Commemorations and mourning take place at the ornate shrine of Imam Hussain in Karbala throughout the year and up to 50 million devotees visit the tomb where they start the pilgrimage by paying obeisance and offering salutations to the prophet’s grandson, followed by Ali al-Akbar, and then the other martyrs
Millions of devotees symbolizing defiance against oppression march through Iraq to the holy city of Karbala to mark the end of the 40-day mourning period of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussain, making Arbaeen the world’s biggest annual pilgrimage
Karbala, where the shrine of the Prophet’s grandson Hussain has stood for centuries as a symbol of resistance against tyranny, became the nerve centre of the war on terror group ISIS
Karbala symbolises for Muslims the foundational Islamic values—egalitarianism, justice, and equity— the Prophet’s Muhammad favourite grandson, Imam Hussain, laid down his life there in the seventh century resisting Umayyad ruler Yazid violating these ideals
Abraham is believed to have first heard God’s voice in Ur, which is not just an example of Iraq’s storied past but also of how Abrahamic religions are joined at the hip
Tikrit was a test case for Iraq’s ability to unite the country after ISIS massacred 1,700 air force cadets, mostly Shia, at Camp Speicher there to drive a permanent sectarian wedge for the Iraqi state’s implosion
To showcase the broad-based resistance against ISIS, we were driven to Baghdad’s riverside palm tree-shaded Jadriya locality for a show of Shia-Sunni unity by commanders fighting the terror group
The turnaround in the situation was such that Pope Francis could visit Mosul seven years after it fell to ISIS to acknowledge the assistance Christians received from Muslims and their harmonious coexistence
Volunteers of Al-Hashd al-Shaabi, which was raised on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s wajib al-kifah (obligation to fight) fatwa, were deployed as shock troops to negate ISIS’s advantages of surprise, sudden attacks, and ambush
Iran built a corridor of influence extending up to the Mediterranean when the US left Iraq in 2011 and left the field open for its archfoe and helped Tehran keep Bashar al-Assad in power in Syria and support Hezbollah in Lebanon
