Mohammad-Ali Rajaei was born in Qazvin in 1934. His father Karbala’i Abdol-Samad worked in a men’s clothing market in Qazvin, in religious communities, he fought against secular and communist ideas. Karbala’i Abdol-Samad died in 1938, and Mohammad-Ali grew up under the shadow of his mother, Gelin Khanom, from the age of four.
Mohammad-Ali spent his elementary education at Qazvin National Primary School of Culture and because of his poverty, he worked while studying at a relative’s shop. He then entered high school, but his poverty forced him away from school and forced him to work in the market.
After a few years, he moved to Tehran with his older brother and mother and settled in a rented house. He used to spend days peddling and attended Quran classes at night. Mohammad-Ali Rajaei was employed in the air force for five years and at the same time, he attended night school for his high school courses and completed his diploma while attending air force courses. In his fifth year in the air force, he resigned in protest of his forced transfer to the army. With the formation of the nationalization movement of the oil industry, he attended meetings at Tehran’s Hedayat Mosque and Ayatollah Taleqani’s commentary lesson. He was a student of Ayatollah Taleqani for about 28 years.
Mohammad-Ali Rajaei was among those welcomed at Mehrabad Airport when Ayatollah Kashani returned from exile, attended the anniversary celebration in Ahmadabad following the death of Dr. Mosaddeq, and signed the memorial upon the death of Jamal Abdul-Nasser at the Egyptian embassy.
Mohammad-Ali Rajaei was hired by the education department in 1955 and taught English in the city of Bijar. Two years later, she attended the university entrance exam and was accepted into three disciplines, but on the recommendation of Ayatollah Taleqani, he chose a higher education institution for a teaching job. He completed this three-year course. He then taught in Malayer and Khansar counties. He resigned after a year in education and was accepted into a master's course in statistics at the Faculty of Science. During this course, he attended in Ayatollah Taleqani’s Quranic Exegesis classes and met the teachers and executives of Kamal High School and began teaching mathematics at the high school in 1961.
One year after the establishment of the Freedom Movement until the days after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, they were officially separated.
Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, who had been cut off from education, demanded a return to education while studying at the Faculty of Science, and with the approval of that ministry, he became the official teacher education in Qazvin. He taught three days a week in Qazvin and the rest of the week at the Kamal High School in Tehran. Following the arrest of the leaders of the Freedom Movement, including Dr. Yadollah Sahabi, the head of the Kamal High School, he was a high school administrator until the end of his sentence. He married the daughter of one of his relatives (Ateqeh Seddiqi) in August 1962 and began living together near Kamal High School in Narmak, Tehran. The result of this marriage was a son and two daughters.
Mohammad-Ali Rajaei was arrested on 2 May 11, 1963, when he arrived at his workplace in Qazvin and was transferred to the Shahrabi prison.
His imprisonment lasted for 48 days and was released on a pledge not to cooperate with the Freedom Movement. After his release from prison, he withdrew from the high school because he disagreed with the authorities. In 1967, at the end of his teaching career in Qazvin, he formally pursued his activities in the Pahlavi and Sokhan high schools. At the same time, at the invitation of Dr. Sahabi, he resumed teaching at the Kamal High School, which continued until 1947, in which the history of the orders of the government, Kamal High School dissolved. Mohammad-Ali Rajaei met during the fight against Mohammad Hanifinejad and Rezaei’s brothers in the central staff of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and during the period when the organization had not yet departed, it was assisting them in the struggle. Following the organization’s conversion to Marxism, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei withdrew from working with its members, and this act caused him many insults and harassment by members and supporters of the organization.
It was at the founding of the institute and the Refah high school that the Freedom Movement was dissolved in 1974 by the order of SAVAK. He was also a substitute member of the board of directors of the publishing company which was established to promote Islamic education.
Mohammad-Ali Rajaei also managed the secret organization. Anti-government leaflets were printed and distributed in these organizations. He also donated under the pseudonym “Mohammad Amin” to Palestinian fighters and those who went to Iran for military training in Syria. It was during this period that he went to Syria and returned to Tehran after visiting the military training stages of the Muslim forces and he returned to Tehran from Turkey.
On 27 November 1974, SAVAK raided Mohammad-Ali Rajaei’s house and arrested him for studying and having political books. More than twenty months of solitary confinement and extensive physical and mental torture did not stop him and he did not fulfill SAVAK’s wish to speak even a trap. Torture was such that he sometimes could not walk and pulled himself to the ground. For the first time, he had ordained the congregation to pray in public prison for the first time, He was released on the day of Eid al-Ghadir in 1978 and became a member of the welcoming committee of Imam Khomeyni.
Shapour Bakhtiari’s government was banned from office on 10 February 1979 and increased its military rule. By organizing the revolutionary youth, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei informed the people of Imam’s message of disregard for martial law and the need to be present in the streets. He also claimed responsibility for weapons seized by the Pahlavi government, the protection of Imam Khomeyni, and the interrogation of government detainees. Mohammad-Ali Rajaei returned to education with the victory of the Islamic Revolution. At first, he became Minister’s Advisor and then Deputy Minister, and finally, on 16 November 1979, he became the Minister of Education. Establishing the institution of educational affairs and strengthening teacher training centers is one of the most important actions of Mohammad-Ali Rajaei in this period. He came to parliament in the first term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Following the victory of AbolHasan Banisadr, he was elected in the first election. After Banisadr’s victory in the first Iranian presidential election, Rajaei was also elected as the first Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rajaei’s tenure as prime minister on 11 August 1980 lasted for eleven months.
Two weeks after the Rajaei government came to power, Iraq’s imposed war on Iran began. Due to the war conditions, the basic commodity quota plan was implemented under the umbrella of the Economic Mobility Staff. One of the important measures taken by the Rajaei government was to assist the rural elderly, which is still ongoing and known as the “Martyr Rajaei project. He attended a United Nations summit during his tenure as Prime Minister on 18 October 1980. Among the internal counter-revolution and its Western supporters, there were whispers that scenes of prisons and torture of prisoners during the Pahlavi rule were no more than rumors. At a United Nations meeting, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei showed his feet to the representatives of the world news media at the United Nations meeting where there were many traces of torture and even nails pulled down by SAVAK agents. In his speech, he referred to Iraq’s imposed war in Iran, the Palestinian issue, and the conspiracy theorists against revolutionary movements. During the trip, he declined an invitation from the President of the United States Jimmy Carter to meet.
During his premiership, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei frequently visited the war zones and closely watched the children of the Iranian nation defend their country.
It was during his premiership that with the Algiers Agreement between Iran and the United States, the issue of American hostages being held hostage by the Iranian people was resolved and released. Under the deal, the United States was forced to return part of Iran’s seized property from the United States.
Implementation of Rajaei presidential decree by Imam Khomeyni
One of Rajaei’s most famous terms in the prime minister’s office is the 36 million cabinet, referring to the popularity of his cabinet. The 36 million cabinet was not just a slogan because the people responded positively to the prime minister’s request to keep their cash in bank accounts and the Iranian people actually participated in this cabinet. This happened when the banks of the country were in crisis due to the lack of liquidity due to the initial problems of the revolution and the beginning of Iraq’s war against Iran, whoever could bring cash to the banks. After Banisadr was ousted from the presidency and in the second round of elections, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei became president by popular vote and Dr. Mohammad-Javad Bahonar was nominated as Prime Minister. In this election, he received 12.9 million votes out of 14.6 million.
During his time in office after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, as before, lived in modesty, honesty and intimacy with his subordinates.
During his tenure as prime minister, he continued to visit the bakery and did not allow his wife and children to use state-owned vehicles, to travel by bus or public transportation and eventually lived in a one-story house near Tehran’s Shohada Square that has now become a museum. It has made him one of the lasting figures of this land.
On 30 August 1981, on the 21st day of Mohammad-Ali Rajaei’s presidency, a meeting of the National Security Council was held at the prime minister’s office which was attended by the President; Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad-Javad Bahonar; Yousef Kalahdouz, the deputy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Colonel Seyfollah Vahid-Dastgerdi, the chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran, gendarmerie deputies and three senior military and police officials. At this meeting, minutes after three o’clock in the afternoon, a bomb was planted by a man named Masoud Kashmiri, a member of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, in a briefcase in the chair of the President and prime minister. The president and the prime minister were martyred immediately. Their bodies were buried in Behesht-e Zahra.
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