The Mausoleum of Ali (Persian: مقام علی, romanized: Maqām ʿAlī) or Blue Mosque (مسجد کبود), located in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, is a shrine purportedly housing the tomb of Caliph Ali, the first Imam of Shia Muslims (r. 656–661).

[1][2] The earliest surviving source stating Ali to be buried in Balkh is Tuhfat al-Albab of the Andalusian traveller Abu Hamid al-Gharnati (d. 1170).

[3] Abd al-Ghafur Lari wrote that Muhammad al-Baqir, the fifth Shia imam, assigned Abu Muslim the task of transferring Ali's body to the Khurasan, though this is likely apocryphal.

In the 13th century, the Mongols under Genghis Khan invaded Balkh, where they massacred the Balkhi population and destroyed their places of worship.

[5] In the 15th century, the Timurid amir, Sultan Husayn Bayqara, ordered a reconstruction of the destroyed building.