Iran Begins Week-Long State Funeral for Slain Supreme Leader Khamenei

Funeral Ceremonies Begin in Tehran

Iran on Friday began a seven-day series of state funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader for 37 years, with his body lying in state at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla prayer hall. According to Al Jazeera, foreign delegations from more than 100 countries arrived to attend the rites, and scholars, officials and dignitaries paid their respects inside the vast complex, which was originally built to honour Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khamenei, 86, was killed on February 28 — the opening day of a joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — in an air strike on his compound. He died alongside several relatives, including his daughter, son-in-law and three-year-old granddaughter, whose coffins were laid alongside his, Al Jazeera reported. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, formally succeeded him as Supreme Leader weeks later, according to Al Jazeera.

Why the Funeral Was Delayed

Iranian authorities had originally scheduled the burial for March, but a months-long conflict that followed Khamenei’s death repeatedly postponed the rites. The Hindu reported that Khamenei “was killed in February by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes at the start of a four-month war,” and that Tehran is staging the week of processions “in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary fire.” Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tehran, said victims’ families — including relatives of those killed in the war and in a separate 12-day conflict in June of the previous year — attended a farewell ceremony the evening before the public lying-in-state.

The Coffin, the Flags and the Symbols

Khamenei’s coffin was unveiled late on Thursday to a throng of sobbing supporters. Al Jazeera reported that the casket was draped in a flag that previously flew over the Shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, a red banner with white lettering described by the Iranian government on social media as a symbol of “resistance, sacrifice, and devotion.” On Friday, mourners identified by state media as relatives of war dead threw scarves and other items toward the coffin so attendants could brush against it, a practice Al Jazeera described as a blessing ritual. A giant statue in Tehran’s Enghelab Square showed the late leader’s fist framed by what appeared to be ballistic missiles, with banners repeating the same imagery across the capital.

Foreign Delegations and Who Was Not Invited

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar Atas, also reporting from Tehran, said Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson had confirmed that more than 50 delegations had already paid their respects, naming the presidents of Iraq, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Georgia, as well as Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, among the attendees. A separate Al Jazeera dispatch said delegations from roughly 100 countries had been invited in total, including presidents, prime ministers and speakers of parliament. Both reports stressed that Iran did not extend invitations to European countries or to states that, in Tehran’s view, had “directly or indirectly” supported the Israeli and American military campaign on Iran. Al Jazeera quoted Abdelwahed as saying the absences were deliberate and that attendees were “mostly from either neutral or friendly states.”

Senior Iranian Figures Appear at the Coffin

Iranian state television broadcast footage of President Masoud Pezeshkian paying his respects at Khamenei’s coffin, alongside parliament speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Among those present was General Ahmad Vahidi, the recently appointed commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who made his first public appearance since February 8, sitting beside Khamenei’s casket. Vahidi assumed the role after his predecessor, Mohammad Pakpour, was killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes on the war’s first day, according to Al Jazeera. Major-General Amir Hatami, commander-in-chief of Iran’s armed forces, pledged revenge from the sidelines of the funeral, saying: “With a firmer resolve we declare to the enemies of the Iranian nation — America and the criminal Zionist regime — that we will avenge the blood of the martyred leader [Khamenei].”

Crowd Expectations and Security

Iranian authorities expect millions of people to flood the streets of Tehran starting Saturday, in scenes Al Jazeera compared to the 1989 funeral of Ayatollah Khomeini, which drew an estimated 10 million mourners. Atas reported that authorities expect a higher turnout this time, with at least two million anticipated in Qom, the religious centre where most Iranian clerics are educated. Security across the capital has been raised to maximum alert, Al Jazeera reported, with public viewing scheduled to begin Saturday morning. Authorities are preparing to manage crowds as a regional heatwave bears down on the country, with Public Health France reporting thousands of additional deaths tied to record-setting temperatures elsewhere in the region.

The Route: Tehran, Qom, Iraq, Mashhad

According to Al Jazeera, the funeral procession will continue through Tehran and then on to Qom before crossing briefly into Iraq on July 8. The Iraqi legs will pass through Najaf and Karbala, two cities of central importance to Shia Islam — Karbala hosts the Shrine of Imam Hussein, the source of the flag now draped over Khamenei’s coffin. Final burial ceremonies are scheduled for July 9 at the Imam Ali Reza Shrine in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran. Al Jazeera noted Mashhad is both the burial site of the eighth Imam of Shia Islam and the birthplace of the late Supreme Leader.

Domestic and Regional Messaging

Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran, told Al Jazeera the funeral is taking place at a critical moment for Iran, which is projecting the event as a “display of unity” that carries a message for the U.S. and Israel. “Following the assassination of the supreme leader, the government did not fall but became stronger,” Aslani said. “What the US and Israel did backfired. They wanted to bring about regime change in the country, but what actually happened created a rally around the flag.” The Hindu’s framing echoed the point, describing the procession as “a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary fire.”

Where the Reporting Comes From

Al Jazeera supplied the bulk of the on-the-ground reporting, with correspondents Resul Serdar Atas and Mahmoud Abdelwahed filing from Tehran on Friday. State media footage cited by both Al Jazeera and The Hindu showed Pezeshkian and other senior officials paying their respects. Iran’s Foreign Ministry, via its spokesperson, supplied the count of more than 50 delegations. There were no immediate statements from the U.S. or Israeli governments quoted in the available sources about the funeral ceremonies, and NBC News’s technology-and-media front page did not carry coverage of the event.

What to Watch Next

Key markers in the coming days include the public viewing in central Tehran on Saturday, the procession leg through Qom and the cross-border movement into Iraq on July 8, where attendance by senior Iraqi Shia clerics and officials will signal the state of Iran-Iraq religious ties after the war. The July 9 burial at the Imam Ali Reza Shrine in Mashhad will be the culminating ceremony and is likely to draw the largest single crowd of the week. Any statements from senior Iranian military figures during the processions — particularly from IRGC commander Vahidi in his first extended public appearance — will be watched closely for signals on Iran’s posture toward the United States and Israel under the still-fragile ceasefire.