Khadijeh Saqafi

Khadijeh Saqafi (nicknamed Qods of Iran) was the wife of Ayatollah Khomeini. She was the daughter of Hajj Mirza Mohammad Saqafi, a respected cleric of Tehran.

She was born in Tehran in 1913. Her primary education was in Tehran and then spent two years of secondary school as well. She also sought to learn religious studies for some time. Ms. Saqafi was fluent in Arabic and French.

When she was nine, due to the presence of Grand Ayatollah Abdolkarim Haeri-Yazdi (the founder of the Islamic Seminary of Qom) in Qom, her father moved to Qom along with her mother to fulfill his religious studies and she stayed with her grandmother in Tehran. This lasted for five years.

Ms. Saqafi married Ayatollah Khomeini in 1929 when she was 15. The marriage was mediated by Mr. Sayyed Ahmad Lavasani, a friend of Khomeini. The wedding was simple and held in Ramadan in Tehran. The reason that the wedding ceremony took this month was the closure of the seminary at this time. Their new life began in a rented house in Qom. The marriage dowry was set at 1,000 tomans.

Ms. Saqafi gave birth to seven children during her life, though only five survived childhood. Two sons named Mostafa and Ahmad, and three daughters named Seddiqeh, Farideh, and Zahra.

Ms. Saqafi learned some religious studies from her husband. This learning period lasted eight years. Later, when Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled to Najaf, she went with him to Iraq where she perfected her learning of the Arabic language.

Ms. Khadijeh Saqafi had always been beside her husband since the climax days of Ayatollah Khomeini’s movement in 1963. She also endured many of the hardships that happened to the Imam include imprisonment in Tehran, exile to Turkey and then to Najaf, and finally immigration to France. From the letters and poems that Ayatollah Khomeini wrote to his wife, it appears that he truly loved his wife.

Ms. Saqafi passed away on March 21, 2009, in Tehran after a long illness at the age of 96 and was buried next to her husband at his mausoleum.