Abu Hurayra Ziyarat

Zadiyan, Afghanistan

Abu Hurayra Ziyarat is a domed structure associated in local lore with the resting place of the companion of the Prophet of the same name. It is situated below the walls of a medieval citadel known as Kafir Qal'a, which lies about 2 kilometers north of the modern village of Zadiyan in Balkh Province, Afghanistan. The citadel was populated up until the twelfth/sixth century AH. Based on the form of its dome and the relatively simple decoration, Galina Pugachenkova dated the structure to the first half of the eleventh/fifth century AH. She believed the structure to have been a khanqah, or Sufi lodge, given its form and location outside what were once the walls of an inhabited fortified town.

The structure takes the form of a domed cube, 8.5 m per side, adjoining a rectangular vestibule measuring 10.5 x 3.7 m, built of mud brick. The entrance to the vestibule was an arched iwan, which had collapsed by the twentieth century, leaving only the doorway at its rear. The dome chamber has a cenotaph at its center and a mihrab in its western wall. The dome rises from the square base via an octagon made of eight arches: four blind arches on each wall and four covering the corners at angles forming squinches.

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