Hamedan (25 August 2012)

Our morning in Hamedan started with a search for the tourism office. We were expecting it to be located in a row of shops or a standalone building in a park, as was the case in most cities. However, after asking a few locals, we find ourselves walking into the Art Faculty of one of the university in the middle of the city.

Qom to Hamedan (22-24 August 2012)

23 August 2012 – We started the day early wanting to see the Holy Shrine in Qom. We drove towards the Holy Shrine hoping to find a parking spot, the street was busy made worst by a crowded Taxi stand at the end of the street. This is where it happened, an unmarked taxi was backing out into the street, we all thought he would stop to let us pass, traffic was crawling, but he kept backing up and the inevitable happened, he backed straight into Our Sorento’s back wheel and scraped the side bumper. Dad got off and inspected the damage. Seeing that the damaged was light and the whole bumper stayed intact, Dad got back in and drove off, of course after showing his displeasure to the errant taxi driver. This totally ruined our visit to Qom and we made our way out of the city to visit Jamkaran Mosque.

JAMKARAN MOSQUE

 


















In the outskirts of Qom, we find ourselves at Jamkaran Mosque, a sacred place and a popular pilgrimage site for Shi’ite Muslims. The mosque was undergoing some major renovations to add a new entrance gate, amongst others.

According to Wikipedia, “Local belief has it that the Twelfth Imam (Muhammad al-Mahdi) — a messiah figure Shia believe will lead the world to an era of universal peace — once appeared and offered prayers at Jamkaran. On Tuesday evenings especially large crowds of tens of thousands gather at Jamkaran to pray and to drop a note to the Imam in a well at the site, asking for help with some problem.”

There is an interesting history on how the Jamkaran Mosque came to be built, click here and take some time to read all about it.