Ghaznafar Roknabadi (21 March 1966-24 September 2015) was the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon from 10 May 2010 to 20 May 2014, succeeding Mohammadreza Rauf-Sheybani and preceding Mohammad Fathali.
Biography[]
Ghaznafar Roknabadi was born on 21 March 1966 in Qom, Iran to a Shia Muslim family, and he attended Imam Sadiq University and then Lebanese University, earning his master's degree at Imam Sadiq and his Ph.D. in Lebanon. Roknabadi entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1990 and served as the charges d'affaires to the Syrian Arab Republic and President of the Committee for the Support of the Islamic Revolution in Palestine before his 2010 appointment as ambassador to Lebanon. Roknabadi left this office in 2014, four years and ten days after he was appointed to the post, and in 2015 he decided to go on the hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. On 24 September 2015, he was killed along with 2,430 others in a massive stampede in the Mina neighborhood of Mecca caused by the junction of two large groups of pilgrims en route to the Jamaraat Bridge.