This page groups sacred sites by whether their sacred status is still actively maintained. Wikipedia notes that Mircea Eliade "argues that while the concept of a sacred space is often associated with religious traditions, it is not exclusive to them," since secular societies can keep treating a place as significant too. Browsing this way lets a visitor tell a site with living religious observance apart from one preserved mainly for its history.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe shrines of the Imams and of the Prophet's family, and the cities that grew around them. This group is not a geographic subset of the Islamic one but a distinct claim: these places are holy because of who is buried there and what authority that descent carries, which is the substance of the Sunni-Shia division rather than an incident of it. Collapsing the two groups would erase the point. 2 Size of the Traditional SetFour: the Atabat, the "thresholds" - the shrine cities of Najaf, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Samarra in Iraq. Mashhad and Qom in Iran are major centres of pilgrimage and learning but are counted outside that set. 3 Learn More
Shia Islamic Sacred Sites
This group holds sacred sites of particular importance to Shia Islam, above all the shrines of the Imams and members of the Prophet's family, which are major centres of pilgrimage and devotion. The shrine cities of Iraq and Iran hold the tombs of the Imams and figures such as Husayn.
The browser will find the shrines and holy places central to Shia devotion. The entries describe each site's association with the Ahl al-Bayt and the Imams and its place in Shia pilgrimage.
Practice Status
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism
3. The Shi'is of Iraq
Yitzhak Nakash, Princeton University Press, 1994
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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