After several days of historic funeral processions attended by millions of mourners, the body of the martyred Leader reached Mashhad on Thursday noon to be laid to eternal rest at the shrine of Imam Reza (AS), the eighth Shiite Imam.
Mourning crowds from across Iran have traveled to Mashhad to participate in the final farewell ceremony.
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The funeral procession will began at 2:00 pm local time from Imam Reza Street, after being postponed from its earlier scheduled time due to delays caused by the massive turnout of mourners and repeated stops during the farewell ceremonies in Iraq.
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Among the foreign guests attending the ceremony in Mashhad is Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, the leader of Nigeria’s Shiite community.
The arrival of the body in Mashhad follows unprecedented funeral ceremonies in Iraq. In Najaf, an estimated 3.8 million mourners gathered around the holy shrine of Imam Ali (AS) for a massive farewell procession before the body was transferred to Karbala along the Arbaeen route.
The Iraqi ceremonies came after large-scale farewell gatherings in Tehran and Qom, where millions of Iranians paid tribute to Ayatollah Khamenei before his body was taken to Iraq at the request of Iraqi religious scholars.
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei was martyred in a joint US-Israeli strike on Tehran on February 28, 2026, at the outset of a 40-day war of aggression against Iran. His martyrdom triggered widespread mourning across the region and the world.