A short walk north of the Imam Ali Shrine, the Al-Hannanah Mosque marks one of the stations where, according to Shia tradition, the funeral procession carrying the head of Imam Husayn rested on its way from Karbala to Damascus. It is sometimes called the Mosque of the Head for this reason.
The building itself is modest by Najaf standards — a small green-domed shrine with an open courtyard — but pilgrims stop here as part of the wider tour of the holy city. The interior is decorated with mirror-work and tilework typical of nineteenth-century Iraqi shrine architecture.