Shrine of Al-Hurr ibn Yazid al-Riyahi

The shrine of Al-Hurr ibn Yazid al-Riyahi lies about 5-9 km west of Karbala, Iraq, in an area now named Nahiyat al-Hurr after him. Al-Hurr was the Umayyad commander sent to intercept Imam Hussain's caravan before Karbala; he held the caravan in place on Yazid's orders but treated Hussain with visible respect, and on the morning of Ashura he broke ranks, rode over to Hussain's side, and was killed fighting for him. He is revered by Shia Muslims as the foremost symbol of repentance and the choice of truth over power, even at the last possible moment. His tribe reportedly recovered his body from the battlefield and buried it apart from the other Karbala martyrs, at what became his present shrine. According to a widely repeated tradition, when the Safavid Shah Ismail I ordered al-Hurr's grave opened during a visit to Karbala, the body was found uncorrupted with fresh blood still at the wound, prompting Ismail to fund the first domed structure over the grave; the tomb chamber, courtyard, and iwans were rebuilt again in 1912 (1330 AH). The shrine remains a major pilgrimage stop for visitors traveling to Karbala, historically approached along garden paths beside the Husayniyah river.