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Damascus, Al-Amara district, Syria

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque

Ruqayya bint Husayn (Sukaynah)

A mosque and mausoleum in the Al-Amara district of Damascus, Syria, near the Umayyad Mosque, holding the grave of Sukaynah — known as Ruqayya bint Husayn — the young daughter of Imam Husayn. Shia tradition holds that she died around age three or four in the prison of the Umayyad caliph Yazid, in the aftermath of the Battle of Karbala and the captives' forced journey to Damascus, and that her body was later moved to this site after her original grave flooded. The current mosque was built around her mausoleum in 1985 in a modern Iranian architectural style, with extensive mirror and gold work inside a single-domed shrine room. Her story is commemorated annually during Muharram and Safar, and the site is regarded by Shia Muslims as a symbol of the suffering endured by the youngest members of the Prophet's family after Karbala.

Damascus, Al-Amara district, Syria

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque

Map

Ziyarat

Ziyarat of Sakina bint al-Husayn

Recited at the shrine of Ruqayya (Sakina), youngest daughter of Imam al-Husayn (AS), who died in the Damascus prison after Karbala.

Traditional ziyarat texts