Najaf

Climate

Najaf has a desert climate. This climate is considered to be BWh according to the Köppen climate classification. The average annual temperature is 23.6 °C. The rainfall here averages 97 mm.

Prehistoric and ancient times

View of the city of Najaf, ca. 1914

Men at Najaf during a religious festival, ca. 1914

Masjid al-Imam ‘Ali in 1932.

Archaeological discoveries show the existence of a populace dating back to the times of Jesus. Najaf possesses one of the largest burial grounds in the vicinity for Christians. The centuries following have proven this to also be a city with a multicultural and religious folk. Mohammed al-Mayali, director of Inspectorate Effects of the province of Najaf, states "the excavation on the graves, which we have been working on for years, confirm that the Najaf contains the largest Christian cemetery in Iraq, with a cemetery area of 1416 acres. We have found indications of Christianity on the graves through representations of crosses and stones with Christ-like engravings. There are also relics that date back to the Sassanid period. Also discovered in the excavation was proof of a thriving glass industry. Pots were decorated with the cross. as well as Hebrew writings, indicating a community of religious coexistence."

In Islam, the city is considered to have started with ‘Ali, who instructed that his burial place should remain a secret, as he had many enemies and he feared that his body might be subjected to some indignity. According to legend, the body of ‘Ali was placed on a camel which was driven from Kufah. The camel stopped a few miles west of the city where the body was secretly buried.^[24] No tomb was raised and nobody knew of the burial place except for a few trusted people. It is narrated that more than a hundred years later the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid, went deer hunting outside Kufah, and the deer sought sanctuary at a place where the hounds would not pursue it. On inquiry as to why the place was a sanctuary Harūn ar-Rashīd, he was told that it was the burial place of ‘Ali. Harūn ar-Rashīd ordered a mausoleum to be built on the spot and in due course the town of Najaf grew around the mausoleum.

Medieval and modern history

In early 14th century Sheikh Ibn Battuta visited the burial site of Ali ibn Abi Talib during his travels in Iraq after his pilgrimage to Makkah. During this period Najaf was called Meshhed Ali. As Translated by Samuel Lee, Ibn Battuta in his Arabic Rihla relates:^[25]

"We next proceeded to the city of Meshhed Ali where the grave of Ali is thought to be. It is a handsome place and well peopled; all the inhabitants, however, are of the Rafiza (or Shiah) sect. There is no governor here, except a sort of tribune. The inhabitants consist chiefly of rich and brave merchants. About the gardens are plastered walls adorned with paintings, and within them are carpets, couches and lamps of gold and silver. Within the city is a large treasury kept by the tribune, which arises from the votive offerings arrived from different parts: for when anyone happens to be ill, or suffer under any infirmity, he will make a vow, and thence receive relief. The garden is also famous for its miracles; and hence its believed that the grave of Ali is there. Of these miracles the "night of revival" is one: for, on the 17th day of the month Rejeb, cripples come from different parts of Fars, Room, Khorasaan, Irak, and other places, assemble in companies from twenty to thirty in number. They are placed over the grave soon after sun-set. People then, some praying, some reciting the Quran, and others prostrating themselves, wait expecting their recovery and rising, when about night, they all get up sound and right. This is a matter well known among them: I heard it from a creditable person, but was not present at one of those nights. I saw, however, several such afflicted persons, who had not yet received, but were looking forwards for the advantages of this "night of revival".

In the 16th century, Najaf was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Safavid dynasty of Iran maintained continuous interest to this Shia site. During the Ottoman–Safavid War (1623–39), they were twice able to capture the city, but lost it again to the Ottomans in 1638.

Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, Najaf experienced severe difficulties as the result of repeated raids by Arab desert tribes and the Persian army with acute water shortages causing lack of a reliable water supply. The number of inhabited houses in the city had plummeted from 3,000 to just 30 by the start of the 16th century.

When the Portuguese traveller Pedro Texeira passed through Najaf in 1604, he found the city in ruins, inhabited by little more than 500 people.^[26] This was largely the result of a change in the course of the Euphrates river eastwards in the direction of Hilla, leaving Najaf and Kufa high and dry, leading to the destruction of the local formerly rich agriculture, demise of the palm groves and orchards, followed by the salinization of the underground water due to evaporation.

During the 18th century the scholarly life of Najaf came to be dominated by Farsi-speaking ‘Ulema’ (Arabic: عُـلـمـاء‎, Scholars) from Iran.^[27]

The water shortages were finally resolved in 1803 when the Euphrates made its way to the city once again. The shift in the river's flow was the product of a century-long effort by the Ottomans to shift the flow of the river, so as to deprive marsh-dwelling tribes like the Khaza'il of the watery environment that allowed them to evade state control. These long-term efforts rendered successful the construction of the Hindiyya Canal in 1793, which further shifted the flow of the Euphrates. These hydrological shifts were to have religious implications. Most notable was the consolidation and spread of Shi'ism. As the shrine city of Najaf gained access to water again, its notables and holy men began to wield considerable power in the area.^[28]

The Ottomans were expelled in an uprising in 1915, following which the city fell under the rule of the British Empire. The sheikhs of Najaf rebelled in 1918, killing the British governor of the city, that is Sayyed Mahdi Al-Awadi, and cutting off grain supplies to the Anaza, a tribe allied with the British. In retaliation the British besieged the city and cut off its water supply. The rebellion was put down and the rule of the sheikhs was forcibly ended. A great number of the Shi‘i ‘Ulema’ were expelled into Persia, where they set the foundations for the rise of the city of Qom as the center of the Shi‘ite learning and authority, in lieu of Najaf. Najaf lost its religious primacy to Qom, and was not to regain it until the 21st century, during the establishment of a Shī‘ī-majority government in Iraq after 2003.

Post–Saddam Hussein period

During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Najaf was a key target of the invading United States forces. The city was encircled during heavy fighting on March 26, 2003 and was captured on April 3, 2003.

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

On April 4, 2004, the Mahdi Army attacked the Spanish-Salvadoran-ALARNG base (Camp Golf, later renamed Camp Baker) in An Najaf, part of a coordinated uprising across central and southern Iraq in an apparent attempt to seize control of the country ahead of the June 30, 2004 handover of power to a new Iraqi government. This uprising led to the American troops arriving in the city in the wake of the Spanish withdrawal. In August 2004, heavy fighting broke out again between US forces and Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The battle, lasted three weeks and ended when senior Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah ‘Alī Al-Sīstānī negotiated an end to the fighting.