Iran\u2019s supreme leader presided over a funeral Wednesday for the country\u2019s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash, as tens of thousands later followed a procession of their caskets through the capital, Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. On the late President Ebrahim Raisi\u2019s coffin sat a black turban \u2013 signifying him as a direct descendent of Islam\u2019s Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh Allah, we didn\u2019t see anything but good from him,\u201d Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic, the language of Islam\u2019s holy book, the Quran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran\u2019s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service. People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, with chants outside of \u201cDeath to America!\u201d They loaded them onto a semi truck trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi, or \u201cFreedom,\u201d Square, where Raisi gave speeches in the past. People threw scarves and other items up for attendants on the truck to touch the coffins for a blessing.<\/p>\n
In attendance were top leaders of Iran\u2019s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country\u2019s major power centres. Also on hand was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that Iran has armed and supported during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. Before the funeral, Haniyeh spoke and an emcee led the crowd in the chant: \u201cDeath to Israel!\u201d \u201cI come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza \u2026 to express our condolences,\u201d Haniyeh told those gathered.<\/p>\n
He also recounted meeting Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key one of the Muslim world. The Muslim world \u201cmust fulfil their obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land,\u201d Haniyeh said, recounting Raisi\u2019s words. He also described Raisi calling the October 7 attack that sparked the war, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage, an \u201cearthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity.\u201d The war since has seen 35,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and hundreds of others in the West Bank in Israeli operations.<\/p>\n
Also expected to attend services in Tehran were Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a delegation from the Taliban of Afghanistan, including their Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi. Iraq\u2019s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani also flew in for the ceremony, along with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Even Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry travelled to Tehran, despite diplomatic relations between the countries being severed after the 1979 revolution. Egypt and Iran have recently discussed reestablishing ties.<\/p>\n
But notably, none of Iran\u2019s living past presidents \u2013 other than Khamenei \u2013 could be seen in state television footage of the prayers. They include reformist Mohammad Khatami, hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and relative moderate Hassan Rouhani \u2013 all individuals who maintain some political cachet within Iran\u2019s tightly controlled political system. Authorities offered no explanation for their absence from the event, which comes weeks ahead of a planned June 28 presidential election. As of now, there\u2019s no clear favourite for the position among Iran\u2019s political elite \u2013 particularly no one who is a Shiite cleric, like Raisi.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s theocracy declared five days of mourning over Sunday\u2019s crash, encouraging people to attend the public mourning sessions. Typically, government employees and schoolchildren attend such events en masse, while others take part out of patriotism, curiosity or to witness historic events. For Iran\u2019s Shiite theocracy, mass demonstrations have been crucial to demonstrating the legitimacy of their leadership since millions thronged the streets of Tehran to welcome Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, and also attended his funeral 10 years later.<\/p>\n
An estimated 1 million turned out in 2020 for processions for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a US drone strike in Baghdad. In that ceremony, Khamenei openly wept over Soleimani\u2019s casket alongside Raisi. On Wednesday, Khamenei appeared composed, though he later hugged family members of the dead on his way out. Whether Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others draw the same crowd remains in question, particularly as Raisi died in a helicopter crash, won his office in the lowest-turnout presidential election in the country\u2019s history and presided over sweeping crackdowns on all dissent.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors already have warned people over showing any public signs of celebrating his death and a heavy security force presence has been seen on the streets of Tehran since the crash. Raisi, 63, had been discussed as a possible successor for Iran\u2019s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. The only other person suggested was Khamenei\u2019s 55-year-old son, Mojtaba. However, concerns have been raised over the position going to a family member, particularly after the revolution overthrew the hereditary Pahlavi monarchy of the shah.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, an Iranian official offered a new account of Sunday\u2019s crash, further fuelling the theory bad weather led to it. Gholamhossein Esmaili, who travelled in one of the two other helicopters in Raisi\u2019s entourage, told state TV that weather had been fine when the aircraft took off. But Raisi\u2019s helicopter disappeared into heavy clouds and the others couldn\u2019t reach the aircraft by radio, forcing them to land at a nearby copper mine.<\/p>\n
Neither Amirabdollahian or a bodyguard on board responded to calls, but Tabriz Friday prayer leader Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem somehow answered two mobile phone calls, Esmaili said. It wasn\u2019t clear why Iran then couldn\u2019t track the phone\u2019s signal. \u201cWhen we found the location of the accident, the conditions of the bodies indicated that Ayatollah Raisi and other companions had died instantly but Ale-Hashem \u2026 (died) after several hours,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s supreme leader presided over a funeral Wednesday for the country\u2019s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":45093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[1634,2930,8036,535,2854,13128],"class_list":["post-45092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-deaths","tag-funeral","tag-helicopter-crash","tag-iran","tag-iran-foreign-minister-hossein-amirabdollahian","tag-iranian-president-ebrahim-raisi"],"reading_time":"5 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}