The Tomb of Imadaddin Nasimi

The grave of Imadaddin Nasimi, a Hurufi poet known for his verse in Turkic and Persian, lies inside a small Sufi lodge named after him in Aleppo’s old city. Nasimi was executed in Aleppo and buried here. The tomb is in the al-Farafira quarter, and the lane outside carries the poet’s name. It was damaged during the war years, and in 2025 its repair came back onto the agenda between Syria and Azerbaijan.

Who Nasimi was

Nasimi led followers of Hurufism, a mystical movement built on the hidden meaning of letters, and gathered a following in Aleppo. After complaints from the Sunni scholars, he was executed on the order of the Mamluk sultan — the Mamluks then ruled Syria from Cairo — at some point between 1417 and 1419. According to the chronicler Ibn al-Imad, he was flayed. The inscription in the tomb says the poet was born in Azerbaijan and killed in Aleppo, and gives the date as 820 in the Hijri calendar, 1417 AD.

How the grave was found

For a long time the site of the tomb was unknown in Azerbaijan. The poet Rasul Rza found the grave on a journey to Syria in 1968 and wrote an article titled “The lonely grave of the poet the world could not contain”. With support from the Azerbaijani government, the tomb and its surroundings were then tidied and repaired.

Getting there

In the al-Farafira quarter, opposite the bath house known locally as Hammam al-Sultan and next to a government building. A sign in the lane reads, in Arabic, “Takiyya of Hazrat Nasimi”. It fits on the same walk as the Khanqah al-Farafira. There is no map on this page: the location could not be confirmed by two independent sources. Asking in the quarter for “al-Nasimi” is the quickest way.

What to see

On a visit in December 2019 the tomb was enclosed by a wall three metres high. The courtyard holds the graves of the poet’s descendants and followers. A restoration begun before the war had been left unfinished, and the tomb and nearby graves showed cracks from shells that landed close by.

Do not miss

The inscription in the tomb. In a single text it gives where the poet was born, where he was killed and the year 1417; take a few minutes to stand and read it.

Where things stand

In July 2025 the Azerbaijani press reported that the tomb had been neglected and parts of it were damaged. That month, during Ahmed al-Sharaa’s visit to Baku, the two countries agreed on its repair. We do not know whether work has started; confirm at the entrance whether the door is open.