The area of An-Najaf is located 30 km (19 mi) south of the ancient city of
Babylon, and 400 km (248 mi) north of the ancient city of
Ur. The city itself was founded in 791 AD, by the
Abbasid Caliph Harūn ar-Rashīd, as a shrine to ‘Alī bin Abī Ṭālib.
Prehistoric and ancient times Archaeological discoveries show the existence of a people in the present-day Najaf dating back to the 1st century BC. Najaf possesses one of the largest burial grounds in the vicinity for Christians. Discoveries in the following centuries point toward the city's multicultural and diverse religious history. Mohammed al-Mayali, director of Inspectorate Effects of the province of Najaf, states "the excavation on the graves, which we have been working on for years, confirm that "Najaf" contains the largest Christian cemetery in Iraq, with a cemetery area of 1416 acres. We have found indications of Christianity on the graves through representations of crosses and stones with Christ-like engravings. There are also relics that date back to the
Sassanid period. Also discovered in the excavation was proof of a thriving glass industry. Pots were decorated with the cross. as well as Hebrew writings, indicating a community of religious coexistence."
Wadi-us-Salaam in Najaf was once a holy cemetery for
Jews and was then called Baniqia, which could be the first recorded name for the area. The name Baniqia also was found in some texts which state that Abraham once visited and stayed in this village before continuing his journey from Mesopotamia to Arabia. In
Islam, the city is considered to have started with Ali who instructed that his burial place should remain a secret, as he had many enemies and he feared that his body might be subjected to some indignity. According to legend, the body of Ali was placed on a
camel which was driven from
Kufah. The camel stopped a few miles west of the city where the body was secretly buried. No tomb was raised and nobody knew of the burial place except for a few trusted people. It is narrated that more than a hundred years later the Abbasid Caliph,
Harun al-Rashid, went
deer hunting outside Kufah, and the
deer sought sanctuary at a place where the hounds would not pursue it. On inquiry as to why the place was a sanctuary, he was told that it was the burial place of ‘Ali. Harūn ar-Rashīd ordered a mausoleum to be built on the spot and in due course the town of Najaf grew around the mausoleum.
Medieval and modern history In early 14th century, Sheikh
Ibn Battuta visited the burial site of
Ali ibn Abi Talib during his travels in Iraq after his pilgrimage to Mecca. During this period, Najaf was called Meshhed Ali. As Translated by
Samuel Lee, Ibn Battuta in his Arabic
Rihla relates: In the 16th century, Najaf was conquered by the
Ottomans, and became part of
Ottoman Iraq. The
Safavid dynasty of Iran maintained continuous interest to this Shia site. During the
Ottoman–Safavid War (1623–1639), they were twice able to capture the city, but lost it again to the Ottomans in 1638. Under the rule of the
Ottoman Empire, Najaf experienced severe difficulties as the result of repeated raids by Arab desert tribes and the Persian army with acute water shortages causing lack of a reliable water supply. The number of inhabited houses in the city had plummeted from 3,000 to just 30 by the start of the 16th century. When the Portuguese traveller
Pedro Texeira passed through Najaf in 1604, he found the city in ruins, inhabited by little more than 500 people. This was largely the result of a change in the course of the
Euphrates river eastwards in the direction of
Hilla, leaving Najaf and
Kufa high and dry, leading to the destruction of the local formerly rich agriculture, demise of the palm groves and orchards, followed by the salinization of the underground water due to evaporation. During the 18th century, the scholarly life of Najaf came to be dominated by
Farsi-speaking ‘
Ulema’ (, Scholars) from
Iran. The water shortages were finally resolved in 1803 when the Euphrates made its way to the city once again. The shift in the river's flow was the product of a century-long effort by the Ottomans to shift the flow of the river, so as to deprive marsh-dwelling tribes like the
Khaza'il of the watery environment that allowed them to evade state control. These long-term efforts rendered successful the construction of the Hindiyya Canal in 1793, which further shifted the flow of the Euphrates. These hydrological shifts were to have religious implications. Most notable was the consolidation and spread of Shi'ism. As the shrine city of Najaf gained access to water again, its notables and holy men began to wield considerable power in the area. In 1811, the last
city wall was rebuilt.
Modern period in 1932.|leftThe Ottomans were expelled in an uprising in 1915, following which the city fell under the rule of the
British Empire. The sheikhs of Najaf including Sayyed Mahdi Al-Awadi rebelled in 1918, killing the British governor of the city, and cutting off grain supplies to the
Anazzah, a tribe allied with the British. In retaliation the British
besieged the city and cut off its water supply. The rebellion was put down and the rule of the sheikhs was forcibly ended. A great number of the Shi‘i ‘Ulema’ were expelled into
Persia, where they set the foundations for the rise of the city of
Qom as the center of the Shi‘ite learning and authority, in lieu of Najaf. Najaf lost its religious primacy to Qom, and was not to regain it until the 21st century, during the establishment of a
Shī‘ī-majority government in Iraq after 2003. In the 20th century, much of the Old City was rebuilt in a series of modernization initiatives. Beginning in the 1950s, many historic buildings and monuments, including those adjoining the shrine, were demolished for the construction of Sadeq, Zainulabidin, Rasool and Tousi streets. In 1958, the city wall was torn down and replaced with a
ring road. In the 1980s, the entire area between the shrine and the city's western edge was demolished, and the residents resettled outside the city, in what locals perceived as a government reprisal for the
Shia uprising under the leadership of
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, who was based in the neighborhood. The battle lasted three weeks and ended when senior Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani negotiated an end to the battle. In 2012, Najaf was named the Cultural Centre of the Arab World. On 6 March 2021,
Pope Francis visited Najaf during his historic
papal visit to Iraq and held an interfaith dialogue with al-Sistani, where he expressed a message of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians in the country. During the ISIS war, Najaf Shiites launched solidarity initiative with Sunni areas affected by ISIS. Many Iraqis including religious minorities such as Christians from the north, as well as Lebanese Shia have found safe haven in the city. ==Geography==