Four months after he was killed at the outset of the US-Israeli war on Iran, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is being memorialized in a weeklong funeral spectacle stretching across five cities in two countries, with millions of mourners expected to attend.
Despite a costly war against two of the world’s strongest militaries and decades of crushing economic hardship, Tehran is sparing no expense to send off Khamenei in a grand ceremony shrouded in religious symbolism that overlaps with the 250th US Independence Day celebrations.
Authorities say they’ve launched one of the largest logistical efforts in the Islamic Republic’s history, mobilizing government employees, universities, labor unions, firefighters, soldiers, aid workers and even religious “mourning groups” to organize the funeral and manage the millions of “pilgrims” expected to travel to cities and holy sites across Iran and Iraq to bid the ayatollah farewell.
Authorities in neighboring Iraq, where Shiite Muslims are a majority, say millions of mourners are expected to pay respects.
For more than ten days, the overwhelming coverage across Iranian media has been building up to this moment, with tribute songs and documentaries on Khamenei’s life overtaking news of talks with the US that had previously dominated headlines.
The scale of the spectacle is designed to send a message to the world and to the Islamic Republic’s enemies: The regime not only survived an existential war but will stubbornly immortalize its slain leader as a symbol of its resilience.
“We must rise and raise the cry for the nation’s blood to the world so that the world knows that the honorable and noble nation of Iran does not remain silent in the face of oppression… and will not let go of the blood of its Imam Khamenei,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the powerful parliamentary speaker who is leading Iran’s negotiations with the US, wrote in a message published by state media Thursday.
“An epic feat that will show the greatness of a nation’s spirit to the world,” he said.
It may also mark the moment when Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei makes his public debut after remaining in hiding since his father and family members were killed.
Not to be lost in the ceremony is the apparently deliberate symbolism of the chosen dates. Khamenei’s body is scheduled to lie in state on the 250th American Independence Day, while another key day in the procession coincides with a major Shiite commemoration of a historic religious figure’s death.
The entire spectacle unfolds during the Islamic month of Muharram, a period deeply associated in Shiite Islam with mourning, betrayal and martyrdom – specifically the 7th century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, one of the Shia saints to whom Khamenei traces his lineage.
Khamenei, whose 37-year brand of rule was defined by stubborn defiance and deep skepticism of the West, was killed on the first day of the US-Israeli war, on February 28. Yet his funeral is being orchestrated as a victory parade across three Iranian cities and two holy sites in neighboring Iraq, showing supporters that the cleric still hasn’t lost, even in death.
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