The day Ayatollah Ali Khamenei used to be killed, the Iranian executive known as for 40 days of public mourning in keeping with Shiite custom. It additionally praised the superb chief for his martyrdom – an idea regarded as sacred and demanding within the Islamic Republic and Shiite Islam.
Whilst some Iranians got here out to commemorate Khamenei, others celebrated his dying. The scenes mirrored the contradictions in how Khamenei used to be perceived: through some as a martyr, and through others as an oppressor.
Demonstrators mourn the dying of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei out of doors the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, on March 1, 2026.
AP Picture/Khalil Hamra
The theology of martyrdom
The roots of Shiite reverence for martyrdom date again centuries. After the dying of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, a dispute emerged over who would inherit the management of the Muslim neighborhood. On one facet used to be the prophet’s senior spouse and sweetheart’s father, Abu Bakr. At the different used to be his cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who turned into the primary Shiite imam.
In 680, the Combat of Karbala came about in present-day Iraq between Hussain ibn Ali – the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the 3rd Shiite imam – and Yazid ibn Mu’awiya. Yazid used to be the second one Umayyad caliph, because of this deputy of God, and the ruler of the early Islamic empire.
Prior to the struggle, negotiations had failed between Hussain and Yazid’s governor. Hussain refused to swear allegiance to Yazid, believing him to be unjust and no longer the rightful successor. In a 10-day struggle that adopted, maximum of Hussain’s military, together with a few of his closest partners and family, used to be slain. Hussain’s fans, who believed him to be the 3rd Imam – after his father Ali and older brother Hasan ibn Ali – got here to be known as Shiites. Since then, martyrdom has held a central position amongst Shiites. They contain the smaller of the 2 primary branches of Islam, with Sunni being the bigger one.
Iran has turn into the epicenter of Shiite Islam, which is the respectable state faith. 90 to 95% of the inhabitants establish accordingly.
Yearly at the tenth of Muharram, the primary month of the Islamic calendar and the similar day because the Combat of Karbala, Shiite Muslims outside and inside of Iran practice Ashura and commemorate the slaying of Hussain through reenacting his dying and appearing self-flagellation, amongst different rituals.
Iranian political rhetoric
In Iran and different portions of the Muslim global, fresh politics is incessantly framed on this seventh-century language of ethical resistance.
After the Islamic Republic of Iran used to be established below Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979, martyrdom seemed as a central theme. This used to be specifically the case all through and after the Iran-Iraq Struggle, which lasted 8 years within the Nineteen Eighties and used to be perceived and portrayed as a holy warfare.
All over the warfare, the Islamic Republic suffered loads of hundreds of casualties. After Khomeini reluctantly accredited a United Countries-brokered ceasefire, he when put next the verdict to ingesting a “poisoned chalice.” In different phrases, he regarded as the compromise a crushing defeat that contradicted his function of overthrowing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, although it enabled the Iranian regime to live on.
After the warfare, public house in Iran used to be an increasing number of full of progressive and spiritual symbols associated with wartime sacrifice and martyrdom. They integrated side road indicators named after distinguished individuals who died within the warfare, work of art and posters of the fallen, and media techniques and publications devoted to the battle – symbols which have been nonetheless distinguished after I visited Iran between 2009-2011.
The Islamic Republic’s Basis of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs – Bonyad-e Shahid va Omur-e Ithargaran – supplied products and services for veterans and households of the fallen within the warfare and different conflicts. Like different foundations below the purview of Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini after his dying in 1989, it additionally participated in profit-seeking actions.
It’s in contrast backdrop that Khamenei’s movements main as much as the American and Israeli moves on Feb. 28 that value him his lifestyles will have to be observed.
All over the 3 rounds of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Oman and Geneva ahead of the present battle, Khamenei refused to capitulate to President Donald Trump’s calls for. They comprised curtailing no longer most effective Iran’s nuclear enrichment, but in addition its missile program and toughen for its regional proxies. Khamenei directed his negotiators to not yield flooring, specifically on the ones ultimate two issues, observed as pink strains in Tehran – whilst Trump accrued essentially the most army belongings within the area for the reason that U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Authoritarianism, protests, polarization
Iranian demonstrators residing in Cyprus attend a protest out of doors the presidential palace in Nicosia on Feb. 14, 2026.
AP Picture/Petros Karadjias
For over 3 many years, Khamenei subjected Iranians to critical authoritarianism and repression, culminating in him ordering the protection forces to shoot and kill hundreds of Iranians all through the protests in January 2026, to not point out the ones in earlier years.
He disadvantaged the households of deceased protesters from keeping funerals for his or her family members. His regime additionally reportedly required them to pay for the ammunition that have been used to kill their family ahead of receiving the frame for burial.
And in spite of recurrent waves of protests – the January unrest adopted identical waves in 2017-18, 2019-20 and 2022-23 – Khamenei refused to hear the calls for of demonstrators for political, financial and social trade. The furthest he used to be prepared to move used to be to make beauty concessions whilst ruthlessly repressing electorate.
He additionally refused to reform the device from inside of and positioned the political elites who driven him in that path below space arrest or in jail.
All over his nearly 37-year rule, Khamenei accrued large energy and wealth. As superb chief, he commanded the defense force, appointed the top of the judiciary, supervised the state media, and possessed a parallel frame that vetted electoral applicants and vetoed parliamentary law.
Even though Khamenei seemed austere in public, he held sizeable belongings. Setad, a quasi-state group below his direct regulate, used to be estimated to be price US$95 billion as of 2013.
He persevered toughen for regional proxies, comparable to Hamas and Hezbollah, whilst keeping up a confrontational rhetoric towards the U.S. and Israel. Since 2024, those movements resulted in Israeli and American intervention in Iran that introduced dying and destruction to the rustic, and in the end the moves that killed him. The moves additionally killed a few of his closest family, together with his daughter, son-in-law, grandchild and daughter-in-law.
In spite of everything, some Iranians will take into accout Khamenei as a martyr – any person who stood firmly through his ideas and confronted a extra robust enemy, although it intended dropping his lifestyles.
However others, now rejoicing within the streets, will take into accout him as an oppressor who put private energy and cash in above the general public hobby.
