The perimeter of Golconda – and what was to become the city of Moula ʿAli (My Lord ʿAli) or Hyderabad (Abode of ʿAli) – in the Deccan region of southcentral India is marked by auspicious impressions made in stone of hands and feet. Serving as apotropaic and protective signs, the earliest of these body relics date to the early Qutb Shahi period (ca. 1518–1687 CE). The Qutb Shahis consciously sought to integrate Persianate and Shiʿi forms with indigenous religious traditions and practices of the Deccan and, in turn, promoted certain syncretic Shiʿi practices.

One of the most important Shiʿi shrines, built in 1578 during the reign of Ibrahim Qutb Shah (r. 1550–1580), protects the right handprint of Imam ʿAli. The autochthonous relic (tabarrukat) is preserved on a rocky dome-shaped hillock on the outskirts of Hyderabad. According to tradition, ʿAli, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and husband of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, visited Hyderabad, named after one of ʿAli’s epithets, Haydar (‘Lion’), and left this physical mark in stone. Yaqut (‘Ruby’), a senior eunuch in the court of Ibrahim, fell ill. One Thursday, on 17 Rajab, he had a visionary dream in which a man, dressed in green clothing (probably the immortal Khizr) came to tell him that he was being called by Moula ʿAli, who asked him to climb a hillock (later called Moula ʿAli hill). There ʿAli would be waiting for him to cure him of his illness. Yaqut did as he was told and indeed saw the Imam on the summit of the hill with his right hand resting upon a rock. The next morning Yaqut was cured, and found the mark of ʿAli’s hand impressed in the rock at the site where he had seen him in the dream. To commemorate the event, he ordered the handmark to be hewn out of the stone. After hearing about this miracle, sultan Ibrahim visited the hill and ordered a hilltop shrine (dargah) to be built at the spot, known as Koh-e Moula ʿAli, which became a center for pilgrimage for different Hindu and Muslim communities alike. Then as now, Hindu pilgrims often outnumber Muslims. The sacred site preserves the body relic of ʿAli, which is believed to have healing powers. Locally people refer to ʿAli as ‘deliverer from suffering,’ and make votive offerings to request his aid and deliverance from suffering. Inside the dargah, which houses the relic, there is a tree, to which padlocks are attached by devotees, each symbolizing a wish to be fulfilled. Once the wish has been fulfilled, the supplicants return and remove the lock.