Who is Alireza Arafi, Iran's interim supreme leader after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

Iran has appointed Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as its interim supreme leader, following the death of longtime leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the US–Israeli airstrikes on Tehran early on Saturday.

This came after Iran activated Article 111 of its Constitution after Khamenei’s assassination, triggering an emergency leadership arrangement, consisting a three-member council that assumes the roles and powers of the supreme leader until a permanent successor is chosen.

A ‌cleric ‌member of the ‌Guardian ‌Council, Arafi will be part of the ⁠temporary ⁠leadership council alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice ​Gholamhossein Mohseni ​Ejei. As the only cleric in the council, Arafi becomes the senior figure among the trio.

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Arafi, born in 1959 in Meybod in the central Iranian province of Yazd, comes from a clerical family. He is a senior member in Iran's clerical hierarchy and has held several key posts at once in the past.

He heads Iran’s national network of Islamic seminaries, serves as a clerical member of the Guardian Council, the powerful body that vets legislation and election of candidates, and sits on the Assembly of Experts.

From 2009 to 2018, he led Al-Mustafa International University in Qom, which trains clerics from Iran and abroad.

Khamenei steadily promoted him to sensitive posts. Arafi served as Friday prayer leader in Meybod and later in Qom. In 2019, he was appointed to the Guardian Council.

What does the Iranian Constitution say

Under the Iranian Constitution, the supreme leader must be a senior Shia cleric chosen by the Assembly of Experts, an elected body of religious scholars.

The supreme Leader is the commander-in-chief of the country’s military, besides counting the powerful Revolutionary Guard as part of their circle of influence. The Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that the United States designated a terrorist organisation in 2019, had grown in power under Khamenei.

Iran has seen only two supreme leaders so far. Khamenei became Iran's highest authority in 1989, following the death of ​the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah ⁠Khomeini.

As the supreme leader, Khamenei had the ultimate control over Iran's political, military and religious institutions, shaping domestic policy and guiding foreign relations.