MILLIONS of mourners have attended the funeral ceremonies of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as have representatives of several dozen countries, presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, parliament speakers and more.
Yet as the multiday event weaves its way through Iran, the procession will then pass into Iraq , residents across Tehran have spoken to Al Jazeera about one person whose absence has, to many, been more striking than the presence of everyone who has turned up: the country’s current Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen in public since the Israeli air strike on February 28 that wounded him and killed his father, Ali Khamenei, as well as Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra Haddad-Adel, and other family members. He has remained absent throughout the funeral ceremonies for his wife and father.
Iranian officials have attributed that absence to the continued threat of assassination. However, the attendance of many family members, including Ali Khamenei’s sons Mostafa, Meysam and Masoud, during the week of public mourning being held for their father, as well as the presence of many of Iran’s political leadership and foreign dignitaries, has highlighted the ruling Khamenei’s absence and stoked rumours over the extent of the injuries he sustained in the attack that killed his father.
“My country is no longer the Iran of old, where the leader is publicly present,” 26-year-old Masoumeh said from Tehran, where he was attending the funeral. “Mojtaba’s absence is irrelevant. But his presence is a sign of the country’s security, and I now have the feeling that the former security does not prevail in my country. The late supreme leader was the meaning of Iran’s power.”
On Monday, as Khamenei’s funeral procession made its way through Tehran, Israel’s defence minister appeared to threaten his successor. The minister, Israel Katz, said in a Hebrew-language statement that Khamenei “was assassinated by Israel because he set in motion and led the plan to destroy Israel”.
“The assassin was assassinated,” Katz said. “Any Iranian leader who tries to push plans to destroy Israel again will also be thwarted.”
Katz had last week threatened, more directly, that Khamenei was on Israel’s target list, prompting a stern rebuke from Iran.
Much of Iran’s leadership was systematically targeted for assassination by Israel since it first launched strikes upon Iran on February 28, initiating the US-Israel war on Iran whose uncertain conclusion remains the subject of negotiation between Washington and Tehran.
As well as Ali Khamenei, Israeli strikes killed or incapacitated a wide range of senior officials, including Iran’s then defence minister, the chief of the armed forces, and senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, as well as senior figures in intelligence, military planning, and nuclear-linked institutions.
“I feel that for [Mojtaba Khamenei’s] safety, he should not be present in public and we should wait a little,” Faezeh, 35, said from the funeral. “The fact that the new leader has not been seen yet does not mean anything bad to me because I know that the enemy did not show mercy to the former leader and will not show mercy to Mr Mojtaba either.”
Faezeh continued, outlining that she felt the supreme leader’s public absence did not appear to have affected the workings of government. However, she added: “I think people are justified in saying that there is no need to see him in person right now. It is like believing in a mystical subject or the unseen imam of the Shia or even the existence of God: something you do not see, but believe in.”
Faezeh explained that she had rarely seen the previous leader in person, either, but gained a sense of assurance from following him in the media, where he would typically appear during times of crises or national emergencies. “In the past, seeing the former leader in public meant that there was security,” she said. “But unfortunately, with the assassination of the leader, we came to the conclusion that at any moment we may not have the security we have now.”
Rumours about Mojtaba Khamenei’s health have swirled since the attack that killed his father, wife and family members, fuelled by the absence of any public sighting of the leader or images of him taken since the attack in late February.
According to people close to his inner circle who spoke to the Reuters news agency, Khamenei suffered serious injuries, including damage to his face and significant harm to one or both legs, which, combined with his absence from the funeral of his wife and father, led some to question official portrayals of the power of the Iranian state.
The Islamic Republic, despite its claims, “cannot even maintain the security of its leader for a few minutes to be present at this important event”, 47-year-old Somayeh told Al Jazeera from Tehran, adding, “It seems that there is a conspiracy at work and that the government is still not honest and transparent with the people.”
Some in the government, she felt, were benefiting from the confusion caused by the supreme leader’s absence and were “imposing their decisions and opinions on the people by proxy and are running the affairs and are quoting him wherever they deem necessary to advance their goals”.
Traditionally, Iran’s leader is not expected to maintain a constant public presence. Instead, authority is exercised through a dense network of institutional representatives, televised addresses and written directives, with appearances typically limited to major religious or national occasions.
“Like any leader – it’s a very normal expectation politically to see the leader,” Iranian-American political analyst Negar Mortazavi said. “Not every day necessarily, [but] the past two supreme leaders were visible and seen as top unifying figures within the state.”
That makes Mojtaba’s public absence “certainly unusual”. But, she added, this was a situation imposed “not by design” and that “there is also reasoning for it”, given the threat to Khamenei’s life.
At the same time, Mortazavi added that even though that understanding was shared by much of the Iranian public, it could not continue indefinitely. “They can’t hide him forever,” she said.