page_title: Mohammad Khatami
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Mohammad Khatami / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: فارسی: محمد خاتمی در لباس سربازی English: Mohammad Khatami in military service uniform
context_page_description: Sayyid Mohammad Khatami served as the fifth President of Iran from 3 August 1997 to 3 August 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture from 1982 to 1992. Later, he was critical of the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  Little known internationally before becoming president, Khatami attracted attention during his first election to the presidency when he received almost 70% of the vote. Khatami had run on a platform of liberalization and reform. During his two terms as president, Khatami advocated freedom of expression, tolerance and civil society, constructive diplomatic relations with other states including those in Asia and the European Union, and an economic policy that supported a free market and foreign investment.
  On 8 February 2009, Khatami announced that he would run in the 2009 presidential election but withdrew on 16 March in favor of his long-time friend and adviser, former Prime Minister of Iran, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
  Khatami proposed the Dialogue Among Civilizations. The United Nations proclaimed the year 2001 as the United Nations' Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations, on Khatami's suggestion.
context_section_description: Khatami was born on 14 October 1943, in the small town of Ardakan, in Yazd Province. Khatami holds the title of Sayyid, which means that he is a direct patrilineal descent from Muhammad. He married Zohreh Sadeghi, the daughter of a professor of religious law, and niece of Musa al-Sadr, in 1974 (at the age of 31). The couple have two daughters and one son: Laila (born 1975), Narges (born 1980), and Emad (born 1988).
  Khatami's father, Ayatollah  Ruhollah Khatami, was a high-ranking cleric and the Khatib (the one who delivers the sermon for Friday prayers) in the city of Yazd in the early years of the Iranian Revolution. Like his father, Khatami rose to prominence in the locality when he became an Ayatollah.
  Khatami's brother, Mohammad-Reza Khatami, was elected as Tehran's first member of parliament in the 6th term of parliament, during which he served as deputy speaker of the parliament. He also served as the secretary-general of Islamic Iran Participation Front (Iran's largest reformist party) for several years. Mohammad Reza is married to Zahra Eshraghi, granddaughter of Ruhollah Khomeini (founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran) who is a feminist human rights activist.
  Khatami's other brother, Ali Khatami, a businessman with a master's degree in Industrial Engineering from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, served as the President's Chief of Staff during President Khatami's second term in office, where he kept an unusually low profile.
  Khatami's eldest sister, Fatemeh Khatami, was elected as the first representative of the people of Ardakan (Khatami's hometown) in 1999 city council elections.
  Mohammad Khatami is not related to Ahmad Khatami, a hardline cleric and Provisional Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran.
  Mohammad Khatami received a BA in Western philosophy at Isfahan University, but left academia while studying for a master's degree in educational sciences at Tehran University and went to Qom to complete his previous studies in Islamic sciences. He studied there for seven years and completed the courses to the highest level, Ijtihad. After that, he briefly settled in Germany to chair the Islamic Centre in Hamburg from 1978 to 1980.
  Before serving as president, Khatami was a representative in the parliament from 1980 to 1982, supervisor of the Kayhan Institute, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance (1982–1986), and then for a second term from 1989 to 24 May 1992 (when he resigned), the head of the National Library of Iran from 1992 to 1997, and a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution. He is a member and chairman of the Central Council of the Association of Combatant Clerics. Besides his native language Persian, Khatami speaks Arabic, English, and German.
caption: Mohammad Khatami in military service uniform
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