Why some Muslims are mourning the death of Ayatollah Khamenei as others celebrate

(RNS) — The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme chief for nearly four decades, on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli warfare on Iran is triggering starkly a range of reactions in the Heart East and spherical the globe. No longer easiest the Muslim world’s longest-serving ruler, Khamenei was moreover one of the most highly effective Shiite clerics in the world.

Amongst Muslims, the responses are split mostly alongside sectarian traces. Regardless of his tyrannical rule that killed bigger than 7,000 Iranians appropriate in the past eight months, many in Iran, a majority Shiite nation, are mourning Khamenei as a martyr. Hundreds of others were captured on video celebrating his loss of life, chanting and dancing in jubilation. 

The gigantic fluctuate of Iranians’ reactions reflects the country’s political fluctuate, said Mehdi Shadmehr, associate professor of public coverage at the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who compared the ideological split in Iran to the United States or Russia.

“We would also very smartly be inclined to assume that with regards to all Russian electorate abominate Putin,” said Shadmehr, noting evidence that many build now now not, “at least relative to on hand picks. Equally, we must all the time silent now now not rob it as a right that all Iranian electorate abominate Khamenei, or that, among those that attain, nearly all would approve of his killing by American or Israeli defense force.”

Khamenei was the highest non secular authority in Iran. The senior clerics in Shiite Islam, practiced by approximately 10% of Muslims worldwide, protect massive non secular authority, which Khamenei seamlessly merged with political energy at house and regional impact in the course of the Heart East.

In contrast to Sunni Islam’s highly decentralized structure, Shiism maintains a hierarchy of skilled non secular scholars. The schism between the two teams started in 631, when a dispute arose over who should always silent lead the Muslim neighborhood after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. Iran is bigger than 90% Shiite, and its adherents moreover label up the majority of Muslims in Iraq. Nonetheless Shiites are scattered in pockets in the course of the Heart East.

This historical split continues to permeate the lives of Muslims spherical the world, often showing up as political sectarianism, even crossing nationwide borders. As a supreme clerical authority, Khamenei was viewed as a sacred chief and protector of Shiite energy globally.

“He was a no doubt significant image for Shias spherical the world. He was somebody who was the political and non secular chief of the easiest sovereign Shiite narrate in the world,” said Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande, an assistant professor of non secular ethics at the College of Chicago Divinity College. 

Khamenei represented the aspirations of Shiite communities, who are inclined to be aware of their minority house internal Islam, said von Doetinchem de Rande. 

In Lebanon, the Shiite community Hezbollah held a thousands-sturdy rally in the Beirut suburb where it holds impact. In Iraq, the executive declared three days of mourning. The Shiite majority nation’s halt ties with Iran’s rulers had been kick-started by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. 

In Syria, on the other hand, Khamenei’s death was welcomed as vengeance for his backing of broken-down strongman Bashar Assad, who was overthrown in December 2024. Below Khamenei, Iran supplied Assad with militias and weapons and aided in reported massacres in Syria. 

Nonetheless in a reflection of Khamenei’s political impact on the house, some Sunni Muslims moreover appreciated his firm rhetorical line against Israel, his world call on Muslim countries to toughen Palestinians and his pattern of Iran’s proxy approach, by which Iran funded militant teams such as Hezbollah, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and others to bedevil Israel.

Von Doetinchem de Rande said his house as the chief of a Muslim nation has resulted in many Muslims of all traditions to rob his killing on Saturday (Feb. 28) at the fingers of the U.S. and Israel as a rebuke to the Muslim faith itself. 

The deaths of bigger than 800 Iranians to this level in the warfare — at least 175 of whom had been college students and others at a women’ elementary college, in conserving with The Sleek York Occasions — have confidence moreover upset Muslims who could well otherwise have confidence regarded the death of Khamenei as a discover honest appropriate.

“Whatever their feelings could well were about Iran or Shiite Islam beforehand,” von Doetinchem de Rande said, “this would perchance even very smartly be a 2d where that recedes into the background, and what stands at the forefront is the incontrovertible truth that he was a no doubt significant figure as a Muslim image, political and non secular.” 

The onerous-line Shiite cleric changed into supreme chief in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who returned from exile in 1979 to manual a revolution against the Shah of Iran, a monarch whose household was propped up by Western nations after the executive of Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown with the assistance of the British and U.S. intelligence companies and products. 

Khamenei, care for his predecessor, positioned himself as a staunch opponent of Western impact and imperialism, and a defender of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The ayatollah swept to energy in the country by embracing “Khomeinism,” a political philosophy that attracts licensed guidelines and legitimacy from God and that dictates that Iran would be dominated by a single Shiite pupil. 

Non secular scholars explain there are already signs that his house as a martyr is being woven into the Iranian legend. The belief of martyrdom and succession is enshrined in the historical past of the Shiite abilities, which traces its lineage to the historical schism and what Shiites have confidence was the wrongful succession of the management of Islam. 

Some early Muslims supported the Prophet’s halt accomplice and father-in-legislation, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, whereas others followed his cousin and son-in-legislation, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who would later be acknowledged by Shiites as the first imam.

Decades later, in 680, the battle culminated in the Fight of Karbala in what is now Iraq. There, Hussein ibn Ali, the Prophet’s grandson and the third Shiite imam, was killed by the forces of Yazid ibn Mu’awiya, the 2d Umayyad caliph and ruler of the Islamic empire. 

Khamenei, the 2d supreme chief in Iran, was viewed as a kind of successor in that non secular historical past and was endowed with “all the authorities that the Prophet and infallible Imams had been entitled.”