Khaje Rabi Mausoleum

There are several stories about the biography of Khaje Rabi, belonging to the Banu Assad clan, a contemporary of the Prophet Muhammad, was born near Kufa. According to some sources he was a slave or an escort of Imam Reza and accompanied him to Khorasan on an official visit to the local governor. When the Imam fell ill and died, Khaje Rabi decided to settle in Noghan, near today's Tus. When he in turn disappeared a few years later, his tomb immediately became a destination for pilgrims and travelers who went to Mashhad. Today's mausoleum was erected in the Safavid era, at the behest of Shah Abbas between the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries: it is one of the most spectacular buildings in the surroundings of Mashhad and is located within a garden that houses other tombs of personalities important historians, such as the forefather of the Qajar dynasty Fath Ali Khan.

The building has an octagonal plan with four arcades inside. The double-domed structure stands 18 meters high, glazed in turquoise on the outside and decorated with gilded paintings on the inside. The extraordinary decorations, combined with the inscriptions of the well-known Safavid calligrapher Alireza Abbasi make the monument of extraordinary artistic value, so much so that it is one of the monuments included in the list of Iranian national cultural heritage.