After the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, an Islamic leader much closer to home openly mourned his “martyrdom.”
Hassan Salamey, a Shiite Muslim cleric, said at an event in Dearborn, Michigan, that the attendees were “gathered here today to commemorate the martyrdom of the great leader of our time, Sayyid Ali Hussein Khamenei.”
The event, held at the Hadi Institute, occurred on March 1, only one day after the United States and Israel killed Khamenei and several other Iranian leaders, per a report from The Christian Post.
The Middle East Media Research Institute shared footage of the event, during which Salamey spoke from behind a picture of Khamenei.
Dearborn Shiite Mosque Memorial for Khamenei: This Country Was Built by Devil-Worshipers; Statue of Liberty Is Lucifer; Khamenei Was the Great Leader of Our Time, Received Martyrdom After 86 Years of Jihad – We Want Our Children to Grow Up with This Culture pic.twitter.com/PDYfHMi9A4
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 3, 2026
Beyond mourning the death of Khamenei — whose regime was one of the largest backers of Islamic terror groups in the world — Salamey said that the United States was built by “devil-worshipers” on “stolen land” and is run by “devil-worshiping Freemasons.”
“We might think this was an attack led by Zionist Jews, but the commander of their mission is the very one who was trying to prove that Adam was not worth prostrating to,” Salamey described.
The cleric added that “Iblis,” the primary satanic figure found in the Quran, “is the one behind the scenes, leading their camp; in the shadows, lurking, irking in their symbology, their ideologies, their psychology, their economy, claiming they follow the laws of Moses in Deuteronomy.”
Salamey also contended that “regardless of the stooge we put at the desk of the Oval Office, Republican or Democrats, or even if 1,000 elections come to pass, it is clear that this country was built for and built by the Epstein class and that, just like Palestine, we live on stolen land.”
Another speaker, Usama Abdulghani, asserted that Khamenei had attained the “ultimate honor” of martyrdom following “86 years of jihad in the way of Allah,” per The Christian Post.
In 2024, Abdulghani mourned the deaths of other Islamic leaders, telling his followers that they should “enjoy” Khamenei “while he is still alive.”
We have a Muslim problem in America. https://t.co/lNzcz0Zygs
— Congressman Randy Fine (@RepFine) March 3, 2026
During the memorial over the weekend, he thanked the women who brought their families “so that our children will grow up with this culture, where we remember our martyrs and we’re not ashamed of them.”
Dearborn, Michigan, is known for having one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in the United States.
Roughly 55 percent of the 110,000 residents have ancestry from the Middle East or North Africa, per a 2024 report from The Conversation.
While most of the Arabs who came to the United States in the early 20th century were Christians, various civil wars and conflicts in the Middle East prompted Muslim refugees to enter the country.
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