Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE MARTYRDOM OF IMAM REZA
Within Mashhad's Holy Shrine, pilgrims break into conspicuous, heartfelt outpourings of grief for murdered Imam
Reza as though his assassination (with poisoned grapes and pomegranate juice) were only yesterday. In fact it was
in AD 818.
The story starts 20 years earlier with Haroun ar-Rashid, immortalised as the great caliph in the
Arabian Nights
fairy tales. Less fictionally, Haroun ruled the Abbasid caliphate and was very influential in bringing Greek-style
analytic thinking and cosmopolitan sophistication to Arab-Muslim society. His temporal power was unassailable.
But he coveted the spiritual pre-eminence of Musa, the seventh Shiite Imam. Musa was eventually slapped into
Haroun's Baghdad jail, then killed.
Musa's 35-year-old son Ali al-Raza (Razavi) inherited his father's pious mantle, becoming Imam Reza. Mean-
while, after Haroun's death, Haroun's sons Ma'mun and Amin slogged out a civil war to succeed their dad as caliph.
Ma'mun, based temporarily in Merv, emerged victorious but needed Reza's help to calm a series of revolts. Having
failed to entice the Imam to support him voluntarily in this effort, Ma'mun's agents dragged Reza forcibly across re-
bellious regions as a symbol of imperial power. However, the ploy appeared to backfire. The Imam's charismatic
presence captivated the royal court, leaving Ma'mun worried that he'd be upstaged. So out came those deadly
grapes. Ma'mun disguised the crime by honouring Reza's body with burial in Sanabad (today's Mashhad) close to
Ma'mun's own father (and Reza's father's nemesis) Caliph Haroun.
In 1928, nonreligious buildings within 180m of the Holy Shrine were flattened to make
way for the Haram's biggest enlargement to date. Prior to the 1979 revolution this reli-
gious 'island' was further expanded to 320m and construction has continued apace ever
since. When historians look back on the era of the Islamic Republic, they will point to the
Haram as its greatest architectural achievement. Meanwhile, the charitable foundation that
manages the shrine,
Astan-e Qods e Razavi
(
www.aqrazavi.org
)
, has become a business
conglomerate, managing enterprises from baking to carpets, and minerals to transport. But
most of the money comes from donations, bequests and the selling of grave sites: to be
buried near the Imam is a great honour and suitably expensive (see Boq'eh-ye Khajeh
Rabi,
Click here
)
.
During the Iran-Iraq War, Mashhad's population ballooned as it was the furthest Iranian
city from the front line. Many stayed on and the metropolis is now Iran's second biggest, a
huge, unwieldy and rather polluted sprawl with the Haram as Mashhad's physical, as well
as spiritual centre. Construction around the Haram never seems to end: eventual enlarge-
ment plans supposedly include the partial destruction of Andarzgu St's north side.
