Early Life
Khamenei holds the title of Sayyid, which means that he claims direct patrilineal descent from Ali. Some of Khamenei's ancestors are from Tafresh in today's Markazi Province, and had migrated from their original home in Tafresh to Tabriz. Born in Mashhad, he is second eldest of eight children, and two of his brothers are also clerics. His younger brother, Hadi Khamenei, is a renowned newspaper editor and cleric. Khamenei is Iranian Azerbaijani on his father's side and his mother is a Yazd-native Iranian.
He attended religious studies classes at the rudimentary and advanced levels in the hawza of Mashhad, under his mentors such as Sheikh Hashem Qazvini, and Ayatollah Milani, and then went to Najaf in 1957. After a short stay he left Najaf to Mashhad, and in 1958 he settled in Qom. Khamenei attended the classes of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Ruhollah Khomeini. Later, he was involved in the Islamic activities of 1963 which led to his arrest in the city of Birjand, in Southern Khorasan Province. Shortly thereafter, he was released and resumed teaching in Mashhad's religious schools and mosques, teaching the Nahj al-Balagheh. According to his official biography, Khamenei spent a “clandestine life” in Tehran in the year 1966–1967 after which he was arrested by the police and imprisoned.
Read more about this topic: Ali Khamenei
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