TEHRAN -- The fate of Shams of Tabriz, the wandering mystic whose encounter with Jalal al-Din Rumi transformed the course of Persian mystical poetry, remains one of the great mysteries in the history of Sufism. 
After Shams disappeared from Konya for the final time, accounts of his death and burial took different paths. Later hagiographical works, most notably Ahmad Aflaki’s The Feats of the Knowers of God, recount a dramatic story of his murder in Konya. Yet the historical evidence is not sufficient to establish this account with certainty.
In the midst of this uncertainty, the city of Khoy in northwestern Iran has become the principal Iranian site associated with the burial of Shams. 
The case for Khoy does not rest on a single source. Rather, it emerges from the convergence of historical chronicles, documentary records, architectural evidence, and a long-standing local tradition.
Among the Persian sources cited in support of the Khoy identification is the Faṣīḥ Chronicle, written by the fifteenth-century historian Fasih al-Din Ahmad Khvafi. Ottoman records and historical representations of Khoy also document the presence and reputation of a monument associated with Shams.
The modern scholarly revival of the Khoy tradition is closely connected with Muhammad-Amin Riahi (1923–2009), an eminent Iranian literary historian, scholar, and editor. Born in Khoy, Riahi devoted considerable attention to the history of his native city. 
Through his studies of the final years and disappearance of Shams, he brought together a wide range of historical evidence and argued that Khoy was the most credible location for Shams’s burial. His research helped restore the subject to serious modern scholarship.
The question was subsequently developed within the broader work of Muhammad Ali Movahed, one of the leading modern scholars of Shams and Rumi. His critical edition and studies of The Discourses of Shams of Tabriz established an important textual foundation for contemporary Shams scholarship.
Movahed also examined the historical continuity of the Khoy tradition and the enduring identification of the monument with Shams.
The physical focus of this tradition is the Minaret of Shams of Tabriz, standing within the historic landscape of Khoy. 

The dating and architectural history of the monument have been discussed differently by scholars, but its distinctive brick structure and persistent association with Shams have made it one of the most significant monuments connected with his memory.
The Khoy tradition does not resolve every uncertainty surrounding the final years of Shams. It does, however, bring together a remarkable body of historical memory, documentary evidence, architectural remains, and modern scholarship.
For the study of Shams and Rumi, Khoy has therefore become more than a place of pilgrimage: it is a landscape in which written history, architecture, and cultural memory converge.