Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran, 1960-2024

Ebrahim Raisi, who has died in a helicopter crash at the age of 63, was the president of Iran and a conservative cleric viewed as a potential contender to become the Islamic republic’s next supreme leader. 

Raisi’s journey to the highest echelons of power in Iran was one of steady advancement that began before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, culminating in his election as the country’s most senior elected official in 2021.

His death on Sunday, when the helicopter he was travelling in crashed in a mountainous area of north-west Iran as he returned from a trip to open a dam on the Azerbaijan border, cast his country into a period of uncertainty at a time of increased tensions in the Middle East.

Only last month, Iran launched its first direct assault on Israel from its own soil in retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Iranian consular building in Damascus, which killed several senior Revolutionary Guards commanders. Raisi was also a protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a possible successor should he die in office, a transfer of power that had come into sharp focus even before the supreme leader marked his 85th birthday last month.

Raisi was born into a modest mid-ranking clerical family in the city of Mashhad in 1960, and his early life was defined by perseverance in the face of adversity. The loss of his father at the age of five plunged the family into financial hardship, instilling in Raisi a sense of heavy responsibility and enduring resilience.

“I have tasted poverty rather than only hearing about it,” he once said. 

He pursued religious education at the age of 15 and moved to the holy city of Qom, where the Shia clergy is based, where he sold prayer beads to make ends meet and immersed himself in the teachings of Shia Islam. He earned a PhD in Islamic jurisprudence and private law that helped lay the groundwork for his role as a senior member of Iran’s judiciary and one of its leading clerics.

 In 1977, Raisi embarked on a life-long partnership with Jamileh-Sadat Alamolhoda, a professor of educational philosophy with whom he shared four decades of companionship and raised two daughters. He was the only president under the Islamic republic whose wife was highly educated and engaged in social and political activities.

Alamolhoda, the daughter of a hardline cleric who banned women from cycling, told the Financial Times in an interview that she consulted with her husband about her political activities “as all couples do”.

Raisi’s entrance into politics began in the run-up to the 1979 revolution when he engaged in limited activities by meeting the clerics who were promoting political Islam as the Islamic republic’s main ideology. After the revolution, he became a prosecutor in the cities of Karaj and Hamedan. He then moved to the capital, Tehran, in 1985 as a deputy prosecutor and later as the top deputy to the judiciary chief. 

However, Raisi’s tenure as a senior judiciary official was not without controversy, as allegations of his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 cast a shadow over his reputation and remained the biggest stain on his record. In 2019, the US Treasury designated him for sanctions for being involved in “extrajudicial executions” in 1988 and in the regime’s suppression of 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 republic’s fight against corruption. In the presidential poll in 2021, Raisi won without any serious contender, propelling him to the forefront of the nation’s leadership. 

As president, Raisi confronted myriad challenges, from economic uncertainty to international tensions and tumultuous street protests. Yet he took his lead from his mentor Khamenei, showing unconditional loyalty to the supreme leader and remaining steadfast in his commitment to the republic’s ideology.

Raisi maintained his conviction that his policies would pave the way for a brighter future for Iran and its citizens, despite facing mounting criticism from detractors, both domestic and international. 

He also kept strong bonds with the elite Revolutionary Guards, without challenging the country’s most powerful institution. “When Raisi was picking members of his cabinet, he was shy to reject some candidates suggested to him by the office of the supreme leader,” said a regime insider.

This loyalty made him look weak in the eyes of many analysts and people. Yet it also made him a strong candidate to be the next supreme leader should hardline centres of power seek to expand their authority in the next chapter of the republic.

Raisi portrayed a kind image of himself, a family man and a president who travelled to various parts of the country, often stopping to speak to ordinary men and women, asking them how they felt, and ordering his aides to resolve their problems.

Shortly before his death, he was shown talking to some people in rural areas, 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 unpick the mental knots regarding the forming of family, childbearing and population growth, and this requires persuasion,” he said.

Death denied him the chance to convince those Iranians who believed that having more children also required good jobs and hope for a better future.