Imamzadeh

An Imāmzādeh (Persian: امام‌زاده‎‎, Azerbaijani: İmamzadə; Imām-born) is a word found in both the Persian, Azerbaijani, and Urdu languages, that refers to an immediate descendant of a Shi'i Imam.

Imamzadeh means "offspring" or descendent of an imam. There are many other different ways of spelling this term. Some of these are imamzada, imamzadah, and emamzadah. These all have the same meanings. Imamzadeh are basically the Syed's or Syeda's as they have descended from the Imams.

Imamzadeh is also a term for a shrine-tomb of the descendants of Imams, who are directly related to Muhammad. These shrines are only for the descendants of imams and they are not for imams themselves. Imamzadehs are also sayyids, though not all sayyids are considered imamzadehs. These shrine-tombs are used as centers of Shi’i devotion and pilgrimages. These shrine-tombs are also believed to have miraculous properties and the ability to heal. Many of these are located in Iraq, Medina, India and Iran.

There are many important imamzadehs. Two of these are Fātimah bint Mūsā, the sister of Imam Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Twelver Imam, and Zaynab bint Ali, daughter of Ali, considered by Shi'i Muslims to be the first Imam and by Sunni Muslims as the fourth Rashid. Imamzadehs are not traditionally women.

Imamzadeh (Ganja)

Imamzadeh Mausoleum or Goy Imam Mosque (Azerbaijani: İmamzadə türbəsi) - is located 7 km northward to Ganja. It consists of a complex including walls with entrances, small mosques and funerary monuments.

Architectural features

The mausoleum is the major monument of the complex. This mausoleum shows how many mausoleums acquired cultic architectural features, losing their features of memorial monuments in the 16th-19th centuries. The mausoleum belongs to tower-cupola types of buildings. As A. Salamzadeh says, a central kernel of the mausoleum and its tower-shaped part can be dated back to the 14th century or the beginning of the 15th century. It is also assumed that volume of the tower-shaped part of the monument reminds of constructions of Central Asia, appeared in the early 15th century. Inscriptions written with kufi script and made of glazed plates of the monuments were ornamentations of the mausoleums of Central Asia. For instance, the mausoleum of Gur-e Amir in Samarkand.