Shrine of Imam Reza

Mashhad takes its name from the shrine at its centre: mashhad means “place of martyrdom”. Here is buried Ali al-Rida, known in Persian as Imam Reza, the eighth imam of Twelver Shia Islam, who died in 818 at the village of Sanabad near Tus. Shia tradition holds that he was poisoned. He is the only one of the Twelver imams buried in Iran, which has made the shrine Iran's foremost place of pilgrimage.

Over twelve centuries the tomb has gathered a city of courtyards around it. Its golden dome and gold-clad iwans, the great vaulted porches that open onto courtyards, belong to several periods. Among the oldest parts of the complex is the mosque built by Goharshad, wife of the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, completed in 1418, with tilework in deep blue and turquoise that is among the finest of its age.

Today the complex is one of the largest religious precincts in the world by area, with libraries, a museum and courtyards that can hold vast crowds. Millions of pilgrims come every year, especially on the anniversary of the imam's death. Non-Muslims may usually visit the courtyards and museums with a guide, though not the inner sanctuary. A moment worth catching is the naqqareh, kettledrums and horns played from a gallery above the old courtyard around sunrise and sunset.