Mohammad Beheshti

Ayatollah Dr. Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti (Persian: محمد حسینی بهشتی), (October 24, 1928 - June 28, 1981) was an Iranian scholar, writer, jurist and one of the main architects of the constitution of the Islamic Republic in Iran. He was the secretary-general of the Islamic Republic Party, and the head of Iran's judicial system. He was assassinated together with more than seventy members of the Islamic Republic party on June 28, 1981.

Biography

Beheshti was born in Isfahan and studied both at the University of Tehran and under Allameh Tabatabaei in Qom. He received

Between 1960 and 1965, he led the Islamic Center in Hamburg [3], where he was responsible for the spiritual leadership of religious Iranian students in Germany and Western Europe. In Hamburg, he also worked with Mohammad Khatami and was among his influences. Since the early 1960s, he was involved in activities against the monarchy and was arrested several times by the Shah's secret police, the SAVAK.

Revolution

Following the Islamic Revolution, he became one of the original members of the Council of Revolution of Iran and soon its chairman. In the first post-revolutionary Iranian parliament, he led the Islamic Republic party together with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. (He never campaigned for the parliament though, as he was already the head of Iran's Supreme Judicial System). He was also planning to run for the presidency in the first presidential elections, but withdrew after Ayatollah Khomeini told a delegation of Rafsanjani and Khamenei that he preferred non-clerics as presidents, which led to the Islamic Republic party's endorsement of first Jalaleddin Farsi and then, inevitably, Abolhassan Banisadr.

Assassination

Beheshti died in terrorist attack on June 28, 1981, when a bomb exploded during a party conference (Hafte tir bombing). The Islamic Republic at first claimed the bomb was planted by the Tudeh Party, then by the People's Mujahedin of Iran organization. The assassin was identified, so the official version, as Mohammad Reza Kolahi, an operative of the People's Mujahedin of Iran.^[1]

Ayatollah Khomeini was very moved by his death. During the excavations of the bodies of the bombing victims, Khomeini was walking calmly in the garden of his house. Regularly his trustees would update the Ayatollah with new information on the death toll, Khomeini would not show any physical reaction to this although he was moved. But when they told Khomeini about the possible death of Ayatollah Beheshti, Khomeini turned around put his hands on his back and showed signs of extreme affection.^[2]

References

External links

• Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting page about Ayatollah Beheshti
• Ayatollah Dr. Beheshti on the elections [4]