Najaf
— — the gold dome that holds the silence.
Not only on a wall.
“One of the holiest cities in Shia Islam, about a hundred and sixty kilometres south of Baghdad. The Imam Ali Shrine sits at the centre, the burial place of Ali ibn Abi Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, under a gilded dome visible across the plateau. Pilgrims arrive year-round, and the call to prayer carries far in the dry air.
Najaf, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Najaf lies in central Iraq, on the western edge of the Euphrates valley about 160 kilometres south of Baghdad, with a metropolitan population estimated above one million. The city is built around the Imam Ali Shrine, completed in its present gilded form in the late tenth century and rebuilt repeatedly across a thousand years. It is one of the two holiest sites in Shia Islam, alongside the shrines of Karbala, and the seat of the Najaf hawza, a thousand-year-old centre of Shia religious scholarship.
The Imam Ali Shrine's dome was first clad in gold in the eighteenth century under Nader Shah of Persia. The structure has been rebuilt many times — Safavid, Qajar, and modern Iraqi restorations have left successive layers across a thousand years. The current dome carries roughly 7,777 gold-plated tiles above the burial chamber of Ali ibn Abi Talib. Interior walls are mirrored mosaic, the prayer halls are floored in deep carpet, and the courtyard tiles are kept cool under ceiling fans through the long Iraqi summer.
The shrine is open to visitors year-round, though Arba'een, the forty-day commemoration after Ashura, draws several million pilgrims walking from Karbala to Najaf along a route lined with mawakib, voluntary roadside kitchens and rest stops. Non-Muslim visitors are generally permitted in the outer courtyards. Modest dress is required, photography is restricted near the burial chamber, and the cool months from November through March are far easier on travellers than the long summer when daytime temperatures pass forty-five Celsius.