Samarra: There Are No Tears Left
Samarra: There Are No Tears Left: "Samarra: There Are No Tears Left
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Samarra.
Travelling in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein required permits to requested destinations and often wheedling, begging, boxes of baqlawa - a day's calorie intake in one mouth watering, sticky delicacy - and, when all else failed, tears. Requesting a detour en route to a planned destination would me met with refusal and stern: ' you have not the permit ...' Except for Samarra. Travelling to and from northern Mosul, sighting the golden domes of the Askari shrine, glinting in the sun, thirty kilometres from the main road, the driver's face (whether Shi'a, Sunni, Christian) always lit at the request.Permits forgotten, we would speed towards the great, golden spheres, growing ever, magnificently, shimmeringly larger, the closer approached. Samarra is in Salahuddin Governorate, named for the warrior credited with driving the Crusaders from Eqypt, Palestine and Syria.
From 836 A.D. to 891 A.D., Samarra was Mesapotamia's Abbasid Capitol. Though the city's prominece as first city was short, it's scientific, literary and artistic splendours,remain legendary in Arab history. The tenth and eleventh Imams, Ali al-Hadi and his son Hassan al-Askari are entombed under the golden dome. The twelfth Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi, who Shi'a believe will return as the world's saviour, is believed born in Samarra. The spiral minaret (malwiya) a 'syntheis of Babylonian ziggurat and Islamic architecture', was described by British archeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler as having ' ..9th century qualities which bridge the centuries. The Malwiya is a truly great and rather lonely masterpiece ' of '.. startling originality.' (Karen Dabrowska: Iraq, the Bradt Travel Guide.) US soldiers were unaware th"
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Samarra.
Travelling in Iraq during the regime of Saddam Hussein required permits to requested destinations and often wheedling, begging, boxes of baqlawa - a day's calorie intake in one mouth watering, sticky delicacy - and, when all else failed, tears. Requesting a detour en route to a planned destination would me met with refusal and stern: ' you have not the permit ...' Except for Samarra. Travelling to and from northern Mosul, sighting the golden domes of the Askari shrine, glinting in the sun, thirty kilometres from the main road, the driver's face (whether Shi'a, Sunni, Christian) always lit at the request.Permits forgotten, we would speed towards the great, golden spheres, growing ever, magnificently, shimmeringly larger, the closer approached. Samarra is in Salahuddin Governorate, named for the warrior credited with driving the Crusaders from Eqypt, Palestine and Syria.
From 836 A.D. to 891 A.D., Samarra was Mesapotamia's Abbasid Capitol. Though the city's prominece as first city was short, it's scientific, literary and artistic splendours,remain legendary in Arab history. The tenth and eleventh Imams, Ali al-Hadi and his son Hassan al-Askari are entombed under the golden dome. The twelfth Imam, Muhammed al-Mahdi, who Shi'a believe will return as the world's saviour, is believed born in Samarra. The spiral minaret (malwiya) a 'syntheis of Babylonian ziggurat and Islamic architecture', was described by British archeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler as having ' ..9th century qualities which bridge the centuries. The Malwiya is a truly great and rather lonely masterpiece ' of '.. startling originality.' (Karen Dabrowska: Iraq, the Bradt Travel Guide.) US soldiers were unaware th"
posted by Thaqalain | Sunday, February 26, 2006
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