Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei is a marja and the second and
current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously
President of Iran from 1981 to 1989.
His education began at the age of four, by learning Quran at
Maktab; he spent his basic and advanced levels of seminary studies at the hawza
of Mashhad, under mentors such as Sheikh Hashem Qazvini and Ayatollah Milani.
Then, he went to Najaf in 1957, but soon returned to Mashhad due to his
father's unwillingness to let him stay there. In 1958, he settled in Qom where
he attended the classes of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi and Ruhollah Khomeini. Like
many other politically active clerics at the time, Khamenei was far more
involved with politics than religious scholarship.