Editing Ayatollah Ali Khamene (section)

== Early Life and Education ==
Ali Hosseini Khamenei was born in Mashhad, Iran, into a religious family. His father, Seyyed Javad Hosseini Khamenei, was a cleric, and his mother, Khadijeh Mirdamadi, came from a family of scholars. From a young age, Khamenei pursued religious studies, training under prominent scholars in Mashhad, Qom, and Najaf. He studied Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), philosophy, and theology, achieving the rank of ''mujtahid'' (a qualified Islamic jurist) by his early 30s.

During his formative years, Khamenei was influenced by the political and religious ideas of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, his mentor, and became actively involved in anti-government activities against the Pahlavi monarchy. His activism led to multiple arrests and periods of imprisonment by the Shah's regime in the 1960s and 1970s.