Blue Mosque

The Blue Mosque of Mazar-i-Sharif, known in Persian as the Rawza-ye Sharif, the noble shrine, is the building from which the city takes its name: Mazar-i-Sharif means “tomb of the exalted one”. According to a tradition widespread in the region, it holds the remains of Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, though most Muslims believe he is buried at Najaf in Iraq.

Tradition holds that a shrine was raised here in the twelfth century by the Seljuk sultan Sanjar and destroyed during the Mongol invasions. The present shrine was built in 1481 under the Timurid ruler Sultan Husayn Bayqara of Herat, after the tomb was rediscovered, and it has been extended and redecorated many times since, most visibly in the twentieth century.

Its exterior is covered almost entirely in glazed tile, mostly blue and turquoise, with domes and minarets forming a single shimmering mass. The courtyard is famous for its flocks of white doves; local belief holds that any grey pigeon joining them turns white within weeks. At Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the shrine is the setting for the Jahenda festival, when a large banner is raised in the courtyard and crowds gather around it, an occasion that draws people from across northern Afghanistan.