Laced with Humility: Khamenei’s Lifelong Embrace of Austerity Revealed by Missing Shoelaces

According to Saed News, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born 1939 CE) granted a rare non‑in‑person interview addressing his renowned simple lifestyle and its origins in early hardship. He revealed that until age four or five, his family occupied a single-room home in a destitute district of Mashhad, with a damp, windowless cellar to which the children were banished whenever guests arrived. Generous neighbours later added two modest rooms, yet food remained scarce. “Some nights we had only a handful of raisins bought with my grandmother’s small coins,” he recalled.

The conversation focused on his oft‑cited aversion to ostentation. When asked about his famous wish for lace‑up footwear, Khamenei admitted that the dream has never been realised: after his father acquired tight leather shoes, local cobblers ripped them open and affixed laces—but the result looked so ungainly that the experiment was abandoned. “I have still never worn lace‑up shoes,” he said, underscoring a personal austerity that persists today.

Scholars note that such anecdotes reinforce Khamenei’s moral authority, allowing him to admonish officials who fall prey to luxury without seeming hypocritical. By invoking childhood hunger and the trivial frustration of misfitting shoes, he symbolically aligns himself with Iran’s poorest citizens. As the Islamic Republic confronts economic pressures and elite privilege, this intimate revelation may serve both as a reminder of revolutionary values and a subtle critique of contemporary indulgence within the ruling class.