Najaf, in southern Iraq, holds the tomb of Ali ibn Abi Talib and is the intellectual capital of Shia Islam, a city whose life is organised around a shrine and a school.
The hidden grave
Ali, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, is the fourth caliph in Sunni reckoning and the first Imam in Shia belief. He was struck down while at prayer in nearby Kufa in 661. Shia tradition holds that his burial place was deliberately kept secret for well over a century, known only within his family, to protect it from desecration by his enemies, until the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, made it public. A shrine grew over the grave, its golden dome and minarets rebuilt and enriched by successive dynasties, and it became one of the principal destinations of Shia pilgrimage.
The hawza and the marjaiyya
Beside the shrine stands the hawza, the seminary that has trained Shia scholars for roughly a thousand years and remains the most prestigious centre of Shia learning. From Najaf the senior jurists, the maraji or sources of emulation whom the faithful follow in religious practice, exercise a quiet but very wide authority; the tradition of scholarly guidance based here, distinct from the state-centred model developed in Iran, has shaped modern Shia Islam across the region.
City of the dead and the living
Adjoining Najaf is Wadi al-Salam, the "valley of peace", a cemetery of several square kilometres often described as the largest in the world, where Shia from across the region seek burial in order to lie near Ali. Najaf remains an active shrine city, drawing pilgrims in enormous numbers, especially around the commemorations of the Shia calendar, and a working centre of scholarship rather than a monument.