Shrine of Khwaja Abd Allah

The Shrine of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari at Gazur Gah just east of Herat is one of the most important Sufi pilgrimage sites in the eastern Islamic world and a masterpiece of Timurid religious architecture. The shrine is the burial place of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari (1006-1088 CE), an eleventh-century Persian Sunni Hanbali scholar, mystic and poet of the Naqshbandi precursor tradition who spent his life in Herat and is venerated as the principal patron saint of the city. His Persian-language Sufi works — particularly the Munajat ("Intimate Conversations" with God) — have been continuously read and copied for over nine centuries and represent some of the foundational texts of Persian Sufi devotional literature. The shrine complex was substantially rebuilt and expanded between 1425 and 1428 by the Timurid sultan Shah Rukh in honour of his spiritual ancestor, with construction overseen by the great Timurid architect Qavam al-Din of Shiraz. The complex is laid out around a central rectangular courtyard with the great Pishtaq portal at one end and Khwaja Ansari's simple grave at the centre, surrounded by the tombs of dozens of later Heratis who chose to be buried near the saint, including members of the Timurid royal family. The pishtaq is covered in the brilliant blue and turquoise majolica tilework characteristic of Timurid religious architecture and represents one of the finest surviving examples of the genre.