The tragic helipad crash that took the lives of the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, the foreign Minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and six others has thrown the nation into a state of mourning on Sunday.
On the Wednesday, thousands of people including families of the victims attended the funeral at Tehran University where the Supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offered prayer for the departed souls. There were Iranian flags atop the coffins being borne on the shoulders of mourners who were chanting ‘Death to America’ outside University.
“There is nothing except good in our dear from him,” Khamenei quoted the official Arabic Islamic prayer for the deceased regarding the late president.
During the burial service, Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber who was standing beside Khamenei displayed signs of emotional strain. Members of the Iranian elite also attended the funeral of the leader of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The former Prime Minister of Palestine and the Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh visited Tehran to offer condolences. He said that he recently came across Raisi during the recent Ramadan holiday, the president, who repeated Iran’s support for the “Palestinian issue.”
Easily seen as another political characteristic, the presidential candidate Raisi was a rather controversial figure in Iran, being an ultr-conservative, hardline cleric. Although admires by many for empowering the vulnerable section of the society, he was infamous for dictatorship and use of force to suppress oppositionists that included ordering the shooting of several jurists in the 1980 s.
His death has occurred at a crucial time to Iran, especially after witnessing a series of nationwide protests and civil unrest over the past years, ignited by the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by the morality police.
As the Iranian nation is grieving the loss of its supreme leaders, a shift of focus has occurred toward transition and the future of the Islamic Republic with new leadership in place.
