Sayyida Zaynab Mosque

A mosque in the town of Sayyidah Zaynab, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, which Twelver Shia tradition holds contains the grave of Zaynab bint Ali — daughter of Ali and Fatima, and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. She is remembered above all for her role after the Battle of Karbala, where she cared for the surviving women and children and confronted the Umayyad court over the killing of her brother Husayn. Sunni and Ismaili tradition instead places her tomb in Cairo, but the Damascus shrine has become the center of Twelver devotion to her since the 1980s, drawing pilgrims from across the Muslim world, especially in summer. The present mosque was completed in 1990, with a golden dome and twin minarets decorated by Iranian artists, and has been managed by the Mourtada family since the 14th century. It has been heavily funded by Iran since 1979 and became a focal point of Shia mobilization during the Syrian civil war, when Hezbollah guarded the shrine until withdrawing before the fall of Damascus in December 2024. The town and shrine were repeatedly targeted by car and suicide bombings between 2008 and 2023, including twin 2016 attacks that killed roughly 200 people combined.