SAEDNEWS: In the first Hajj following Iran’s 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani vanished amid Mina’s crowds—only to be recognised and rescued after passing an extraordinary identification test.
According to Saed News, Hojjat ol‑Islam Sadegh Mousavi Shirazi—grandson of Grand Ayatollah Abdullah Shirazi and a longtime aide to Imam Khomeini in Najaf—has recounted a remarkable episode from the 1980 Hajj, in which he accompanied Ayatollah Khamenei and the late Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Saudi authorities had installed Iran’s leadership in a luxury hotel, yet, in a gesture that underscored their revolutionary austerity, both clerics slipped away by night to join the main Iranian mission camp. “We came for Hajj, not tourism,” Khamenei reportedly declared.
After completing the stoning ritual at Mash‘ar al-Haram, the party advanced towards Mina. Almost immediately, Mousavi Shirazi realised that Rafsanjani—the architect of much of the young regime’s political strategy—had disappeared without trace. Fearing an assassination attempt was still fresh in memory, they dared not alert local authorities and spent anxious hours awaiting news. Near midday, Rafsanjani reappeared at the camp “cheerful as ever,” explaining that he had followed an Iranian flag to a makeshift tent.
Inside, opinion was divided: one aide mistook him for an impostor, another for a potential charlatan. Only when Rafsanjani bared his ihram to reveal the bullet wound from a previous assassination bid did his hosts offer a “warm reception.” The episode illuminates the early regime’s blend of paranoia and camaraderie—and the lengths to which its leaders would go to verify both identity and loyalty.
