Iran officially held the funeral for the commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, in Tehran Jan. 6. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, flanked by President Hassan Rouhani and judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, conducted the prayer service. Various processions across Iran were held in the days leading up to the funeral, drawing the largest crowds Iran has seen since the 1989 funeral of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
While the large outpouring of mourners across a country that had just witnessed some of its most severe protests less than two months ago has caught many Iran observers by surprise, how Iran will galvanize this sentiment and how it will respond to the US assassination of Soleimani is still being debated.
