IRAQ | Religious and heritage buildings

[Sinjar]

Don't ruin the thread fa plz walli men ihna

[Ali - Iraq]

Kurd/arab vs sunni fight! xD

[Sinjar]

The grand mosque in Erbil.

[Sinjar]

Iraq military beard edict stirs religion debate

By Raheem Salman, BAGHDAD | Wed Jun 20, 2012

(Reuters) - An Iraqi government decree banning soldiers and police from wearing beards on duty has revived a debate over religious practices in a country where sectarian divisions between Shi'ite and Sunni still fester close to the surface.

Iraq has long allowed police and soldiers to wear beards to a certain length, but in April the interior ministry began ordering that they must be clean-shaven in the name of the "public interest".

Wearing a beard is seen in many parts of the Muslim world as a sign of piety or a symbol of radical Islamism, depending on its style. In Iraq, beards are sometimes associated with militias from both the Sunni and Shi'ite communities, which fought against each other, the security forces and foreign troops after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

For police mechanic Abu Haider, the ban quashed his hopes for greater religious freedom after Saddam Hussein was deposed.

"When I saw the letter saying the ministry won't allow us to wear beards, I was resentful," he said in Basra, a Shi'ite stronghold.

Iraq's Shi'ite majority was oppressed and their religious activities banned under Saddam's mostly secular rule as the Sunni dictator sought to maintain tight control under his Baath organization's one-party rule.

"It is interference in the personal freedoms we started to taste after the toppling of the regime," Haider said.

The issue is sensitive across the Middle East, where Sunni Salafists, wearing the heavy beards many people associate with hardline Islamists, have made gains in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolutions in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

TREADING CAREFULLY

In Iraq, the need to tread carefully is particularly acute.

The country is less religiously conservative than many of its neighbors, such as Sunni Saudi Arabia and predominately Shi'ite Iran, mainly because its religious, ethnic and sectarian mix makes it difficult to impose one-size-fits-all strictures.

But with Saddam's departure, hardline Islamic political parties on both sides of the divide sought to impose more strict interpretations of religion on Iraqi life and politics.

In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, illegal armed Shi'ite militias and Sunni Islamists ruled many parts of Baghdad and enforced a strict religious conservatism. Militia leaders and insurgent chieftains from both sects were often seen wearing beards associated with their beliefs.

Women - Christians as well as both Sunnis and Shi'ites - were forced to wear the traditional headcovering, or hijab, to ward off suspicion, and barber shops and beauty salons were closed or threatened just for showing pictures of women without it.

The worst of the sectarian violence is now past, but many Iraqis are still hesitant to express themselves in ways that draw the attention of those with more religiously conservative attitudes.

Although women often go without the hijab in Baghdad, they wear scarves in areas that are more mixed or more conservative.

Spas, hair-dressing salons and even gyms for women are opening up in some Baghdad neighborhoods where extremist militias once enforced strict dress codes with the gun. But in recent months posters have appeared around a Shi'ite shrine urging woman to reject Western-style clothes and wear the hijab.

COMPETING FORCES

The responses to the beard order shows the competing forces at play.

Many Iraqis believe a well-dressed, cleanly shaven security force will show soldiers and police officers are free of any political and religious affiliation.

"Having a beard can give the impression that security forces are connected to a religious party, or have political leanings, and that we don't want for our security men," said Hamid Mutlaq, a member of parliament's security committee and a leader in the secularist but mainly Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc.

But Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi'ite cleric whose militia once fought American troops but who now forms part of a coalition government of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, called the order a "sin" and a religious offence.

One group of Iraqi armed forces officers are sending a written complaint to the government, arguing their personal freedoms have been violated by the order.

"Why such restrictions? Having a beard doesn't harm anyone," said Hadi Ghali Awad, a policeman. "It is also a part of our individual freedoms and also part of Islamic teachings."

The comments point up a simmering undercurrent of religious conservatism. While the sectarian slaughter that killed tens of thousands every year has largely stopped, insurgents still stage attacks, especially Sunnis striking against police. Shi'ite militias are still making threats, too.

Earlier this year, Shi'ite militants killed at least 14 youths in what appeared to be a campaign against wearing Western punk-style clothing and haircuts. Nightclubs and stores selling alcohol have been bombed.

The interior ministry earlier this year labeled the punk-ish "Emo" teen subculture as "satanism" and ordered the police to stamp it out, and Baghdad provincial council has also routinely shuttered some bars and liquor stores.

Most Baghdad residents remain more concerned with jobs and blackouts, however.

"Did we solve our country's problems like corruption, basic services, unemployment?" asked Haider Flaih, 29, a policeman and also a barber in the capital's poor Shi'ite district Sadr city.

"No. Instead we keep ourselves busy worrying about beards and scarves."

[fazl1991]

Originally Posted by Sinjar

The grand mosque in Erbil.

wow I would love to pray there one day

[SumerianKing]

Iraq plans reconstruction efforts for three Baghdad churches
July 25, 2012 By Khalid al-Taie in Baghdad
Iraqis attend a mass at the Virgin Mary church in Baghdad. [Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters]


The Iraqi Ministry of Reconstruction and Housing announced Monday (July 23rd) that the reconstruction designs for three Baghdad churches were completed.

"The designs, detailed plans and bill of construction materials for the renovation of three churches in Baghdad are complete," said Saad Salem Mohammad, a senior engineer at the ministry's engineering reconstruction office who is supervising the project. "They are the Sacred Heart and Mar Youssef in Karrada, and the Church of the Sacred Family in the Battaween area."

Mohammed said the designs were prepared according to "a consultancy contract signed earlier this year with the Christian Endowment office. Our office will take responsibility for supervising the renovation of the churches to ensure the work is of high quality and conforms to general engineering specifications".

The Christian Endowment office will put the project up for bid in the next few months. He said he expects renovation work to be completed by the end of 2012.

The reconstruction office will sign a new consultancy contract with the Christian Endowment office to prepare designs and conduct site surveys for the reconstruction of three other churches and a monastery in Baghdad, he added.

The plans for the new project will be delivered to the Christian Endowment office in November at the latest, he said, and repair and reconstruction work will be included in the endowment's 2013 investment plan.

Raad Jalil Kajaji, head of the Christian Endowment office in Iraq, said the endowment plans "to reconstruct and enlarge all the old churches in Baghdad and other parts of the country in this year's and in subsequent years' development plans".

"We asked the reconstruction ministry to prepare the designs and the plans for the churches [throughout Iraq], and the task was completed under a signed contract which includes direct engineering supervision of reconstruction work," he said.

The work will cost an estimated three billion dinars ($2.6 million) and includes building maintenance and repair, renovation of sanitary facilities and electrical installations, and the addition of new buildings to church compounds, Mohammed said.
Peaceful co-existence among Iraqis

Louis Eqlimous, a minority rights activist, praised the renovation project.

He said the initiative is a "positive step that solidifies the peaceful and brotherly co-existence among the entire Iraqi community".

"The churches are not houses of worship for the Christian sect only but also represent, in a symbolic way, a landmark of Iraq's history and civilisation, and offer testimony to the plurality of its components, their originality and the depth of their roots," he said.

Sami Dawood, a 40-year-old Christian, welcomed the project.

"It is a message of defiance to all the terrorists that says, 'We are staying here among our brothers of other faiths and ethnicities. We will not abandon our country and will reconstruct our churches, practice our rituals and worship freely and in peace despite you,'" he said.

[makaay31]

مشروع اعمار مرقد مسلم بن عقيل

[makaay31]

مشروع اعمار مسجد الحنانة

[Sinjar]

AP PHOTO- Ammar al-Hakim, front, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, prays Eid prayers in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, Aug. 20, 2012. The three-day Eid al-Fitr holiday marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.


_____

Why is he praying in a hole?

[Ali - Iraq]

Why is he praying in a hole?

Because he's Saddam Hussein...or mb because he needed to take a dump

[makaay31]

Najaf

مشروع بناء وأعمار مسجد الصحابي الجليل صعصعة بن صوحان

[sheytanElKebir]

BAGHDAD — For much of Iraq’s youth, sporting blingy makeup, slicked-up hair and skintight jeans is just part of living the teenage dream. But for their elders, it’s a nightmare.

A new culture rift is emerging in Iraq, as young women replace shapeless cover-ups with ankle-baring skirts and tight blouses, while men strut around in revealing slacks and spiky haircuts. The relatively skimpy styles have prompted Islamic clerics in at least two Iraqi cities to mobilize the “fashion police” in the name of protecting religious values.

“I see the way they (police) look at me — they don’t like it,” said Mayada Hamid, 32, wearing a pink leopard-print headscarf with jeans, a blue blouse and lots of sparkly eyeliner Sunday while shopping at the famous gold market in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s just suppression.” So far, though, there are no reports of the police actually taking action.

This is a conflict playing out across the Arab world, where conservative Islamic societies grapple with the effects of Western influence, especially the most obvious — the way their young choose to dress.

The violations of old Iraqi norms have grown especially egregious, religious officials say, since the Aug. 20 end of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month. In the last two weeks, posters and banners have been hanging along the streets of Kazimiyah, sternly reminding women to wear an abaya — a long, loose black cloak that covers the body from shoulders to feet.

A similar warning came from Diwaniyah, a Shiite city about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, where some posters have painted a red X over pictures of women wearing pants. Other banners praise women who keep their hair fully covered beneath a headscarf.

Religious officials speculate young Iraqis got carried away in celebrating the end of Ramadan and now need to be reined in.

“We support personal freedoms, but there are places that have a special status,” said Sheik Mazin Saadi, a Shiite cleric from Kazimiyah, home to the double gold-domed shrine that is one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites.

He said the area’s residents lobbied Baghdad’s local government to ban unveiled women from walking around the neighborhood, including its sprawling open-air market that attracts people from across Iraq.

“The women started to follow to this order,” Saadi said.

Government leaders in Baghdad say they’ve issued no such ban and ordered some of the warning posters removed. The rule “is only for the female visitors who go inside the shrine itself,” said Sabar al-Saadi, chairman of the Baghdad provincial council’s legal committee. “We think that wearing a veil for women in Iraq is a personal decision.”

Muslim women generally wear headscarves or veils in public out of modesty, and female worshippers are required to wear an abaya or other loose robes in shrines and mosques.

But over the last several years, following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, Western styles have crept into Iraq’s fashion palate. Form-fitting clothing, stylish shoes and men’s edgy hairstyles are commonly seen on the street. Some younger women have even begun to forgo the hijab, or headscarf.

Their parents — and their parents’ parents — fear Western influence will drown out Iraq’s centuries of culture and respect for religion.

“We as Iraqis do not respect our traditions,” said Fadhil Jawad, 65, a gold seller near the Kazimiyah shrine. He estimated his profits have dropped by 10 percent in the last two weeks since authorities posted warnings about improper dress codes at the entrance to the market. He called the financial loss worth the lesson being imposed.

“Legs can be seen, there are low-cut shirts,” Jawad lamented. “And all, very, very tight. I think these Iraqis who are wearing these things have come back from Syria, Dubai and Egypt. They probably spent too much time in nightclubs. The families in Kazimiyah are conservative. These young people — nobody can control them. They should be given freedoms, but they should know their limits.”

Several young adults strolling the Kazimiyah gold market on Sunday accused the religious class of trying to pull Iraq back to the dark ages, a sentiment that human rights activist Hana Adwar echoed.

“It is an aggression on the rights of not only religious minorities, but also on secular Muslim women who do not want to wear veils,” said Adwar, head of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Hope Association.

Men, too, have been targeted in the fashion flap: Edgy haircuts, tattoos and body piercings have angered religious authorities. But Hassan Mahdi, 22, said he does not care.

“No, hell no, nobody can tell me what to do,” said Mahdi, sporting a tight turquoise Adidas tracksuit and a trendy moptop hairdo at the Kazimiyah market.

So far, it appears, the fashion police have stopped short of taking any real steps. Guards at two security checkpoints in Kazimiyah said they have not been ordered to stop daring dressers from entering the market, and 17-year-old Ali Sayeed Abdullah said his slicked-up pompadour didn’t prevent him from going into the shrine. “Nobody objected,” he said. “But if there is a ban on this, I will change it,” referring to his hairstyle.

But some women have been handed tissues at Kazimiyah checkpoints and told to wipe off their makeup before entering the market, said resident Hakima Mahdi, 59.

“This is very good,” she said, smiling broadly, sheathed in a black cloak with an extra abaya covering her head. “It’s respect to the imam, respect to this holy place.”

[makaay31]

Najaf

[makaay31]

Najaf/Kufa

مشروع توسعة صحن مسلم بن عقيل

[makaay31]

انشاء جامع يتوسط كليات جماعة الكوفة والبالغة تسعة عشر كلية
18/09/2012

شملت المشاريع العمرانية في محافظة النجف الاشرف إنشاء العديد من الصروح العمرانية التي أضفت جمالا على المحافظة وارتدت المدينة حلة جديدة بمجسراتها العملاقة و فنادقها الفخمة وشوارعها التي اعيد تاهيلها وشملت حملات الاعمار التي تقوم بها المحافظة كافة الدوائر من خلال تأهيلها وإضافة أقسام لها وكان لرئاسة جامعة الكوفة اضافات اخرى ومن ضمنها جامع يتسع الى 1000 مصلي ذو تصميم إسلامي متميز وبمساحة 6000 متر مربع وبمدة انجاز 24 شهر حيث قام بوضع حجر الاساس له وزير التعليم العالي والبحث العلمي الاستاذ علي الاديب والسيد محافظ النجف الاستاذ عدنان عبد خضير الزرفي خلال احتفالية حضرها عدد من أعضاء مجلس النواب العراقي وعدد من اعضاء مجلس المحافظة ورئيس وعمداء جامعة الكوفة بعد ان خصصت أموالا لجامعة الكوفة لإكمال بعض الكليات في المدينة الجامعية يأتي ذلك ضمن خطط المحافظة للنهوض بواقع التعليم .
مراسل المركز الاعلامي لديوان المحافظة التقى بالاستاذ كاظم الفتلاوي من اعلام جامعة الكوفة والذي قدم شرحا مفصلا عن مراحل بناء الجامع والذي يتوسط الحرم الجامعي حيث قال " ضمن المشاريع التي تقوم بها جامعة الكوفة تم وضع الحجر الاساس لجامع الجامعة من قبل وزير التعليم العالي الاستاذ علي الاديب حيث ان الجامع يتوسط كليات جامعة الكوفة البالغة تسعة عشر كلية وينفذ بمساحة تقدر 6250 متر مربع ويتميز الجامع بمواصفات من طراز معماري فريد من نوعة يتضمن مئذنة ومنارة بارتفاع 45م وساعة رباعية بكافة الاتجاهات شمال جنوب شرق غرب بقطر 5م لكل اتجاه .
مضيفا " ان الجامع يتكون في داخله مكتبة وثائقية ومتحف ومصلى يتسع لأكثر من ألف شخص ويتوسطه نصب تذكاري يدون فيه اكثر من 190 صحابي من صحابة الرسول (ص) وبالأخص اللذين كانوا في مدينة الكوفة العلوية المقدسة وبالاضافة الى اعتبار الجامع طراز معماري جديد سيتسم بالمسحة الدينية التي تتميز فيها مدينة النجف الاشرف عن باقي المدن الاخرى .
الفتلاوي ذكر " ان دائرة الوقف الشيعي هي التي تبنت عملية البناء والتمويل للجامع وستتم المباشرة في الجامع خلال الايام القليلة القادمة .
يذكر ان "محافظة النجف قد خصصت أموالا لجامعة الكوفة لإكمال بعض الكليات في المدينة الجامعية يأتي ذلك ضمن خطط المحافظة للنهوض بواقع التعليم .

[Alulim]

I without doubt think we have the most beautiful Mosques in the world. Definitely the country of Mosques, lol.


Why are no one posting pictures of the Churches in Iraq? I think we shall take good care of our Churches like we do take care of our Mosques.

Originally Posted by Sinjar

The grand mosque in Erbil.

Looks great, really beautiful! Didn't know Erbil had such a beautiful Mosque.

[makaay31]

Najaf/Kufa

مشروع تطوير وتوسعة صحن مسلم بن عقيل وهاني ابن عروة

[sheytanElKebir]

renovation of the um al ahzan church (next to shorja)

[Al-Hashimi]

Very good posts lately. I am very happy that such renovations are being made. It is crucial to keep and protect our heritage. Nothing old that is worthy of protection should be damaged.

This has already happened FAR too much!

[josef hadi]

ممتاز