Shiraz, Iran
Shah Cheragh
Ahmad . Muhammad
Shah Cheragh ("King of Light") is a funerary monument and mosque complex in Shiraz, Iran, built around the tomb of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Musa, a son of the seventh Imam, Musa al-Kadhim, and a brother of Imam Reza. His brother Sayyid Muhammad is also buried at the site. Local tradition holds that the location was discovered when a nobleman noticed a mysterious light shining from the grave, prompting the name. A modest tomb was first built over the site in the 12th century under the Seljuks; the complex was greatly expanded roughly two centuries later by Queen Tash Khatun, mother of the Inju ruler Abu Ishaq, who added a hall, a college, and her own mausoleum, and donated an illuminated Quran now preserved in the Pars Museum. The shrine has been damaged and rebuilt several times, notably after a major earthquake in 1588, with its most extensive reconstruction carried out under the Qajar dynasty. Shah Cheragh is renowned above all for its interior: walls and ceilings covered entirely in mirror-mosaic (aina-kari) tilework that scatters chandelier and window light across the chamber. It ranks as the third-holiest Shia pilgrimage site in Iran, after the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom, and was added to Iran's National Heritage List in 1942. A museum within the complex, established in 1925, holds pottery, coins, manuscripts, and weapons spanning the Parthian, Sasanian, Safavid, and Qajar periods. On 26 October 2022 the shrine was the site of a terrorist attack claimed by ISIS in which at least 13 people were killed.
Shah Cheragh
Map