Khamenei martyrdom narrative smooths path for sons rise

The manner in which Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by the US and Israel — at work in his office with family members present — evoked for Mikaeel Dayani one of the central stories of Shia Islam: the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the third imam and grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

Dayani, a staunch supporter of Iran’s theocratic system, has repeatedly taken his wife and children to Tehran’s main squares in the evenings since. He has joined thousands in mourning the death of Khamenei, the world’s most prominent and longest-ruling Shia leader, who was succeeded this week by his son Mojtaba.

“Our leader’s martyrdom reminds us of Ashura,” Dayani said, referring to the annual commemoration of Hussein’s death. “Our leader’s blood makes us more determined to continue his path, as did Imam Hussein’s blood, which guaranteed Islam. We are not afraid.”

This tradition traces back to the killing of Hussein in 680AD in Karbala, present-day Iraq, where he, his family and a small band of followers were surrounded and killed by forces of the Umayyad ruler Yazid after refusing to pledge allegiance, crystallising the division in Islam between the Sunni majority and Shia minority.

The story of Karbala became a defining moral narrative of Shia political thought, one more recently woven into the ideology of the 1979 Islamic revolution: a belief that Muslims should be ready to sacrifice their lives to resist injustice, in this case the perceived tyranny of the US and its allies.

Khamenei’s killing and the comparisons with that of Hussein have fuelled this further, as regime loyalists seek to deify the supreme leader and shape the legacy of a man loathed by many in his own country for overseeing four decades of authoritarian rule.

While many in the region blamed Khamenei for spreading sectarianism and destabilising their countries, there have also been outpourings of rage from Lebanon and Iraq to Bahrain and Pakistan, where deep grievances with ruling elites and Israel’s war in Gaza have merged to heighten the sense of injustice. This has galvanised Shia political and armed groups in the region to seize the moment for their own agendas.

The US and Israeli killing of Khamenei “awakens an anger in certain Shia communities that overrides the geopolitical nuances of the moment, despite the opposition some had to Iran’s political and theological positions”, said Noor Zaidi, professor of Middle East History and Shi’a Islam at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Though Khamenei’s role as the highest religious authority was often contested — most Shia globally preferred to follow less political clerics — he was nonetheless popular in parts of the Muslim world for standing up against Israel and the US.

In Pakistan, home to the world’s second-largest Shia population at roughly 40mn people, Khamenei’s death triggered days of mourning and unrest. Demonstrations erupted throughout the country shortly after Tehran confirmed the strike, and officials last week said at least two dozen protesters were dead, including 10 in Karachi after mourners stormed the US consulate compound and clashed with its security personnel and police.

In one Karachi protest, large groups of women in black chadors marched through the streets carrying portraits of the late ayatollah and chanting: “I respond to your call, Khamenei” — a slogan drawn from the ancient cry of devotion to Imam Hussein.

“People of all sects believe their Muslim rulers were spineless, corrupt or too weak-kneed to stand up to the US and Israel,” said Mushahid Hussain, a former Pakistani senator who met the late ayatollah multiple times. “Khamenei was the exception.”

In Iraq and Lebanon, there were mixed emotions at Khamenei’s killing among the countries’ Shia, many of whom do not identify with Tehran’s regime and in Lebanon blame his regime and Hizbollah for repeatedly dragging the country to war.

The Iraqi Shia clerical establishment in Najaf, which has vastly more followers around the world than Khamenei had, has long opposed the Islamic republic’s doctrine of fusing political and religious leadership.

But it nevertheless carefully mourned Khamenei’s killing, shaken by the killing of a cleric. Supporters of Iraqi Shia armed groups closely tied to Iran staged processions and violent protests, even attempting to storm the US embassy in Baghdad and using Khamenei’s killing as justification to enter the conflict, launching waves of attacks on US bases and diplomatic missions.

In Lebanon, Shia militant group Hizbollah attacked Israel after Khamenei’s killing, calling it a “red line” too significant to not drag them into a conflict that could spell their end.

At one rally in the southern suburbs of Beirut, thousands of supporters waved Hizbollah banners, Iranian flags and red flags symbolising revenge. “For more than 1,400 years we have not surrendered,” one woman told local television. “And today, we will not surrender, God willing.”

Hizbollah and several prominent Iraqi armed factions congratulated Mojtaba on his appointment as surpeme leader on Monday, praising his selection as a continuation of the ideological path his father set forth.

In Iran, supporters like Dayani have gathered repeatedly since Khamenei’s killing to wave Iranian flags, chant and ride through the streets on motorbikes carrying guns, seeking to project strength not just in the face of US and Israeli attacks but in the aftermath of anti-regime protests in January. Supporters of Mojtaba also poured into the streets to celebrate his selection as supreme leader, with large gatherings taking place in major squares across Iran on Monday.

But many in Iran, an increasingly secular country where young people are less observant of daily prayers, fasting or religious traditions, despised Khamenei and even celebrated his death, blaming his ideology and resistance to reform for increasing poverty and setting Iran on the path of war.

Some in the Arab world also celebrated, namely Syrians who reviled him for supporting Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime.

One Shia analyst in Tehran said he did not expect Khamenei’s killing to trigger a rise in religiosity in Iran, but added that it would nonetheless serve to “strengthen the resolve” of the regime’s base to fight for its survival.

Images of Khamenei’s 14-month-old granddaughter Zahra, who was killed in the attack alongside several family members, have circulated widely on social media, reinforcing parallels with Karbala, where Hussein’s infant son was pierced with an arrow.

That he was killed by the regime’s arch-foes in his office on a work day also fuelled speculation that the 86-year-old cleric had knowingly chosen a martyr’s end, with mourners invoking Hussein’s saying that “death with dignity is better than a life of humiliation”. “That element of choice is what would solidify his status as a martyr,” Zaidi said.

A relative of the supreme leader, speaking to the FT, rejected the idea that he had deliberately risked his life, however. “That would have been religiously illegitimate, a sin,” he said.

But, the relative argued, because he died while serving God and leading the Islamic republic, Khamenei’s status is clear.

“He is undoubtedly a martyr,” the relative argued. “And since he was both the highest political official and the highest religious authority, he is Seyed-ul-Shohada”, the master of martyrs, like Imam Hussein himself.

Additional reporting by Malaika Kanaaneh Tapper in Beirut and Ahmed Al Omran in Jeddah