Imam Reza Shrine

The mausoleum of Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Shia Imam, in Mashhad, Iran. It is the most-visited pilgrimage site in Islam, drawing an estimated 30 million pilgrims a year, and at 1.2 million square meters is the third-largest mosque complex in the world after the two holy mosques of Mecca and Medina. Imam Reza was poisoned in 818 CE on the order of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun and buried beside the earlier grave of caliph Harun al-Rashid; the site became known as Mashhad al-Ridha, "the place of martyrdom of al-Ridha." A modest domed structure first appeared over the grave by the end of the 9th century, and the shrine has been destroyed, plundered, and rebuilt many times since — by Ghaznavid and Seljuq rulers, then reconstructed on a grand scale under the Mongol convert Öljaitü, the Timurids (whose Empress Goharshad funded the adjoining mosque bearing her name in 1418), and the Safavids, who made Mashhad a center of Twelver Shi'ism after 1501. The complex now spans seven courtyards and 14 minarets, and also houses a museum, library, several seminaries, and a university. It has twice been the site of violent state repression — the 1935 Goharshad Mosque massacre under Reza Shah, and a shooting in 1978 under his son — as well as a 1994 bombing and a 2022 stabbing attack that killed two clerics.

Photographs

The holy shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, Iran. Uploaded as part of Wiki Loves Monuments 2018.

Photo by Sadeq Rashidi Fard, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons