Ezra's Tomb
Coordinates: 31°19′44″N 47°25′07″E / 31.3288311°N 47.4186229°E
Ezra's Tomb or the Tomb of Ezra (Arabic: العزير Al-ʻUzair, Al-ʻUzayr, Al-Azair) is a location in Iraq on the western shore of the Tigris that was popularly believed to be the burial place of the biblical figure Ezra. Al-ʻUzair is the present name of the settlement that has grown up around the tomb.
The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that Ezra died and was laid to rest in the city of Jerusalem. Hundreds of years later, however, a spurious tomb in his name was claimed to have been discovered in Iraq around the year 1050.
The tombs of ancient prophets were believed by medieval people to produce a heavenly light; it was reputed that on certain nights an "illumination" would go up from the tomb of Ezra. In his Concise Pamphlet Concerning Noble Pilgrimage Sites, Yasin al-Biqai (d. 1095) wrote that the “light descends” onto the tomb. Jewish merchants partaking in mercantile activities in India from the 11th-13th century often paid reverence to him by visiting his tomb on their way back to places like Egypt. The noted Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela (d. 1173) visited the tomb and recorded the types of observances that both Jews and Muslims of his time afforded it. A fellow Jewish traveler named Yehuda Alharizi (d. 1225) was told a story during his visit (c. 1215) about how a shepherd had learned of its place in a dream 160 years prior. Alharizi, after stating that he initially considered the accounts of lights rising from the tomb "fictitious", claimed that on his visit he saw a light in the sky "clear like the sun [...] illuminating the darkness, skipping to the right and left [...] visibly arising, moving from the west to the east on the face of heaven, as far as the grave of Ezra". He also commented the light that shown on the tomb was the “glory of God.” Rabbi Petachiah of Ratisbon gave a similar account to Alharizi of the tomb's discovery.
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