Basra
This shrine in the al-Madina district, near al-Huwayr (Izz al-Din Salim), is honoured as the grave of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Isa ibn Zayd, a grandson of Zayd ibn…
This shrine in the al-Madina district, near al-Huwayr (Izz al-Din Salim), is honoured as the grave of Sayyid Ahmad ibn Isa ibn Zayd, a grandson of Zayd ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn, known locally as Imam Ahmad ibn Ali. Born in Kufa around 158 AH, he became one of the foremost scholars of his family. The Abbasid caliphs pursued him for much of his life, so that he lived in hiding and was called al-Mukhtafi, the Hidden One, and he passed away in Basra in Ramadan 247 AH. His hadith and legal teaching were gathered by Muhammad ibn Mansur al-Muradi in a collection known as the Amali of Ahmad ibn Isa. The shrine and its mosque serve the villages of this stretch of the Euphrates, with daily congregational prayers and gatherings on religious occasions, and visitors come to it from across the southern provinces. It lies about 70 km north of Basra city, and al-Qurna, with Adam's Tree at the meeting of the rivers, is about 11 km to the east.