TEHRAN—The house of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, in Iranshahr, where he was in exile from 1977 to 1978, is set to undergo restoration.

The house, which is tuned into a Quran museum, has four rooms around a courtyard. It was inscribed on the national heritage list in 2007.

Ayatollah Khamenei was exiled to Iranshahr, in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province, after he delivered a speech against Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime in Mashhad. He returned home in 1978 when sparkles of the 1979 Islamic Revolution swept across the country.

During his exile, Ayatollah Khamenei preserved his relationships with well-known activists and ulama in different cities in Iran. He was always in correspondence with them about the issue of the Islamic movement, thereby becoming aware of many events and incidents. Through different letters, he participated in the collective decisions of ulama (Muslim religious scholars).

The collective province -- Sistan in the north and Baluchestan in the south -- accounts for one of the driest regions of Iran with a slight increase in rainfall from east to west and an obvious rise in humidity in the coastal regions. In ancient times, the region was a crossword in the Indus Valley and the Babylonian civilizations.

Sistan-Baluchestan is home to several distinctive archaeological sites and natural attractions, including two UNESCO World Heritage sites, namely Shahr-e-Soukhteh (Burnt City) and the Lut Desert.

AFM