On 8 January 2017, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the fourth President of Iran and the country's Chairman of Expediency Discernment Council, died at the age of 82 after suffering a heart attack.

The ceremony was also attended by Rafsanjani's family, Iranian officials like President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet, parliament members and its chairman Ali Larijani, Tehran Friday prayer Imam Mohammed Emami-Kashani, Chief of Staff for the Armed Forces Major General Mohammad Bagheri and Quds Forces commander Major General Qasem Soleimani, Ruhollah Khomeini's survivors (specially Hassan Khomeini), former parliament chairman and a close friend Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, former MP and presidential election rival Ahmad Tavakoli, former government members (Akbar Torkan, Mohsen Rafighdoost, Ahmad Madani, Abdullah Nouri, Manouchehr Mottaki etc.

[citation needed] Hours after his death, his office announced that a state funeral would be held on 11 January in University of Tehran, with the place of burial being Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini.

[4] Thousands of the people and government officials attended the ceremony and Ali Khamenei performed the ritual prayer for the deceased (Salat al-Mayyit) in his funeral.

The truck carrying Rafsanjani's coffin topped with his trademark white turban inched down Enqelab Street, one of the capital's main thoroughfares.

A memorial service in honour of Rafsanjani was held on 14 January 2017 in Najaf's Imam Ali shrine which was attended by key Shiite clerics.

The authorities were forced to raise the volume on the loudspeakers playing lamentation songs after some in the crowds took up cries of using name of former presidential candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011.