Several hundred people were already waiting on Friday evening outside the venue for the funeral of Iran’s slain supreme leader Ali Khamenei ahead of its opening to the public on Saturday morning.Khamenei will lie in state at the Grand Mosalla religious complex in Tehran until Monday, with doors scheduled to open at 6am local time (0230 GMT).
Khamenei lies in state in Iran as funeral week begins
Dubai: The body of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lay in state in a vast hall in Tehran Friday as clerics, officials, foreign dignitaries and other mourners paid their respects to Iran’s late supreme leader, slain by US and Israeli bombs. Iran is staging a week of mass funeral processions for Khamenei, whose 37-year reign was brought to an end in Feb, in a show of public devotion to the Islamic Republic’s theocratic state and revolutionary zeal.His body was expected to be taken to Qom, Najaf and Kerbala, the great Shi’ite centres of Iran and Iraq, before being laid to rest on July 9 in Mashhad, home to the country’s holiest pilgrim shrine.His coffin was unveiled late Thursday to a throng of sobbing supporters, 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 – and those of family members who were also killed in the same attack- was laid in state in the great prayer hall built to honour his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.The funeral is taking place at a critical moment for Iran, where the clerical rulers backed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are riding high from surviving what they saw as an existential war against their most powerful foes. Support for the clerical leadership is paper-thin, analysts say, and the new supreme leader, Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in any new image since being wounded in a strike.Tehran’s streets were tightly controlled on Friday, with security vehicles lining the major roads and police and members of the black-shirted volunteer Iran warned the US and Israel against any attacks during the funeral.A black turban, worn by clerics claiming descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, lay on the coffin on a folded chequered scarf, a symbol in Iran of revolutionary ideals and solidarity with Palestinians.In central Tehran overnight, a crowd stood sobbing and chanting. “God willing, only by avenging his blood, demanding justice for it, and ensuring that our leader’s blood is not left unavenged, can this sorrow of the people be alleviated,” said Mobina Razaaghi, an 18-year-old student, attending the funeral. Agencies
