Hossein-Ali Montazeri

Hossein-Ali Montazeri was a Grand Ayatollah and one of the architects of Iran's Islamic Republic. A student of Ruhollah Khomeini, he was imprisoned for years under the Shah and played a central role in drafting Iran's theocratic constitution. In 1979, he was elected chairman of the Assembly of Experts for the Constitution, the 73-member body that drafted the Islamic Republic's constitution, with Mohammad Beheshti as deputy chairman. The assembly embedded the concept of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) into the new constitution. In 1985, the Assembly of Experts designated him as Khomeini's successor.

Montazeri's path to dismissal began with the Iran-Contra affair: his protégé Mehdi Hashemi, an IRGC official, leaked details of the secret U.S. arms deals in 1986. Hashemi was arrested and executed in September 1987, weakening Montazeri's political base. Then came the 1988 mass executions of political prisoners. Montazeri wrote at least three letters to Khomeini protesting the killings and confronted the Death Committee members directly, telling them: 'the greatest crime committed during the reign of the Islamic Republic has been committed by you.' He argued that prisoners — including Mojahedin-e Khalq sympathisers who had already been tried and sentenced — deserved fair treatment under Islamic law. Ahmad Khomeini, who controlled access to his father, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then Speaker of Parliament, both worked to isolate Montazeri. On 28 March 1989, Khomeini formally stripped him of the succession. The subsequent 1989 constitutional revision removed the requirement that the Supreme Leader be a marja, clearing the path for Ali Khamenei — who was only a Hojatoleslam — to succeed Khomeini.

After Khomeini's death, Montazeri continued to challenge Khamenei's religious credentials. In November 1997 he was placed under house arrest in Qom, where he remained until approximately 2003. He maintained ties to the reformist movement, sharing common ground with Mohammad Khatami on civil liberties and with the Freedom Movement of Iran on democratic governance. During the 2009 Green Movement, he issued a fatwa declaring the disputed election illegitimate and became the movement's most authoritative clerical voice, aligning with Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. He died on 19 December 2009; his funeral and mourning ceremonies became major protest gatherings that sustained the Green Movement through its most intense period.