Khadijeh Saqafi

Khadijeh Saqafi (; 1913 – 21 March 2009) was an Iranian revolutionary and the wife of Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran and figurehead of the Iranian Revolution. In Iran, she was known as "the mother of the Islamic revolution". Early life Saqafi was born in 1913 in Tehran, the daughter of Hajj Mirza Mohammad Thaqafi-e Tehrani, a respected cleric and merchant. Marriage and later years Saqafi married Ruhollah Khomeini in 1929, when she was 16 and he was 29. They had seven children together, although only five survived childhood. The family resided in Qom until Khomeini's exile in 1964. Their son Mostafa died in Iraq in 1977 while in exile, while their second son Ahmad died of cardiac arrest in 1995. Throughout their marriage, Saqafi largely stayed out of the public eye, although she was described as being a strong supporter of her husband's opposition to Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former President of Iran, referred to Saqafi as the "closest and most patient" supporter of her husband.