Iraq (Republic)

Republic since the 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy; the land of Baghdad — the ʿAbbāsid caliphal capital — and of Najaf and Karbalāʾ, the foremost shrine-cities of Twelver Shīʿism, with a Shīʿa majority alongside Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities.

☾ The Coming of Islam

The conquest and the garrison cities of Kūfa and Baṣra

After the victory over the Sāsānids at al-Qādisiyya (636), Muslim armies took Mesopotamia and founded the garrison cities of Kūfa and Baṣra, which became early centres of Arabic learning and law — and, in the traditional accounts, Kūfa an early centre of the nascent Shīʿa.

Kūfa's association with the early Shīʿa follows the traditional historiography.

☾ Religious Composition

A Shīʿa majority alongside Sunni Arabs and Kurds

Iraq's Muslims include a Shīʿa majority (mostly Arab) and a substantial Sunni population — both Sunni Arabs and the largely Sunni Kurds of the north — together with small Christian, Yazīdī and other minorities.

That the Shīʿa form the majority and the Sunnis (Arab and Kurdish) a large minority is widely reported; exact shares are estimates and the balance is politically sensitive.

▤ Scholars & Institutions

Baghdad's golden age and the shrine-cities of Najaf and Karbalāʾ

Baghdad, founded by the ʿAbbāsids in 762, became the caliphal capital and a centre of learning until the Mongol sack of 1258. Najaf, around the tomb attributed to ʿAlī, and Karbalāʾ, where in Shīʿa tradition al-Ḥusayn was martyred in 680, are among the foremost shrine-cities and seminaries of Twelver Shīʿism.

The association of Najaf with ʿAlī's tomb and of Karbalāʾ with al-Ḥusayn's martyrdom follows Shīʿa tradition.

⌂ Contemporary Muslim Life

The marjaʿiyya of Najaf and a plural religious landscape

Najaf remains one of the two great centres of Shīʿa religious authority (the marjaʿiyya), influential across the Shīʿa world. Sunni institutions and Kurdish religious life form the other main strands of Iraqi Islam.

At a glance