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The sardab, a cellar on the north-western side of the Askari shrine in Samarra, was part of the house of Imam Ali al-Hadi and Imam Hasan al-Askari, who lived…
The sardab, a cellar on the north-western side of the Askari shrine in Samarra, was part of the house of Imam Ali al-Hadi and Imam Hasan al-Askari, who lived in Samarra while it was the Abbasid capital. In Shi'a tradition it is the place most closely associated with the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, son of Imam al-Askari, and with the beginning of his occultation in 260 AH, and it has been a place of prayer and visitation for many centuries. The Abbasid caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah had a carved wooden window made for it early in the seventh century AH. Visitors enter beneath a dome of glazed tiles and go down a mirrored staircase to the chambers below, where pilgrims pray at the mihrab associated with Imam al-Mahdi. The graves of Imam al-Hadi and Imam al-Askari lie a few steps away under the golden dome of the main shrine.