Ezra's Tomb
Ezra's Tomb | |
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Maysan Province, Iraq | |
Location in Iraq | |
Geographic coordinates | 31°19′30″N 47°24′55″E / 31.32496°N 47.41522°E |
Architecture | |
Type | Islamic architecture |
Completed | c. 1800 CE |
Specifications | |
Dome(s) | 1 |
Shrine(s) | 1 |
Ezra's Tomb or the Tomb of Ezra (
History
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that Ezra died and was laid to rest in the city of Jerusalem.[1] Hundreds of years later, however, a spurious tomb in his name was claimed to have been discovered in Iraq around the year 1050.[Note a][2][3]
The tombs of ancient prophets were believed by medieval people to produce a heavenly light;
Working in the 19th century, Sir Austen Henry Layer suggested the original tomb had probably been swept away by the ever-changing course of the Tigris since none of the key buildings mentioned by Tudela was present at the time of his expedition.[11] If true, this would mean the current tomb in its place is not the same one that Tudela and later writers visited. It continues to be an active holy site today.[12]
The shrine
The present buildings, which unusually comprised a joint Muslim and Jewish shrine, are possibly around 250 years old; there is an enclosing wall and a blue-tiled dome, and a separate synagogue, which though now disused has been kept in good repair in recent times.[13]
The shrine and its associated settlement seem to have been used as a regular staging post on journeys upriver during the
The vast majority of the
Architecture
The mosque has a blue-tiled dome over the Darih (mausoleum) of Ezra. The Darih has no windows but an entrance. Inside the Darih there is a wooden cenotaph with inscriptions on it. The architecture of the mosque is very similar to other Shia shrines in Iraq.
Al-Uzair town
Al-Uzair is one of the two sub-districts of Qalat Saleh district, Maysan Province. The town itself now has a population of some 44,000 people.
Gallery
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Ezra's Tomb by British war artist Donald Maxwell, c. 1918
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Photograph of Ezra's Tomb, early 20th century. The dome is hidden bydate palms.
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The darih under the dome
See also
- Islamic view of Ezra
- Tedef, the location of another tomb attributed to Ezra in Syria
Notes
- ^Note a : According to a legend circulating among the Jews of Yemen, Ezra died in Iraq as a punishment from God for prohibiting them from ever returning to Jerusalem.
- Zhao Rugua(c. 1225) said anyone who approached the tomb "[lost] his sight."
- ^Note c : Most mention the striking blue dome, a notable landmark in a region with few buildings. An example is in the memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs, who states: "That entertaining writer's mausoleum is in my opinion a seventeenth-century structure."
- ^Note d : Rawlinson rather flippantly characterises the shrine as "a kind of hotel".
References
- ISBN 978-0-02-866097-4.
- ^ Parfitt, Tudor (1996). "The road to Redemption: the Jews of the Yemen: 1900–1950". Brill's Series in Jewish Studies (17). Leiden [u.a.]: Brill: 4.
- ^ Gordon, Benjamin Lee (1919). New Judea; Jewish Life in Modern Palestine and Egypt. Philadelphia: J. H. Greenstone. p. 70.
- ^ Zhao, Rukuo; Hirth, Friedrich; Rockhill, William Woodville (1966). Chau Ju-Kua: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Entitled Chu-Fanchï. New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp. p. 125.
- ^ Sirriyeh, E. (2005). Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus. Routledge. p. 122.
- ^ a b Meri, Joseph W. (2002). The Cult of Saints Among Muslims and Jews in Medieval Syria. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- ^ Goitein, S. D. (1999). A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza – The Individual. Vol. 5. Berkeley, Calif. [a.u.]: Univ. of California Press. p. 18.
- ^ Gitlitz, David M.; Davidson, Linda Kay (2006). Pilgrimage and the Jews. Westport: CT: Praeger. p. 97.
- ^ Alharizi, transl. in Benisch, A. Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon, London: Trubner & C., 1856 pp. 92–93
- ^ Petachia of Ratisbon, Rabbi. Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon, who in the latter end of the 12. century, visited Poland, Russia, Little Tartary, the Crimea, Armenia ...: translated ... by A. Benisch, with explanat. notes by the translat. and William Francis Ainsworth. London: Trubner & C., 1856, pp. 91 n. 56
- ^ Layard, Austen Henry, and Henry Austin Bruce Aberdare. Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana, and Babylonia, Including a Residence Among the Bakhtiyari and Other Wild Tribes Before the Discovery of Nineveh. Farnborough, Eng: Gregg International, 1971, pp. 214–215
- ^ Raheem Salman, "IRAQ: Amid war, a prophet's shrine survives", LA Times blog, August 17, 2008
- ^ Yigal Schleifer, Where Judaism Began
- ^ Rich, C. J. Narrative of a residence in Koordistan, J. Duncan, 1836, p.391
- ^ Storrs, Ronald (1972). The Memoirs of Sir Ronald Storrs. Ayer. p. 230.
- ^ Lawrence, T. E. (18 May 1916). "Letter". telawrence.net. Archived from the original on 31 May 2008. Retrieved 12 June 2008.
- ^ Rawlinson, A. (1923). "Chapter 2". Adventures in the Near East, 1918-1922. Melrose.
- ^ Raphaeli, N. "The Destruction of Iraqi Marshes and Their Revival". memri.org.