Alongside the mystery surrounding the Islamic Republic’s nominal Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s disappearance from public view, other questions remain: Where is his late father and former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s will? Why has it not been read publicly? When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989, Ali Khamenei read his 29-page will publicly. The document set out Khomeini’s views on how the country should be run and how officials should behave after his death. It also justified the crackdown on Iran’s left, whose members were massacred on Khomeini’s orders in the summer of 1988.
“At the moment, there is no knowledge of its whereabouts.”
On September 5, 2026, an Iranian student asked Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani about the whereabouts of Ali Khamenei’s will. Looking uncomfortable, Zakani replied, “When the Leader was martyred, his library was destroyed in the strike too. Whether his will was there or not and destroyed, too? I don’t know, but in any case, at the moment, there is no knowledge of its whereabouts.”
Zakani’s explanation offers little reassurance as to why Khamenei’s will has not been made public. It also would be highly unlikely that there was only one copy of such an important document.
His remarks also appear to contradict what Ahmad Alamolhoda, a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body tasked with choosing the Supreme Leader, stated. Alamolhoda is also important because he is Friday prayer leader for Mashhad, Ali Khamenei’s birthplace and the site of his burial. Alamolhoda had stated that Khamenei’s son were keeping his will and it had not yet reached him. At least three of Khamenei’s sons are known to be alive. Unlike Mojtaba, they all attended his funeral procession. This raises the question: Why has the will not been made public if it is in the hands of his surviving sons?
The last available will attributed to Ali Khamenei himself dates to 1963, when he was a seminary student agitating for the shah’s ouster. Khamenei wrote that will after the shah’s forces rounded up pro-Khomeini seminary students in Qom, an episode that Khamenei was lucky to escape. That insignificant will contained no political instructions. Khamenei stated he had little money to leave behind and named several people to whom he owed money, including Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was wealthier than Khamenei and financed the Islamist opposition to the shah.
The importance of the will would be to know whether it contradicts the actions and decisions of the current leadership.
Rafsanjani later would play a key role in Khamenei’s becoming Supreme Leader following Khomeini’s death, earning him a reputation as a kingmaker. However, Khamenei later marginalized him in a power struggle.
The importance of the will would be to know whether it contradicts the actions and decisions of the current leadership. Ahmad Khatami, a senior cleric and member of both the Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts, raised this possibility when, on September 8, 2026, he said, “I have no knowledge of the martyred leader’s will. It is up to the senior figures of the establishment to decide whether to publish it or not, if it exists. But what worries some of the high-ranking clerics is that the will could contain material that would be used by the enemies against the current leader.”
The Islamic Republic now faces a choice: It can either double down on Mojtaba’s legitimacy, in which case it must produce proof of his life, or it can acknowledge Khamenei’s will did not favor Mojtaba as his successor. Either way, the moment of reckoning in this crisis of legitimacy is fast approaching.
