A Glimpse of Iraq

The Greeks were here too. Iraq was known to the Greeks as Mesopotamia: the land between the two rivers. This is such an apt name; much of Iraq's long history is influenced in one way or another by those two rivers: Tigris and Euphrates. Alexander the Great himself also ‘liberated’ Iraq. He actually died here (reportedly from an overdose of the local liquor "Araq" – a powerful drink made from palm dates and never drunk straight).

When the British ‘liberated’ Iraq during the First World War, the British boys began calling Iraq jokingly “The Mess Pot”.

A mess pot it is.

Now that the Americans have also ‘liberated’ Iraq", it is their turn to learn what a mess pot they have got themselves into! Somehow, they even managed to add a bit of an extra mess to it themselves!

***

This blog has been my attempt to give a tiny glimpse of my tiny glimpse of Iraq. I hope that I have been truthful.

I was watching a short documentary on one of the many new TV channels the other day. The crew was accompanying a taxi driver around a day of ‘usual’ business in Baghdad describing his experiences with people, traffic jams and dangers.

The man, who seemed to be in his late 40’s, was an engineer who had left for Britain in 1989 and then went to Malaysia for a better jib. He was laid off and took another job as a calligrapher of Qur’anic verses that took him to Abu Dhabi. He missed Baghdad and, according to his narrative, was prodded by his wife’s nagging. He came back home. The only job he found he could do was using his own car as a taxi.

This reminded me of the many taxi drivers I met over the past few years. In fact, taking a ride in a cab in Baghdad, and in other Iraqi towns, is almost always a unique experience.

Although there was always a law prohibiting the use of private cars as taxis, nobody bothered to enforce that law since the onset of those sanctions in 1990. You therefore meet all sorts of people working as taxi drivers; teenagers, granddads, university professors, civil servants, engineers, jobless army officers… and occasionally, the professional taxi driver.

Before the invasion, I rarely took a cab. Although I always hated traffic congestions, those were usually manageable before the unchecked rush of new cars, the total abandonment of traffic signals, traffic laws and the absence of traffic police rendered driving in Baghdad almost a unique and detestable experience. Now, the traffic police are back, but the numerous roadblocks, the various check points and the continuing disregard to all traffic laws still makes driving in Baghdad a nasty experience.

After the invasion, I began increasingly relying on taxis for a variety of reasons in addition to avoid driving. I used to take long walks for the benefit of my bad back, go to the internet shop etc. and then come back home in a taxi.

Taking a taxi in Baghdad has its own rituals. As soon as the taxi stops, he is told of the destination. If he doesn’t like it, he says so… sometimes apologizing, sometimes he just drives off. The price is then negotiated. Once that matter is settled, you get in. Men invariably take the front seat next to the driver and chat all the way to the destination. Women take the back seat and keep to themselves.

Following the usual greeting of “Allah bil Khair” the dance begins. Both driver and passenger start making tentative small talk to gauge one another for extreme views… or simply to determine where the other guy stands on the most important issues. The idea is to just touch on a few subjects and see the other’s reaction to them. This ‘dance’ usually takes about three minutes. Most people are very efficient and get that ritual out of the way in the minimum of time.

The driver is usually the more cautious party. He usually has to keep a long list of dangers in mind. Drivers know of too many stories of taxi drivers being stabbed or killed for their cars. Having an old run-down car is no guarantee of safety. Once that is done, a wide variety of topics, depending on the two people and their moods and interests, are talked about.

Like barbers, taxi drivers are usually full of stories. They meet so many different people everyday from all walks of life. If you can identify their personal filters and biases, you can learn a lot about the pulse of the street from a half hour taxi ride.

How can chewing gum be lethal?

There is no shortage of cultural traits and behaviors Iraqi people have which give cause to despise these people. I can list hundreds of such traits. This essay is not about that; it is a view from the other side.

These little glimpses depict some of the cultural differences that led to enormous consequences following the American invasion of Iraq. Different people simply react differently to similar stimuli. What can only be seen as perfectly normal actions in one culture can convey unintended images to another. In many instances, society expects a certain mode of behavior.

***

It was a short video clip on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005. There was a ceremony where the US army was handing over Saddam’s palace in Tikrit to the Iraqi authorities. The American Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad was present, in addition to other dignitaries, Iraqi and American.

There was a thud. The place was targeted by a mortar shell that didn’t explode. The clip showed a small glimpse of the chaos that followed: Men in expensive suits hiding themselves behind chairs; Men in army uniforms, some started to run, some crouched, and some moved rapidly to protect their superiors and their charge. One soldier threw himself to the ground, face down.

But, for a few seconds I noticed a group of four Iraqis in traditional Arab dress who remained sanding quietly. I thought that was fascinating! I am almost certain I saw one of them smiling! Weren’t those people afraid? Of course they were… but they couldn’t show it.

This brought to memory a tribal sheikh I knew who used to take his only son with him to the weekly tribal gathering - a routine assembly where tribal kin met and discussed things of common interest and solved some of the conflicts that needed addressing. For most part of a day, that young teenager had to endure long sessions of what must have been boring proceedings and discussions. If the boy as much as turned his head quickly following a sudden noise such as a slamming door or a shattered glass of water, that man, would scold the boy on the way back home. Sudden, undignified movements like those were simply unacceptable for a future tribal chief. Perhaps this example is a somewhat extreme, but it illustrates the point I am trying to make.

It also reminded me of a news conference given by Saddam’s Minister of Defense, Sultan H. Ahmed shortly before the fall of Baghdad. The man was sitting at a table; behind him was a curtain or a tent wall. Those who saw that briefing may remember it for something else: This man said that he expected the American army to reach Baghdad within five days at the same time when the infamous Information Minister, Sahhaf, was declaring victory. During the interview, there were several very loud blasts; the curtain shook. The man, either when listening or while talking, did not even blink an eye!

In much of tribal Iraq, which includes about half of all Iraqis, people in positions of leadership or authority are expected to remain calm and collected at all times, including times of crises. Posture is of utmost importance. This of course is not unique to Iraqis.

***

One of the major impressions that killed the halo of invincibility of the US army in Iraq was the perfectly normal reaction of crouching or running for cover when under attack. Time and again, I heard things like “they are not men; they panic”. This of course does not refer to the absolutely unforgivable act of spraying bystanders with bullets when, and sometimes after, being attacked. In a country so used to bangs and bombs going off (that frequently children take off to the street to watch planes sending missiles and bombs) such an action may be seen as ‘unbecoming’ to say the least!

The other “image killer” was soldiers with hands on triggers with guns pointing at people. Those postures were dictated by the need for readiness; however, they conveyed an image of fear, aggression and disregard, which most people found offensive.

It is probably perfectly normal for an adult American to be seen chewing gum in public. In traditional Iraqi society, the act of chewing a gum is reserved to women, but never in public. Country folk utterly despise city boys when they see them chewing gum. They regard it as feminine. Even little children are discouraged from doing it. The sight of grown, armed men chewing gum must have been one of the causes of many people losing their respect for those armed men! It simply conveys an unintentionally ‘undesirable’ image!

This also reminds me of a young US soldier manning the Iraqi side of the Iraqi-Jordanian border. He glanced at our passports with a lollypop in his mouth. I couldn’t help but notice the reaction on the taxi driver’s face: Utter contempt!

I really cannot blame those American boys for doing some things that are completely natural and normal. There was no way that they could have known that those little normal acts could be misinterpreted by others. But here I am talking about how perfectly normal actions can be seen from across the cultural divide. I cannot address the rights and wrongs of this. People’s cultures are different; we may see some of their attitudes as wrong or detestable, but that view will not change those attitudes, especially if they hold to them in their own environment and in their own country.

Before the invasion, tribal resolution of major criminal or violent incidents only followed and complimented normal legal procedure. The tribe of the offending party employed ‘tribal’ relations and procedures to pacify, compensate or appease the injured party.

When this takes place, the heavy hand of the law was usually reduced by foregoing ‘personal rights’ to leave the ‘public rights’ take their course. Also, it was normal to seek the help of local (or sometimes central) police forces to pursue villains.

Over the past two years since the invasion, there has been a great deal of confusion regarding tribal responsibility towards numerous issues of enormous importance. This has taken a special significance in the absence of any real government presence, particularly in rural areas.

It must be pointed out here that the authority of the tribes in most of Iraq before the invasion was more ‘moral’ than physically affirmative.

Under the present circumstances, with the lack of any true muscle of the law, there was a great deal of confusion: cases of armed robbery; politically-induced violence; incidents of sectarian strife; common criminals claiming to be resistance fighters; people killed by ‘mistake’ by the resistance; collaborators killed intentionally by the resistance; terrorist (and other forces of darkness) acting completely outside tribal bounds.

***

It stared with one tribe. About 20 elders of that tribe met one morning to address these issues. They agreed on a pact defining their tribal responsibility. The pact was agreed and signed in the same morning.

They then made copies and distributed them to neighboring tribes so that others knew where that tribe stood and what they saw as the limits of their responsibility (for their own tribesmen or kin) and in relation to other tribes.

Abbreviated Translation:

Tribal Manifesto

During these difficult times that our beloved Iraq is going through, times characterized by the weakness of the authority of the state and the attack of numerous forces of evil and darkness, Iraqi tribes have an important positive role to play in reducing damage to our society.

The Iraqi tribes have indeed played important parts during the numerous periods of devastation and occupations that Iraq went through between periods of civilization. Those tribes had an important effect on preserving our country’s culture and noble values, despite the frequent charge that tribalism is a contributing factor to backwardness.

This positive role would be more effective if the criteria and the limits of tribal contributions were clear and well-defined.

For these reasons, the following guidelines have been approved and agreed by the signatory tribes:

Basic Criteria: All positions will be based on our traditional values and religious beliefs that are common to all of us.

Religion: Tribes cannot address the question of religious conflicts as the issue of religion much wider than tribal bonds and jurisdiction.

Sectarianism: Most of the tribes in Iraq have members who belong to one of the two major sects in Iraq (Sunni and Shiite). Consequently, tribes cannot be associated with any sect. That would lead to conflicts within the tribe itself… which would be like strife within a single household.

Politics: Political belief is a personal matter. It would be unthinkable for a whole tribe to be Baathist, Communist, Socialist or Capitalist. It is therefore outside the bounds of tribal relations what a person’s political beliefs are as long as actions do not violate criminal or social codes.

Criminal acts: A tribe is responsible for any criminal act or misconduct by any of its members as is the norm in tribal relations. Resolution of acts such as robbery, assault, murder, etc. and their consequences should follow normal procedures tribes have always used. The only way a tribe can absolve itself of any responsibility of the wrongdoings by any of its members is for that tribe to disown that member. Members of that tribe would then be not accountable for that person’s deeds. That means that this tribe will no longer have any right to defend or to avenge that person.

Resistance: The Iraqi nation is larger and more important than any single tribe. National aspirations are wider concerns than tribal ones. People who see themselves as fighters defending their country against invasion or subjugation do not usually consult with their immediate tribes. Iraq becomes their larger tribe. Their immediate tribes cannot therefore be responsible for their actions.

***

This pact has found favorable response with other tribes and soon there was a meeting of tribal chiefs of the area (county) and the pact was discussed and approved in principle.

It was distributed to others so that they can suggest modifications or additions. Another meeting has been scheduled so that the modified version can be endorsed by them all so that it will be binding to all signatories in future conflicts.

[This post is dedicated to my good friend Cecile. Although Dutch, she is more of a southern European in disposition… if we follow Fredrick Nietzsche’s categorization! I hope it may be of some use in her frustrating efforts to learn some Arabic.

The train of thought that led to this particular post was initiated by a message I received some time ago from a correspondent who was surprised that there were more than a hundred words in the Arabic language for the word “love”.]

The word Semite generally refers to one of the human races. The prevailing idea is that people of this race are descendants from Sam son of Noah. However, the word, as used by historians and anthropologists, generally refers to a group of languages which have common features. The most prominent of these features is that most words of the language derive from roots.

I am not familiar with other Semitic languages, but in Arabic, the roots are usually three-letter verbs. The immediate question that comes to mind is how could three letters of the alphabet generate a sufficient number of words to cover the very diverse human communication needs? The answer is simple: by cheating!

There are three vowels in Arabic and they come in two types: short ones and long ones. The short ones are not normally explicitly written (although, strictly speaking they should) but are usually inferred. They are therefore not counted! And this is what I mean by cheating!

Those short vowels are not considered letters; they are called ‘movements’. There are three main ones: a short “a”, a short “o” and a short “i”.

As an illustration of the derivation of words from those roots, consider the Arabic verb corresponding to ‘to write’: kataba. All three vowels are short ones in this case and the verb is written: k’t’b’ : ﹶﺏﹷﺘﹷﻜ or, less formally, ktb : ﺏﺘﻜ
Hence it can be regarded as a three-letter word.

The interesting feature is that many words can be derived from these three letters. For example: (I will denote short vowels by one character and long vowels by two.)

Kataba – he wrote
Katabat – she wrote
Katabaa – they (two, male) wrote
Katabataa - they (two, female) wrote
Katabu - they (male) wrote
Katabna – they (female) wrote
and so on for numerous verb variants for past, present and future tenses like…
Yaktubu – he writes
Taktubu – she writes
Yaktubaan – they (two, male) write
Taktubaan – they (two, female) write
…
Iktub – write (command tense, male)
Iktubee – write (command tense, female)
…
Other verbs can be derived from the original verb root, for example:
Kattaba – to dictate
Kaataba – to correspond with
… these become roots for the same derivations of verb tenses similar to those mentioned above!

Apart from verbs, numerous other words are derived from those ‘three’ letters (similar to, say, ‘writer’, ‘writings’, etc. in English). Below are some examples to illustrate the concept.

Kitaaba – writing
Kaatib – writer
Kaatiba – writer (female)
Kitaab – book
Kutaib – booklet
Maktoob – letter
Maktab – office
Maktaba – library
Mukaataba – correspondence or contract
Kuttaab – school (old form)
Kitba – fate

This actually leads to a profusion of words that can be derived from almost every verb. The result is a wide variety of words that refer to the same basic thing but with slightly differing shades of meaning.

There are indeed more than a hundred words in the Arabic language for the word “love”. Now I hope you know why. There are also hundreds of words for things like walking, running, smiling, crying, the camel, the horse, the sword, rain, clouds and many other items and feelings. The greatest benefactor has naturally been Poetry. It has to be mentioned though that some of those subtle differences in meaning are being lost, perhaps forever, in these times of utility, speed, junk food and junk words.

I have mentioned before that my own favorite poet is someone called Al Mutanabbi who lived about 1000 years ago. Another great poet, Abul ‘Alaa, was so fond of Mutanabbi that he once wrote something like: “When I read through the collected works of Mutanabbi, I find that I cannot replace a single word of his with a better one”. He then goes on to painstakingly demonstrate his point. This, to me, is perhaps the greatest compliment paid to a Poet by a great critic.

Finally, and while on the subject of language, it may be worth mentioning that because of the ‘flowing’ shapes of Arabic characters they lend themselves naturally to the beautiful art of calligraphy.

Update:

Readers who are not confused enough by this post should have a look at the link sent to me by a reader. It is written by an American trying to come to grips with the Arabic language. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it made me chuckle a few times… but I’m sure most non-Arabic readers will have a different opinion!

What's in a Name!

I have already discussed the 'Abu' part of the name in an earlier post.

Khaleel (sometimes written Khalil) is one word in Arabic, meaning 'close friend' – but also alludes to spending time together in companionship. Another form of the word is 'Khil', with almost the same meaning.

The letters “kh” refer to one letter in Arabic. The closest pronunciation is as in the Scottish “loch”.

The word “Khaleel” is commonly associated with Prophet Abraham who is usually referred to as "Ibrahim, Khaleel Allah". Abraham was born in Ur, in ancient Iraq. I would like to think that no other single individual had more influence on religious thought of the world. He is so revered in these parts that he is frequently referred to as "Abul Anbeya" - Father of all Prophets.

On closer examination, the name turns out to be composed of two parts: Khal-eel, or Khal-il. Khal is definitely a corruption of "Khil" or close friend. The second part is derived from the word "el" which is an ancient word for God.

So, in essence, Khaleel means "friend of God"!

Those two letters, el or il are usually associated with Hebrew. However, they seem to have been in existence long before Hebrews or Arabs became know as distinct races. They were used originally not only by the ancient Sumerians of Iraq (who were not Semitic) but also by the Semitic Babylonians. At one stage, Inl-il was the most senior of Gods of Sumer.

In Arabic, A god is called ilah or elah. Even today, the Arabic word for God – Allah is a modified word from al-ilah, the God.

Many other old and current words commonly known across the world whether in the Judeo-Christian or Islamic heritage begin to have clearer meaning. This fact sheds interesting light on a number of other common names.

Babylon – more commonly known locally as Babil or Babel (bab = door) - Gateway to God.
Israel (Jacob son of Issac and Abraham’s grandson) - Slave of God (=Abdullah!)
Arbil (a northern, Kurdish city in Iraq) – (arba’ = four) - City of four Gods.
The list is long.

I would suggest that names such as Gabriel, Michael etc... ending with 'il' or 'el'... have Iraq's signature in them!

If only Michael Ledeen or Ambassador Khalilzad knew!

[This post is dedicated to my daughter who is abroad at the moment and who keeps urging me to leave!]


"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have."

Abraham Lincoln

***

These stories and anecdotes I have been writing for a while are indeed a Glimpse of Iraq. A country that is more than 6000 years old that has given so much to humanity – and yet, it is largely unaccredited for it and unrecognized - a country that presents a harsh and a scruffy picture to the casual onlooker and to the observer with no penetrating mind or with a dead soul. But they are not really just a Glimpse of Iraq. They are in fact a glimpse of my Iraq and a glimpse of me.

Most people I know think, and sometimes say, that there is something wrong with me, staying in the unbearable hell-hole while being fully capable of leaving this sinking boat and making a good life elsewhere. I will not talk about duty. I will not talk about making a stand in the face of adversity and the forces of darkness. I will not talk about the many rational reasons that I feel I have. In this post, I will mention one ‘minor’ reason that I rarely state.

***

Some time ago, I chanced across a comment somewhere by someone discussing the Sunni Shiite issues and wondering why these people were so immersed in an issue 1400 years old in a country with a 6000 year history. Reflexively I wrote that those 6000 years are there but many people are not aware of them.

That is true.

All those 6000 years of glory, violence, suffering and achievement are there. I see them everyday in people's words and gestures, in their toughness and resilience, in their capacity to handle impossible hardships. I see those 6000 years in the features of little children… and I feel them in my veins.

Many people can only see the hardship, the dirt, the blood and the suffering. I can see a people who, unassisted, put a limit to looting and lawlessness. I see a people who refuse to kill each other and be drawn into stupid sectarian battles. I can tell you stories! I see people with patience that is legendary. I see people who try to go about their shattered lives amid the blood and the chaos and the suffering. I see people who spend all night and fast all day sitting in their cars, waiting for petrol… and when dusk sets in, they break their fasting with a cold sandwich.

I can see people who can tell jokes about it all.

All those 6000 years are there. I see them in little things people do, in their everyday gestures, in their unique way of handling impossible hardships. Those years are there. They come to the rescue… and most people don’t know it!

I see them in date palm trees, tall, proud and beautiful… with their fruit only accessible to the skilled and their beauty only maintainable through expertise and hard work. Yet, they can survive unendurable neglect, and be ready to shine again with care.

Yes! I feel sad and angry and bitter most of the time. But these people remind me every single day that I cannot lose hope. It is only a question of scale. We have to think in longer terms. And that, that is what this country is all about.

This country can be invaded, and it has been, more times than I would care to count. It can be ravaged, bombed, looted and ruined. But I know, in my heart, that it will never be permanently crushed. Six thousand years of experience tell me that it will rise again… and that it will be a lantern to show the world yet again the missing link between mind and soul, between knowledge and spirit… for the world seems to have largely lost that link.

This is where I want to live. This is where I want to be buried when I die… in the hope that my decomposed body will one day be food for a tall and proud palm tree.

[This post is dedicated to my son who is away. A taste of home, in case he misses it!]

Shopkeeper wisdom

I was talking to a shop keeper some time ago. He was relating an argument he had with someone. The other man had said that Saddam was better than the lot holding power in Iraq at present. The shopkeeper had a different view: he said that saying “Saddam was better” implies that both were good! The proper way was to say that this lot was “worse than Saddam”. That implies that they were both bad.

I can’t argue with that!


Illiterates with Mobile ‘Phones

Sometime ago, I met a farmer who was an old, illiterate man. He had a mobile ‘phone. I asked how he managed to use it. He said that it was quite simple. Some of his children stored his contacts for him on the ‘phone. He would fumble with the keypad and make a call to anybody at random. He would then ask whoever he was calling to pass on his message to the one he had in mind! Usually the one he was trying to call would call back… making the phone call also less costly!


The Lone Insurgent

He is a retired army officer in his mid fifties. He is totally convinced that America is an enemy. He has dedicated his life to expel the invaders. But he does not trust anybody, so he works alone.

He puts his AK47 machine gun and his RPG (rocket propelled grenade launcher) in the trunk of his car and roams the streets of Baghdad and the surrounding areas. He never acts rashly and waits for a good ‘hit’. When the opportunity presents itself, he makes that hit, and goes back home.


Putting the Prince in his Place

Iraqi ‘insurgents’ are usually called Mujahideen (holy warriors) in the countryside and in small towns whether they are religious or not. The Islamic insurgents are organized in cells or clusters. Each is led by what they call an “Ameer” – Prince. In some areas of Iraq they are a force to be reckoned with, feared and/or respected.

This particular “Prince” had a quarrel with a hard-nosed old farmer. The quarrel was purely social. They were distant kin. The old man took a few of his boys and they gave the Prince a severe beating.

The cell the Prince was responsible for issued an ultimatum for the old man and two of his close kin to move out of the area within three days. The old man took four car loads of his lot, set up a road-block in the area and kidnapped three of the Mujahideen. He did not release them until that particular cell issued a written apology to the old man… and promised not to bother him again.

I find the image of those fierce fighters who have been causing so much headache to the most powerful army in the world being beaten up and kidnapped by a simple farmer… quite amusing, almost hilarious!

No other person in my memory was held in so much regard by so many ordinary Iraqis or had so much non-coercive influence on them since the late President Nassir of Egypt. What is amazing is that, while Nassir had a way with words that inflamed the nationalistic feelings of people, this soft-spoken old man has said so little in public….

Over the past two years, he has had more influence over Iraqi politics than any other figure in Iraq. For a man who rarely left his own house, or said a single word to the mass media, this is quite phenomenal!

Who is Sistani?

His full name is Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini Sistani.

Grand Ayatollah is his religious title, the highest in the Shiite clergy hierarchy; Ayatollah roughly means: “A Sign of God”. Ali is his personal birth name. Husseini indicates that he is a Sayyed whose lineage goes back to Hussein, one of Imam Ali’s two sons. Sistani derives from the town in Iran, Sistan, where his family comes from.

I did not pay much attention to Ayatollah Ali Sistani during the Saddam years but I knew was that he had good standing among devout Shiite laymen and clerics. He certainly kept a low profile and rarely left his home/office. I'm told he never left his house for more than 8 years!

When Saddam started targeting the senior Shiite clergy, most notably the defiant and outspoken Sadr (Moqtada’s father) he spared Sistani. The rumor in vogue at the time was that the government was eliminating troublesome competition to the moderate Sistani, whom they probably felt that they could do business with. However, Sistani himself was reported to have been ‘detained’ for a while later.

During the early hazy months following the invasion, almost suddenly, everybody started talking about Sistani. In those early days, he made a very good impression of being a moderate. I must say that many of his declared positions after the invasion of Iraq were admirable: an unequivocal stand against looting and chaos, a clear stand against Sunni-Shiite sectarianism strife and a firm stand for democracy. What surprised me was that he managed to say very little, but what he said made sense.

Unlike the late Khomeini of Iran, Sistani almost never communicates with people in public and does most of his business through small meetings, through ‘representatives’ making announcements on his behalf or through ‘Fatwas’. [A fatwa is a ‘considered’, usually written, religious opinion.]

Some people sometimes wonder why Sistani did not make any of his announcements himself. The reason is obvious. The reaction to his heavy Iranian accent would be negative in both ‘Sunni’ and most ‘Shiite’ quarters alike.


Report of a visit to Ayatollah Ali Sistani

This is the most authentic first hand account of an audience with the Ayatollah that I know of. It gives a good glimpse of Sistani [From a private communication, in 2004]:

[“…
…
It was a small delegation representing [… a few ‘Sunni’ Arab and Kurdish tribes]. A few other “Shiite” friends came along for the honour of seeing His Holiness.
…
We were an hour and a half late for the appointment (the traffic jams were something I have never seen the like of). Nevertheless, his staff, his son (and later, he himself) went out of their way to make us feel welcome.

We sat on the floor of a sparsely furnished room (very much like the reception room of a not-very-poor peasant), were served tea, had a pleasant chat with his son, a very bright (and obviously very ambitious), courteous young man of around 30.

He came in a few minutes later, didn’t shake hands and squatted in that way only clergymen know how. We were introduced one by one, his eyes were alive and alert and very much like an earthly man, examining each closely!

Nazar K. spoke first saying that his eminence was talking for all Iraqis when he wanted elections. As sunnis we were fully with him on that. Then he responded.

He had a heavy (and I mean really heavy) Persian accent which he didn’t (and couldn’t) hide. He used classical Arabic, but the structure of his sentences was not perfect.

He talked a lot…a lot! His response for 30 seconds of courteous pleasantries was a 10 minute monologue! That was when I was shocked!

The man was a secular! I have never heard a clergyman saying the things that we lot take to represent our secularism!

In response to Nazar’s statement, he went on and on about sunni’s and shia saying that these were doctrines differing on how to interpret Islam and they were all decent and good-intentioned. They were definitely no reason for bloody strife. He talked about the ancient pillars of the sunni doctrine and praised them all in detail and said how he respected them as men of faith and as scholars. The difference between the shia and sunna, he believed, was far less significant than the danger facing the Iraqi nation at present.

Well, personally that put him on my right side!

Then Omar S. sounded his fear that through democracy the shia would dominate Iraq, and consequently the Kurds.

He said that he didn’t believe there was much danger of that happening. The shia were not a single political entity. Some are atheists, some are secular; even religious shia did not all follow the same leader.

He said that he firmly believed that the clergy should not interfere with the running of people’s lives, with government or with administration (Now how on earth could you be more secular!). He had forbidden his followers from putting their noses into the state’s affairs. He said that clearly and categorically (several times to stress the point!)

It was my turn and I said something like “As an Iraqi I am grateful for Your Eminence’s honourable stand on democracy and I think that the country is fortunate to have you in this position in this particular instant of history.” (Yes I did!! And I meant it!!!!!!!)

I then asked him why he had requested the UN to examine the possibility of conducting elections. (I was partly moved by some fear I still have that the panel of UN experts may “conclude” that it is too soon or too unstable to have elections at present. Then we really would have a major problem in our hands!)

He denied that flatly and said that he never did and that my information was probably based on media reports (which was true!). He said he did not feel obliged to accept the UN ruling on elections. He thought the Americans wanted the UN involved because they were having difficulties! He was set on calling for elections as the only possible way for Iraq to regain its sovereignty.

Some of the other things he said (This is a rather loose translation!):

“The most important thing at this time is unity. Division of the people is treason! Even silence, in these turbulent times, is evil!

“Give my regards to your tribes and to the sunna clergy and tell them that Sistani “kisses their hands” and begs them to unite with all Iraqis, Shia, Kurds, Christian, Turkmen. You just unite, and count on me to stand up to the Americans! The worst that could happen is that I die! That doesn’t worry me!”

He mentioned the late de Milo of the UN and said he was “a good man”

He mentioned “the one who was killed in Najaf” and said that he had “talked to him”, meaning “advised him”. I took that to refer to Al-Hakeem. This was the only disguised statement he made in more than an hour of talking.

He mentioned the “Arab Nation” so many times! He evidently viewed himself as an Arab. Being born Persian did not affect the fact that he was a Sayyed. He made that perfectly clear.

He does not believe in “Wilayat al Faqeeh” as the clergy in Iran do (as you know, this is the cornerstone of Khomeini’s doctrine). He repeatedly stressed that religion has to be separated from government!

He was extremely humble in his talk, his attire and his mannerisms.

He was much younger than I had thought; looked like early seventies but quite agile and healthy-looking.

He talked so softly, almost in whispers, that I had to really stress myself to hear what he was saying. (Being the insolent person that I am, at one time during the meeting I said I wasn’t hearing him well !!!!! There were only three people between us! There was some space on either side of him which people left out of respect…and he invited me to sit next to him which I did!)

He didn’t use any of the rhetoric clergymen usually wrap everything they say with. He was quite plain and direct. I found that really odd for a person in his position!

We were late for our appointment. We stayed there for about an hour and a half. Apparently someone else was waiting to see him. So, his son (who was apparently managing the old man’s schedule) was obviously beginning to sweat, but was too polite to say anything. We finally took the hint!

There you are! I felt that I should share this experience with you and I have tried to reflect as much as I could of it in its true spirit…wil Abbas (non-Iraqis, this is a shiite oath)!

I now believe that the American Administration could not have wished for a better person at the head of the shia clergy hierarchy. Let’s wait and see how they handle him!
”]

Those words were written nearly two years ago. Since then, he has had so much influence on the political process in Iraq. Personally, I did have more than a change of mind concerning him… based on his major political positions. The gentleman bewilders me!

More…

For some people in Iraq, today is the first day of the Eid. For others, it is the second!

After a full month of fasting from dawn to dusk, Iraqis like many other millions in the Muslim world, celebrate for three days. They call it the Eid. It is one of two religious festivals. The other, four days long, takes place after the Hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Because Muslims follow the lunar calendar, the Eid falls in different times every year – it shifts by about ten days every year relative to the solar calendar. This adds some variety to life! These years the Eid has been coinciding with the autumn – a wonderful time of the year for festivities, in most of Iraq. Our autumns are more like springs in other countries.

But the uncertainty of timing adds a bit of confusion to proceedings and to people’s ability to plan. For some reason, too many people are not yet convinced that the birth of the new moon can be computed ahead! There is also a traditional difference of timing between Shiites and Sunnis in determining when the new moon is born, and hence when to start the Eid. Shiites generally prefer to be extra sure and therefore they almost invariably start the Eid one day after the Sunnis.

For generations, Iraqis have learned to live with that. It has never caused any conflict or hard feelings. On the contrary, it has always been a source of jokes and amusement.
I also know many Shiites who start their Eid with the Sunnis simply for convenience. This tradition has continued through those two years of sectarian tensions. This year for example, Moqtada Sadr’s people (probably to spite Sistani!) as well as large segments of secular Shiites started their Eid with the Sunnis.

‘Mixed’ households, which are a lot more than most outsiders imagine, enjoy the superb benefit of sharing the festivities of first day gathering with both husband’s and wife’s families!! First they go to the Sunni spouse’s ‘first day’. The following day they go to the Shiite partner’s ‘first day’ family gathering. That, one has to admit, is better than any compromise solution!

The Eid, like Christmas, is a time of socializing and of visitations… only on a larger scale. It does not involve the immediate family only. Young ones you are taken (forced, sometimes) to visit uncles and aunts and parents’ friends. Naturally, this is a constant source of some resentment and a cause for rebellion!

The usual procedure is that all sons, and their families, will visit their parents’ home and have lunch together with something like an Italian wedding gathering. When the parents pass away, the elder brother usually acts as host.

The traditional Eid greeting is “Ayyamkum Saeeda” which literally means: “May your days be happy”… Happy Days!


A few days ago, I was at a caterer’s shop I usually go to. When I came into the shop, the proprietor, who is Christian, was having an argument with a patron. The patron wanted to order a Quzi, a traditional dish where a whole roast lamb is served on a large tray full of seasoned rice and other delicate additives.

The owner was repeating in an angered tone: “Don’t give me that ‘first day of Eid’ thing! Sunnis say this and Shiites say that. No, no, no! Give me a specific date”. The man kept saying that he couldn’t. He didn’t know when the Eid will be.

I couldn’t help laughing. They all smiled back… and then went on arguing.

I don’t know how many times I have heard that argument over the years! Always the same. The caterer will have to manage… like he always does, every year. But they still love having those arguments.

River water is so important to life in central and southern Iraq that most cities are built immediately on one of two large rivers, or one of their branches. Najaf (like the other holy city, Kerbala) is not… although it appears to be so on smaller maps. The whole town was built around a tomb of Imam Ali.

For more than a thousand years, there have been two main activities in that city: religion and commerce. Commerce in the city derives mainly from its religious activities! Visitor hordes are there for the numerous pilgrims from other parts of Iraq and other countries, most notably Iran, doing ziaras (or holy visits)… or to bury their dead. So may people bury their loved ones in the holy soil of Najaf that the city ended with what is probably the largest cemetery in the world.

These activities naturally reflected on the nature of the city’s inhabitants. Najafis, as a result, have earned the reputation in Iraq of being good salesmen and formidable debaters.

The effect of religious institutions on the life of the city runs deep. Centuries of study, research and dialogue resulted in a rich literary tradition. Najaf took pride in producing numerous non-religious literary figures, poets and historians… as well as political activists and leaders. The city played a central role in the revolution against British occupation in 1920. The current leader of the communist part comes from Najaf.

The religious institutions and the literary tradition are so central in the life of that city that it is not unusual for a family to acquire its name from the title of a highly regarded book published by one of its members. Perhaps the best know example in the outside world is “Bahr il Uloom”. Mohammed was a member of the now defunct IGC. His son, Ibrahim, is currently the Oil Minister in the Ja’afari government. “Bahr il Uloom” literally means “Sea of the Sciences” and is in fact part of the title of a book authored by one of their ancestors!

The nature of the city was summarized so concisely by a famous Najafi poet, Ahmed al Safi who said:

My town’s imports are coffins…
… My town’s exports are turbans.

‘Turbans’ refer to the religious clergy. In that city, you see them everywhere. They are a sign of distinction. A scholar who is a Sayyed (a descendant of Imam Ali) dons a black turban. One who isn’t has a white one. Usually, the higher up in the hierarchy the person is the larger his turban! Non-scholars do not wear turbans; however, a Sayyed who is not a scholar usually has something green (or, much less frequently, black) in his headgear. Green headbands (worn by members of the Mehdi Army for example) are something else.


The University called Hawza

They call it The Hawza. The word derives from the three-letter verb ‘haz’ - to acquire. The acquisition here refers to knowledge – religious knowledge in particular. It is basically a university, complete with students and competing professors.

At any given time, there are usually a handful of scholars at the top of that hierarchy, known as Mujtahideen – people who can ‘interpret’ and give an opinion on religious issues. Lesser scholars, known as Muqallideen, or ‘imitators’, follow the teachings of the first group. They choose whom to emulate, and consequently determine the master’s scholarly status.

At the moment there are 5 such senior figures. Ali Sistani, is the supreme head of that ‘university’. They (or sometimes only the most senior figure) are frequently referred to as The Marje’ia, “The Reference” (or source of emulation) - the ultimate authority in a chain of command. And in Shiite religious, and sometimes not-so-religious, matters… they are.

All students are financially supported by the Hawza throughout their learning career.
Money comes from donations made by devout Shiites. Many such people willingly give 20% of their yearly income. That usually means a lot of money! Donors choose which ‘scholar’ they pay the money to, and hence have an indirect effect on the ‘popularity’ of that particular professor. Senior figures can have control over enormous funds.

People, and sometimes heads of state, constantly make donations to the shrine. These can be sizeable: great works of art, precious rugs, gold artifacts, etc. The shrine also holds many valuable treasures accumulated over a thousand years. The government put its hand on those funds for the past several decades. That significant financial resource was an undeclared issue in much of the conflict over the control of the shrine in Najaf after the invasion. Many Najafis believed that Moqtada was really after that control during the conflict; hence all that fuss about the keys to the shrine and Sistani’s refusal to receive them until the shrine was evacuated of Moqtada’s supporters.

Those clergy are quite influential, not just in Najaf and not just in Iraq. In Iraq, all Shiite mosque preachers and local religious leaders look up to them for guidance. Most devout Shiites follow their directives. Local leaders and tribal chiefs have to show sufficient respect.

For most of the past 1000 years, the Hawza was situated in Najaf. It had to move out several times, but usually came back again. That long tradition, in addition to the fact that the whole city was built around Imam Ali’s tomb, has given Najaf considerable edge over other contenders.

Kadhimeyyah, in Baghdad, has always had a Shiite scholarly tradition, but never came near achieving the status of Najaf. Qum in Iran had supreme status (in Iran, and has acquired considerable influence in Iraq following Khomeini’s reign and the Iran-Iraq war, as I have mentioned in an earlier essay). But, in Iraq, the Hawza in Najaf remains the Reference for most devout Iraqi Shiites.

A unique feature of the Hawza is that for more than a thousand years, it never enjoyed earthly power (like the Catholic Church for example). Most of the time, it was in a weak position of opposition. Yet it wielded enormous power on millions of people… purely through their faith… voluntarily. Much of that comes out of respect and social pressure. At the same time, the Hawza managed to keep its hierarchy relatively free from the interference of those holding earthly power, assisted no doubt by its financial independence.

In that city, the unchallenged head of the Hawza, Ayatollah Sistani, reigns supreme.

[This post is dedicated to my cyber-friend Hoots who has posted an excellent account of the recent presidential elections in Iran a while back. I am most grateful for his valuable feedback on the draft of this essay. This post is an attempt to provide some background; more contemporary political issues are addressed in my other blog “Iraqi Letters”. An extended version of both essays combined can be found here ]


A Long History of Interaction

The story is as old as recorded history. There have been raids and counter-raids across the Iraqi-Iranian borders since the earliest city-states around 3000 BC. Conflict also naturally brought cultural interaction.

The ‘modern’ episode started after the fall of Babylon. The Persians occupied parts of Iraq for several centuries. Their capital at one time, Ctesiphon, was on the River Tigris just south of Baghdad.

That episode was terminated by the Islamic conquest in the 7th Century. The Persian occupation of Iraq was swiftly swept away… and Persia itself rapidly crumbled to occupation. Persia and the surrounding areas soon all became predominantly Muslim. Cultural influence soon followed the religion, to the extent that the Persian language adopted the Arabic script (as well as numerous Arabic words) which they use to this date. As an illustration, consider the following ‘extreme’ example:


But at the same time, the Iranians had several spells of considerable political influence during the days when Baghdad was the center a sprawling empire. Persian philosophers and scientists made significant contributions to that civilization. They also helped ‘import’ Indian numerals to Iraq, whence they spread throughout Arabia.

So, it ironically ended up with most of the world using Arabic numerals and most of the Arab world using Indian numerals. The Arabs added an important nothing – the zero.


The Caliphs of the time, for political reasons, relentlessly persecuted Imam Ali’s progeny, leaders and symbols of the Shiite faith. Many fled to neighboring Persia. That was to have special significance that was to last up to the present. But Iran was predominantly Sunni throughout that period.

After the disintegration of that empire, Iran went its own way down the path of history. But she was strong enough again to stand up to the Turkish Ottoman Empire when the latter was beginning to weaken under its own weight and illnesses. Their main battleground was in Iraq!

The rulers of Iran at one became strong advocates of the Shiite sect. By the 18th century, most of Iran, as parts of south-eastern Iraq, was Shiite. It was that conflict between the (Sunni) Ottomans and the (Shiite) Persians that colored the Sunni-Shiite divide in Iraq! That conflict was so acute that when one of the Persian monarchs, Nadir Shah, decided to bring the sects together and managed to set up a major convention in holy Najaf in Iraq, the world ‘Capital’ of the Shiite faith for the leading clergy of the two sects… he was assassinated by his own bodyguards.


Religious Influences

A great deal of the influence in recent history was religious in nature.

Although they never admit it, Iraqis are generally and characteristically rather ‘casual’ about their religion and their adherence to it. This should not be taken at face value. They generally hold it in great esteem and will not tolerate any attack on it; they just don’t adhere to what they regard as ‘inconvenient’ aspects of it.

Iranians, on the other hand, are for some reason traditionally more attached to their religion - probably to the extent of being zealot about it! Iraq is almost universally seen as a holy land by many religious Iranians: It is the land where so many of the divine Imams are buried… and the land where the 12th Absent Imam, the Mehdi, disappeared. It was also the seat of the Shiite supreme clergy.

People sometimes tend to underestimate the influence of that establishment. Early in the last century, the Shah decided to give tobacco rights to some foreign concern. The clergy disapproved. The most senior ayatollah at the time issued a ‘fatwa’ (a religious verdict or opinion) that banned smoking for a while. The people abided. The Shah’s project failed and he had to back down!

Arabs, like many other people, generally take their names and lineage from their fathers only, in defiance of the laws of heredity! With so many of Imam Ali’s descendents living in Iran, many kept their claim to be Sayyeds (of Imam Ali’s blood). This is why Khomeni was a Sayyed… and this is why Ayatollah Sistani can claim to be an Arab, although of Persian birth and tongue.

I remember visiting Iran for the first time in the 1960’s when I was a young man. I took a taxi to go somewhere. Through the barrier of language, I tried to communicate with the taxi driver. He managed to find out that I came from Iraq. The man started crying and repeating words like “Hussein” and “Kerbala”. I was quite shocked by his reaction. It made a deep and lasting impression on me!

I find it sad that a country that had so much influence on another one (to the extent of being held in so much reverence by ordinary people) to waste it so recklessly. But that was exactly what the policies of Saddam did. [This is also reminiscent of the effect of the present US administration’s policies on many countries around the world]. He helped weaken the traditionally moderate center of Shiite religious reference which moved from Najaf in Iraq to Khomeini’s domain in Iran…Qum. Khomeini, who himself spent some 14 years learning in Najaf, was only too happy to oblige.

That simple sentiment of reverence for Iraq and its holy places was to be turned around and used again and again in the Iraq-Iran war to motivate simple people to be fodder for that war. I heard numerous accounts from Iraqi soldiers about simple Iranian soldiers being led to believe that holy Kerbala or Najaf was just beyond that hill or enemy encampment. In truth those places were usually across the two rivers… many, many miles away! In effect, they were frequently sent into certain death.


Reversal of Influence

In the lead-up to that war, Saddam figured that people of Persian extraction were a weakness in the home front. He quite mercilessly dumped hundreds of thousands of such people on the border with Iran. There were many stories of hardship; many grievances; many homes and businesses abandoned by rightful owners and taken over by the government and given to cronies; many personal tragedies of families separated; many people dumped in a foreign country penniless with no knowledge of language or any relations there! There were many people who were not even of Iranian origin displaced in this manner. However, all were Shiite. It was one of the many horrible tragedies many Iraqis had to live with during the past decades. Many of those who had some money or education went on to other countries, but those deprived of both had to remain in Iran. The deep resentment understandably felt by many of them, sometimes verging on the irrational, can be seen at play today.

Those people were augmented by political and religious refugees who fled Saddam’s heavy hand during and after the war with Iran. And all those people were joined by another group, of mostly activists, who fled Iraq following the failed uprising of 1991 that followed the first Gulf war and which Saddam crushed ruthlessly under the nose of the American army. Those groups were the breeding ground that produced some of the most influential movements and politicians now shaping the political arena in Iraq as well as its future. The soil was Persian.

Foremost among these forces is the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and its now-notorious Badr Brigade. The whole movement was conceived in Iran. It was nurtured, armed, financed and given very substantial support by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their chief, al Hakeem, now leads the largest coalition in the Iraqi Assembly. One of their prominent members is now Minister of the Interior, in charge of all police forces outside of Kurdistan.

From the above account, it may be evident that the ‘direction’ of influence, particularly religious influence, between the two countries, has been quite abruptly reversed since Khomeini’s Islamic revolution in Iran.


Mistrust of a Foreign Power

The vast majority of indigenous Iraqi politicians, historians and much of the public believe that Iran sees itself as a regional superpower and has always had dreams of dominating the region. The Gulf, which they insist on calling ‘The Persian Gulf’, is a cornerstone in their foreign policy. The late Shah Mohammed Reza made no secret of his imperial aspirations and worked energetically to consolidate Iran’s influence in the Gulf. He raided and took 3 small islands belonging to Emirates in the ’70. Iran still holds to them.

That view of Iran’s ambitions was hammered into the general public’s consciousness using the media during the war with Iran (much like the way some of the American media was used to convince ordinary Americans of the threat posed by Iraq to America) until a whole generation accepted it as a fact. The mistrust still exists.

On a more social level, foreigners are called “Ajam” in Arabic. In Iraq, the word is almost used exclusively to refer to Iran. An Iranian is called Ajmi in a tone that is akin to the Japanese use of a similar term, “gaijin”, which is often considered insulting or demeaning.


Loyalties and Allegiance

Over the past two years, there has been considerable Sunni-Shiite polarization in Iraq. Some people assume that Shiites are generally inclined to lean towards Iran. The issue is quite complex. I will mention only two of the many opposing forces.

Because of the association with Iran through the Shiite faith, some misguided Sunnis sometimes insinuate that Shiites are more inclined to Iran. Such an insinuation is taken as a grave insult by an Arab Iraqi Shiite for it implies a denial of lineage and heritage. Again, it seems to me to demonstrate an ascendancy of ethnicity over religious sectarianism. This however is mainly a ‘city’ affair. I have never heard it in the countryside. For tribal people, lineage is not a suitable subject for insinuations!

On the other hand, a new major force has emerged since the invasion: Arab nationalism is attacked as racist and damaging to the country. This is at present a powerful lobby that boasts many influential members including, intentionally or not, the US administration. This has given some of the advocates of this theme, with a “Shiite” agenda of their own an opportunity to hammer the idea that most Arabs outside Iraq are Sunnis and it would therefore be in the interest of the Iraqi Shiites to side with Iran.

A small lesson from history may put this in context: Turkey is predominantly Sunni. Sunnis in Iraq were for some time associated with the Ottoman Turks. The Turks generally mistreated Iraqi Shiite for centuries. However, during the British invasion of Iraq in 1914, most of the Shiite clergy sided with the Turks against the ‘infidel’ English.

So, where does the allegiance of the Iraqi Shiites lie?

This question keeps coming up again and again. The first time I personally thought about this issue was immediately before the 1980 war with Iran started. Many people began to quietly question where Iraqi Shiites’ hearts would lie in that conflict.

Within a week of the beginning of that war, a wise old man told me that on the question of nationality and sectarianism, nationalism and patriotism would come first. He was proven correct on numerous occasions.

In one particular incident, that came out astonishingly clearly. During 1982, the tides of that war began to turn and the Iranian army invaded parts of southern Iraq. Iran was close to taking one particular village called Baidha on the edge of the Iraqi Marshes. Residents were predominantly devout, simple Shiite peasants. The Iranians expected to be welcomed as liberators by the local population. To their surprise, even housewives, wielding kitchen utensils, went out to fight them! They were repelled.

Is Iraq an Artificial Construction?

[Time and again I come across statements that Iraq was a state ‘artificially’ constructed at the end of World War I by the occupying French and British out of the three separate Ottoman regions of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. These statements are frequently made by ‘experts’ on Iraq! I have come across such assertions only too often… I would like to elaborate on this, at least to have something to refer people to in the future!]


In a nutshell

Iraq’s habitation goes back at least to the end of the last ice age. As a single country, it has been in existence for about 4,400 years. In addition to the long history, the country has been defined by geography: The two rivers of Mesopotamia clearly define a geographically unified region surrounded by mountains on the east and desert on the west in which people have been freely mixing for several thousand years!


The two rivers in ancient Iraqi mythology

To the ancient Iraqis… it started, not with Creation, but with putting order into Creation… The following passages are from Enuma Elish , the Babylonian Myth of Creation:

[Long before the time of the new gods, and long before our human world... there was nothing in existence but chaos. This chaos was ruled by the old gods Apsu (fresh water) and Tiamat (the sea). So a new or younger generation of gods were created for the purpose of bringing order to chaos.

One of the young gods, Ea, the god of wisdom, slayed the old god Apsu. This made the goddess Tiamat angry at Ea and all of the other youthful gods. Tiamat, who was a dragon like goddess, successfully waged war against all of the younger generation Babylonian gods until finally, in the nick of time, Marduk was born. Marduk, son of Ea, was to be the strongest and wisest of all the gods. As such, he was chosen to deal with Tiamat once and for all…

Summoning all of the other young gods, Marduk went to war against Tiamat. Finally, in a one on one battle, Tiamat was no match for the great Marduk, Lord of the Four Quarters. Cornering Tiamat with the four winds at his command, Marduk caught Tiamat up in his net. When Tiamat opened her mouth to breath fire at him, Marduk let loose the Imhulla, "evil wind" or hurricane. The many winds of Marduk filled her up. The winds churning her up from within, rendered her defenseless. Then Marduk speared her with a lightning bolt.

Splitting Tiamat (the sea) in two, Marduk then raised half of her body to create the sky and with the other half created the earth. In the process of this splitting apart, Tiamat's eyes then became the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

In the realm above (heaven) Marduk set Anu, the sky god, and in the realm below (earth) Marduk set Ea, the earth god. Between the two, Marduk set the air god, Enlil. Other gods were then given their places in the heavens and then the stars were formed in their likeness.

The Sun, the Moon, and stars were at that time given special courses to run, and the constellations were to mark the passage of time. Through the measuring of time by the revolutions of the planets, order was established for ancient humanity.]

[It is perhaps comforting to know that the present-day god Murdock is attempting a similarly mammoth task of putting order in this world through Fox News and other ‘winds’ at his command!]

The Tigris and the Euphrates; it was those twin rivers that gave us Mesopotamia. Geography defined Iraq, even before history, and created that region… not the French and the British.


The earliest days – dawn of civilization

It started with city states, more than 7000 years ago. For a few thousand years Iraq was the birthplace of quite a number of them. They reached a level of sophistication by the standards of the time, unequalled except by Egypt.

Those city-states were then a new experiment in mankind’s history that produced sophisticated government, writing and record-keeping, the first written laws and work management that allowed people be freed from food gathering and production for personal consumption and allowed many to specialize in crafts. This was the spark that ignited technological and other developments. The very concept of organized society (the first step towards civilization) was started in Iraq through the creation of those early city-states. It seems that these were triggered by two major factors: abundance of produce in the fertile plains of southern Iraq (which allowed farmers to produce food more than their families needed) and the collective effort needed by the nature of irrigation in that region.

Those city states came and went, flourished and dwindled, expanded and decayed for a few thousand years in different parts of Iraq.Most of the time they were in competition and combat with neighboring cities. One of them was called ‘Uruk’ – a splendid civilization that flourished around 3000 BC - which I believe gave its name to the country.


Unification into one country

Then Sargon came along… Sargon, king of one of those city-states called Akkad, was the man who unified Iraq for the first time around 2400 BC and then went on to create the first known empire in the history of mankind.

Incidentally, the story of Sargon’s early childhood bears a disturbing resemblance to that of Moses .

1. Sargon, the mighty king, king of Akkadê am I,
2. My mother was lowly; my father I did not know;
3. The brother of my father dwelt in the mountain.
4. My city is Azupiranu, which is situated on the bank of the Purattu [Euphrates],
5. My lowly mother conceived me, in secret she brought me forth.
6. She placed me in a basket of reeds, she closed my entrance with bitumen,
7. She cast me upon the rivers which did not overflow me.
8. The river carried me, it brought me to Akki, the irrigator.
9. Akki, the irrigator, in the goodness of his heart lifted me out,
10. Akki, the irrigator, as his own son brought me up;
11. Akki, the irrigator, as his gardener appointed me.
12. When I was a gardener the goddess Ishtar loved me,
13. And for four years I ruled the kingdom.
14. The black-headed peoples I ruled, I governed;
15. Mighty mountains with axes of bronze I destroyed (?).
16. I ascended the upper mountains;
17. I burst through the lower mountains.
18. The country of the sea I besieged three times;
19. Dilmun I captured. [Dilmun is believed to be present-day Bahrain]
20. Unto the great Dur-ilu I went up, I . . . . . . . . .
21 . . . . . . . . .

The last 4000 years…

Iraq then went on from unification to disintegration so many times! Civilization after civilization rose, produced magnificent achievements and then crumbled and succumbed to local or foreign invasions… and then rose again.

Anybody who mattered in the old, and the not-so-old, world came here. They were all either repelled or ultimately dissolved in this 7000 year old melting pot.

The Greeks were also here, represented by the outstanding Alexander the Great, who died in Iraq. They certainly viewed it as a single country: Mesopotamia – the land between the two rivers. People in the west still use their corruption of the names of those two rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, Dijla and Furat [Furattu].

Before, during and after the Islamic conquest in the 7th century, the word “Iraq” was used to refer to this country. It was known as a single country throughout. It was certainly referred to as such in numerous official documents and much poetry. The Arabic alternative description of Iraq: Bilad al Rafidain (country of the two rivers) is still in common use to this day in Iraq and throughout the Arab world.

Later, Baghdad became the capital of an enormous and a glamorous empire under the Abbasids. Iraq was still a single region throughout their reign.

When Baghdad crumbled to the attack of the Mongols in 1258, it did not rise again. Invader after invader came from the east and north.

For several centuries, Iraq was the favorite battleground between the Ottoman Turks and the Persian Iranians. The Turks prevailed.

The Turks divided Iraq into three regions for purely administrative purposes. They were the zones around the three major cities of Iraq Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. There was nothing ethnic and sectarian about that division. All three were mixed Arab/Kurd and Sunni/Shiite. Yes, the southern region was also mixed. It was only during the 19th century that the southern basin of Tigris converted en masse to Shiism.


Then, the ‘Experts’ came…

That was the state of Iraq when adventurers, company and empire representatives and tools and probes of the European conflicting interests ‘discovered’ it to the West. This is why they were not lying when they wrote that Iraq was three-state contraption. They did not lie, but they did not even know part of the whole story either. They were ignorant of all that long history. Thus was the myth of an ‘artificial’ country created.

Look at the map of Iraq: Only the borders on the west and south-west are straight lines; lines drawn in the sand.

The rest were lines defined by a very long history of long bloody conflicts. The northern and eastern borders were dictated by a history that was too long to ignore. But the French and British were at liberty to draw the western and the southern lines of the map of Iraq in the vast areas of sand. Little did they know that those areas of empty desert were riddled with a history of their own. Except for the early Sumerians, most of the other people who produced all those wonderful civilizations came across those deserts. There were no borders there… until the end of WWI. But that is a different story.

This is how the map of modern Iraq was drawn. And this is why many ‘experts’ honestly believe that modern Iraq was so constructed… ‘artificially’ from the three Ottoman provinces at the end of World War I.

They were only in error of ignoring about 7000 years of history.

With summer drawing to a close, I feel I can write about summer in Baghdad with less steam in my words!

Is the world getting warmer as people keep telling us? I don’t know, but Baghdad certainly is! Baghdad summers were always excessively hot. Yet we are told that the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansoor, who decided on this location for his capital 1240 years ago, chose it for its fair weather!

And yet there may be a grain of truth in this. Baghdad was much smaller. It was built on both sides of the Tigris in a location rich in orchards. Anyone who goes into an orchard in or around the Baghdad region can immediately sense a significant drop in temperature. It has to do with the dry nature of the air. Trees begin to act, through evaporation of moisture from their leaves, like natural air coolers.

This dryness of weather is a blessing. This is why some people in London, Rome or New York can die if the temperature reaches 40 (100 F), while in Baghdad the temperature can exceed 50 (120 F) in the shade… and people go about their normal business (apart from the fact that these people are practically indestructible!!)

We now know that the region of central Iraq, the valley of the two rivers (Mesopotamia) lies in a large depression. The desert is also quite close.


Traditionally, in the days before electricity, people had numerous ways of dealing with the intolerable heat. Noon siesta was one. Passive approach in architecture was another. I still remember thick, amazingly thick, external walls of old Baghdadi buildings, more than 1 meter wide… two walls of brick with more than a half a meter cavity filled with dried mud reinforced by straw, as an insulator; Very few, if any windows on the outside of the house, naturally for privacy but also to reduce heat gain; The rooms in the house face inward towards a small open yard, usually with a tree or two; Before cars, the residential areas did not have wide roads but very narrow alleyways (usually less than 2 meters wide) called ‘darboona’, to maximize the shade for people who walk outside.

In the summer, life after sunset used to be centered around the flat roof. It was sprinkled with water. Earthenware jugs were placed on the perimeter walls and let to sweat and cool their water.

In the sixties, noons in Baghdad were still intolerably hot. People avoided the noon sun. But life usually started to flow again in the afternoon.

The lunar year is about 10 days shorter than the solar one. Ramadan, the holy month of Muslim fasting shifts from year to year. Fortunately, Ramadan and fasting have been taking place in fairer times of the year. I remember times when Ramadan fell in summer months. That was a real test of faith! Even before all this religious revival, I used to be absolutely amazed by the devotion of poor laborers working in the noon sun (construction labor hours were, and still are 8am to 4 pm, with a one-hour break for lunch) in Ramadan, fasting all day at the same time and not drinking one drop of water until sunset!

There were also some jokes about it. One that I still remember had to do with someone who always talked ill about other people. His friends wagered 5 dinars if he could keep his mouth shut for a day. But they arranged for someone wearing a heavy coat to parade before him on purpose on a hot day. The man could not take that and yelled. “I will give you 10 dinars instead if you can see this @#$^&* and manage to keep your mouth shut!”

During the Iraq-Iran war, there were stories about soldiers amusing themselves by frying eggs on the metal work of their tanks and other vehicles!

And of course, I can tell you stories about elevated tempers!! It is perplexing that during these, hard two summers, people’s tempers are much less than those I know!

Breathing can feel like scorching your lungs! Going outside from a cool place may feel like opening an oven.

Water tanks are also kept on the flat rooftops. It can be a real test of endurance to take a shower at noon!

A wicked man once remarked that Iraqis do not have the fear of God in them because they already live in hell!!

I had a heat stroke sometime in 1980’s. I think it was my fault: too much enthusiasm in working on my farm and not enough respect for the summer noon sun! It left my temperature-regulating mechanism faulty so that to date I still suffer from excessive heat! Anyway, when I was ill, I started reading some medical books about it. An article mentioned something interesting. It appears that in some African country (or was it India?) they had a saying: "Only Englishmen and mad dogs go out in the noon sun". Well, I knew for certain that I was not an Englishman!

As elsewhere, to many people progress meant utter disregard to Mother Nature. Now, Baghdad like most other large metropolitans is a jungle of concrete and cars… and very hot indeed!

Sleeping on rooftops has largely been abandoned; too many stray bullets and shrapnel. I know of at least one fatal accident and three serious injuries that resulted from sleeping on the roof. In one of them a man was awoken in the middle of the night by a sting in one of his toes. Half asleep, he assumed that it must have been an insect, and went back to sleep, only to be woken up again by the pain and the wetness of the sheets!

It is rather difficult to convey the constant feeling of heat-exhaustion; the unbelievable amounts of water needed to compensate for all that sweat; the unending feeling of thirst; the anger of waking up in the middle of the night soaking wet; the annoyance of taking a shower before going out, changing into a new set of clothes only to have them soaking and wrinkled before leaving the house; the pain of touching metal with a temperature of 80 C (170 F); the constant feeling of shortness of breath; the agony of waiting for anything even for a few minutes under the noon sun; the agony of having a car break down in that heat; the fury of seeing loved ones red in the face, sweating and in pain, while there was nothing you could do about it.

So, with all those power cuts, you can imagine how happy and grateful all those poor inhabitants of Baghdad feel.

I still hate the summer noon in Baghdad.

Some people call it pilgrimage. Iraqis call it a “ziara” – visit! In these zizaras, people pay homage to their divine Imams (religious leaders).

Shiites have 12 Imams as I have mentioned earlier. What most people outside Iraq don’t know is that at any given time, a ziara has anywhere between 5 and 10% of Sunnis! People, particularly country folk, take part in these activities across sectarian lines.

On that tragic day, more than a million people made their way to the shrine of the 7th Imam, Kadhim, to commemorate his death. Most people go on foot; many choose to go barefooted as a sign of devotion.

That particular bridge is called the “a-imma” bridge (The Imams’ Bridge)… as there are important Imams’ shrines on both sides. It links two northern districts of Baghdad, Adhameyyah and Kadhimeyyah, about which I had also written earlier in this blog. Both districts are ‘religious’ and traditional in character; one is predominantly Shiite, the other is mainly Sunni.

People going on foot from the eastern side of Baghdad have to go through Adhameyyah to get to the bridge. Residents of that district were outside in large numbers during the procession to offer water, food and even the use of their toilets to people going through their neighborhoods. To Iraqis, there is nothing unusual about that… but it doesn’t fit with the flat, two dimensional sectarian image of much of the media and of some ignorant bigots!

The bridge, according to the army general in charge of the security of Kadhimeyyah, was closed to all traffic. It was obstructed, for security reasons, by large concrete blocks on either side that allowed only one or two people to go through at a time. However, due to “certain pressures” that bridge was opened to the public on that particular day.

A rumor was started within the crowd that there was someone with an explosive belt or that there was a car full of explosives. People started running in a stampede. The exit being blocked, the hysterical congestion killed many against those concrete blocks, some people jumped into the river, but the congestion caused the side railings of the bridge to yield. People kept pouring; many fell to their death onto the river bank and into the water.

Was that tragedy avoidable? Naturally! Under the present precarious conditions, it would not be safe for people to converge in such high numbers for any reason. Imam Kadhim was not going to go anywhere. However, still influenced by Khomeini’s effective show of strength in Iran through demonstration of the massive bulk of the faithful, many ‘religious’ leaderships and parties quite irresponsibly encouraged people to converge to Kadhim on that frightful day! They should have done otherwise. Anyway, an enquiry is supposed to be underway. I doubt that anyone will be blamed, although the minister of health has asked for the resignation of the ministers of Interior and Defense.

More than a thousand people, mostly women and children, lost their lives.

Names Tell Long Stories in Iraq

That Imam’s full name was Imam Moussa (Moses) al Kadhim. He was generally known as “al Kadhim” (the Suppressor) because he was famous for containing his anger.

He died during the reign of Haroun (Aaron) al Rasheed (the Judicious) one of the most famous of the Abbasids Caliphs of Baghdad, the spread of the empire in whose time was so vast that he was reported to address a cloud in the sky and say: “Go where you please. Your taxes will come back to me!”

The Abbasids relentlessly fought Imam Ali’s descendents. Kadhim was reportedly poisoned in jail by Haroun al Rasheed. He was buried on the west side of the Tigris just north of Baghdad, more than a thousand years ago. The area became known as Kadhimeyyah.

Kadhim’s father, Ja’afar al Sadiq (the Truthful) was the 6th Imam in the Shiite faith and was also a religious scholar who gave the Shiite sect its philosophical and theological framework.

Moussa was not in fact Ja’afar’s eldest son. The eldest was called Ismael (Ishmael) who, for some reason was seen less fit to be the Imam. Ismael went away and started his own following in Iran and Afghanistan… hence the Ismaelites, whose head figure is the ‘Agha Khan’.

One of Imam Ja’afar’s students was a man called Abu Haneefa who went on to found Hanafism, one of the major Sunni sub-sects. Many centuries later, it became the official religious sect of the Ottoman Empire. Abu Haneefa was quite fond of Imam Ja’afar and spoke and wrote very highly of him.

Abu Haneefa was buried on the opposite, eastern, bank of the Tigris. The area became known as Adhameyyah (in reference to the title Abu Haneefa’s followers gave him: “al Imam al Adham” – the greatest Imam!)

Baghdad kept expanding through the centuries and Adhameyyah and Kadhimeyyah became suburbs of the city, but they retained their religious and sectarian flavor.

Othman Ali al Obaidi… What’s in a name?

During that disaster of a day, Othman (or Uthman) who was a young Sunni man from Adhameyyah who, with many others, kept plunging into the water and managed to save six people from drowning by pulling them ashore. The seventh was a heavily built woman who apparently pulled him down with her… and they both drowned.

People, including some Iraqis, who were ignorant of the real Iraq, were full of awe at this Sunni risking his life to save Shiites. I wasn’t. I know better. I have been trying to explain aspects of this in this blog for quite a while. This time the answer is in the poor hero’s name!

Let’s have a look at his name again: Othman Ali al Obaidi (First name followed by the father’s first name and then the surname- in this case, the name of his tribe).

Othman was the third Caliph (Successor) after Prophet Mohammed. He was a rich aristocrat and resembled everything people would call a right-wing in today’s nomenclature. He was a generous and a peaceful old man who did much to strengthen the original call of Islam. Prophet Mohammed gave him his daughter in marriage… and when she died, gave him another.

Common Shiite folks however do not generally think highly of him. He beat the more deserving Imam Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son in law to the Caliphate. More importantly, being rather tribal in disposition, Othman favored and strengthened the Umayyads, the governors of Sham (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan) - Imam Ali’s archenemies and the people who later killed his son Hussein in Kerbala, Iraq. To this day, most devout Shiites bitterly mourn the tragic death of Imam Hussein and his family.

Imam Ali is of course the Supreme Patriarch of the Shiite faith. The name Shiite actually refers to the cohorts or followers of Imam Ali.

Late Othman’s surname is al Obaidi. The Obaid (or Ubaid or Ubayd) is an Arab tribe whose ancestors came with the Islamic conquest to Iraq 1400 years ago. Most of its members settled in the Kirkuk area around 1600 AD.

Around 1750, the Obaid tribe revolted against the Ottomans. Their warriors surrounded the northern and western sides of Baghdad. Their main camp was in the area of Adhameyyah. After that revolt was quelled, many remained put. Up to the 1950’s probably around 80% of the Adhameyyah district were Obaidis!

I have met many of those people. Hala Fattah has made some interesting observations at“History News Network” about one of them she had met by chance in a library in Baghdad. The vast majority are not only Sunni, but they feel quite strongly about it. Many are proud Arab Nationalists who fought fierce battles in the 1950’s and 1960’s against the spread of Communism and against the Communist Party which became influential for a time after the fall of the monarchy in 1958. That area was so conservative that I well remember a time in the 1960’s that anyone passing through their inner streets was liable to be stopped and asked what his business there was!

Many of the Obaidis in Adhameyyah have relatives, some of them considered close kin, on the other side of the river in Kadhimeyyah… and devout Shiites. The bickering of those kin about sectarian issues is always something to witness!

During that siege of Baghdad in the 18th century, the Iranians invaded and occupied the southern city of Basra. With the Ottoman Empire rather weak at the time, people of Basra sought the help of Iraqi tribes to liberate them. A major fraction of the Obaid tribe went south to help. With them went two large, mainly ‘Shiite’ tribes. Basra was liberated. Many of the Obaid tribe settled along the route to Basra in towns and on river banks as well as in Basra itself. All, with time, became Shiites. Many maintain to this day close relations with their mostly Sunni kin in other areas in Baghdad, Kirkuk and all the way up to Mosul. All in all, about a third of the Obaidis in Iraq today are Shiites.

Othman Ali al Obaidi.

What’s in a name? Good old insightful Shakespeare! Sometimes names tell long stories in Iraq.

The weld still holds.

[This post is dedicated to ‘Circular’, a gentleman from New Zealand with a keen sense of humor.]

A Politically Incorrect Post

In Iraq, most jokes for the past several decades have been political. The rest are mostly politically incorrect.

Urban Iraqis generally relish a good joke, but a good portion of their jokes are ethnic or sectarian in nature. There were always Arab-Kurd and Sunni-Shiite jokes. Sectarian and religious jokes are only offensive when they are based on hatred and bigotry! Otherwise they are fun. There is little popular hatred in Iraq.

In Iraq nobody cares much for political correctness and you can hear all sorts of jokes everyday about Shiites, Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds… many of them told by the ‘targeted parties’. Rarely have I seen them causing ill-feelings.

Up until 1991 when the Kurds went semi-autonomous, most sectarian jokes were about the Kurds. Following 1991, those jokes suddenly disappeared. They were replaced by jokes about the Dlaim (or Dulaim) – a large, mostly Sunni, tribe that occupies the western region of Iraq, mostly the Anbar Province. Dlaim are characterized by being good natured in general. I don’t know why jokes are usually directed at good-natured people.

Following the American invasion, the Dlaim region became the center of the insurgency. ‘Dlaimi’ jokes suddenly disappeared. Jokes in general became few and far between. The state of shock was evidently not conductive to joke telling!

After the elections, with the appointment of a Kurdish gentleman as president, jokes have been back to Kurdistan.

I will give a few examples of jokes from these different phases. They may not be the best I have heard, they are the ones that I can remember at the moment. Please keep in mind that with the power cuts and the water shortage coupled with the unbelievable heat of our summer… not to mention the constant, ugly and needless violence, it is not easy to be in jocular mood! This is the best that I can do under these circumstances. I will edit the jokes slightly to make them comprehensible to ‘foreigners’!


Political – Saddam Era

At a meeting of the Revolution Command Council, Saddam announced that they had discovered an attempted coup that was led by a member of the RCC. His name started with the letter ‘I’. All sight was directed to Izzat Ibrahim who remained calm and indifferent. The one sitting next to Taha al Jazrawi noticed that he was shaking uncontrollably. He whispered “But your name doesn’t start with an “I”!” to which Taha replied, “I know, but His Excellency is always fond of calling me ‘Idiot’!

***

A jackal met another one in the western desert making a quick dash towards the Jordanian border. He asked him what the hurry was. The other said that Saddam’s people were killing everyone who had three balls. The first said, “But surely you don’t have three balls!” The other replied, “Of course not! But they only count them after cutting them off”.

***

On judgment day, The Lord was on his throne while all mankind were paraded, each group headed by their leader: Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Buddha, etc. For each group, God stood momentarily to greet them. Finally, it was Saddam’s turn. God remained seated. Before Gabriel began to speak, the Lord said, “Well, if I left my throne for a second, that man is liable to take it!”

***

After the first Gulf War of 1991, Saddam was scornful of other Arab leaders and of the coalition. He usually went on TV to say things like:

“When will their mustaches tremble?” [as a sign of anger or indignation]…
…or
“What are you so afraid of? Look what happened to us… we haven’t evaporated, have we?”

Most people, with their country thoroughly devastated, found those words rather offensive. There were many jokes about them, particularly the one about the mustaches.

One particular Dlaimi was fond of impersonating Saddam. He usually did that in a local tea house… saying things like “When will those mustaches tremble?” People warned him about his recklessness, but he did not stop. Finally, the security people get word. They locked him up for a while and gave him a severe beating.

The man returns to his usual place and resumes his mocking impersonations! A friend was appalled. He asked him whether he was not afraid after so much beating. The man replied, imitating Saddam,

“What are you so afraid of? Look what happened to us… we haven’t evaporated, have we?”

***

Saddam’s second front man, Izzat Ibrahim (who incidentally is still at large) died. He immediately went to the gates of Hell, knowing his natural place to go to. He was told that his name was not in their books. Bewildered, he went to the gates of Heaven. There, he received a similar answer.

Finally, he was advised to ask God. He went there to ask and The Lord immediately said “You don’t look like I created you. Who did?”

***

Religious

A Jew living in the mainly Shiite town of Kut in the south was pressured by some of his friends to convert to Islam. Finally he promised to do it the next time he went to Baghdad.

After he came back from the promised journey, he was asked by a friend about what he did. The man replied, “Well, as soon as I got a taxi in Baghdad I told the driver what I wanted to do, so he took me the this mosque called Abu Haneefa (the founder of a major Sunni sub-sect) I talked to the Imam there and everything went well and we finished in 5 minutes”.

The friend snapped indignantly, “So, you became a Sunni? Damn you! You should have remained a Jew!”

***

The first 10 days of the lunar Muslim year are days of sadness for Shiites. On the tenth day, Imam Hussein was killed in a tragic battle. The ten days are regarded holy – days of remembrance and grief. The period is called “’A’ssure”. I have already referred to that. He had come from what is now known as Saudi Arabia to Iraq.

Drinking alcohol is forbidden in Islam. Non-religious people are expected to abide during holy days.

This Shiite old woman walks into the living room to find her brother having a drink with a friend during the holy days of “’Assure”. She looked aghast! But before she could say anything, her brother says: “Hold your horses, sister. His holiness hasn’t even crossed the border yet!”

***

‘Kurdish’ Jokes

A few old jokes…

A fellow came up to a stream of water during a walk. He asked a Kurd sitting nearby whether the stream was too deep. The Kurd said “No, go right ahead”. The man wades into the water and finds it too deep. He comes back to the Kurd to reproach him. The Kurd replied: “Funny, just a short while ago I saw a duck with very short legs crossing it”.

***

The main wholesale market in Iraq is located in central Baghdad and is called Shorja. A Kurdish retailer from Sulleimaneyya called once every month to buy merchandise. A shop keeper had trained his pet parrot to shout “Stupid Kurd! Stupid Kurd!” every time he saw someone in traditional Kurdish attire.

This particular Kurd was offended by that bird. He wanted to buy it with the purpose of retraining it, but the shop keeper refused. Finally they agreed that the shopkeeper would prepare some eggs from that parrot which the Kurd could buy the next time he called.

Come the next visit, the shop keeper had several eggs ready. He asked the Kurd to place them under a chicken so that they would hatch.

Back in Sulleimaneyya, the Kurd duly did as he was instructed. But when the eggs hatched, there were baby pigeons, sparrows, other birds… but no parrots.

On the next visit to the market in Baghdad, the Kurd, again came across that parrot yelling: “Stupid Kurd! Stupid Kurd!” He smiled and said to the bird, “I may be stupid, but everybody in Sulleimaneyya now knows what you really are!”

***

[I have also heard this joke in Britain, referring to an Irishman.]

The poor Kurdish laborer was hit on the head by a brick dropped from the third floor of a building under construction. He was taken to hospital.

The following day, he shows up at work with his foot wrapped in bandages. When asked, he said that he was apparently standing on a protruding nail when the brick hit him!”

An anecdote…

The last trip to the Kurdish north I made was in 1984! We went in a group of four families of friends for the summer holiday. A Kurdish friend was our guide and, for part of the journey, our host. In a city called Duhok we met our friend’s brother-in-law who was also a Kurd but our friend kept calling him “Sayyed” (a title reserved for descendents of Imam Ali and the Profit Mohammed’s daughter, Fatima). Kurds also sometimes use the word ‘sheik’ for those people. I asked him how his brother-in-law could be a Sayyed and a Kurd. He replied, “It is simple. He is not a Kurd. You keep sending us people to turn us to Arabs… but we convert them to become Kurds”.

***

A newer one…

The curfew in Baghdad starts at 11 pm. A Kurd who had joined the new Iraqi National guard was manning a check point. Around 10:30, this guardsman sees a man walking in a hurry. He aims and shoots the guy. The guy drops dead. The officer in charge of the guardsman came running. “What have you done? It’s only half past ten, you fool”. The guard replies in a cool tone, “There is no problem, sir. I know that man and I know where he lives. He couldn’t possibly make it home before 11”.