Grand Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli led funeral prayers over the coffin of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei at Qom's Jamkaran Mosque on July 7, 2026, the penultimate stop in a six-day state funeral for Iran's former Supreme Leader IRNA. The prayer service began at 6:00 AM local time, per scheduling confirmed by Qom's governor-general IRNA. Iranian state broadcaster Press TV described the turnout as "millions" joining the prayer, though independent verification of crowd figures at that scale is not available Press TV.

The Qom ceremony followed processions that began July 4 with Khamenei's body lying in state at Tehran's Imam Khomeini Mosalla CNBC Press TV. The New York Times reported hundreds of thousands attended the Tehran ceremonies, a more conservative figure than the state media characterization NYT. Iran's funeral committee had set the formal procession dates as Tehran on July 6 and Qom on July 7, corresponding to the 13th and 14th of Tir in the Persian calendar and the 19th and 20th of Muharram IRNA. Iran's own leader.ir portal separately dated aerial coverage of the Tehran procession to 15 Tir 1405, roughly July 6, and referred throughout to the "martyred Leader," language consistent with Tehran's characterization of Khamenei's death as an assassination rather than a natural passing leader.ir.

The funeral will conclude Thursday in Mashhad, where Khamenei is to be buried adjacent to the shrine of Imam Reza, one of Shia Islam's holiest sites Press TV IRNA. The choice of Mashhad over Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, the customary resting place for senior Iranian clerics and officials, places Khamenei's tomb alongside the eighth Shia Imam rather than among the political establishment he presided over for more than three decades.

CNN's coverage referred to Khamenei as Iran's "slain supreme leader," a term that, combined with Iranian state media's repeated use of "martyred Leader" (رهبر شهید) and "martyred Imam" (امام شهید) rather than standard honorifics, points toward killing rather than illness or old age as the cause of death CNN. Neither Iranian state media nor Western outlets in the released material specify the precise circumstances, weapon, or perpetrator, and IRNA's own reporting frames the funeral procedurally without addressing cause of death directly. The six-day funeral beginning July 4 falls nearly four months after Khamenei's death, placing the actual event around March 2026 CNBC, a gap that itself suggests either a contested succession process, security constraints on holding a mass gathering earlier, or both — questions the released sourcing does not resolve.

International attendance figures reinforce the funeral's scale as a diplomatic event as much as a religious one. Iran announced that representatives from 100 countries — including heads of state, parliamentary speakers, foreign ministers, and special envoys — would attend IRNA. Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Sha'abi) issued a public call urging Iraqis to participate en masse, an appeal consistent with the organization's historical alignment with Tehran's clerical establishment Press TV. Coverage extended well beyond the immediate region: Press TV noted extensive Southeast Asian media attention to the funeral Press TV, and Iran's own leader.ir site highlighted English-language media coverage of the crowds as a point of pride, suggesting Tehran is treating international visibility of the funeral as a component of the succession narrative it wants told leader.ir.

The scale of foreign attendance, spanning a full 100 countries, indicates that governments across a wide ideological spectrum judged the funeral significant enough to warrant senior-level representation, regardless of their individual positions on Iran's regional conduct or the unresolved question of how Khamenei died. That breadth of attendance will likely be read by Tehran as evidence of continued international legitimacy for the Islamic Republic's institutions at a moment of acute vulnerability — a supreme leader dead under contested circumstances, a four-month gap before public burial, and an as-yet-unannounced successor. Whether that reading holds will depend heavily on who Iran's Assembly of Experts selects to fill the position Khamenei held since 1989, a decision that carries far more consequence for the region than the funeral logistics themselves. The CNN framing pairing "funeral" with "war" in its live coverage headline suggests Western outlets are already connecting the succession to broader regional security dynamics, though the released sourcing does not detail what conflict is referenced.