Ziyarah beyond Iraq

The journey in one line

10 stops in Iran, Egypt and Uzbekistan so far. The first rung is 4 of them, and the list keeps growing.

Ziyarah simply means a visit. Muslims use the word for going to a grave or a shrine, and the practice runs far wider than the four Iraqi cities that get the attention. This list follows it outward. Iran holds the largest of these shrines. Cairo holds the densest cluster, four Ahl al-Bayt mosques within a few kilometres of each other, and most visitors walk past them without knowing what they are. Samarkand holds the grave of the man who compiled the hadith collection Sunnis rank first. The list is open. It does not claim to cover ziyarah, and it does not say anything about why you went.

Ziyarah is one of the places where Sunni and Shi'a practice overlaps more than the arguments suggest. Cairo's shrines to Zaynab, Nafisa, Aisha and the head of Husayn are visited by both. Al-Bukhari's mausoleum outside Samarkand draws pilgrims from countries that have no Shi'a population at all. What these places have in common is not doctrine but continuity. People have been coming to each of them, on foot, for more than a thousand years, and the buildings grew up around the traffic rather than the other way round.

The Iranian shrines are open all year and busiest on the birth and death anniversaries of the imam buried there. Mashhad and Qom both have their own airports or fast rail links. Entry rules for Iran differ sharply by nationality and change; check before booking anything. Cairo's four can be done in one long day on foot and by taxi. Samarkand's mausoleum is twelve kilometres outside the city and takes a half day.

Where it goes

The stops, in order

What a visit means here. Places on this journey that you have visited. A visit means the public shrine area or mosque, not the whole complex, and it carries no claim about practice.

1. 1

   Imam Reza Shrine

   حرم امام رضا

   Mashhad, Iran

   

   Ali al-Rida, the eighth Shi'a imam, is buried at Mashhad, and the shrine complex built around him is the largest mosque in the world by area. It holds a museum, a library, several seminaries and a university, all run by the Astan Quds Razavi foundation. The city exists because of it.

   What counts as a visit

   The shrine courtyards and the public halls of the complex.

   Access

   Iran carries travel advisories for many passports, and entry rules for some nationalities are restrictive. Check your government's current advice and the shrine's own visitor guidance. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Travel advisory

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

2. 2

   Fatima Masumeh Shrine

   حرم فاطمه معصومه

   Qom, Iran

   

   Fatima Masumeh was the sister of Imam Reza and died at Qom on her way to join him. Her shrine made Qom a centre of learning, and the seminaries around it are now the largest in Iran. The custodians run a pilgrim portal with prayers, schedules and a map of the city.

   What counts as a visit

   The shrine courtyards and the public halls.

   Access

   Iran carries travel advisories for many passports, and entry rules for some nationalities are restrictive. Check your government's current advice and the shrine's own visitor guidance. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Travel advisory

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

3. 3

   Al-Hussein Mosque

   مسجد الإمام الحسين

   Cairo, Egypt

   

   Cairo believes it holds the head of Husayn ibn Ali, brought from Ashkelon in the Fatimid period, and this mosque beside Khan al-Khalili was built over it in 1154. Egypt's State Information Service describes the three white marble doors onto the bazaar and the Green Gate beside the dome. It is one of the busiest devotional spaces in the old city.

   What counts as a visit

   The mosque and the shrine chamber that is open to visitors.

   Access

   A working mosque in a dense bazaar district. Prayer times and the Friday sermon govern access, and rules for the shrine chamber differ from the prayer hall. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

4. 4

   Shah Cheragh

   شاه‌چراغ

   Shiraz, Iran

   

   Ahmad and Muhammad, brothers of Imam Reza, are buried in Shiraz, and the shrine over them is named Shah Cheragh, the king of the light. The interior is faced in millions of small mirror facets that turn the whole chamber into a field of reflections. It is the third holiest shrine in Iran after Mashhad and Qom.

   What counts as a visit

   The shrine courtyard and the public halls.

   Access

   Iran carries travel advisories for many passports, and entry rules for some nationalities are restrictive. Check your government's current advice and the shrine's own visitor guidance. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Travel advisory

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

5. 5

   Al-Sayeda Zainab Mosque

   مسجد السيدة زينب

   Cairo, Egypt

   

   Zaynab bint Ali was the sister of Husayn and the voice that carried the story of Karbala afterwards. Cairo holds one of the shrines claimed for her, and the square in front of it gives its name to a whole district of the city. The mosque reopened in 2024 after a long restoration.

   What counts as a visit

   The mosque and the shrine chamber that is open to visitors.

   Access

   A working mosque at the centre of a busy district. Prayer times govern access. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

6. 6

   Shah Abdol-Azim Shrine

   حرم شاه عبدالعظیم حسنی

   Rey, Tehran, Iran

   

   Abd al-Azim al-Hasani was a descendant of Imam Hasan and a transmitter of hadith, and his shrine at Rey on the southern edge of Tehran is the ziyarah most Tehranis can reach in an afternoon. Two other imamzadehs are buried in the same complex. It is the closest major shrine to the Iranian capital.

   What counts as a visit

   The shrine courtyards and the public halls.

   Access

   Iran carries travel advisories for many passports, and entry rules for some nationalities are restrictive. Check your government's current advice and the shrine's own visitor guidance. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Travel advisory

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

7. 7

   Al-Sayeda Nafeesah Mosque

   جامع السيدة نفيسة

   Cairo, Egypt

   

   Nafisa bint al-Hasan was a great-great-granddaughter of the Prophet and a scholar whose lessons al-Shafi'i is said to have attended. She settled in Cairo and was buried there in 824. Her mosque is one of the oldest continuously visited shrines in the city.

   What counts as a visit

   The mosque and the shrine chamber that is open to visitors.

   Access

   A working mosque in the southern cemetery district. Prayer times govern access. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

8. 8

   Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i

   قبة الإمام الشافعي

   Cairo, Egypt

   

   Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i founded one of the four Sunni schools of law and died in Cairo in 820. The Ayyubid dome over his grave, built in 1211, is the largest free-standing wooden dome in Egypt. Visitors still leave written petitions at the cenotaph.

   What counts as a visit

   The mausoleum chamber and the mosque beside it.

   Access

   Managed by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Opening hours and ticketing are published on the official page. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

9. 9

   Sayeda Aisha Mosque

   مسجد السيدة عائشة

   Cairo, Egypt

   

   Aisha bint Ja'far al-Sadiq, a descendant of the Prophet through the sixth imam, is buried on the edge of the southern cemetery. Her mosque is the fourth of Cairo's Ahl al-Bayt shrines and the least visited by outsiders. It sits beside one of the old city gates.

   What counts as a visit

   The mosque and the shrine chamber that is open to visitors.

   Access

   A working mosque on a busy road junction. Prayer times govern access. Checked 2026-09-16.

   Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

10. 10

    Mausoleum of Imam al-Bukhari

    ضريح البخاري

    Samarkand, Uzbekistan

    

    Muhammad al-Bukhari compiled the hadith collection Sunni Muslims treat as the most reliable after the Quran, and he was buried in a village outside Samarkand in 870. The memorial complex around his grave was rebuilt in 1998 and is now the main ziyarah destination in Central Asia. Pilgrims come from across the Muslim world.

    What counts as a visit

    The memorial complex, the mosque and the museum.

    Access

    An open complex about twelve kilometres from Samarkand. Check current opening hours on the national tourism page. Checked 2026-09-16.

    Check access · last checked September 16, 2026

Respect and access

Dress conservatively at every stop. Iranian shrines provide a chador at the gate for women who need one; Egyptian mosques expect shoes off and shoulders and knees covered. Photography is restricted inside most shrine chambers and sometimes banned outright. People here are praying, grieving or asking for something, and a lens pointed at them is an intrusion. Nothing you record in this app is a statement about your own beliefs.

Travel advisory

A government advisory currently applies to this area. Read the current advisory before planning anything.

Opening times, prices, permits and eligibility change. Nothing on this page is a statement about today. Follow the Check access link on a place before you plan around it.

Sources

• news.razavi.irhttps://news.razavi.ir/en/services/1/1 · checked September 16, 2026
• amfm.irhttps://amfm.ir/ · checked September 16, 2026
• shahecheragh.irhttps://shahecheragh.ir/ · checked September 16, 2026
• abdulazim.comhttps://www.abdulazim.com/ · checked September 16, 2026
• sis.gov.eghttps://sis.gov.eg/en/egypt/tourism/religious-tourism/al-hussein-mosque/ · checked September 16, 2026
• sis.gov.eghttps://sis.gov.eg/en/egypt/tourism/religious-tourism/sayyida-zeinab-mosque/ · checked September 16, 2026
• sis.gov.eghttps://sis.gov.eg/en/egypt/tourism/religious-tourism/sayyida-nafisa-mosque/ · checked September 16, 2026
• sis.gov.eghttps://sis.gov.eg/en/egypt/tourism/religious-tourism/sayyida-aisha-mosque/ · checked September 16, 2026
• egymonuments.gov.eghttps://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/monuments/imam-al-shafi-i-mosque/ · checked September 16, 2026
• uzbekistan.travelhttps://uzbekistan.travel/en/o/mausoleum-of-imam-al-bukhari/ · checked September 16, 2026

TravelDay selected and grouped these places. Naming a custodian, a government agency or UNESCO as a source is not a claim that any of them endorsed this journey.