Ala Edin Tower – Varamin

The tomb tower of 'Ala ad-din, completed in 1289 under the Il Khanids, is located to the north of Varamin, a small town forty-two kilometers south of Tehran. It continues a well-established Iranian tradition of funerary architecture in the form of a tomb tower, its earliest precedent being the Seluk monument Gunbad-i Qabus (1006). This type of mausoleum began as a tall cylinder with a canonical roof, marking, through sheer versatility, the grave of its patron (often a minor Dynast, Amir, or Isfahasalar). The tomb tower puts more emphasis on the exterior, as opposed to the interior, of the sacred space, in contrast to the domed square mausoleum, the other predominant type of mausoleum in Iran.