Iran’s Slain Leader Khamenei Laid In State In Tehran For Week Of Mass Funeral Events

DUBAI, July 3 – The body of Iran’s slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lay in state in a vast hall in Tehran on Friday as clerics, officials, foreign dignitaries and other mourners paid their respects after his 37-year reign.

Iran is holding week-long mass funerals for Khamenei, who was killed in February by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes at the start of a four-month war, as a demonstration of popular devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary fervor.

Khamenei’s body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Karbala, the major Shiite centers of Iran and Iraq, before being buried on Thursday in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrim shrine.

His coffin was opened late on Thursday to a group of sobbing supporters, who swayed and banged their heads to the accompaniment of the sung dirge, while flowers were thrown from the coffin into the crowd. On Friday, his coffin and those of his family members who were killed with him were placed in the large house of worship built in memory of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The funeral comes at a critical moment for Iran, where religious rulers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are thrilled to have survived what they see as an existential war against their greatest and most powerful enemy.

But almost fifty years after the 1979 revolution and for all the official declarations of national unity before Khamenei’s funeral, the Islamic Republic has rarely been this internally fractured.

Analysts say support for the religious leadership is thin as paper and new Supreme Leader Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in a new appearance since he was injured in the attack that killed his father.

Years of crippling sanctions have crippled the economy, with increasingly mass protests across the country being suppressed with increasing force by security forces; this resulted in the killing of thousands of demonstrators in January.

These deep issues were put to rest this week as authorities mobilized millions of mourners to attend the funeral in a display of state power and mass support.

The streets of Tehran were tightly controlled; Military and police vehicles lined the main roads, and police and the black-shirted volunteer Basij paramilitary force patrolled on motorcycles. Iran warned the US and Israel against any attack during the funeral ceremony.

On Friday, the coffins arrived, carried on the uplifted hands of the waiting crowd, and were placed in the prayer hall on a white, stepped dais, in front of a high, intricately tiled, arched recess flanked by national and black mourning flags.

The coffin rested on a folded checkered scarf, the black hijab worn by clerics who claim descent from the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, a symbol of militant revolutionary ideals in Iran and solidarity with the Palestinians.

Representatives from Russia and China were expected to attend the meeting. High-ranking Iraqi, Armenian and Pakistani politicians came to Tehran for the funeral.

their families Hezbollah Iran’s close Lebanese allies, leader Hassan Nasrallah and senior commander Imad Mughniye, who were killed in Israeli attacks, attended the ceremony.

Iran’s own political leaders – the president, parliament speaker, foreign minister and others – lined up to cry and pray on Friday morning.

In Iran’s theocratic system, Khamenei was not only the head of state and leader of a revolutionary movement, but also the earthly representative of the 12th imam of Shiite Islam, who disappeared in the ninth century.

His death in an enemy attack reinforces a strong Shiite tradition of martyrdom and mourning in which whips beat their chests or backs.

This powerful symbolism is evident in the black funeral flags that have hung on the city’s streets since his death, referencing the seventh-century martyrdom of Hussein, the third imam of Shiism.

Throughout the night, a crowd led by a Basij member stood in central Tehran sobbing and chanting, while others distributed posters of the late Khamenei.

Mobina Razaaghi, an 18-year-old student from Isfahan who attended the funeral with her classmates, said, “Hopefully, we can only relieve the people’s pain to some extent by avenging his blood, demanding justice for it, and ensuring that the blood of our leader is not avenged.”

Among those killed and displayed in the coffins next to Khamenei were his daughter, son-in-law and young grandson, as well as his son Mojtaba’s wife.

In Islam, funerals are required to take place within a day of death, but due to the risks of holding a large funeral during war, this funeral was postponed until after last month’s temporary ceasefire agreement.

Hotels offer 50% discount; schools, mosques and gyms are preparing to accommodate mourners; bus and rail networks are being diverted to serve the main events.

After what authorities billed as a massive procession in central Tehran on Monday, the remains will be taken to the theological city of Qom, the center of Iran’s Shiite hierarchy, for ceremonies on Tuesday.

Later on Wednesday, ceremonies will be held in Iraq’s holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, with the participation of prominent participants of Iran’s regional Shiite proxy network.

On Thursday, after another procession, he will be buried in Mashhad next to the mausoleum of Imam Reza, a great figure of devotion in Iran.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Angus McDowall; Editing by Alex Richardson)