“Death Has Become a Luxury” — Soaring burial costs in Mashhad and Tehran expose deep economic decay and the regime’s exploitation of even the dead
A shocking report by the state-run daily Shargh has revealed a disturbing new reality in Iran: the cost of dying has become unaffordable for millions of impoverished Iranians. As prices for graves in Mashhad skyrocket to billions of tomans, many families are now forced to bury their loved ones in rural cemeteries — not by choice, but by economic necessity.
The report, titled “Class-Based Death” and published on November 2, described how burial costs in Mashhad — home to the shrine of the eighth Shiite Imam and one of Iran’s most religiously significant cities — have reached astronomical levels. The cemeteries under the control of Astan Quds Razavi, a massive religious and financial conglomerate directly supervised by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, now charge between 100 million and 1.2 billion tomans for a single burial plot.
Even the municipal cemetery, Behesht Reza, which falls under Mashhad’s City Hall, offers no relief: prices there range from 6 million to 1.8 billion tomans, effectively excluding the poor and even much of the middle class.
A Cruel Reality: Poverty Extends to the Grave
According to Shargh, these “staggering prices, combined with worsening economic hardship,” have driven families to bury their deceased relatives in nearby villages, where costs are lower or sometimes free. But this influx has overwhelmed small rural cemeteries.
One villager told the paper that “the flood of people from Mashhad seeking burial space for their loved ones has left us without room for our own dead.” Another resident described how outsiders now arrive at night to bury their deceased in village graveyards: “We fenced off the cemetery, but they still come. We’re trying to stop it, but it keeps happening.”
These accounts expose a grim portrait of life — and death — in Iran under a regime that has commercialized every aspect of existence, from basic healthcare and housing to the right to rest in peace.
Expanding Crisis Beyond Mashhad
This phenomenon is not confined to Mashhad. Similar reports have emerged across Iran in recent years, as the country’s burial capacity nears collapse due to a mix of corruption, mismanagement, and profiteering.
In Tehran, the situation has become critical. In May 2024, Mehdi Pirhadi, head of the Urban Services Commission of Tehran’s City Council, warned that the Behesht Zahra Cemetery, the capital’s largest burial ground, is reaching full capacity. Without immediate construction of a new cemetery, he said, “there will be no space left for the deceased by autumn.”
Despite repeated promises, the regime has failed to build new burial sites, while prices for existing plots have soared. The council’s decree in 2024 raised the price of a “reserved grave” from 3.9 million tomans in 2023 to 15 million tomans in 2024 — a nearly fourfold increase in just one year.
The Regime’s Endless Greed
Behind these outrageous costs lies the broader machinery of the regime’s economic corruption and plunder. Institutions like Astan Quds Razavi, with vast untaxed wealth and political power, have transformed sacred and public spaces into profit centers. Instead of serving citizens, they exploit them — even in death.
Meanwhile, years of inflation, economic collapse, and mismanagement have left millions struggling to afford food, medicine, or housing. The same policies that have driven families into poverty now deny them the dignity of a proper burial.
The rise of what Iranians now call “class-based death” encapsulates the reality of life under the Islamic Republic: corruption enriches the ruling elite while ordinary citizens cannot even afford to die.
A Nation Deprived of Dignity — in Life and Death
What was once a religious or communal duty has turned into an unaffordable transaction overseen by institutions loyal to the regime. Cemeteries that should offer solace have become symbols of inequality and greed.
In today’s Iran, even the grave has a price tag, and as the regime’s corruption deepens, the line between the living and the dead blurs — both trapped in a system that feeds on despair.
