Mir-Hossein Mousavi on 2 March 1942 in Khameneh, East Azerbaijan, Iran. He is an ethnic Azerbaijani, whose family originated from Tabriz. His father, Mir-Ismail, was a tea merchant from Tabriz. Mousavi grew up in Khameneh, and moved to Tehran following his graduation from high school in 1958. Mousavi is a relative of fellow Khameneh native Ali Khamenei: Mousavi's grandmother is Khamenei's paternal aunt. He earned his undergraduate degree in architecture from the National University of Tehran (now Shahid Beheshti University), and in 1969 was awarded his master's degree in architecture from the National University of Tehran, focusing primarily on traditional Iranian architecture.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi sphere. When Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, died in 1989, Mousavi was no longer welcome in the government. It was the start of 20 years of an almost total absence from public life for Mousavi, which many considered as a sign of his disapproval of the established government, though he did sit on two high-level government councils. In 1989, Ali Khamenei named him as a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, his membership of which still continues. Mousavi has been a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution since 1996. He was also the political adviser of