Ayatollah Ali Khameini: His legacy, and the fallout of his assassination

In Focus by The Hindu · Mar 3, 2026 · 23m

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed last week in an attack by the US and Israel. Iran has declared 40 days of mourning. Muslims around the world have come out in large numbers to protest his killing and express their grief.

In India, thousands of Muslims took to the streets in Kashmir, Lucknow, Hyderabad and Bhopal, among other places, to protest the killing.

But beyond the Islamic or religious world, there is only a limited understanding of the man who became Iran’s second Supreme Leader, after Ayatollah Khomeini, the cleric who led the Islamic revolution in 1979…