House of Imam Ali

When Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib entered the city of Kufa on the twelfth of Rajab in the year 36 AH, he was offered to reside in the Governor's Palace but refused out of asceticism and humility.

He preferred to buy himself a simple house for seventy dinars, located approximately one hundred meters from the southwestern corner of the Mosque of Kufa, to be his home throughout his caliphate as he governed the widest Islamic state of his time.

It covers an area of 370 square meters and contains five rooms centered around an open courtyard in the authentic Iraqi architectural style. In the courtyard is a well that the Imam and members of his family used for their various daily needs.

The house contains rooms for his sons Al Hassan and Al Hussein, a room for Umm Al Banin and his other wives and daughters, and also housed a library from which Imams Al Hassan and Al Hussein drew the sciences of jurisprudence, the Holy Quran, and its interpretation.

Living in this house with Imam Ali were his sons Al Hassan and Al Hussein, his daughter Lady Zainab, and a girl named Khadija who died at the age of four and is said to have been buried in the house itself.

This modest and simply built house remains a living and eloquent witness to the asceticism of the Commander of the Faithful and his elevation above the adornments of the world. It has been rebuilt and rehabilitated several times throughout history, most recently after the fall of the Ba'ath regime in Iraq, continuing to receive visitors from all parts of the Islamic world who draw inspiration from its precincts the meaning of justice and asceticism embodied by its owner.