
Mohammad-Javad Bahonar (5 September 1933 – 30 August 1981) was the Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 15 to 30 August 1981 under President Mohammad-Ali Rajai, succeeding Rajai and preceding Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani, and the leader of the Islamic Republican Party of Iran. He and Rajai were killed in the Iran-Iraq War in a bomb attack by the People's Mujahideen of Iran.
Biography[]
Mohammad-Javad Bahonar was born on 5 September 1933 in Kerman, Iran, and received a PhD in theology from a college in Iran. He was a Shia Muslim like 95% of the population of the country of Iran, and he became a scholar, one of the disciples of Ayatollah Khomeini who assisted in the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and its consolidation. He purged secular influences on Iran in the Islamic Cultural Revolution of August 1981 and was chosen as the Prime Minister-elect of President Mohammad-Ali Rajai in 1981 when he was elected as president.
However, the People's Mujahideen of Iran (MEK) continued a struggle against the government and planned to deliver a message to the new Islamic government. Bahonar and Rajai were killed by Massoud Kashmiri, who was in the disguise of a Ministry official. Kashmiri detonated a suitcase bomb that killed the president and Prime Minister, and Iran went through a short-lived political crisis.