Shrine of the Cloak

Shrine of the Cloak
Basic information
Location	Kandahar, Afghanistan
Affiliation	Islam
Province	Kandahar Province

The Shrine of the Cloak is located adjacent to the Friday Mosque in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It contains a cloak that was once worn by Islam's Prophet Muhammad, which is widely considered as one of the holiest Islamic sites in Afghanistan, and even considered by some as the "heart of Afghanistan".^[1]

The building's exteriors are of green marble from Lashkar Gah, with tiled surfaces and gilded archways. The cloak itself, which gives the building its name, is locked away inside the mosque and is rarely seen. The cloak was given to Amir Ahmad Shah Durrani by Amir Murad Beg of Bukhara in 1768 in order to solidify a treaty between the two leaders.^[2]

The cloak has traditionally only brought out during times of great crisis. For example, it was prominently seen in 1996, when Mullah Omar, the up-and-coming leader of the Taliban, removed it from the shrine and donned the cloak while he stood atop a building, and in front of a large crowd of his followers. That symbolic act is commonly considered a key point in the rise of the Taliban, and Mullah Omar himself, associating him with both Ahmed Shah Durrani and the Prophet of Islam. Upon donning the cloak, the crowd began to shout Amir al-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful) a title that Ayman al-Zawahiri still occasionally uses to refer to Mullah Omar in his radio addresses.^[2] The cloak has not been seen in public since 1996.^[1]

An alternate version states that when Ahmad Shah had traveled to Bukhara, he saw the cloak of Muhammad. He then decided to take the artifact with him to Kandahar, and asked whether he could "borrow" the cloak from its keepers. They, worrying that he might try to remove it from Bukhara, told him it could not be taken from the city. Ahmad Shah then is said to have pointed to a heavy stella of stone firmly planted in the ground, saying that he would never take the cloak far from the stone. The keepers, gratified at his answer, handed him the cloak. Ahmad Shah then took the cloak, ordered the stone slab to be dug up carried them both back with him to Kandahar, where the stone now stands near his Mazar (tomb).^[1]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "The Cloak of the Prophet". http://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/mobilization/features/2002/jan/cloak/020110.cloak.html. Retrieved 2008-06-12. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Girardet, Edward and Jonathan Walter, eds., ed. Afghanistan. Geneva: CROSSLINES Communications, Ltd.. pp. 291.