Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, remained absent from public view on Sunday, as his father, former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and four family members were honored with state funeral prayers in Tehran.
While state television broadcast images of three of Khamenei’s sons arriving alongside Iran’s political and military leadership, Mojtaba’s continued absence sparked interest after Iranian state media said he would not attend the funeral ceremony due to security concerns.The prayer was held in the Grand Imam Khomeini Chapel, where Khamenei’s body has been lying since Saturday, for public mourning and the official farewell ceremony.State television showed Mostafa, Maysam and Masoud Khamenei praying behind the coffins in the Grand Imam Khomeini Chapel in Tehran. According to the Associated Press, Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a 97-year-old Shiite cleric, led the funeral prayer, which was attended by the three brothers along with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, and Revolutionary Guard Chief Gen. Ahmed Vahidi and Quds Force Commander Ismail Qaani.
The new Supreme Leader is expected to miss the six-day funeral ceremony due to security concerns amid continued Israeli threats to assassinate him. Despite not being seen in public since the caliphate, Mojtaba agreed in a written statement to the memorandum of understanding signed by the Iranian and American presidents even though he had a “different point of view,” after receiving assurances from senior Iranian officials that it would protect “the rights of the Iranian nation and the resistance front.”
Mojtaba has not appeared in public since the attack that occurred on February 28, which led to the killing of his father and four other members of his family during Israeli and American raids on Iranian targets at the beginning of the war. No official photos of the new supreme leader have been published since then. People close to his inner circle told Reuters that he suffered facial disfigurement and serious injuries to one or both of his legs in the attack.The funeral ceremony began on Saturday after Khamenei’s body was placed inside for senior Iranian leaders and foreign officials to pay their respects.
His coffin was later displayed outdoors under glass alongside those of his daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and 14-month-old granddaughter.During Sunday prayers, state television showed Masoud Khamenei wiping his tears with a keffiyeh while reciting the funeral prayer. Crowds gathered at the prayer hall throughout the night, with many mourners crying and some beating their chests. Iran’s metro network said it recorded seven million trips between late Saturday and Sunday morning as people traveled to central Tehran.The funeral program will continue with what Iranian authorities described as a huge procession through central Tehran on Monday, before Khamenei’s remains are transferred to the religious city of Qom on Tuesday. The body is scheduled to be flown to the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq for further ceremonies on Wednesday, before returning to Iran for a final procession and burial in Mashhad on Thursday, near the Imam Reza Shrine.
