Iranthe former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneireviled by some and revered by others, is expected to be buried after a vast, multi-day funeral ceremony planned as both a religious and political spectacle.
Killed alongside members of his family In the opening salvo of the US and Israeli attacks on Tehran on February 28, Khamenei’s legacy looms over almost every element of the Islamic Republic that he controlled with an iron fist for nearly four decades.
It is only the second time that Iran has buried a supreme leader: the 1989 funeral procession of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was a vast ceremony that drew millions of people to Tehran, the Iranian capital.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani said up to 20 million people could attend the sprawling funeral in the capital, according to the Young Journalists Clubaffiliated with Iranian state television.
The funeral will be an opportunity for those fighting today to preserve Khamenei’s legacy to show their strength, said Sina Azodi, director of the Middle East studies program at George Washington University.
“They would like to present it as a signal of the strength of the Islamic Republic, its ability to withstand external pressures and its resilience. They will do their best to show the loyalty of the people, quote, to the Islamic Republic. By any means possible, they will try to attract as many people as possible,” she said.
A viewing of Khamenei’s coffin and prayers are planned for Saturday and Sunday at the Great Mosalla, a huge mosque and prayer complex in central Tehran, followed by a funeral procession through the streets of the capital on Monday.
Funerals are also planned in Qom, Iran’s seat of religious scholarship, as well as in Iraq, home to two of the most important Shiite shrines. Taking Khamenei’s funeral across the border will also allow the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s most powerful military, political and economic force, to showcase its regional importance.
Khamenei will be buried Thursday in his hometown of Mashhad, which is also home to Iran’s most important Shiite religious shrine.
Muslim custom dictates that funerals take place shortly after death – Khomeini’s vast funeral took place just days after his death. Khamenei’s delayed funeral, four months after his death, comes in far from ordinary circumstances, against a backdrop of fragile peace agreement with the United States.
The date of the funeral was only confirmed last monthdays before the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding intended to mark the official end of hostilities.
Several other senior political and military officials were killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks that hit Iran for more than a month during the initial phase of the war, leaving the political state uncertain.
Mojtaba, Khamenei’s 56-year-old son, who was injured in the same attack that killed his father, was appointed new supreme leader in March, but has not been seen in public or even released an audio statement since, raising questions about his health. The Iranian government has not confirmed whether he will attend his father’s funeral.
The image of the elder Khamenei, meanwhile, still looms large over Tehran, with many of the city’s nationalist murals depicting him and Khomeini alongside images denouncing US-Israeli aggression. Iranian state media and the regime regularly refer to the 86-year-old as a martyr.
Khamenei’s decades in power saw him empower the IRGC to become the country’s main military, political and economic force. Since the start of the war, successive attempts by Israeli and American militaries to decapitate the regime have led to the rise of harder-line elements within the Revolutionary Guards, analysts say.
“The IRGC dominates strategic decision-making and national resource allocation,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington think tank.
Among those who rose quickly through the ranks is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the current speaker of parliament and lead negotiator in negotiations with the United States. Ghalibaf has regularly taunted President Donald Trump. in sarcastic messages on X.
“We must stand up and convey to the world the nation’s call to (avenge the blood of the martyred leader) so that the world knows that the noble Iranian nation will not remain silent in the face of oppression and arrogance,” Ghalibaf said in a statement Thursday, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
In many ways, Khamenei’s funeral will be an opportunity for the IRGC’s most radical elements to show that they have survived the worst that Trump can throw at them and to send a message to domestic critics not to take to the streets.
The large crowds expected will contrast with the massif Nationwide protests rocked Iran in January and became the biggest internal challenge in the regime’s 47-year history. Security forces suppressed protests in a bloody crackdown that caused thousands of deaths.
The economic conditions that precipitated these protests have since been made worse by months of wara difficult reality as Iran and the United States continue negotiations towards longer-term peace.
Safety will be a major concern. In 1989, Khomeini’s chaotic procession saw his body pushed out of the coffin. At least eight people died and many people were injured during a stampede among the crowd.
Militant groups have also targeted funeral ceremonies of prominent Iranian figures in the past. An Islamic State attack on a large gathering for the anniversary of the death of General Qassem Soleimani in 2024 killed at least 84 people in the city of Kerman, central Iran.
Yet the biggest challenge for Iran’s leaders may be what happens after the funeral, analysts say.
“Khamenei fortified the Islamic Republic against its external enemies, but in doing so he weakened the republican foundations on which its long-term legitimacy depended,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project for the think tank International Crisis Group, adding: “After the war, the leadership transition and the lingering trauma of a brutally suppressed uprising, the Islamic Republic is entering a period of deep uncertainty. »