Afghanistan - Blue Mosque Mazar e Sharif

The Blue Mosque or the Shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar e Sharif in Afghanistan.

Sent by an English teacher in Afghanistan. The stamp is postmarked with Feldpost/Field Post (the German Military Postal Service), the equivalent to US Army Post Office (APO).

And thanks too to Dawn from Leeds for your kind help. God bless.

This is from Wikipedia : The Shrine of Hazrat Ali, also known as the Blue Mosque, is a mosque in Mazari Sharif, Afghanistan. It is one of the reputed burial places of Ali. It is the building which gives the city in which it is located, Mazari Sharif (meaning "Tomb of the Exalted") its name.

According to Shi'a Muslim belief, Ali was originally buried by his two sons, Hasan and Husayn in an undisclosed location, which was later made known by the great, grandson of Husayn and Sixth Shi'a Imam, Ja'far as-Sadiq - as the grave that is found within Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, Iraq.

The story of the founding of the shrine indicates that, shortly after the murder of Ali and the burial of his body at Najaf, near Baghdad, some of Ali's followers worried that his body would be desecrated by his enemies, and they placed his remains on a white female camel. Ali's followers traveled with the camel for several weeks, until the camel ultimately fell to the ground exhausted. The body was then reburied where the camel fell. The body was said to be redisovered there in the 12th century.

According to tradition, Mazari Sharif owes its existence to a dream. At the beginning of the 12th century, a local mullah had a dream in which Ali bin Abi Talib, the prophet's cousin and son-in-law and first Shia Imam and one of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs appeared to reveal that he had been secretly buried near the city of Balkh. After investigation and the opening of the tomb, the Seljuk sultan Sanjar ordered a city and shrine to be built on the spot, where it stood until its destruction by Genghis Khan. Although later rebuilt, Mazar stood in the shadow of its neighbor Balkh, until that city was abandoned in 1866 for health reasons.

The Seljuq dynasty sultan Ahmed Sanjar rebuilt the first shrine at this location. it was destroyed by Genghis Khan in the invasion around 1220. It was rebuilt in the 15th century by Husain Baiqara. Most of the shrine's decorations, however, are the result of modern restoration work. One of the few remaining artifacts from the earlier shrine is a marble slab inscribed with the words, "Ali, Lion of God."

A site plan of the location made in the 1910s shows that there had earlier been a smaller walled precinct in the mosque, which were razed to create parklands later, although the portals to this precincts still remain as gateways for the shrine.

Tombs of varying dimensions were added for a number of Afghan political and religious leaders over the years, which has led to the development of its current irregular dimensions. These include the square domed tomb of Amir Dost Muhammad and a similar structure for Amir Sher Ali and his family.