From Ideological Divorce to Militia Command: The Strange Odyssey of Maryam Rajavi’s Only Daughter

According to Saed News, Ashraf Ebrahimpourchi was born in 1982 to Maryam Qajar-Azdanlou (Maryam Rajavi) and Mahdi Ebrahimpourchi, the first child of the MEK’s “ideological divorces.” Named after Massoud Rajavi’s first wife, she spent her earliest months in insecure team accommodations alongside her revolutionary parents. Soon, the family fled Iran for France to join the MEK’s exiled leadership—and there Massoud Rajavi decreed that Ashraf’s parents divorce.

By age three, the child’s world was split: weekdays under a guardian’s roof, days with her mother and ideological stepfather, days visiting her father and his new wife, weekends at the movement’s “grandmother” and uncles. Ali Akrami, a former cadre, recalls nine‑year‑old Ashraf at the Jalal‑Zadeh camp near Baghdad: pausing before a wedding photo of her mother and stepfather, pointing to her half‑brother and wondering, “Is he really my dad?” Unable to reconcile this turmoil, she would quietly drift away toward the elevator.

During the MEK’s enforced parent‑child separations in 1987 and 1991, Ashraf was sent back to France, lodging at the Oursurfavrez base. Yet, as a teenager she returned to Iraq as a militia recruit, enduring decades of indoctrination under Massoud Rajavi’s personality cult while enjoying privileges denied to rank‑and‑file children.

Former member Maryam Sanjani testifies that, despite her youth, Ashraf received special budgets, lavish celebrations and gourmet provisions—disparities that starkly contradicted the MEK’s professed classless ideals. In September 2021, at 39 and well below the seniority of other female leaders, she was appointed deputy to Zahra Maryamchi, the organization’s top female official.

Ashraf Ebrahimpourchi remains one of the few to live her entire life within the MEK’s strict hierarchy—a complex existence woven through ideological rupture, exile, military service and familial privilege.