Ali's Capital, and the Blow in the Mosque

Kufa was laid out in 638 as a camp for the armies moving into Iraq and Iran, and within twenty years it was a capital. Ali ibn Abi Talib moved his government there during the first civil war, because the settlers of Kufa supported him against the Syrian army of Muawiya, and the city became the base of the party that would in time be called the Shia.

It also produced the first split within that party. When Ali agreed to arbitration after the battle of Siffin, a body of his own troops rejected the decision on the ground that judgement belongs to God alone, withdrew, and became the Kharijites. Ali defeated them at Nahrawan, and it was a man from that movement who struck him with a poisoned sword during the dawn prayer in the mosque of Kufa in the month of Ramadan in 661. He died of the wound days later and was buried secretly a short distance away, at the place that became Najaf.

The Great Mosque of Kufa is therefore one of the most heavily freighted buildings in Shia devotion. It holds the spot associated with the wounding, the shrines of Muslim ibn Aqil and Hani ibn Urwa who were killed in the city before Karbala, and stations linked in tradition to earlier prophets. Twelver practice assigns particular merit to prayer performed there. The nearby mosque of Sahla is associated with expectation of the hidden imam and draws worshippers who keep vigil in it.