العتبة العلوية

The Imam Ali Shrine (Al-Atabah Al-Alawiyya) in the centre of the holy city of Najaf in southern Iraq is the most spiritually significant religious site in Shia Islam — the burial place of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, the fourth Rashidun caliph and the first of the Twelve Imams of Shia Islam. Ali was assassinated in the Great Mosque of Kufa in 661 CE while leading the dawn prayer; according to tradition his body was secretly buried at the site that became Najaf to protect the tomb from desecration during the political conflicts of the early Umayyad period, and the burial place remained known only to his closest followers until rediscovered and publicly identified in the late eighth century by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid. The shrine has been progressively expanded since by every major Shia dynasty, with the present complex bearing major Safavid, Qajar and modern Iraqi-Iranian additions. The central tomb chamber is sheathed in pure gold leaf — both the great central dome and the two flanking minarets — making the shrine one of the most visually distinctive religious buildings in the world. The complex includes multiple courtyards (sahns), prayer halls and gateways, the great Bab al-Tawus (Peacock Gate), and the surrounding Wadi al-Salam cemetery, the largest Muslim cemetery in the world. Najaf is the principal seat of Shia religious learning and home to the senior marja'iyya, including the Grand Ayatollahs of the hawza.