Zumurrud Khatun Mosque, Religious complex in Baghdad, Iraq

The Zumurrud Khatun Mosque and Mausoleum stands in Sheikh Ma'ruf Cemetery on the Karkh side of Baghdad. Its octagonal room, about 7.65 m per side and 8.30 m high with walls over 3 m thick at the base, carries a conical muqarnas dome 13.30 m tall, nine tiers outside and twelve inside, ending in an eight-pointed star and a small cupola. A narrow staircase inside the walls leads to the roof.

Zumurrud Khatun, a formerly enslaved Turkic woman who became wife of Caliph al-Mustadi and mother of Caliph al-Nasir, built her mausoleum in Karkh before her death in 1202 CE, funded with waqf money she collected from madrasas. She also spent 300,000 dirhams repairing water supplies and cisterns during the pilgrimage. The site was long misidentified as the tomb of Sitta Zubayda until Guy Le Strange and later Mustafa Jawad corrected the attribution.

The site is still called the Tomb of Sitta Zubayda by many Baghdadis, although sources show Zubayda, wife of Harun al-Rashid, was buried elsewhere. Scholars Guy Le Strange and Mustafa Jawad helped establish that the tomb belongs to Zumurrud Khatun. Near her grave lies A'isha Khatun, mother of Ottoman governor Ahmad Pasha.

The mausoleum stands in Sheikh Ma'ruf Cemetery on the Karkh side of Baghdad, beside the mosque and tomb of Sheikh Maruf. A narrow staircase beyond the entrance leads up to the grave room at the base of the minaret, so expect a confined climb. The interior room measures roughly 3 by 7 metres.

The muqarnas are articulated on the exterior rather than hidden inside, so the dome reads from outside as a pinecone of stacked tiers. The octagonal base rises into sixteen cells carried on muqarnas squinches, with small glazed openings in each cell. Scholars long misattributed the tomb to Sitta Zubayda until Guy Le Strange and Mustafa Jawad corrected the identification.