Aladdin Tower: An Ilkhanid Mausoleum in Varamin, Iran
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Iran
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Ilkhanate
- Site type
- Burial
- Remains
- Tomb
On this page12 sections
History
Aladdin Tower is an Ilkhanid-period mausoleum in Varamin, Iran, built in the late thirteenth century under Mongol rule. It stands north of the Varamin Grand Mosque and is traditionally identified as the tomb of Hasan Ala al-Dawla, a ruler of Rey. His son, Fakhr al-Din, raised the tower over his father’s grave, completing it in 688 AH, around 1289–1290, near the end of Arghun Khan’s reign.
The Ala al-Dawla family
Hasan Ala al-Dawla belonged to a family whose ancestors had ruled Rey. The family later held extensive influence across the region, and its members governed Varamin and other cities. Fakhr al-Din also commissioned the Imamzadeh Yahya monument in Varamin. During the reign of Abaqa Khan, an Ilkhanid ruler, Fakhr al-Din was presented to Prince Arghun on the recommendation of the scholar Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. He subsequently gained support to become one of the rulers of Rey.
After completing the mausoleum, Fakhr al-Din was appointed governor of Baghdad. He went there in 1292 and died in the city in 1309. Hasan Ala al-Dawla was related to Ala al-Dawla Semnani, an important Iranian Sufi preacher associated with poets and writers of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The relationship was traced through Hasan’s uncle, Sayyid Jamal al-Din Qasim ibn Jamal al-Din Muhammad, who lived in Varamin and whose daughter married the ruler of Semnan.
A genealogical tradition traces Ala al-Dawla Semnani’s ancestry to Imam Sajjad, the fourth Shiite Imam. This lineage, together with the family’s political influence, formed part of the historical identity associated with the monument. Despite its funerary form, Aladdin Tower is generally not identified by Varamin residents as an imamzadeh, a shrine or tomb traditionally associated with a descendant of a Shiite imam. It is more commonly called the mausoleum or tower of Ala al-Dawla.
Inscription, preservation, and later interpretation
An inscription at the junction between the cylindrical body and the conical roof names the deceased and gives the date of Hasan Ala al-Dawla’s death as 25 July 1276, corresponding to 675 AH. It also records the completion of the building in 688 AH. The beginning of the text is largely lost or illegible. It starts on the southern side and is formed from carved bricks with leaf-like designs.
Over the centuries, the monument deteriorated. Modern repair work rebuilt the lower external projections, the conical roof, and the northern and southwest entrances. The interior brick dado, the lower section of the walling, and the floor were preserved. The tower was registered as a national monument of Iran under reference number 177 on 6 January 1932, and it is administered through the country’s cultural-heritage authorities. It currently serves as a venue for temporary exhibitions organized by the city authorities.
Questions about the burial have remained part of the tower’s local interpretation. Some older residents have denied that a grave is present, while others have suggested that the burial belonged to a passer-by who died in the early twentieth century. Sadeq Hedayat described the structure in The Stray Dog, written around 1942, portraying its worn condition, partly exposed fluted body, conical top, and sparrows nesting between fallen bricks. Architectural historian Donald Wilber visited in May 1939 and praised the precision of its decorative details, the proportions of its ornament, and its glazed tilework.
Remains
Form and exterior decoration
Aladdin Tower combines a polygonal cylindrical body with a pointed conical roof, while its interior is circular. Thirty-two projecting external flanges, or ribs, rise vertically around the body. Their movement gives the tower a taller appearance than its measured height. The exterior is approximately 26.71 metres high and 12.14 metres in diameter; the interior height is about 16.11 metres, with an internal diameter of about 8 metres.
The tower rests on a circular brick base made of nine courses. The outer projections reach the circle of this base. High-quality fired brick forms the principal building material, complemented by glazed tile mosaic and plasterwork. The brick decoration includes hazarbaf, an intricate technique in which bricks are arranged in interlaced patterns. Turquoise tiles and sunburst-like brick ornaments use turquoise, lapis-blue, and brick-red colors, while the cornice, the projecting element that crowns the wall or roof, alternates glazed and unglazed terracotta tilework.
Inscription band and roof
Inscription decoration
The main tile decoration is concentrated in the band between the cylindrical wall and the roof, together with the triangular surfaces above it. Small square tiles with blue glaze form a repeated hexagonal network behind the inscription. The lettering itself is made in molded plaster relief. The surrounding carved brickwork uses leaf-like forms, joining the written record of the mausoleum to the tower’s geometric and vegetal ornament.
Double-shell roof
The roof is a double-shell dome, meaning that separate inner and outer coverings allow the interior ceiling and exterior roof to take different forms. The inner shell is semi-elliptical and rests directly above the main structure. The outer shell is built of brick and is carried over the projecting body elements by squinches, transitional supports that help transfer the roof’s weight onto the lower structure, together with supporting partitions.
The exterior roof masonry is arranged mostly in regular courses. Near the top, recessed bricks create a herringbone-like pattern. An opening above the roof provides light and ventilation in the space between the two shells. The pointed roof and flanged outer form draw on Seljuk architectural traditions, which strongly influenced later Iranian buildings, including Ilkhanid monuments. The roof also forms an incomplete architectural imitation of a tent shape associated with buildings of the period.
Interior chamber and entrances
Main chamber
The main cylindrical shaft begins about 5 centimetres above the crypt and rises evenly to the springing of the inner dome. Detailed measurements give the shaft a height of approximately 7.11 metres and the inner dome a height of about 4.04 metres. The interior walls are built of regular brick masonry, originally coated with a mixture of clay and straw and then finished with white plaster.
A projecting ledge inside the cylindrical wall measures 5 centimetres on the western side and 28 centimetres on the eastern side. Its uneven dimensions, where a uniform ledge would normally be expected, have been interpreted as a possible indication of slight structural movement. The funerary design was intended to protect the body from decomposition, with burials in this type of monument generally placed in an underground crypt rather than deeply interred.
Entrances and stair
Two entrances connect the interior with the exterior. The southwest entrance has a rectangular doorway and a short pointed arch. The surface between its four external flanges is plastered. A second pointed arch below and separated from the main arch is a later addition with simple plaster decoration.
The northern entrance is approached through a shallow iwan, a roofed hall open on one side, integrated into the tower. It has also been described as a semicircular-arched portal set within a pointed-arch niche, whose walls merge with the outer flanges. A western opening just below the roof cone has a pointed arch and leads to a spiral stair built within the wall thickness. The stair ends between the two dome shells, between the upper surface of the inner dome and the inner surface of the outer one. A ladder is needed to reach this upper level, apparently for inspection, maintenance, and repair.
Underground crypt
A subterranean crypt lies below the tower room. Its plan takes the form of an Iranian cross, or plus shape, precisely fitted within a circle. Each arm is covered by a vault, and the vaulting continues at the centre to form four central arches.
The crypt’s height from the floor to the apex of the vault is given as 92.2 centimetres. Its side platforms rise 104 centimetres from the floor to the springing of the arches, while the crypt is also described as having an overall height of 192 centimetres. This underground chamber forms the burial space beneath the circular room and completes the tower’s funerary arrangement.
