Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei? Will he be Iran’s next Supreme Leader?

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the United States-Israel attack on Sunday, throwing the future of the Islamic Republic into doubt and raising the risk of regional instability.

Iranian state television and the state-run IRNA news announced the 86-year-old's death on Sunday.

Khamenei's death has created a leadership vacuum, given the absence of a known successor and because the supreme leader had final say on all major policies during his decades in power.

US President Donald Trump, who had announced his death hours earlier, said it gave Iranians their “greatest chance” to “take back” their country by rising up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979.

However, even with Iran’s top leaders killed, regime change is not guaranteed because Khamenei, who reportedly picked out three likely successors, would prefer the most hardline zealots, in an attempt to ‘purify’ the regime, the Washington DC-based research institution — Middle East Institute, noted.

Who is Mojtaba Khamenei? Will he be the next Supreme Leader?

Mojtaba Khamenei, the slain supreme leader's second-eldest son, is a mid-ranking cleric and his rumoured successor. He has close ties with Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Mojtaba served in the armed forces during the Iran-Iraq war, and is said to wield influence behind the scenes as his father's gatekeeper.

However, according to a New York Times (NYT) report, Khamenei identified three potential successors last year — three senior clerics. The NYT report said his son, Mojtaba, is not in the running, despite long being considered a frontrunner.

Why is Mojtaba unlikely to be Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's successor?

Mojtaba has a series of hurdles he would need to overcome to become the next Supreme Leader of Iran, according to the Middle East Institute; the top-most being the constitutional requirements.

The Islamic Republic's constitution, the Assembly of Experts consisting of 88 members, will appoint Khamenei’s successor — someone with ‘political experience’ as per the law.

Mojtaba, the institute said, fails on this account because, despite running the Office of the Supreme Leader, de facto, he's had no formal political roles in the regime.

Mojtaba, as the next Supreme Leader, goes against Shi’a Islamic convention, which notes that blood lineage for the mantle is exclusively reserved for 12 divinely ordained Shi’a Imams.

In 1989, Khamenei was elected supreme leader over Khomeini’s influential son, Ahmad, due to the same convention. In 2023, Khamenei had said in a speech, “dictatorship and hereditary government are not Islamic," according to a US-based think tank, Stimson Centre.

In 2024, Ayatollah Mahmoud Mohammadi Araghi, a member of the group that chooses the leader, shared two specific instances where the Supreme Leader intervened in their investigation of the case of Mojtaba’s leadership. "The leader said, ‘What you are doing raises suspicions about the leadership’s hereditary issue.’ So the investigation was not allowed," Araghi said.

On another occasion, when they sought permission from Khamenei to investigate a person related to him, Araghi said, "He responded, ‘No, draw a line under this issue’.”

Therefore, the institute said Mojtaba's selection could lead to turmoil, in stark contrast to the smooth transition Khamenei had in mind by shortlisting his successors last year.

The Middle East Institute also said that Khamenei's own ambitions for the future of the Islamic Republic could also likely result in Mojtaba not being chosen as a successor.