A Texas-based Shiite scholar delivered a speech at a memorial event in New York honoring Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, claiming that his death would serve Islam more than his life and predicting that his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, would become an even greater leader.
Speaking at the Shah-e-Najaf Islamic Center in Brentwood, Jawad Wahedi described Khamenei as the “greatest martyr of this era” and emphasized that martyrdom advances Islam more than life itself.
He added that while Shiites may lose their top religious authority, they would gain a new leader in Mojtaba Khamenei, whom he described as potentially “even better” than his father.
The event reportedly included symbolic elements such as an empty chair draped in black and imagery of both Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Wahedi is affiliated with a Muslim organization based in Texas, and the memorial was initially broadcast online before later being removed.