Dubai:

Iran’s late President Ebrahim Raisi is set to be buried in the holy city of Mashhad on Thursday, four days after he was killed in a helicopter crash along with foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six other people.

Raisi’s coffin was flown to Mashhad in northeast Iran after a funeral procession was held for him today morning in the eastern city of Birjand, where thousands paid their respects as his remains were driven through the streets in a motorcade.

A guard of honour stood to attention as the plane carrying Raisi’s coffin arrived in Mashhad, his hometown, where he will be laid to rest at the gold-domed Imam Reza shrine, the holiest Islamic site in Iran and revered by Shi’ite Muslims as the resting place of the 9th century Imam Ali al-Reza.

Raisi, 63, was widely seen as a candidate to succeed 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate power in Iran. Mohammad Mokhber, who had been first vice president, is serving as interim president until a June election.

Eight passengers and crew were killed when the helicopter crashed in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border.

A ceremony was held to commemorate Amirabdollahian at the foreign ministry in Tehran, where acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani described him as a martyr who had “guaranteed the revolutionary nature of the foreign ministry”.

Amirabdollahian will be buried south of Tehran in the Shah Abdolazim shrine, a mausoleum where notable Iranian politicians and artists are buried.

Iran proclaimed five days of mourning for Raisi, who enacted the hardline policies of his mentor Khamenei aimed at entrenching clerical power, cracking down on opponents, and adopting a tough line on foreign policy issues such as nuclear talks with Washington to revive Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact.

The presidential election has been scheduled for June 28.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Mourners attend the funeral of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, in Tehran on May 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Iran on May 23 prepared to inter its late President at the holiest site for Shiite Muslims in the Islamic Republic, a final sign of respect for a protege of Iran’s supreme leader killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week.

President Ebrahim Raisi’s burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad caps days of processionals through much of Iran, seeking to bolster the country’s theocracy after the crash killing him, the country’s Foreign Minister and six others.

However, the services have not drawn the same crowd as those who gathered for services for Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, slain by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

It’s a potential sign of the public’s feelings about Raisi’s presidency that saw the government harshly crack down on all dissent during protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, detained for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf to authorities’ liking.

That crackdown, as well as Iran’s struggling economy, have gone unmentioned in the hours of coverage provided by state television and in newspapers. Also never discussed was Raisi’s involvement in the mass execution of an estimated 5,000 dissidents at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

Prosecutors have warned people against showing any public signs of celebrating Raisi’s death and a heavy security force presence has been seen in Tehran since the crash.

On May 23 morning, thousands in black gathered along a main boulevard in the city of Birjand, Raisi’s hometown in Iran’s South Khorasan Province along the Afghan border. A semitruck bore his casket down the street, with mourners reaching out to touch it and tossing scarves and other items to be placed against it for a blessing. A sign on the truck read, “This is the shrine.” Later, Raisi will be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, where Shiite Islam’s 8th imam is buried. The region, for long, has been associated with Shiite pilgrimmage. A hadith attributed to Islam’s Prophet Mohammad saysm anyone with sorrow or sin will be relieved through by visiting there.

In 2016, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Raisi to run the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran, as well as oversees the shrine. It is one of many bonyads, or charitable foundations, fuelled by donations or assets seized after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

These foundations offer no public accounting of their spending and answer only to Iran’s supreme leader. The Imam Reza charity, known as “Astan-e Quds-e Razavi” in Farsi, is believed to be one of the biggest in the country. Analysts estimate its worth at tens of billions of dollars as it owns almost half the land in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.

Raisi will be the first top politician in the country to be buried at the shrine, which represents a major honor for the cleric.

The death of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others in the crash on Sunday comes at a politically sensitive moment for Iran, both at home and abroad.

Raisi, who was 63, had been discussed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. None of Iran’s living past presidents — other than Khamenei, who was President from 1981 until 1989 — could be seen in state television footage of Wednesday’s prayers. The authorities gave no explanation for their apparent absence.

Iran has set June 28 as the next presidential election. For now, there’s no clear favorite for the position among Iran’s political elite — particularly no one who is a Shiite cleric, like Raisi. Acting President Mohammad Mokhber, a relatively unknown first vice president until Sunday’s crash, has stepped into his role and even attended a meeting between Khamenei and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on May 22.

Tehran:

Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Wednesday met Iran’s acting President Mohammad Mokhber here and conveyed condolences over the tragic demise of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a helicopter crash.

Jagdeep Dhankhar, who is leading the Indian delegation at the official funeral ceremony, paid tributes to Raisi, Amir-Abdollahian, and other Iranian officials who died in the crash.

A one-day state mourning was observed across India on Tuesday as a mark of respect for Raisi.

Hon’ble Vice-President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar paid tributes to Late President Dr. Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, Late Foreign Minister Dr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other Iranian Officials in Tehran today.

VP Dhankhar also met Dr. Mohammad Mokhber, Acting President of Iran and… pic.twitter.com/Rbkd9yltWT

— Vice-President of India (@VPIndia) May 22, 2024

Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar paid tributes to late President Raisi, late Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other Iranian officials in Tehran today, his office said in a post on X along with pictures of the event.

“VP Jagdeep Dhankhar met Acting President of Iran, Dr. Mohammad Mokhber in Tehran today. VP conveyed condolences on the tragic demise of President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister H. Amir-Abdollahian,” the External Affairs Ministry said in a separate post on X.

Jagdeep Dhankhar, who arrived here earlier in the day to attend the official funeral ceremony, was received by the Iranian authorities on his arrival in Tehran.

President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have conveyed their condolences on the demise of Raisi.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar visited the embassy of Iran in New Delhi on Tuesday to convey India’s condolences on the loss.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei presided over a funeral on Wednesday for the country’s late president, foreign minister, and others killed in the crash. Thousands of people attended the funeral procession of the late president and his companions.

Several world leaders attended the official funeral ceremony in Tehran.

The Iranian president, the country’s foreign minister, and several other officials were found dead on Monday, hours after their helicopter crashed in a foggy, mountainous region in the northwestern part of the country, Iran state media reported.

Raisi, 63, and his entourage were heading to Tabriz city after returning from a visit to a locality on the Azerbaijan-Iran border on Sunday. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran’s supreme leader presided over a funeral Wednesday for the country’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. On the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s coffin sat a black turban — signifying his direct descendence from Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Mr. Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic, the language of Islam’s holy book, the Quran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service.

People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, with chants outside of “Death to America!” They loaded them onto a semitruck trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi, or “Freedom,” Square, where Raisi gave speeches in the past.

In attendance were top leaders of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country’s major power centers. Also on hand was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that Iran has armed and supported during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. Before the funeral, Mr. Haniyeh spoke and an emcee led the crowd in the chant: “Death to Israel!”

“I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza… to express our condolences,” Mr. Haniyeh told those gathered.

He also recounted meeting Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key one of the Muslim world.

The Muslim world “must fulfil their obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land,” Mr. Haniyeh said, recounting Raisi’s words. He also described Raisi calling the October 7 attack that sparked the war, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage, an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity.” The war since has seen 35,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and hundreds of others in the West Bank in Israeli operations.

Also expected to attend services in Tehran were Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a delegation from the Taliban of Afghanistan, including their Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi.

Iran’s theocracy declared five days of mourning over Sunday’s crash, encouraging people to attend the public mourning sessions. Typically, government employees and schoolchildren attend such events en masse, while others take part out of patriotism, curiosity or to witness historic events.

For Iran’s Shiite theocracy, mass demonstrations have been crucial to demonstrating the legitimacy of their leadership since millions thronged the streets of Tehran to welcome Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, and also attended his funeral 10 years later.

An estimated 1 million turned out in 2020 for processions for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. In that ceremony, Khamenei openly wept over Soleimani’s casket alongside Raisi. On Wednesday, Khamenei appeared composed, though he later hugged family members of the dead on his way out.

Whether Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others draw the same crowd remains in question, particularly as Raisi died in a helicopter crash, won his office in the lowest-turnout presidential election in the country’s history and presided over sweeping crackdowns on all dissent.

Prosecutors already have warned people over showing any public signs of celebrating his death and a heavy security force presence has been seen on the streets of Tehran since the crash.

Raisi, 63, had been discussed as a possible successor for Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Mr. Khamenei. His death now throws that selection into question, particularly as there is no heir-apparent cleric for the presidency ahead of planned June 28 elections.