Ahmad Khatami
Sayyid Ahmad Khatami (Persian: احمد خاتمی, born 8 May 1960) is a senior Iranian Shia cleric, member of Guardian Council and a senior member of the Assembly of Experts. In December 2005, Ali Khamenei appointed him as Tehran’s substitute Friday prayer leader. He is also a conservative and principlist politician.
Ahmad Khatami | |
|---|---|
Khatami in 2019 | |
| Tehran's Temporary Friday Prayer Imam | |
| Assumed office 18 December 2005 | |
| Appointed by | Ali Khamenei |
| Member of the Assembly of Experts | |
| Assumed office 24 February 1999 | |
| Constituency | Kerman Province |
| Majority | 873,584 (55.96%; 3rd term) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | May 8, 1960 Semnan, Iran |
| Political party | Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom |
He was born in the city of Semnan, Iran. He studied at seminaries in Qom and Semnan.
In 2006, during the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy, Khatami asked the Pope to "fall on his knees in front of a senior Muslim cleric and try to understand Islam." In 2007, he addressed the death sentence issued by Imam Khomeini against Salman Rushdie, saying "In the Islamic Iran that revolutionary fatwa of Imam [Khomeini] is still alive and cannot be changed." In regard to the 2009 Iranian election protests, Khatami denounced demonstrators as rioters who wage war against God ("mohareb"), (a capital crime in Islamic law), and accused reformist presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi of Mohareb as "leaders of sedition" in 2011.