{"id":529502,"date":"2026-07-07T12:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/529502\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T12:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:16:09","slug":"tehran-teemed-with-khamenei-mourners-but-divisions-and-demands-for-change-remain-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/529502\/","title":{"rendered":"Tehran teemed with Khamenei mourners, but divisions \u2013 and demands for change \u2013 remain | Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the multipurpose, multinational funeral of Iran\u2019s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei<\/a> moved to the Jamkaran mosque in the holy city of Qom, and then to Najaf in Iraq, Iran\u2019s leadership was weighing the mandate it had been given by the millions who have taken to the streets of Tehran over the past three days.<\/p>\n

Some hailed the moment as a referendum from the streets showing support for the clerical establishment, and called for the strategy of confrontation with the west to be intensified. Others said it was more about a wider national pride that was conditional on demands for change and an end to the war being met.<\/p>\n

Overall, government sources believe they have successfully managed to organise mass shows of support, without disorder or signs of coercive manipulation that the western media \u2013 permitted into Iran<\/a> for the occasion along with social media influencers \u2013 had been unable to ignore.<\/p>\n

Mourners attend a prayer for Ali Khamenei in Qom, Iraq. Photograph: Office of the Iranian supreme leader\/Reuters<\/p>\n

The same appeared to be true in Qom, where Khamenei\u2019s body had been flown in by helicopter and the Jamkaran mosque reached capacity seven hours before morning prayers started. The prayer was read in a choking voice by Ayatollah Javadi Amoli, a leading Iranian conservative philosopher.<\/p>\n

An inevitable numbers game has begun over the turnout at the funeral. Estimates for the Tehran leg vary from 350,000 to 35 million, confirming humanity\u2019s tendency to see what it wants to see. The Financial Times, to the pleasure of the government, reported that as many as 12 million people attended. But at a minimum the support in Tehran bore comparison to the funeral of Iran\u2019s first supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1989, when between 5 and 7 million people from a population of 53 million took to the streets.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, successive false turns, economic travails and political repression during Khamenei\u2019s 36-year rule<\/a> damaged the regime\u2019s support base. But it would be off the mark to treat those in the procession as bots in human form or the urban poor in need of a free sandwich. Many were highly educated and wanted to show their opposition to what they regarded as the extrajudicial killing of their leader, regardless of their broader views of the regime.<\/p>\n

\"MillionsMillions walk with Ali Khamenei\u2019s coffin in Tehran funeral procession \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Mohammad Ali Kadivar, an associate professor of international relations at Boston College, a research university in Massachusetts, said the funeral could be best understood as what he termed \u201ca major episode of state-led mobilisation\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cSince 1979, state-led mobilisation has been one of the central pillars of the regime\u2019s power. The state has built a dense infrastructure through mosques, the Basij, schools, universities, workplaces, state media, veterans\u2019 organisations and war commemoration networks. These institutions help the government organise public participation and project images of popular support at critical moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cInfrastructure is only one part of the story. The Islamic republic also has a real social base. This base is not a majority of Iranian society, and Iran remains deeply divided, but it is large, organised, ideologically committed and consistently open to mobilisation. Funerals, commemorations and wartime gatherings make that support visible. They show that the regime\u2019s presence in the streets is not simply imposed from above; it also draws on constituencies that support the system and see themselves as defending the revolution, the state and the country against external threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reza Nasri, a lawyer close to the Iranian government, said the images were not of a broken people and they confirmed that the US had \u201cnever understood what it was dealing with\u201d when it went to war with Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was one of the largest human gatherings on Earth,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a civilisation expressing itself in full, with all its grief, its pride and its cohesion. These are millions who chose, freely and defiantly, to pour into the streets to mourn their leader on their own terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Trump administration\u2019s strategy \u201cdid not radicalise them against their government. It did not hollow them out. It did not manufacture the desperation Washington needed. Four decades of sanctions, two wars in the region, maximum pressure, currency warfare, and a secretary of defence openly threatening boots on the ground, and this is what it produced: a people more visibly unified than almost any nation on Earth can claim to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mourners take part in the six-day commemorations for the slain Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photograph: Majid Saeedi\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Pursuing a similar theme, Hossein Rouyvaran, a professor of political science at Tehran University, said: \u201cThe biggest problem of the west is all their theories are materialistic, but what happens in Tehran is beyond mundane materialism. Millions come to Tehran and sleep in the streets, and that suggests there is a connection between the leader and the people that is not materialistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the war had changed the social contract. Far from cementing divisions, \u201cthose who had been in opposition before are now under the Iranian flag\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some aspects of the canonisation of Khamenei have teetered on the absurd. The justice minister, Amin Hossein Rahimi, for instance, said the judiciary had laid the groundwork for Iranians to file lawsuits and complaints with court lawyers in domestic and international forums over \u201cmental and psychological harm resulting from the loss of the leader\u201d. More seriously, Rouyvaran said the marches would legitimise the government and give it a freer negotiating hand with the US.<\/p>\n

But the government has its fractures, and with so much yet to be negotiated<\/a>, including the ceasefire in Lebanon, the governorship of the strait of Hormuz and the monitoring of Iran\u2019s civil nuclear programme, it is possible the advocates of confrontation will gain the upper hand. Activity around the strait over the past 48 hours, including gunfire aimed at Qatari LNG tankers, suggests Iran is not fully relaxing its grip on the strategic waterway.<\/p>\n

The foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi \u2013 seen riding helmetless on a motorbike to the funeral procession \u2013 knows he also has to ride a political tiger in the form of demands for revenge ringing in the streets. Responding to Donald Trump\u2019s familiar threats to annihilate Iran in an afternoon, Araghchi acknowledged the importance of the crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillions of proud Iranians rallied in unity to honour Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and his legacy,\u201d he said. \u201cNeither them nor our brave armed forces are moved by any threats. Paragraph 13 of the memorandum of understanding is clear: negotiations on final deal will not commence if threats continue. Honour your signature.\u201d<\/p>\n

People gather in Tehran\u2019s Revolution Square on Monday for the third day of the funeral processions. Photograph: Kaveh Kazemi\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, a retired assistant professor in the faculty of law and political science at Tehran University, expressed concern over \u201cthe stage-managing efforts by state TV to seek revenge and reject negotiation and peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIf they\u2019re coordinated and part of a psychological warfare strategy, that\u2019s good, but if they\u2019re a deliberate project by extremists to drag the country into war and render negotiations ineffective, stop them, as they\u2019re targeting the very foundation of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hesamoddin Ashna, an adviser to the reformist former president Hassan Rouhani, said: \u201cIf we cherish that national presence [then] we [should] consider the united and diverse nation as the holder of power, and employ justice and rationality to witness the resurgence of Iran once again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some argued that if the funeral was a true affirmation of national cohesion, the past presidents Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Rouhani would not have been excluded from the ceremonies.<\/p>\n

Another absentee was Ali Asghar Hijazi, the deputy chief of Khamenei\u2019s office and one of the officials closest to him for three decades. It is said that after the bombing of Khamenei\u2019s residence, he was one of those opposed to the elevation of Khamenei\u2019s son<\/a>, Mojtaba, as his successor on the grounds that, according to Khamenei\u2019s will, his children did not have the right to enter politics.<\/p>\n

All that can be said for now is that the battle for the soul of Iran, subterranean and in the streets, is entering a new phase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the multipurpose, multinational funeral of Iran\u2019s former supreme leader Ali Khamenei moved to the Jamkaran mosque in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-529502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}