TEHRAN, Iran — Two days after the death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Jan. 8, an unexpectedly large number of Iranians took to the streets of Tehran for the funeral of the two-time president and Expediency Council chairman.

The funeral was scheduled to take place at Tehran University at 8:30 a.m., and people began gathering at the venue an hour before the ceremony was slated to begin. The crowd quickly grew so large that police had to shut down a number of streets to prevent an outright stampede.

During the first hours of the funeral, the number of people on the streets was estimated at more than a million, but Hossein Ali Amiri, vice president for legal and parliamentary affairs, later announced that the number of mourners was around 2.5 million. Media described the turnout as “historical” and the “second biggest funeral after the Imam,” meaning Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Islamic Revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic. More than 10 million people turned out for Khomeini's funeral in 1989.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who described Rafsanjani as his companion of 59 years, led the funeral prayers for Rafsanjani at Tehran University. Among the many senior officials in attendance were President Hassan Rouhani, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Tehran Friday prayer leader Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi. Two prominent faces absent from the event were former Reformist President Mohammad Khatami and former conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Reports said Khatami had been banned from taking part in the funeral by judicial order while Ahmadinejad, a staunch enemy of Rafsanjani, did not release a statement on his attendance.