Arabic version: إيران تبدأ جنازة رسمية للزعيم القتيل علي خامنئي

A seven-day series of state funeral ceremonies for former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has begun in Iran, with foreign delegations from more than 100 countries arriving to attend. Khamenei’s body lay in state in a vast hall in Tehran as scholars, officials, foreign dignitaries, and other mourners paid their respects following his 37-year rule. According to Al Jazeera, his coffin was unveiled to a throng of sobbing supporters on Thursday night.

On Friday, Khamenei’s coffin, draped in a flag that previously flew over the Shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, was laid in state at Tehran’s Grand Mosalla, the great prayer hall built to honor his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khamenei, 86, was killed alongside several relatives in an airstrike on February 28, the first day of the joint US-Israel war on Iran. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, succeeded him weeks later.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and other foreign officials, including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Iraq’s President Nizar Amidi, were among those who paid their respects on Friday. However, invitations were not extended to European countries that supported the military campaign against Iran.

Security in Tehran has been heightened to maximum alert as public viewing is set to begin on Saturday morning. The funeral procession will continue through Tehran and Qom before briefly moving into Iraq on July 8, with final burial ceremonies scheduled for July 9 at the Imam Ali Reza Shrine in Mashhad.