Ali Khamenei's Iranian home a site of mourning three months after his death

Standing outside the Tehran compound that was home to now-dead Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hundreds of his supporters gather every night to mourn the only leader many of them have ever known.

For almost 37 years, the ayatollah was the face and power behind Iran's Islamic revolution, a popular uprising that overthrew the secular monarchy and replaced it with an Islamic Republic in 1979.

Three months after his death in the joint Israeli-United States strikes that opened the Iran war in late February, his staunchest supporters have vowed to protect his powerful theocracy despite calls from US President Donald Trump for Iranians to overthrow their government.

In a crowd of more than 100 people in the Jomhuri neighbourhood of Tehran, Zeinab has brought her young children to a memorial for Khamenei on Shahid Keshvardoost Street.

Like every woman at the vigil, she is dressed in a traditional black chador draped over her body, her face pale with grief and tears.

"He was our father, meaning I loved him more than my own father," the 33-year-old said of the former supreme leader.

"We cannot let go of his blood, not even for a moment. We only want one thing: revenge.

"Why should Trump decide for us? We are a free nation. They don't have the right to bully the whole world. Heyhat minna al-zillah."

The saying "heyhat minna al-zillah" tells us much about Zeinab. It's the most famous Arabic saying used by hardliners, and it means a dignified death over a humiliated life.

In the eyes of his supporters, Khamenei is a martyr, not a victim of this war.

"America and Israel do not understand what they did to us; they made us stronger. They do not understand what kind of nation Iran is or who they are dealing with," Zeinab said.

"They thought if they killed our leader, the voice of global freedom would be silenced. They do not understand that this [Islamic] revolution has just become globalised."

The public mourning for Khamenei

Every night, supporters like Zeinab travel from across the vast capital to pay tribute in front of a stage where Khamenei's empty chair stands.

Leaning against it is a large photograph of his 14-month-old granddaughter, Zahra, who was also killed in the strike on his home.

Men and women, segregated by a short barrier, openly weep as prayers blast out of enormous speakers.

They are the Islamic Republic's most devout champions, members of a deeply conservative community who say they are willing to take up arms to defend their country against Israel and the United States.

"The very reason for my presence here, and the presence of others, is our devotion to, affection for, and love of Mr Khamenei," another man, 42-year-old Ali, tells us.

"Because in reality, we did not only lose our leader. We regarded him as the father of the Iranian nation and the Islamic community.

"… His passing was therefore an immense loss and an extremely painful tragedy for us. And this was the greatest crime the United States and Israel could have committed."

An uncertain legacy

Khamenei was a conservative Islamic scholar with a head for politics who succeeded his mentor, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, 10 years after the 1979 revolution.

From then, the quietly spoken theologian amassed great power, regularly intervening in political decision-making at all levels via a web of carefully cultivated relationships.

Over more than three decades, he championed medical and scientific research, accelerated Iran's nuclear capabilities, and built a formidable network of regional political and military proxies — acts that made him a hero to his people and a villain in the West.

Yet at the time of his death, he was presiding over a country suffering from about 70 per cent inflation, a plummeting currency, and waves of social unrest that had killed thousands of people since the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement in 2022.

Many see his death as a crucial opportunity to reform a political system that is broken.

"We have to change the situation dramatically inside the regime through radical reforms, in my opinion," said Saeed Laylaz, an economist in Tehran.

He warns that this change cannot come from foreign intervention. Faced with a war initiated by Israel and the US, he says Iranians have galvanised behind their government.

But for how long?

A new age of Iran?

The ABC attended events in Tehran as part of a rare reporting trip inside the country.

The government rarely allows foreign journalists into Iran. The ABC was allowed to report in Tehran under the condition that we were accompanied by a local journalist, pre-approved by the government.

This means we were granted access to particular events and places that the government likely wanted us to see, and likely projected a vision of the regime it wanted the world to see too.

But the ABC also spoke to some Iranians who did not share the regime's view.

In the leafy streets of District 6, just 5 kilometres from Khamenei's compound, young Iranians smoke cigarettes and mingle outside cafes.

Here, gen Z and millennial women have rejected the conservative dress code and headscarf mandated under Khamenei's leadership, and few are mourning his death.

"Our country has lots of potential to be the number one country in the Middle East, both economically and in terms of freedom," said Omid, a man in his 20s who asked us not to use his real name.

When asked what he thought was holding the country back, he immediately replied "the government".

He says while international sanctions have hurt, it's the months-long internet blackout imposed by authorities that has killed many businesses.

"Most of the young people here want to immigrate," his friend said.

"I have lots of friends from different disciplines like doctors, artists, engineers. They all want to immigrate."

At a wholesale grocery market in the working-class neighbourhoods of southern Tehran, the economic pain is even more acute.

"Even before the war, we were barely getting by," Samira, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told the ABC in a voice note.

"Things we used to think would be on our tables — chicken, meat, fish — gradually started disappearing."

Now, the mother-of-one says the country's economic problems are "worse" and conditions have become "very difficult".

"We have reached a point where the [grocery] bags are very small, just enough for daily consumption, just enough to think, 'How am I going to get through until tomorrow?'"

Mr Laylaz says he is optimistic that change is coming through newly the appointed supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the late ayatollah's son.

He has not been officially seen or heard in public since the war began and US leaders have said that he was severely injured in the attack that killed his father. But he has released written statements.

"If there will be a contract, a [peace] deal between Tehran and Washington … you will see a new age of Iran," Mr Laylaz said.

Still, for young Iranians, hope appears to be in short supply these days.

"We don't have a future here, but I think we can try to make it better for the next generation," Omid said.