Shafaq News- Najaf/ Karbala

The funeral processions held for Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the Iraqi holy cities of Najaf and Karbala on Wednesday carried political as well as religious messages, Iraqi analysts told Shafaq News.

On the same day, Communications Minister Mustafa Sanad ordered the issuance of a postal stamp commemorating the funeral, a formal state gesture memorializing the late Iranian leader on official government issue.

The scale of the turnout was itself the message. Ihsan al-Awadi, director of the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office and chair of the committee overseeing the funeral, said preliminary unofficial estimates placed attendance above 10 million across the two cities. The Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), a state-linked umbrella of predominantly Shiite armed factions, put participation in Najaf alone at more than 3.8 million and said it had deployed over 25,000 personnel along the route.

Iran's supreme leader holds both religious and political authority, which made the funeral a significant political event as much as a religious one, said Kadhim Yawar, a researcher specializing in Iraqi and regional strategic affairs. Staging the ceremonies in Najaf and Karbala, two of Shiite Islam's holiest cities, was intended to show that "Iran continues to enjoy support among Shiite communities across the region," sending a message to the United States, Europe, Gulf states and regional audiences, he said.

Yawar added that the choice of the two cities was critical to generating the turnout, given their religious standing and the millions of pilgrims they draw each year, and argued that comparable crowds could not have been produced elsewhere in Iraq. He also noted that images of the crowds served a domestic purpose, “reinforcing the Iranian government's narrative of public unity during a period of heightened regional tension, and said there was no precedent in Sunni or Shiite jurisprudence for funeral ceremonies of this scale held months after a death.

The breadth of official Iraqi attendance projected cross-sectarian reach, drawing former Prime Ministers Mohammed Shia al-Sudani and Nouri al-Maliki, leader of the State of Law coalition, alongside Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the al-Hikma Movement, a Shiite political party, and Mohamed al-Halbousi, a Sunni former speaker of parliament. Yet the government also set limits: it barred senior commanders of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, from the official ceremonies and confined the official program to Najaf and Karbala.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s highest Shiite religious authority, was absent due to health concerns. His representative, Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalaei, led the prayers in Karbala, while his Baghdad representative had earlier encouraged followers to attend as a gesture of “respect for a leading religious figure” rather than an expression of political alignment with Tehran.

According to Mohammed al-Talqani, an Islamic researcher, the ceremonies carried two principal messages: that Khamenei embodied both political leadership and religious authority, and that the turnout was meant to demonstrate continued public backing for Iran's leadership despite pressure from the United States, days before Ali al-Zaidi is scheduled to travel to Washington, his first visit as prime minister.

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