We spent a night in another holy city, Al-Najaf. It lies on a ridge just west of the Euphrates River, about 160 kilometers south of Baghdad. It is one of Shiʿi Islam’s two major holy cities (the other is Karbalā) and is widely held to be the resting place of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib...
West of Karbala, in the desert, are the ruins of Al-Ukhaidir, a Sasanian-style fortress constructed by the Abbasid caliph As-Saffah’s nephew Isa ibn Musa around 775 AD. It is a large, rectangular fortress with a unique defensive style and represents Abbasid architectural innovation...
We wandered the whole evening around Karbala – Shiite Islam’s principal holy city. It lies 88 kilometers southwest of Baghdad. The city’s religious significance derives from the Battle of Karbala (680 CE), a one-sided contest in which al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the Shiʿi leader...
Babylon was one of the largest, oldest settlements in Mesopotamia and the Middle East on the Euphrates River. It was the seat of successive powerful empires under such famous rulers as Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar. Babylon was the capital of southern Mesopotamia (Babylonia) from the early...
After crossing some terrible checkpoints, we arrived at the Ctesiphon, an ancient city located on the left bank of the Tigris River about 32 kilometers southeast of modern Baghdad. It served as the winter capital of the Parthian Empire and later the Sāsānian Empire. The site is famous for...
Finally, we arrived in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, located on the Tigris River in the heart of ancient Mesopotamia, around 530 kilometers from the headwaters of the Persian Gulf. The city was founded in 762 as the capital of the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs. For the next 500 years, it was...
The border in Kalar is located just behind the city. At the first Kurdish border on Road 4, they told us that they would not allow us to cross, and they sent us over the bridge to another border checkpoint. They just controlled passports there (with our Federal Iraq visa) and warned us...
We departed from Halabja early in the morning and drove slowly towards the Federal Iraq border. At Kalar, we made a short stop at Sherwana Castle, built in the 18th century by a Kurdish pasha serving the Ottoman Empire. And then, we quickly visited the nearby Garmian Civilization Museum...
Halabja is a very ancient town, dating back to the Lullubis era. The ancient city of Khar Khar (2000 BC) is believed to be today’s Halabja. In 641, the Islamic Army freed the town from the Sassanid Empire and became a part of the Muslim Empire. During the Abbasid Caliphate, between...
We made a short stop in the small town of Byara in eastern Kurdistan, located on the Iran border. The Byara district is a nature haven with waterfalls and picturesque mountain peaks. In Byara are many ancient shrines and well-known Madrasa (Islamic school) from which many renowned Islamic...