The Funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
At Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s state funeral in Tehran, personal grief, political ceremony and calls for retaliation converge before a vast crowd.
July 2026
In July 2026, vast crowds dressed in black filled Tehran for the funeral procession of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, who was killed in U.S. and Israeli strikes at the opening of the war. Iranian flags and portraits of the late leader rose above the procession, while Hezbollah banners and messages directed at the United States made the ceremony inseparable from the conflict that caused his death.
The photographs move between the scale of the gathering and the people within it: a child sleeping beneath flags, mourners overcome by grief, security personnel in formation, and men raising fists or holding portraits. The essay records the funeral as both an act of mourning and a display of political continuity at a moment of rupture.
