Anyone approaching Baghdad from the north or the west will be impressed by
the sight of the four golden minarets at Kadhmayn, the Shrine of the Two Imams,
Imam Musa al-Kadhim(A.S.) and Imam Muhammad
Taqi al-Jawad(A.S.). They are respectively the Seventh and the Ninth of the
Twelve Imams, at whose tombs we are accustomed to seek healing and to invoke
their intercession for the forgiveness of our sins and the fulfilment of our
needs. The present building dates back only to the beginning of the sixteenth century and has been kept in excellent repair. This building represents the restoration of Shah lsmail I Safavi (1502 - 24), though when the Turkish Sultan, Suleman the Great, captured Baghdad and remained there for four months in 1534, he visited this sacred place, and is said to have contributed to the further ornamentation of the Shrine at Kadhmayn.
The tiles for the double cupola, however, were provided in 1796 by Shah Agha Muhammad Khan, who was the first of the Persian Qajar dynasty. In 1870, Nasr-al-Din Shah had these golden tiles repaired on one of the domes and on the minarets. It is interesting that the dates of all these alterations are clearly indicated by inscriptions.
If we bear in mind that the Two Imams who are buried here were martyred in the beginning of the eighth century, it will be evident that there are seven hundred years of the history of their tomb to account for, previous to the comparatively modern restoration of Shah Ismail I. The Imams lived in the early days of Baghdad, while the walls of Mansur's round city on the western side of the Tigris were still standing.
There were cemeteries to the north-west that went by various names - that at the Syrian Gate, that of the Abbasids, and that of the Straw Gate.
