Najaf

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Image:Iraq map najaf.png Najaf (Template:ArB Template:ArTranslit) is a city in Iraq about 160 km south of Baghdad, located at 31.99°N 44.33°E. Its estimated population in 2003 was 585,600 people. It is the capital of Najaf province. It is one of the holiest cities of Shīˤa Islām and the center of Shīˤa political power in Iraq.

1 Najaf's religious significance
2 History
- 2.1 Najaf under Saddam Hussein
- 2.2 Najaf after the fall of Saddam
3 See also
4 External links

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Najaf's religious significance

Najaf is renowned as the site of the tomb of ˤAlī ibn Abī Tālib (also known as "Imām ˤAlī"), whom the Shīˤa consider to be their founder and first imām; however, some believe he is buried at Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan. The city is now a great center of pilgrimage from throughout the Islamic world. Only Mecca and Medina receive more Muslim pilgrims.

The Imām ˤAlī Mosque is housed in a grand structure with a gilded dome and many precious objects in the walls. Nearby is the Wādī'u s-Salām "Wadi of Peace", claimed to be the largest cemetery in the Muslim world (and possibly the largest in the entire world), containing the tombs of several prophets. Many of the devout from other lands aspire to be buried here, to be raised from the dead with Imām ˤAlī on Judgement Day. Over the centuries, numerous hospices, schools, libraries and Sufi convents were built around the shrine to make the city the centre of Shīˤa learning and theology. Many of these were badly damaged during the rule of Saddam Hussein, with a highway being driven through the middle of the Wādī'u s-Salām.

Many great Shīˤa scholars both old and contemporary (such as Allameh Tabatabaei, Ayatollah Khomayni, and Grand Ayatollah ˤAlī al-Hussaynī as-Sīstānī) studied in Najaf. This city, along with Qom in Iran, are considered the centers of the Shīˤa fiqh "school of faith".

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History

The Najaf area was situated near the Sassanid city of Suristan and at the time of the Sassanids was a part of the Middle Bih-Kavad province of Persia. The city itself was reputedly founded in 791 by the Abbasid Caliph Harūn ar-Rashīd.

Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Najaf experienced severe difficulties as the result of repeated raids by Arab desert tribes and acute water shortages caused by the lack of a reliable water supply. The number of inhabited houses in the city had plummeted from 3000 to just 30 by the start of the 16th century.

The city was besieged by the Wahhabis in the late 18th century. The water shortages were finally resolved in 1803 with the construction of the Hindiyya canal, following which the city's population rapidly doubled from 30,000 to 60,000. Even so, Najaf lost its religious primacy to the Iranian city of Qom in the 19th century and was not to regain it until the late 20th century.

The Ottomans were expelled in an uprising in 1915, following which the city fell under the rule of the British Empire. The sheikhs of Najaf rebelled in 1918, killing the British governor of the city and cutting off grain supplies to the Anaza, a tribe allied with the British. In retaliation the British besieged the city and cut off its water supply. The rebellion was put down and the rule of the sheikhs was forcibly ended.

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Najaf under Saddam Hussein

Because of the common religious affinities between Iraq's Shīˤa majority and the Iranians, Najaf was regarded with suspicion by the Sunnī-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein, which severely restricted Shīˤa religious activities. A mass revolt broke out at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, which was put down by the Iraqi military with considerable brutality and damage to the city. Much of the damage was repaired fairly quickly but great resentment against Saddam's regime lingered for a long time afterwards.

In February 1999, Najaf's most senior cleric, Muħammad Sādiq as-Sadr, was murdered along with his two sons - the third killing of clerics in the city in less than a year. Although the Iraqi government claimed to have caught and executed the supposed killers, all Shīˤa, one of whom was actually in prison at the time, many opposition figures and ordinary Shīˤa blamed the killings on Saddam's regime, which was said to be systematically attempting to suppress independent voices in the Shīˤa community. Grand Ayatollah ˤAlī as-Sīstānī succeeded as-Sadr as the city's most senior cleric, but one of his surviving sons, Moqtada al-Sadr, has assumed a prominent political role despite his relative paucity of formal theological credentials.

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Najaf after the fall of Saddam

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Najaf was a key target of the invading United States forces. The city was encircled during heavy fighting on March 26, 2003 and was captured on April 3, 2003 by 1st and 2d Battalions, 327th Infantry Regiment, units of the 101st Airborne Division. Image:Meshed ali usnavy.jpg

The clerical authorities of the Shīˤa enclave of Saddam City in Baghdad, which claimed autonomy in April 2003 after the fall of Baghdad, claimed to be taking their orders from senior clerics in Najaf.

On August 29 2003 a car bomb exploded during prayers outside the Imām ˤAlī Mosque just as weekly prayers were ending. More than 80 people were killed, including the influential cleric Ayatollah Sayyid Muħammad Bāqir al-Ħakīm, the Shīˤa leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Dozens of others were injured. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack - Saddam himself, in hiding at the time, denied any involvement in a taped message. It was widely reported in the US media that al-Qaeda terrorists were possibly to blame but the murder was later blamed by the US on followers of the radical cleric Moqtada as-Sadr, who was allegedly engaged in a power struggle with the al-Ħakīm faction at the time.

During April-May 2004, fighting broke out in Najaf between US forces and the Mahdi Army of as-Sadr, which launched a coordinated uprising across central and southern Iraq in an apparent attempt to seize control of the country ahead of the June 30, 2004 handover of power to a new Iraqi government. The situation aroused grave concerns among the Shīˤa community of Iraq and Iran, as firefights took place within yards of the main shrines, which suffered superficial damage in the process.

In August 2004, fighting broke out again between American troops of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Battalion, 5th US Cavalry Regiment and 2nd Battalion, 7th US Cavalry Regiment and as-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The battle, which was mostly centered around Wādī'u s-Salām Cemetery and the southwestern portion of the city, lasted three weeks and ended when senior Iraqi cleric Ayatollah ˤAlī as-Sīstānī negotiated an end to the fighting. Thousands of Mahdi Army guerrillas were killed and considerable damage was inflicted on the old town and cemetery. The main shrines again suffered only superficial damage.

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