Tradition holds that Ali's grave was deliberately kept secret for generations before anyone marked it, out of fear for what enemies might do to the body.
A hidden burial, later revealed
Shia tradition holds that Ali ibn Abi Talib was buried secretly at what is now Najaf shortly after his death in 661, out of concern that his grave would be desecrated by political rivals, and that its location was known only to a small circle before being publicly identified generations later, with some accounts crediting the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid's era with the site's open acknowledgement and initial shrine construction.
A cemetery built around proximity
Adjoining the shrine, Wadi al-Salaam, meaning valley of peace, has grown into one of the largest cemeteries in the world, holding an estimated many millions of burials accumulated over more than a thousand years, as generations of Shia Muslims have sought burial as close as possible to Ali's shrine, a practice that has made the cemetery itself, not only the shrine, a defining feature of the city.
A seminary drawing students for centuries
The Hawza seminary tradition at Najaf, training Shia clerics through a structured course of study, has operated in some form for close to a thousand years and remains, alongside Qom in Iran, one of the two most significant centres of Shia religious scholarship in the world today.