Medina, Medina Province, Saudi Arabia

Sheikh Al-Amri Mosque

A mosque of the Nakhawila, the indigenous Twelver Shia community of Medina (numbering roughly 32,000), named for Sheikh Muhammad Ali al-Amri (1909–2011), the community's longtime religious leader and marja for Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia. Al-Amri built Medina's first Shia mosque on his family farm, alongside a Husayniyya described as the most famous Shia site in the Nakhawila area and a seminary offering religious instruction. After his death in 2011, his son Hashim took over leading prayers there. The Nakhawila were historically barred from living within Medina's city walls and from praying at Al-Masjid an-Nabawi, making sites like this central to the community's religious life.