At dawn on 28 February 2026, Iran’s contemporary history entered a new and unprecedented phase, beginning with the roar of explosions over Tehran and ending, months later, amid war, mourning and uncertainty, at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad. Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the second Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, was killed during joint US-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran — an event that shaped not only the fate of one man, but the path of an entire nation. What follows is a reconstruction of his life and of the events that, from his death to his burial, swept through Iran.
From the struggle against the Shah to his first roles
Sayyed Ali Khamenei was born on 19 April 1939 in Mashhad. He studied theology in Mashhad, Najaf and Qom, under Khomeini, Ayatollah Borujerdi and Allameh Tabatabai. In the 1960s and 1970s he was among the active figures opposing the Pahlavi regime, which cost him repeated arrests by SAVAK, periods of detention, and eventually exile to Iranshahr.
After the 1979 revolution, he became a member of the Revolutionary Council, Tehran’s Friday prayer leader, and a member of the first parliament. When the Iran-Iraq war broke out, he served as Khomeini’s representative on the Supreme Defense Council, present on the front lines. On 27 June 1981 he survived an assassination attempt by the Forqan group at Abuzar Mosque in Tehran, which left his right hand permanently and partially disabled. After the assassination of President Rajai, he was elected Iran’s third president, a post he held for two terms, from 1981 to 1989.
The years as Supreme Leader: 1989–2026
Upon Khomeini’s death on 3 June 1989, the Assembly of Experts chose Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader, inaugurating a 36-year tenure that made him the longest-serving head of state in contemporary West Asia. His leadership rested on several pillars: managing regional crises, from the Gulf wars to the US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq and the rise of ISIS; strengthening military and missile self-sufficiency as a deterrent; supporting national technology, from nuclear to nanotech; and building “strategic depth” through support for allied groups in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq and Syria, with figures such as General Qassem Soleimani.
These decades were not free of internal tension. During the 2025–2026 protests, Iran experienced widespread unrest, harshly suppressed; death toll estimates range from about three thousand according to official figures to far higher numbers according to independent sources. On 7 January 2026, Khamenei himself acknowledged the deaths of “several thousand” people, blaming the United States and Israel for the chaos.
The death: 28 February 2026
On 28 February 2026 began what would come to be called the “2026 Iran War,” with a massive wave of US-Israeli airstrikes on Tehran. In the first hours, the Supreme Leader’s office-residence was struck; the following morning, state television confirmed his death. According to sources close to the Revolutionary Guards, the same attack also killed a daughter, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law and a grandchild of Khamenei — a loss that added, in deeply human terms, to his family’s grief. The government declared forty days of national mourning and a week of official holidays.
That wave of strikes caused, according to official Iranian sources, at least 201 deaths across the country; among them, the bombing of two girls’ schools, including the Shajareh Tayyebeh institute in Minab, drew wide public attention — a painful reminder that behind every major political event lie the fates of ordinary people.
After his death, leadership of the country passed temporarily to an interim leadership council, until the Assembly of Experts elected Mojtaba Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader.
The postponement of the funeral
Although the funeral was initially planned for March 2026, wartime conditions and security concerns delayed it for months. On 4 March, Tehran authorities announced that a farewell ceremony would be held that same night at the Imam Khomeini Mosalla; the announcement was withdrawn hours later, without official explanation, and postponed to “coming days.” Although never officially confirmed, fear of a new attack on large public gatherings appears to have been the main reason for this long delay.
In those weeks, Fariborz Keshvardoost Alley, the closest passage to the site struck at the Leader’s residence, became a spontaneous site of mourning from the first day of the war, later known as the “Keshvardoost Portico.” In Najaf, thousands of Iraqis took part in a symbolic ceremony in his honor; on 19 April, the fortieth-day commemoration was held across Iran. It was eventually announced that, in accordance with his wishes, he would be buried at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad.
The funeral: the story of a long farewell
The multi-stage funeral rites finally took place from 3 to 10 July 2026, becoming one of the longest and most imposing political-religious funeral ceremonies in Iran’s recent history. The Revolutionary Guards, security agencies and various state institutions were mobilized to organize it. The official slogan chosen was “We Must Rise” (Bâyad barkhâst), with a clenched fist as its symbol.
The ceremony opened with tributes to the body at Tehran’s Mosalla, followed by days of vigil, then official funerals in Tehran and Qom. From there the body was moved to Iraq: in Baghdad, Kadhimiya, Najaf and Karbala, ceremonies were held in the presence of senior Iraqi officials — including the prime minister —, Shiite leaders and military commanders, as the body was carried in procession around the shrines of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi thanked Iraq’s government, people and religious authorities for their hospitality. Figures close to the so-called “axis of resistance” also took part, including the son of Hassan Nasrallah, who spoke of a spiritual bond between his father and Khamenei.
The burial in Mashhad
On Thursday, 9 July 2026, the body finally returned to his hometown, Mashhad, where he was buried at the shrine of Imam Reza, beside the mausoleum of the eighth Shiite Imam — a symbolic close to a journey that began as a young theology student and culminated in 36 years leading the country.
Millions of ordinary citizens attended the burial, alongside Iranian civil and military authorities, diplomatic delegations and representatives of Iran’s regional allied groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah. According to unofficial estimates, total participation across all stages of the ceremony may have reached 30 million people — a figure that remains a matter of debate.
A contested legacy
The death of Sayyed Ali Khamenei marks the second leadership transition in the history of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution: an event widely seen as historically significant but deeply uncertain in its outcome. For part of Iranian society, it raised hopes of political opening; for another part, fears of prolonged war and further human suffering. What seems certain is that the long funeral rites, held under the exceptional circumstances of war and uncertainty, became one of the most symbolic political-religious mourning rituals in Iran’s recent history — a reflection of the deep bond between power, faith and collective feeling in a society still moving through one of the hardest chapters of its history.
Seyyed Ali Khamenei in meeting of Vietnamese President
