The latest attempt to prove that Mojtaba Khamenei is alive has come from a Shi‘i maddah, a religious singer and eulogist, close to the Khamenei circle.
On September 2, 2026, Abbas Heydarzadeh said that Khamenei was in good health and spent the night of his father’s burial at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, beside his father’s coffin.
According to Heydarzadeh, the custodian of the shrine told him that Mojtaba arrived at around midnight to bury his father and remained there until seven in the morning. He allegedly spent half an hour at his father’s grave, speaking to him. Heydarzadeh also claimed that senior officials at the shrine prayed behind Mojtaba.
[Mojtaba’s] whereabouts, condition, and ability to exercise power have been the subject of conflicting reports, rumors, and elaborate accounts from the regime’s inner circle.
Since the death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, 2026, the question of Mojtaba’s fate has become a closely guarded secret. His whereabouts, condition, and ability to exercise power have been the subject of conflicting reports, rumors, and elaborate accounts from the regime’s inner circle.
Mojtaba’s absence from his father’s funeral was particularly bewildering. It prompted questions even among the regime’s loyal supporters about why he did not show up.
The latest story to establish Mojtaba’s physical presence attempts to construct a chain of witnesses—“Officials saw him. They prayed behind him”—and yet, all of the supposed witnesses are unnamed and no one has confirmed the claim.
It comes against the backdrop of an extraordinary series of events that followed the funeral.
A video clip circulated in which Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi said Mojtaba had been kept away from his father’s office for three years by Ali-Asghar Hejazi, one of the most powerful figures in Ali Khamenei’s office, who controlled access to the former supreme leader. Kharrazi claimed that Mojtaba was confined to his home during that period and was restricted to receiving and passing on intelligence and security-related letters to his father.
Kharrazi is no ordinary ayatollah. He comes from an elite lineage of clergy who occupied important positions after the 1979 revolution. His brother Mohamad Sadegh Kharrazi was a former Iranian ambassador, and his uncle Kamal Kharrazi, killed in the U.S.-Iran war, was the former foreign minister. More importantly, Ayatollah Kharrazi’s sister is married to Massoud Khamenei, one of Ali Khamenei’s three surviving sons. Massoud attended the funeral.
His claims appeared to hint that Mojtaba had never been in line for succession and subtly suggested that Massoud Khamenei—his brother-—was the more suitable candidate to succeed Ali Khamenei.
Kharrazi is an eccentric cleric who has made outrageous statements in the past. But remarkably, he also accurately predicted that Mohsen Rezaei would replace Mohamad Bagher Zolghadr as head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
The reaction to Kharrazi’s video clip from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated media was swift. They accused him of sowing disunity, and some called for the judiciary to arrest him. He reportedly was. Kharrazi subsequently released another video, claiming that the clip attributed to him had been edited and generated using artificial intelligence.
Following this controversy, the regime made three simultaneous attempts to convince the public that Mojtaba is still alive.
First came six new top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military appointments in statements attributed to Mojtaba. Then came a video clip showing Mojtaba among his seminary students. Finally, President Masoud Pezeshkian said he met with Mojtaba face-to-face in a seven-hour meeting.
These attempts may have convinced hardline regime supporters and some Iran observers in the West, but each is flawed. The statements announcing the appointments lacked dates, in contravention of standard practice. The video showing Mojtaba among his seminary students had no audio, and there was no information included about when or where it occurred.
As for Pezeshkian’s seven-hour meeting with Mojtaba, all the president could say was that it had been a warm, sincere, and friendly meeting. He offered no detail about what was discussed during an unusually long meeting.
There was an additional reason why Pezeshkian’s claim raised eyebrows. Before making his public statement about meeting with Mojtaba, Pezeshkian had described a very different encounter during a closed meeting with Iranian media figures. According to his leaked remarks, Pezeshkian said he was blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed location to meet Mojtaba, but he never actually saw Mojtaba. Instead, their communication consisted of written notes being passed back and forth.
More than six months since Ali Khamenei’s death, there has not been a single video, audio recording, or handwritten note made public from Mojtaba. Whoever is really exercising leadership in Iran has, until now, found it convenient to maintain that Mojtaba is alive and is the final arbiter in all matters.
More than six months since Ali Khamenei’s death, there has not been a single video, audio recording, or handwritten note made public from Mojtaba.
If people think he is alive, the regime can invoke him as the ultimate authority in an otherwise fractious political milieu. His name can legitimize appointments, settle disputes, and keep factional competition under control.
Each time pressure builds for proof that he is alive, another claim emerges: Mojtaba has been seen; Mojtaba has met someone; Mojtaba has issued appointments; Mojtaba has been among his students; Mojtaba has attended his father’s burial. But there is a limit to how long this can continue.
At some point, hardline elements who believe they are being excluded from the real centers of power will also start demanding proof that Mojtaba is alive and capable of leadership. If the answer turns out to be that Mojtaba has not been alive for all these months, the consequences for the Islamic Republic could be enormous.
The carefully maintained fiction of continuity would collapse. The various factions that have invoked Mojtaba as a common point of authority no longer would have that option. The question of who controls Iran would become impossible to conceal. What is currently contained behind closed doors could spill into the open.
The resulting fissures within the regime could lead to infighting on a scale the Islamic Republic has never before experienced.
