Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will be remembered four months after he was killed at the start of the US-Israel war against Iran, with a week of funerals in five cities in both countries and millions of mourners expected to attend.
Despite a costly war with the world’s two most powerful militaries and decades of devastating economic hardship, the Iranian government spared no expense in sending Khamenei off in a lavish ceremony wrapped in religious symbolism that coincided with the 250th US Independence Day celebrations.
Authorities said they had launched the largest logistics operation in the Islamic Republic’s history, mobilizing government officials, universities, trade unions, firefighters, soldiers, aid workers and even religious “memorial groups” to organize funerals and manage the millions of “pilgrims” expected to travel to cities and holy sites in Iran and Iraq to bid farewell to the ayatollah. Authorities in neighboring Iraq, a predominantly Shiite Muslim country, expect millions of mourners to pay their respects.
For more than 10 days, overwhelming coverage has increased by this moment across Iranian media, with songs and documentaries commemorating Khamenei’s life overtaking the news of the meeting with the United States that had previously dominated the headlines. The scale of this spectacle is designed to send a message to the world and to the enemies of the Islamic Republic. The idea is that the regime not only survived an existential war, but will stubbornly immortalize its slain leader as a symbol of its resilience.
“We must stand up and make a cry for the blood of the nation to the world, to let the world know that the honorable and noble Iranian nation will not remain silent in the face of oppression and will not let go of the blood of Imam[Khamenei],” Mohammad Berger Ghalibaf, the powerful parliament speaker who is leading negotiations between Iran and the United States, said in a message published by state media on Thursday.
“This is a magnificent feat that shows the world the greatness of our national spirit.”
This day may also mark the moment when Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appears in public, having been in hiding since his father and family were murdered.
What should not be forgotten at the ceremony is the symbolism of the date, which was clearly chosen on purpose. Khamenei’s body will be laid to rest in the state on the 250th American Independence Day, another important date for the procession, which coincides with a large Shiite memorial event commemorating the death of the historic religious figure.
The whole scene unfolds during the Shia Muslim month of Muharram. This month is deeply associated in Shiite Islam with mourning, betrayal, and martyrdom, specifically the seventh-century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a Shiite saint who traces the lineage of Ayatollah Khamenei.
Khamenei’s 37-year reign was marked by stubborn defiance and deep skepticism of the West, and he was killed on February 28, the first day of the US-Israel war. But his funeral is being planned as a victory parade through three cities in Iran and two holy sites in neighboring Iraq, showing supporters that the cleric is not yet defeated in death.
The leader, who rose to prominence after being assassinated by the United States and Israel, led the largest anti-regime demonstrations in Iran’s history, brutally suppressing demonstrators who often chanted death. In the process, he energized the regime’s hard-line base, despite fierce opposition at home and abroad.
“The assassination made Khamenei symbolically much more powerful in death than he was in life,” Sina Toosi, senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, told CNN. “Khamenei is currently being framed as a martyred religious authority, similar to the martyred and revered Shiite saint, and that worldview is vindicated by the manner of his death.”
The only previous funerals of this size in Iran were those of Islamic Republic founder Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 and Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Both processions descended into chaos and ended in deadly crowd crushes.
Khomeini’s body was on display in the exact same spot where his successor Ayatollah Khamenei was scheduled to lie in state for two days, but furious mourners tore the coffin’s shroud and it had to be removed by helicopter.
Protecting the bodies of leaders, managing millions of mourners while entertaining foreign dignitaries, and coordinating major events across five cities in two countries is a monumental task. It would require an unprecedented security operation for a country just emerging from domestic unrest and war with the United States.
The first event in which the coffin will be displayed will begin at 6 a.m. local time on Saturday, when Khamenei’s body will be placed on a raised platform inside Tehran’s huge mosque complex, Imam Khomeini Mosalla. Firefighters installed more than 6,000 overhead water sprinklers across the square to keep the crowd cool under the scorching July sun.
The capital’s international and domestic airports were closed during the funeral, and a public holiday was declared throughout the city where Khamenei’s body would pass. Tehran, a city of 17 million people, will implement the largest traffic restriction in its history, banning private cars near queues and opening more than 700 parking lots to make room for the millions of people expected to descend on the city at the same time.
According to Iranian media, the Basij militia announced it would deploy 16 mobile bakeries in the capital and bake 50 million loaves of bread to feed mourners.
The Red Crescent said Tehran and other major cities were ready to receive mourners. According to Iranian media reports, authorities have mobilized 2,500 ambulances, 21 helicopters, 100 drones and thousands of rescue workers, with more than 24 hospitals, 500,000 liters of intravenous fluids and 20,000 classrooms at the ready.
The government is running a nationwide campaign asking people to volunteer to host mourners from Tehran, Mashhad and Qom in their homes, and the capital’s mosques, sports halls, parks and cultural centers are also being prepared to accommodate the millions of people expected to attend the funerals.
On the third day, the funeral procession is expected to travel from the east to the west edge of the capital. Khamenei’s body will then undergo further rituals in the holy city of Qom before being airlifted to Shiite holy sites in Najaf and Karbala, Iraq.
He will then be transferred to his final burial site at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Khamenei’s birthplace.
The transfer of the former supreme leader’s body to Iraq serves as a symbol of the Islamic Republic’s self-image as a revolutionary force without borders, a message the Islamic Republic hopes to amplify after years of prominence in the region.
“His religious support extended to Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain and other Shiite communities, which is why the processions planned in Najaf and Karbala are so important,” Toosi said. “They have a growing sense that this is not just an Iranian state funeral, but a transnational moment.”
Iranian authorities have released ambitious estimates of between 4 million and 15 million mourners, potentially making it the largest funeral in modern history, and boasted that 14,000 journalists, including 900 foreign reporters, would cover the event.
State media has spent the past week listing the expected foreign dignitaries. But apart from Georgian President Mikhail Kavelashvili, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Russian Security Council Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, few world leaders are expected to attend. Iranian authorities said eight heads of state and 12 parliament speakers would attend. Western officials were excluded from the invite list.
Iran’s vice president described the procession as one of the most important events of this century, and the interior minister said the goal was to hold the largest “farewell ceremony” in Iranian history. Revolutionary Guards Commander Ali Akbar Pourjamsidian, who was appointed to lead the committee overseeing the event, said the funeral aimed to project the Islamic Republic’s “strength towards the international community.”
A central question looming over the funeral is whether the slain Ayatollah’s son and new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei will appear in the procession honoring his father, mother and wife, who were all killed in the same US and Israeli attack.
Mojtaba, who was injured in the attack, has been in hiding since the war began in late February, communicating with supporters only through written statements, without showing his face or making a sound. Iranian officials have sought to project an image of full recovery, insisting that he is leading negotiations between Tehran and the United States.
Asked this week if he would attend, the funeral organizers deflected: “This matter is outside of our jurisdiction and the decision lies entirely with the party leader’s office.”
Mojaba’s appearance is significant, marking his first public appearance and likely to help establish his legitimacy. His absence could raise questions at home and abroad about his well-being and who is running the country. The leader did not attend a private memorial service for his wife this week.
If he does not attend the funeral, the Islamic Republic is likely to do this as a necessary security measure.
Iran’s military has warned against any “miscalculations” during the funeral, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday that there would be an immediate and strong response to any threats against Iran’s leadership, after Israel’s Defense Minister Katz said Mojtaba Khamenei had “premonitions of death”.
But despite the regime’s efforts to turn the funeral into a massive show of power and popular support, some Iranians remain indifferent.
“The lines were so long that we couldn’t even get gas for two days,” one Tehran resident told CNN. “And the truth is, most people don’t go to funerals; they go on vacation.”
“Half of them packed their bags and left yesterday,” she added.
