UK imam spotted in Iran weeping for 'martyred' supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

An imam at a Scottish Islamic centre paid tribute to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei killed in an Israeli strike. Dr Aoun Ali Jarvi, the imam of Glasgow’s Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre, was photographed weeping and paying respects before Khamenei’s coffin during the ceremony on Friday, July 3, four months after he was killed in an Israeli strike on his compound. No Western leaders were invited to Tehran’s Grand Mosalla mosque. Instead, international dignitaries, including representatives of Russia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan, attended.

The Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre of Glasgow is a Shia Jafari mosque established in 1986. In the past, the centre displayed Iranian flags and images of Ayatollah Khomeini, who issued a death sentence for the British author Salman Rushdie, and his successor Khamenei, who praised Hamas “resistance fighters” after the October 7 attack in Israel.

The centre is associated with the London-based Islamic Centre of England (ICE), which was temporarily closed after it hosted a vigil for Qasem Soleimani, a commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) killed in a US drone strike. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday that the UK would ban support for IRGC.

The Al-Mahdi centre’s constitution states: “The only way to guard against teachings deviating from the true path of God and to ensure the future of Islamic society is through the guardianship of velayat-e faqih.”

The theory of velayat-e faqih transfers all political and religious authority to the Shia clergy, leading to the establishment of an authoritarian theocracy.

Commenting on the event, Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservatives’ leader, said: “This individual travelled from Scotland to pay tribute to the late ayatollah while huge numbers of people were taking to the streets of Glasgow to make a stand against the murderous Iranian regime.

“It is reprehensible for anyone to weep for a man who denied the people of Iran basic freedoms, crushed women’s rights and killed untold numbers of his own people.”

He urged UK authorities to intervene.

They told The Times: “This is not an ordinary attendance by members of the public. The footage shows them within the formal line of foreign dignitaries paying their respects before Khamenei’s coffin, in the same ceremonial setting used for heads of state, political representatives and invited international figures.

“That strongly suggests recognised access and a level of connection to the Iranian state, and the office of the supreme leader, which goes far beyond ordinary religious sympathy.”