Before and after the destruction of the historic 180 year old Qajar era mirror ornamentation of Al Kazimayn Shrine’s qibla iwan. This is one of the most cold and cruel acts of desecration of heritage committed by the Shrine management and Setad Baz Sazi Atabat in recent years. Precious antique mirror muqarnas were pick axed into debris and replaced with these shoddy gold plates in an inferior rasmi-bandi design vault (stalactite vaults are much more artistically precious than rounded vaults), not to mention that this was the largest iwan with mirror muqarnas in Iraq till its destruction.

If such a magnificent mirror muqarnas iwan like this with comparable historic value existed somewhere like Gulistan palace (or anywhere other than a shrine) then it surely would be a precious UNESCO protected monument.