The Al-Maqam Mosque is a historic mosque and shrine in the Al-'Ashara district of Basra, distinguished by its traditional Iraqi Islamic architecture. The building features pointed arches, ornamental tilework, and a layered minaret in the style developed in the Abbasid period. It serves as both a congregational mosque and a shrine — the combination of functions that characterises many of the sacred buildings in southern Iraq.
The neighbourhood around the mosque has some of the best-preserved traditional architecture in Basra — mud-brick houses with carved wooden screens on the upper windows, narrow alley networks designed for shade in the brutal summers. A walk through the streets here gives a better sense of how Basra looked before the late 20th century than anywhere else in the city.