A day after the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran, on Sunday, March 1, announced Alireza Arafi as the interim Ayatollah to its supreme council.
The 67-year-old Shia cleric, a member of the Guardian Council, was inducted overnight in the interim Leadership Council comprising President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei.
Expediency Council spokesman Mohsen Dehnavi took to X to announce Arafi’s appointment. “The Expediency Discernment Council has elected Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as a member of the interim leadership council.”
Khamenei was confident about Arafi
Born in 1959 in Meybod in the central Iranian province of Yazd, Alireza Arafi comes from a family of Islamic clerics. In 1961, eleven-year-old Arafi moved to Qom for further religious studies, having acquired initial knowledge from his father.
His rise to prominence began in 1989, the year when Ali Khamenei became Iran’s Supreme Leader.
At the young age of 33, Arafi was appointed as the Friday prayer leader in his hometown of Meybod in 1992. Political analyst Alex Vatanka said the elevation was a clear indication of his closeness to Khamenei and the late leader’s immense confidence.
Over the years, Arafi held three important positions in Iran – Guardian Council member, elected into the Assembly of Experts and, most influential, as the director of Iran’s nationwide seminary system.
Between 2009 and 2018, he served as the Director of Al-Mustafa International University and stated under his leadership, 50 million people turned to Shia Islam. However, the claim was regraded “unbelievable and unachievable” by independent experts.
Traditional cleric with a knack for AI
A revered cleric in Qom, Arafi is eloquent in English and Arabic. Though rooted in traditions, Arafi has several times called for the need to adapt to changing technology, and more recently, has advocated the use of artificial intelligence to spread its ideological message globally.
Condemnation during Iran’s 2022 protest
In the 2022 protest wave following the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, Arafi gave a death threat to demonstrators. “Those who attack the turbans of the clergy should know that the turban will become their shroud,” he had said at a gathering of clerics in Qom, as reported by Asharq Al-Awsat.
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