by the Assembly of Experts.
As supreme leader, Khamenei promoted scientific progress in Iran, making considerable advances through education and training, despite international sanctions. He supported Iran's nuclear program for civilian use while issuing a fatwa forbidding the production of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction. Khamenei favoured economic privatization of state-owned industries and, with oil and gas reserves, transformed Iran into an "energy superpower". With his foreign policy being centered on Shia Islamism and exporting the Iranian Revolution, Iran supported the "Axis of Resistance" coalition in the Iraq War, the Syrian civil war and the Yemeni civil war. A staunch critic of Israel and of Zionism, he is known for his support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
There have been major protests during Khamenei's reign, including the 1994 Qazvin protests, the 1999 student protests, the 2009 presidential election protests, the 2011–2012 protests, the 2017–2018 protests, the 2018–2019 general strikes and protests, the 2019–2020 protests, the 2021–2022 protests, and the Mahsa Amini protests. Journalists, bloggers, and others have been imprisoned in Iran for insulting Khamenei, often in conjunction with blasphemy charges.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 02:56 UTC on Saturday, 21 June 2025.
For the full current version of the article, see Ali Khamenei on Wikipedia.
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Until next time, I'm neural Kajal.
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