Courtyard of Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla filled with mourners waving flags, carrying photographs of slain leader
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf attend farewell ceremony for late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, July 3, 2026. PHOTO: REUTERS
Mourners thronged a vast prayer complex in Tehran on Saturday as the week-long funeral ceremonies of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei began with the national anthem, religious eulogies and readings from the Koran.
Iran is staging mass funeral processions for Khamenei – whose 37-year rule was cut off in February by the first airstrike of the war launched at Khamenei’s family residence by the US and Israel, which killed him and his young granddaughter along with other family members – in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary zeal.
Television footage showed his coffin draped with the Iranian flag and topped with his black turban. It was placed, along with four other coffins of his slain family members, on a large black platform that resembled the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure at the centre of Islam’s holiest site in Mecca.
The vast courtyard of the complex, the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, was filled with mourners, many waving Iranian flags and carrying photographs of the slain leader.
Read: Iran’s slain leader Khamenei laid in state for week of mass funeral events in Tehran
“‘Death to America’ chants echoed through Tehran’s Mosalla on the day of the farewell to ‘Martyr’,” state broadcaster Seda va Sima said.
In video posts on other state media news sites, mourners were also heard chanting: “Our slogan is one word: Revenge, revenge,” and “We will kill, we will kill he who killed our Imam.”
Water misted from rooftops to cool mourners in the summer heat. Khamenei’s coffin will remain in the Mosalla until Sunday evening.
His body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Kerbala before being laid to rest on Thursday in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrim shrine.
The coffin was unveiled late on Thursday to a throng of sobbing supporters, who were swaying and beating their heads in time to a sung lament as flowers were thrown from the bier into the crowd. On Friday, the coffin was laid in state in the great prayer hall built to honour his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Authorities plan to mobilise millions of people for big processions over the coming days, offering transport, food and lodging to buoy the numbers.
The new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in any new image since being wounded in the strike that killed his father.
Over 5,000 schools open doors to pilgrims for Khamenei’s funeral
Schools in Tehran have been opened for people to stay while on pilgrimage to attend Khamenei’s funeral, according to Al Jazeera.
According to a report by Iran’s ISNA news agency, the country’s minister of education said that more than 5,000 schools and about 40 to 50 thousand classrooms nationwide are open to welcome pilgrims of Khamenei.
More than 10 million people, including representatives from more than 100 countries, are expected in Tehran for the funeral.
