Najaf
Wadi al-Salam, the "Valley of Peace", spreads north and west from the shrine of Sayyiduna Ali in Najaf and is one of the largest cemeteries in the world.…
Wadi al-Salam, the "Valley of Peace", spreads north and west from the shrine of Sayyiduna Ali in Najaf and is one of the largest cemeteries in the world. Muslims have been buried here for more than fourteen centuries, many brought from across Iraq and beyond to lie near Imam Ali, and it holds millions of graves, among them those of many scholars. Iraq placed it on UNESCO's tentative list of World Heritage Sites in 2011. The cemetery is a dense landscape of brick graves, domed family tombs and underground family vaults, crossed by lanes that locals number as openings (fatha). Within it stand the shrine of Nabi Hud and Nabi Salih and maqams of Imam al-Mahdi and Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. The roof of the multi-storey car park near the Imam Ali shrine gives a wide view across it, and visitors should keep to the main lanes, as some of the oldest vaults are fragile.