Ebrahim Raisi

Seyyed Ebrahim Raisolsadati (14 December 1960 – 19 May 2024), universally known as Ebrahim Raisi, was an Iranian Twelver Shia cleric and politician who served as the eighth President of Iran from August 2021 until his death in a helicopter crash in May 2024. His trajectory — from provincial prosecutor to potential successor to the Supreme Leader — traced the inner workings of the Islamic Republic's power structure across four decades.

Early Life and Religious Education

Born in Mashhad, Iran's holiest city, into a family of religious scholars. His father died when he was five, and he was raised by his mother and uncle. At fifteen, he left Mashhad for Qom to pursue a religious education at the Seminary, where he studied for years under senior ayatollahs including Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who was at the time Ayatollah Khomeini's designated successor before falling out of favor. He claims descent from the Prophet Muhammad through Imam Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Imam whose shrine dominates Mashhad — a lineage that confers the Sayyid title he wore.

Judicial Career and the Death Commission

His judicial career began in the early years of the Islamic Republic, when he served in various prosecutorial roles in Tehran and Karaj. He became deeply controversial in 1988, when he served on a committee — known by critics as the "Death Commission" — that ordered the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners, primarily members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) organization, in a matter of weeks. Human rights organizations have estimated that between 3,000 and 5,000 people were killed. Raisi denied personal responsibility. This period haunted his political career, with victims' families and human rights organizations repeatedly calling for accountability. The United States imposed sanctions on him in 2019 partly for this reason.

He rose through the judiciary to become Prosecutor General of Tehran, then Head of Astan Quds Razavi — the extraordinarily wealthy charitable foundation that administers the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and controls vast economic assets — and finally Chief Justice of Iran in 2019, appointed by Supreme Leader Khamenei.

Presidential Campaigns

He ran for president in 2017, portraying himself as an anti-corruption candidate against the incumbent Hassan Rouhani, but lost decisively. His second run in 2021 was effectively cleared by the Guardian Council, which disqualified most serious competitors. He won with 62% of the vote in an election marred by the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history — around 48.8% — amid widespread calls for boycott from reformists and secular Iranians who saw the election as engineered. His landslide victory in a low-turnout election reflected not popularity but the systematic narrowing of political competition.

Presidency (2021–2024)

As President, Raisi pursued re-entry into the JCPOA nuclear deal while maintaining Iran's regional policies. His government deepened ties with Russia — signing a 20-year cooperation agreement — and China. Domestically, his presidency was defined by the devastating Mahsa Amini protests of 2022–2023, triggered by the death of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman in morality police custody. The security forces' violent crackdown killed hundreds and wounded thousands. Raisi defended the crackdown as protecting national security.

Death

On 19 May 2024, Raisi was returning from a visit to the Iran-Azerbaijan border region when his helicopter crashed in foggy, mountainous terrain in East Azerbaijan Province. He died along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other passengers and crew. Five days of national mourning were declared. Iran's first vice president Mohammad Mokhber assumed the presidency until elections could be held, and Masoud Pezeshkian subsequently won the presidency. Raisi was buried in Mashhad, near the shrine of Imam Reza.