Mojtaba, the “shadow prince” linked to the Revolutionary Guard who emerges to perpetuate the radical wing

His life was about to take an absolute turn. Since then he began a training route as a student, accompanied by the most rigorous visions of Islam, which would take him to the city of Qom, sacred to the Shiites.

Both facets, that of a religious cleric linked to the most extremist visions and that of a soldier strongly linked to the Revolutionary Guardmarked his life as his father’s “shadow prince.”

Now it happens in a open challenge to the United States and Israelwho are already preparing to continue the offensive against the representative of the hardest wing of the ayatollahs.

He comes to the throne of Tehran at a difficult time: after the death of his father in an attack in which his wife, Zahra Adel, his mother and one of his children also died.

Born in 1969 in Mashhad, one of the great Iranian religious centers, he grew up in the years when his father participated in the opposition against the Shah and in the construction of the Islamic Republic.

After finishing high school, he joined the Revolutionary Guard in 1987 and participated in the final phase of the war between Iran and Iraq.

That conflict marked an entire generation of regime leaders and consolidated the alliance between the clergy and the military apparatus.

As a student in Qom, he trained alongside some of the country’s most influential clerics and went on to teach at the seminary.

It was also a political school. There he began to weave a relationship network with clergy and security figures who would end up defining his career.

However, his power was always exercised from discretion.

Mojtaba has never held an official position in the government, has rarely spoken in public and barely appears at political events. In fact, there are few images available.

His role has been behind the scenes, handling affairs of the late supreme leader’s office and acting as one of the main intermediaries between his father, conservative clerics and the Revolutionary Guard.

That’s why it earned the name “shadow prince”.

Internal relevance

Little by little, he gained influence within the security apparatus. Many described him as his father’s “guardian.”

Also as a figure close to the most radical generations of the Revolutionary Guard, the military body that supports the regime with its terrible cruelty.

His capacity for influence was evident in 2005, when Iranian reformists accused him of having supported, along with clerical and military sectors, the rise of the then unknown Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Presidency.

His role was fundamental in stopping the reformists and maintaining the most rigorous vision of an already radical movement.

The controversy reappeared in 2009, when the elections that gave Ahmadinejad a second term sparked a wave of protests throughout the country.

The reformist clergyman Mehdi Karroubi He directly accused Mojtaba of interfering in the electoral process. Ali Khamenei was then forced to come to the defense of his son.

Despite this low profile, Mojtaba’s name has been always linked to succession of power.

In 2024, the Assembly of Experts began to study the scenarios to replace the supreme leader, that is, his own father, although Khamenei himself publicly declared that his son should be left off the list.

The possibility never completely disappeared and gained strength after the death of the former president that same year. Ebrahim Raisione of the strongest candidates.

His rise to power also has a strong symbolic component. The 1979 revolution overthrew the Sha Mohammad Reza Pahlavi precisely to end a system of dynastic power.

Now placing the son of the supreme leader killed in the US and Iranian attacks evokes that same model that the Islamic Republic promised to eradicate.

His election also reflects the weight of the Revolutionary Guard within the Iranian political system.

Mojtaba maintains close ties with this military body and with the network that controls a good part of the country’s economy.

With his black sayyed turban, symbol of a lineage dating back to the Prophet Muhammad, and a striking physical resemblance to his father, Mojtab Jamenei embodies the hardest continuity.

Now, with the blood of his father, his mother, his wife and one of his children still fresh, he must decide where to go a war that can lead the country into a war of global proportions.