Tomb of Dhul-Kifl (Ezekiel)

The Tomb of Dhul-Kifl, in the town of al-Kifl in Iraq's Babylon Governorate, is one of the oldest and most historically layered shrines in Mesopotamia, revered by both Muslims and Jews. Islamic tradition identifies the site as the resting place of Dhu al-Kifl, a prophet named in the Quran whose historical identity is uncertain but who is widely equated with the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, and the town itself takes its name from him. For over a thousand years the tomb was one of the most important Jewish pilgrimage sites in Iraq, drawing tens of thousands of visitors during the week of Sukkot at its peak, according to the 12th-century travelers Benjamin of Tudela and Petachiah of Regensburg; a synagogue stood adjacent to the tomb, and a corridor nearby holds the graves of several Jewish sages. The current muqarnas-domed structure dates largely to the 12th-14th centuries, with the Ilkhanid ruler Oljeitu assuming guardianship of the site from the Jewish community in 1316. Jewish pilgrimage effectively ended with the exodus of Iraq's Jewish community in the 1950s, and the complex has since been maintained and increasingly redeveloped by its Muslim caretakers as the An-Nukhailah Mosque, with renovation work continuing after 2003. Hebrew and Quranic inscriptions both remain visible inside the tomb chamber, making it a rare surviving site of shared Abrahamic memory in Iraq.

Photographs

Historical 1932 photograph of the village and shrine at Al-Kifl, Iraq, venerated as the tomb of the prophet Dhul-Kifl in Islamic tradition and as Ezekiel's tomb in Jewish tradition. Library of Congress Matson Collection.

Public domain, Library of Congress Matson Collection (1932), via Wikimedia Commons