Tonight, rows of chairs stretching across this space are filled for an open-air debate on issues such as whether their late leader had approved negotiations with America.
One woman, veiled in black, a flag draped across her shoulders, rises from her seat and stridently takes issue with the moderator on stage, who had informed this crowd that the late ayatollah opposed talks with the enemy but then later approved them.
“Things were different then,” she shouted, stressing that their late leader never trusted the West and knew his negotiators would be proven wrong.
A short time later, the topic shifts. Another woman takes the microphone and highlights the importance of hijab – head coverings for women.
“But we shouldn’t be so tough towards those who don’t want to wear it, I think it is a time which calls for national unity,” she advises in an unexpected sign of openness.
A young woman, also in black and bearing a flag, approaches us to declare in English: “We only negotiate with President Trump from our position of strength.”
Nineteen-year-old Reyhaneh, who is studying microbiology at the University of Tehran, also holds a photograph of the new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
She bats away my question that no one seems to have seen him since he was seriously injured in the attack which killed his father.
“Everything is in his hands now, and in the future too,” she insists.
As we leave the square, there is a sudden roar.
A convoy of white and black turbaned mullahs in camouflage, guns strapped across their chests, growls past in a parade of motorcycles – another startling moment of this night.
