Fāṭima al-Ma'ṣūma Shrine

The Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom, Persia, is the mausoleum of Fatima bint Musa, daughter of the seventh Shia Imam and sister of the eighth Imam Ali al-Rida. In 816 she set out from Medina to join her brother in Khorasan, but her caravan was attacked at Saveh; poisoned and ill, she was carried to Qom, where she died and was buried.

Her tomb, first sheltered by a bamboo canopy, received a domed building about fifty years later at the request of Sayyida Zaynab, daughter of the ninth Imam. The shrine drew pilgrims and seminaries, and Qom grew into a centre of Shia learning.

In 1519 Tajlu Khanum, wife of Shah Ismail I, added an iwan and two minarets and rebuilt the tomb chamber as a domed octagon. Under the Qajars, Fath-Ali Shah merged the courtyards in 1795 and restored the gilded dome in 1803.