Wadi-us-Salam, the largest cemetery in the world in Iraq. By Mahmud Habibullah Genealogy. Wadi-al-Salaam (Arabic: وادي السلام,) Wādī al-S...
Wadi-us-Salam, the largest cemetery in the world in Iraq.
By Mahmud Habibullah Genealogy.
Wadi-al-Salaam (Arabic: وادي السلام,) Wādī al-Salām, is an Islamic cemetery, located in the city of Najaf of the holy Shia followers in Iraq, and is the largest cemetery in the world.
The cemetery covers an area of 1,485.5 acres (601.16 ha; 6.01 km 2 ; 2.32 sq mi), and contains over five million bodies. Also, it attracts millions of visitors every year.
Her cemetery is near the shrine of Sayyidina Ali ibn Abi Talib (RTA), the fourth Imam Khalifa. Therefore, many of the Shi'ites in Iraq often ask to be buried in this cemetery. As a result of better transportation methods, Shi'ites from different parts of the world are buried (or ask to be buried) in the cemetery.
More than one thousand four hundred years (1,400yrs) have been buried every day, and the place is included in the list of historical monuments of the United Nations (UNESCO).
It is estimated that, during the Iraq war, about Two Hundred to Two Hundred and Fifty bodies were buried every day, however, in the year Two Thousand and Ten (2010) this number decreased to less than One Hundred people.
About fifty thousand (50,000) new bodies are entered into the cemetery every year from all over the world.
This number has grown on the nearly 20,000 corpses, mainly from Iran, which used to be collected every year at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Most Shia Iraqis and many Iranians have at least one family member buried in the cemetery.