With the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei beginning in Tehran from the 4th local time, criticism is emerging that the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosalla, the large-scale worship complex in central Tehran where the funeral is being held, has become a symbol of the Khamenei regime's ineptitude.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 5th local time in a story headlined "Where the slain Iranian supreme leader lies, a 40-year-unfinished building symbolizing his failures" that "although it has been nearly 40 years since serious planning and construction began, the Grand Mosalla still has not been completed, and many parts are worn and damaged, requiring extensive repairs."
In fact, even when Khamenei's funeral was held, the two minarets of the Mosalla were unfinished, with rebar exposed. A large tower crane still stood next to the massive green dome, showing that construction was ongoing.
The situation inside the building was not much different. According to the NYT, one of the parking lots where reporters gathered had asphalt peeled away, exposing dust and gravel, and the long stairways that mourners climbed to pray and pay respects were broken and worn in many places. A disaster management official in Tehran said authorities had identified a total of 235 safety issues at the complex.
Construction of the Mosalla was pursued right after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Iran introduced clerical rule. A new prayer space was needed to hold larger Friday prayers in the capital, Tehran, after the revolution.
In 1988, Khamenei, then Iran's president, sent a letter to Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic and its first supreme leader, requesting that about 1.02 million square meters (about 310,000 pyeong) in north-central Tehran be allocated for the Mosalla, and the project gained full momentum after Khomeini approved it.
The Iranian government adopted a design by architect Parviz Moayyed Ahad, inspired by Persian and Islamic traditions, and began construction in the mid-1990s. It now features a grand entrance (portico) about 72 meters high, a dome about 63 meters high, two minarets about 135 meters high, and a central plaza that can hold about 65,000 people.
However, despite multiple delays to the completion date, the work has still not been finished. The independent Iranian outlet Financial Tribune reported that by 2017 about $1 billion (about 1.4 trillion won) had been spent on the Mosalla project, and project managers said a further $2 billion would be needed to complete it within five years.
During Khamenei's tenure, the Mosalla project was assigned to an organization under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but for years government bodies blamed one another for the delays. In 2015, the Mosalla side publicly claimed that the Tehran municipal government at the time had slowed the work.
The NYT said, "The condition of the facility stood in stark contrast to the Iranian government's effort during the weeklong mourning period to project at home and abroad the image of a strong and capable nation that had withstood wars with the United States and Israel."
Mahdieh Gholou, an Iranian-born journalist and activist based in Sweden, criticized on social media (SNS), "Whatever they do, they cannot erase the two unfinished, asymmetrical minarets from the photos. They symbolize the incompetence and corruption of the Khamenei era."