Iran opened a week of state funeral ceremonies for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 4, 2026, with farewell rites at Imam Khomeini Musalla in Tehran scheduled across July 4 and 5, according to IRNA. Burial is set for July 9 in Mashhad, his hometown, near the shrine of Imam Reza — one of Shia Islam's holiest sites.

Khamenei's casket was placed on public display in Tehran on July 3, drawing large crowds. He lay in state as Iran opened what Reuters described as a week of mass mourning events. A delegation from Turkish political parties attended the Tehran procession, and IRNA reported that officials from approximately 100 countries were expected to attend.

The ceremonies follow an intricate schedule. Tehran hosts the main farewell rites July 4–5. A funeral procession moves through the capital on July 6, followed by a second procession in the holy city of Qom on July 7. Ceremonies have also been planned in the Iraqi shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala — a measure of Khamenei's influence across the broader Shia world. The cortege then proceeds to Mashhad for burial on July 9.

The Iranian Army has been tasked with assisting institutions overseeing the ceremonies, IRNA reported — a logistical move consistent with the scale of crowds expected and the security concerns surrounding the event.

Those concerns are significant. Iran issued explicit warnings to the United States and Israel against any military action during the funeral processions, Reuters reported on July 2. The warnings came as Iran's military was already on heightened alert following the conflict that killed Khamenei.

Reuters reported that Khamenei's 37-year tenure as Supreme Leader ended in February 2026 when he was killed by an airstrike. AP News noted that Iran selected July 4—the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence—as the opening day of the funeral. Iranian state media did not publicly discuss why that date was chosen.

Understanding what comes next requires grasping what Khamenei's position meant. He assumed the role of Supreme Leader in 1989, becoming the second person to hold this office in Iran's Islamic Republic. The Supreme Leader sits atop a system called velayat-e faqih — clerical guardianship — that gives this single person near-absolute authority over the state. Khomeini, the first Supreme Leader, died under far more controlled circumstances; the succession machinery had no need to operate during active conflict. Khamenei's death in wartime, and through military attack rather than illness, creates a succession dynamic with no direct precedent in the Republic's 47-year history.

The choice of Mashhad as burial site carries weight beyond logistics. The city is home to the Imam Reza shrine complex, the most visited pilgrimage site in the Islamic world after Mecca and Medina. Placing Khamenei's grave in proximity to one of Shia Islam's most venerated imams sends a clear theological and political message to both Iranian citizens and the wider Shia diaspora.

The inclusion of Najaf and Karbala in the funeral calendar extends mourning through Iraq's Shia heartland, where Khamenei's networks of aligned political factions and militias ran deep. Those networks now face questions of reorientation that will preoccupy analysts and policymakers for months to come.

Iran's official apparatus, including IRNA and leader.ir, has framed Khamenei as a martyr — the search results returned no announcement of natural death, and IRNA's reporting used the descriptor "martyred Leader" in its funeral schedule. Reuters consistently used "slain." This language choice is not minor. In Islamic Republic theology and revolutionary doctrine, a leader killed in battle carries a different, and in some respects elevated, political legacy than one who dies in office from illness. How the incoming leadership deploys that framing will be central to understanding Iran's next phase.