Mostafa Khomeini

Mostafa Khomeini (12 December 1930 – 23 October 1977) was an Iranian cleric and the eldest son of Ayatollah Khomeini.

He died before the Iranian Revolution.

Khomeini was born in Qom on 12 December 1930.

He was the eldest son of Ayatollah Khomeini and Khadijeh Saqafi, daughter of a respected cleric, Hajj Mirza Tehrani.

He graduated from the Qom Theological Center.

Mostafa Khomeini participated in his father's movement.

He was arrested and imprisoned after the 1963 events and also, after his father's exile.

On 3 January 1965, he joined his father in Bursa, Turkey, where he was in exile.

Then he lived with his family in Najaf, Iraq, from October 1965.

There he had contacts with the Iraqi Shia activist Hassan Shirazi.

Mostafa and his brother Ahmad became part of Khomeini's underground movement.

The group also included Mohammad Beheshti and Morteza Motahhari.

In 1970 Khomeini asked Hassan Shirazi who had been released from prison to go to Lebanon to find individual and institutional supporters.

Shirazi carried out this activity in Lebanon until 1974.

Khomeini married Masoumeh Haeri Yazdi, a daughter of Morteza Haeri Yazdi.

Khomeini died of a heart attack in Najaf on 23 October 1977.

His father, Ayatollah Khomeini, did not attend the funeral.

He was buried in Najaf within the shrine of Imam Ali.

His death has been regarded as suspicious by both the followers of Ayatollah Khomeini and common people of Iran due to his death being announced while he was in police custody and various reports that SAVAK agents were present at the scene.

Hence, his death was attributed to the Shah's secret police, SAVAK.

His father later described Mostafa's death as a "martyrdom" and one of the "hidden favours" of God since it fueled the growing discontent with the Shah which finally produced Iranian Revolution just slightly over one year after Mostafa's death.

Because memorial services for Mostafa Khomeini were organized in different cities of Iran which became nationwide protests against the Pahlavi rule.