1. Mohammad-Ali Rajai was an Iranian politician who served as the second president of Iran from 2 August 1981 until his assassination four weeks later.
11 Facts About Mohammad-Ali Rajai
1. 2.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai died in a bombing on 30 August 1981 along with then-prime minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar.
3.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai was born on 15 June 1933 in Qazvin, Iran.
4.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai grew up in Qazvin and moved to Tehran in the late 1940s.
5.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai joined the Air Force at age sixteen or seventeen.
6.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai was arrested at least twice by SAVAK for his opposition activities, with his longest detention lasting from May 1974 to late 1978.
7.
Later in a 1980 speech to the United Nations Security Council, Mohammad-Ali Rajai displayed his beaten right foot to the audience, attributing its condition to being tortured by the Shah's interrogators in prison.
8.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai set up his cabinet by selecting Karim Khodapanahi as foreign affairs minister, Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani as interior minister, and Javad Fakoori as defense minister.
9.
On 30 August 1981, Mohammad-Ali Rajai held a meeting of Iran's Supreme Defence Council along with Bahonar.
10.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai insisted that those in control of the state must be Muslim, emphasized the Velayat-e Faqih, and believed it essential that the government cooperate with institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and Islamic Revolutionary Court.
11.
Mohammad-Ali Rajai respected people's freedom insofar as it did not contravene Islamic law and tried during his tenure to create a consistent government.