Mehdi Karroubi - Education, Occupation and Early Career

Education, Occupation and Early Career

Mehdi Karroubi is from a Shia clerical family in Aligoudarz, a city in the western part of Lorestan province. He has a brother, Hassan. He married Fatemeh Karroubi, the daughter of an Aligoudarz mercantile family, when she was 14.

Karroubi studied theology and Islamic studies at seminaries in Qom and Tehran. He studied under notable figures such as Hossein-Ali Montazeri and Ruhollah Khomeini. Karroubi was promoted to Mujtahid on the recommendation of the Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanei and others. He also studied theology and law at Tehran University. In 1962, he became a lawyer in economy, dealing with the investments of prominent businessmen in Iran.

Karroubi was imprisoned several times by the government of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, during the 1970s, including a stint at the Qasr Prison in Tehran. His wife, Fatemeh, later recalled that she took their second son, Taghi, to meet his father at Qasr Prison for the first time when he was six months old.

In 1978, Karroubi retired from law in order to commit to politics. In 1979, he joined the Iranian Revolution. Karroubi was the head of the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the Martyr's Foundation shortly after Iranian revolution.

In 1988, Karroubi re-entered business after 10 years of emphasis on politics. With eighteen years of experience as a solicitor beforehand, Karroubi began trading and investing himself.