The Shia World's Most Sacred City — the burial place of Imam Ali and home to the largest cemetery on Earth, where the Imam Ali Shrine's golden dome has drawn pilgrims for 1,400 years and the Wadi-us-Salaam necropolis holds 5 million souls
Najaf is the holiest city in Shia Islam after Mecca and Medina — the burial place of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (the Prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, and the first Imam of Twelver Shia Islam, who was assassinated in 661 CE). The Imam Ali Shrine's golden dome — rebuilt, expanded, and regilded over fourteen centuries — draws an estimated 10–20 million pilgrims annually from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, and the broader Shia world. The adjacent Wadi-us-Salaam (Valley of Peace) cemetery covers approximately 1,500 acres and contains an estimated 5 million graves — it is the largest cemetery…
The name Najaf appears in pre-Islamic Arabian geographical sources as a rocky outcrop above a lake (Bahr al-Najaf). After the Battle of Siffin (657 CE), Imam Ali was assassinated in Kufa — 8 km from Najaf — in 661 CE; his tomb's location was kept secret by his family for decades to prevent desecration by the Umayyads, who considered him a rebel. The tomb was 'rediscovered' under the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), who ordered a shrine built over it. The Buwayhid dynasty (10th–11th centuries CE) were major patrons of the shrine and the city. Najaf was repeatedly sacked — by the Mo…