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Shrines of Prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Hussain in Karbala and his father, Imam Ali, in Najaf funded the Saraya al-Atabat and deployed them for their protection as well as to fight ISIS
Mukhayyam al Husayni Mosque, over 400 metres from Imam Hussain's shrine, stands at what is believed to be the site of the encampment of the Prohet's grandson and his family during the Battle of Karbala
Once considered unsophisticated, hookah, whose origins are disputed with some claiming it originated in India, has become integral to the Middle East’s café culture, and gained popularity in the West, too
Iraq’s religious leaders issued a statement in March 2020 repudiating and condemning the violence of ISIS while underscoring the terror group's crimes impacted members of all religions
The Iraqi clergy effectively tapped into the doctrine of martyrdom in the fight against ISIS by invoking the Battle of Karbala in which the Prophet's grandson Hussain and 72 of his companions and family members laid down their lives resisting an unjust ruler
Shah Rukh Khan, India's biggest film star, defines the potential of Indian soft power in unlikely places such as Iraq where hardly anyone even understands the language of his films
Successes against ISIS would have been impossible without national unity when the bloody civil war deepened Shia-Sunni fissures
In 2016, Iraq was reaping the bitter fruits of the adventurism of another westerner Paul Bremer, who fell back upon the colonial divide-and-rule policy to counter a broad-based challenge to the American occupation and prepared the ground for ISIS to tap into resentment over the Sunni purge
Colonnaded thoroughfare Al Rasheed Street was built to commemorate the Ottoman victory in Kut al-Amara during the First World War before the scales tipped in Britain’s favour and the British troops drove Ottomans out with the help of Arabs By Sameer Arshad Khatlani In March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq on the pretext of … Continue reading Why Baghdad’s Al Rasheed Street Reminds Arabs Of British Betrayal
Mutanabbi Street is named after poet Abu al-Tayyib al Mutanabbi, one of the leading lights of the Islamic Golden Age when a spirit of openness fostered the pursuit of knowledge and big science
