Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in Tehran on June 3, 1989, after a period of serious illness and surgery, and was buried in a major shrine complex near Behesht-e Zahra cemetery.

Quick Scoop: What happened to Ayatollah Khomeini?

1. His final days

  • Khomeini had been in failing health for some time, including internal bleeding and cancer.
  • He was hospitalized for surgery to stop internal bleeding and remained in the hospital for about eleven days.
  • He died on June 3, 1989, in Tehran, with Iranian authorities later confirming cancer as the underlying cause.

2. Immediate aftermath and funeral

  • His death triggered massive public mourning across Iran, with people pouring into the streets and major cities.
  • Reports describe over 10 million people attending his funeral, making it one of the largest gatherings for a state funeral in modern history.
  • He was buried in a gold-domed tomb near Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran, which soon became a pilgrimage site for his supporters.

3. Who took over after him?

  • Following his death, the Assembly of Experts selected Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the next Supreme Leader within weeks, even though he did not have Khomeini’s high clerical rank.
  • Khamenei then ruled Iran for decades and became closely associated with preserving and expanding the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary line that Khomeini had established.

4. His last big moves before death

  • In the final phase of his rule, Khomeini oversaw the end of the Iran–Iraq War, which left Iran economically and socially exhausted.
  • In 1988, he issued a secret fatwa that led to mass executions of political prisoners, especially supporters of the MEK; estimates often cite around 5,000 deaths.
  • In February 1989, only months before his death, he issued the famous fatwa calling for the killing of writer Salman Rushdie over “blasphemy” in the novel The Satanic Verses , signaling his desire for a hard‑line, confrontational course even after his passing.

5. Legacy and “what it meant”

From a historical perspective, “what happened to Ayatollah Khomeini” is not only that he died in 1989, but that his system outlived him.

  • He left behind a theocratic structure in which the Supreme Leader holds ultimate power over elected institutions.
  • His tomb in Tehran became a symbolic center for the Islamic Republic and its supporters, while his record—revolutionary leadership, war with Iraq, repression of opponents, and the Rushdie fatwa—remains deeply polarizing inside and outside Iran.

In short: he died in 1989 after serious illness, was mourned by millions, succeeded by Ali Khamenei, and left a powerful but highly contested legacy that still shapes Iran today.

TL;DR: Ayatollah Khomeini died of illness (cancer and internal bleeding) on June 3, 1989, in Tehran; his enormous funeral drew millions, he was succeeded by Ali Khamenei, and his revolutionary, often repressive legacy still defines the Islamic Republic’s political system.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.