Samarra, Iraq
Al-Askari Shrine
Ali al-Hadi . Hasan al-Askari
Severely damaged by bombings in 2006 and 2007; the golden dome was destroyed and later rebuilt.
The shrine of the tenth and eleventh Shia Imams, Ali al-Hadi and his son Hasan al-Askari, in Samarra, Iraq, built in 944 CE over the house where both lived under Abbasid house arrest and died. Also entombed within are Hakima Khatun, sister of the ninth Imam, and Narjis, mother of the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi. An adjoining domed structure, the Serdab, marks the cellar where tradition holds the Mahdi entered the Minor Occultation, giving him his title of the Hidden Imam. The shrine's golden dome was added in 1905 under Qajar patronage, covered in 72,000 gold pieces. It was destroyed in a 2006 al-Qaeda bombing that triggered a wave of sectarian violence and helped ignite the Iraqi Civil War; the two remaining minarets were then destroyed in a second bombing in 2007. The dome and minarets were rebuilt and the shrine reopened in 2009. It sits within the Samarra Archaeological City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site listed as endangered since its 2007 inscription.
Al-Askari Shrine
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