Maqam Ra's al-Husayn (a): Difference between revisions

On some accounts, a group of people from [[Ashkelon]] ('Asqalan) went to [[Yazid b. Mu'awiya]] and asked him to let them bury Imam al-Husayn's (a) head in their city. Yazid gave them the head; they buried the head in Ashkelon and made a mausoleum over it.<ref></ref>

According to another account, during the [[caliphate]] of [[al-Mustansir Bi-Allah al-Fatimi]], a [[Fatimid]] caliph and the ministry of Badr al-Jamali, a person saw in his dreams that Imam al-Husayn's (a) head is buried in Ashkelon. He learned the exact place in his dream. When he woke up, they exhumed the place he saw in his dream, and they found the head. Badr al-Jamali made a mausoleum over the place.

According to [[Yaqut al-Hamawi]], there is a mausoleum in [[Cairo]] where Imam al-Husayn's (a) head is buried. Sibt b. al-Jawzi took the fifth view about where the head was buried to be that it was buried in Cairo: on this view, the head was moved to Ashkelon by Fatimid caliphs, and then it was moved to Cairo and buried there and a great mausoleum was built over it, which is frequently visited today.

According to some sources, when [[Abu Muslim al-Khurasani]] conquered Damascus, he moved Imam al-Husayn's (a) head to Merv and buried it in Dar al-Imara.

===Imam Sahib===

There is a mausoleum in the city of Imam Sahib, located in Kunduz province north of [[Afghanistan]]. The epigraphy at the entrance of the mausoleum reads that after the [[Event of Karbala]], Imam al-Husayn's (a) head was moved to Ashkelon in Syria. In the sixth/twelfth century, the Fatimid caliph of [[Egypt]] moved the head to Egypt, but before the head was buried there, some Turks took the head to Bactria and buried it in a place called Arhang. In this place (just like the mausoleum of Shahmardan in [[Mazar-i-Sharif]]), the flag of the mausoleum is taken every year on March 30, and then there is a ceremony in the city for forty days. Local officials and visitors from nearby and distant places attend the ceremony.

Given that most of these views have appeared in Sunni sources and have problems with respect to their chains of narrations as well as their contents, most Shiite scholars maintained the view that Imam al-Husayn's (a) head was attached to his body and is thus buried in his [[Holy Shrine of Imam al-Husayn (a)|holy shrine in Karbala]]. According to some historical reports, the head of Imam al-Husayn (a) was attached to the body and buried on the [[Arba'in day]] of the [[61 AH|61 lunar year]].