On 3 June 1989, at 22:20 IRST, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Revolution and the first Supreme Leader and founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, died in Jamaran, Greater Tehran aged 89 after spending eleven days at a private hospital, near his residency, after suffering five heart attacks in ten days.

The body was displayed there on a high podium made out of steel shipping containers, in an air-conditioned glass case, wrapped in a white shroud.

[1] On 6 June, the body was brought down and the coffin opened for Grand Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Golpaygani to lead the Salat al-Janazah (funeral prayer), which lasted for 20 minutes.

[9] Afterwards, since the crowds of mourners had swelled overnight to several millions, it was impossible to deliver the body to the cemetery through Tehran to the southern part of the city in a procession.

[13] According to journalist John Kifner of The New York Times: The crowd, much of it made up of Revolutionary Guards detailed to maintain order, pulled the coffin from the helicopter and began parading it around the makeshift compound surrounding the gravesite.

The troops drove the crowd back, finally clearing the compound enough to allow the helicopter to take off, its rotors scattering more mourners.