Baghdad's National Museum...a decade later

"National Museum, Baghdad: 10 Years Later"

by

Andrew Lawler

Archaeology

The round hole made by an artillery shell was visible long before we pulled up next to the National Museum in Baghdad in early May of 2003. The puncture, just below a frieze of a king in a chariot, was in the replica of a Babylon gate next to the exhibit halls. An American tank sat in the archway. Though I had seen images of the destruction that took place a month before, the sight was startling.

Inside it was worse. The administrative area was in shambles. Filing cabinets were turned over, and papers dating back to the museum’s founding by British archaeologist Gertrude Bell in the 1920s, were strewn about. Small fires had destroyed some offices. In the display area, angry mobs had shattered the cases and smashed 2,000-year-old statues. The primary storage facility had been breached, and some 15,000 objects—no one knows exactly how many—were gone. Among the missing pieces were thousands of tiny cylinder seals, as well as several iconic artifacts such as the Lady of Warka, a stone head of a woman found at Uruk, which is considered the world’s oldest city.

Had museum officials not hidden 8,366 of the most valuable artifacts in a safe place known only to them, this event might have been a catastrophe for cultural heritage in Iraq. For a while, no one knew for certain how much damage had been done; I was with a team of U.S. archaeologists who arrived to assess the situation. Most of the museum’s estimated 170,000 artifacts were eventually found to be safe. The rampage had earned front-page headlines across the world. It was entirely preventable.

Some 2,500 years earlier, the Persian king Cyrus the Great was able to storm nearby Babylon, then the world’s largest city, but texts from the time relate that there was no chaos or looting. However, in 2003, American troops failed to secure what was second on their own list, after the Central Bank, of important places to protect in the modern Iraqi capital. Archaeologists had visited the Pentagon prior to the invasion to provide military officials with detailed coordinates of all major Iraqi cultural heritage sites.

The looting of the museum was over less than 48 hours after it began on April 10, 2003. But it was only the start of a decade of disaster for Iraq’s cultural heritage, a heritage that includes the world’s first cities, empires, and writing system. More than ancient vases and display cases were affected. The invasion began a grim era of sectarian violence and lawlessness in the very land that developed the state, legal codes, and recorded history itself. That era continues. “These are still very tough days,” says Abdul-Amir Hamdani, an Iraqi archaeologist who today is working on a doctorate at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook. I first met Hamdani in May 2003 on the sidewalk outside U.S. military headquarters in the southern city of Nasiriya, where he was desperately attempting to get help to stop the vandals poaching ancient sites. “There is still nothing protecting many sites from looting and destruction.”

Looting, particularly in southern Iraq, which was the center of ancient Mesopotamia, had already begun in earnest in the late 1990s and grew to alarming proportions by 2004 and 2005, long after the National Museum was secured. The United States, its allies, and the fledgling government of post-Saddam Iraq did little to address the sources of the problem. Looting notwithstanding, Hamdani says that today’s principal threat is unbridled development; he served time in jail a few years ago for protesting construction on ancient sites. It is true that, now, foreign archaeologists are working in the northern part of Iraq called Kurdistan. A few western excavators are even digging in the southern regions that have long been off-limits. Looting at archaeological sites has decreased. But young archaeologists in the country long ago drifted to other less controversial and more remunerative work as the older generation retired, emigrated, or died.

More ominously, a new generation of Iraqis has grown up without any access to the impressive network of museums across the country that were once crowded with schoolchildren. They know little of their ancient past. Many Iraqi politicians today have a bent toward Islamic fundamentalism that is no friend to secular archaeology. Liwaa Semeism, the tourism minister overseeing the State Board of Antiquities, is a member of a splinter Shiite party. He has reduced the board’s authority and is openly hostile to foreigners. American archaeologists are now forbidden to excavate in Iraq until a trove of Jewish artifacts removed by the U.S. government is returned. And Semeism recently suggested that Germans might not be welcome either until the famous Babylonian Ishtar Gate—the model for the National Museum gateway—is returned.

The National Museum of Iraq today has beautifully renovated galleries and state-of-the-art climate control and security systems run by a staff that still consists of a core of underfunded but dedicated curators. But despite all the effort and money lavished on it by foreign governments, the museum remains closed to all but the most senior VIPs in an attempt to protect it. The fear is that throwing the museum’s doors open to the public exposes the collection and the newly-restored building to risk from another attack.

New elections later this month could bring greater political stability to the country. Eventually, as they have done from Nebuchadnezzar to Saddam, Iraqi leaders may again see their heritage as a major asset. “If you want to think about unity, then the ancient past is a broadly shared culture,” says Elizabeth Stone, a SUNY Stony Brook archaeologist who spent years excavating in Iraq. “Ancient Mesopotamia was real, and that could be used as a basis for natural unity.”

Hamdani will be returning to his home country this summer to continue his research. More than half of the stolen objects from the National Museum have been recovered, the gaping hole in the gate has since been carefully patched, and the tanks are gone. It is worth noting that there were no follow-up congressional hearings or independent investigations to pinpoint the parties responsible for the negligence connected to the museum debacle. No one in the U.S. military was criticized, demoted, or court-martialed. A Marine, who blamed Iraqis for using the site as a base to fight the Americans, wrote the only formal report on the matter.

The chaos that engulfed this land may finally be receding. A decade later, however, the true cost to our understanding of such a rich share of humanity’s heritage has yet to be tallied.

War and cultural heritage

What can one say...what can one do? Very little. Iraq is not unique in destruction and looting of archaeological sites and artifacts. Consider Afghanistan or Cambodia.

"Damage sustained in the massive August attack on the Foreign Ministry adds to the museum's challenges. Iraqi officials say a number of key archaeological sites also need urgent international aid for repairs."

by

Jane Arraf

September 19th, 2009

The Christian Science Monitor

Baghdad

The massive suicide truck bombing outside Iraq's Foreign Ministry last month also shattered new display cases, windows, and doors at the Iraq Museum, underscoring the continuing struggles officials face six years after post-invasion looting stripped the museum of some of Iraq's irreplaceable antiquities.

"Showcases, windows, even the office of the director of excavations was damaged," says museum director Amira Eidan, interviewed on the sidelines of a Tourism Ministry conference on antiquities.

She says it could be several years before the renowned institution can be opened to the public.

"Is it the time to reopen the museum and show these treasures?" she asks. "After improving the security situation, then we can think about reopening."

The bombings on Aug. 19 killed at least 90 people and wounded more than 600. But smaller attacks are carried out almost every day in and around Baghdad. On Thursday, market bombings in Muhmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, killed four people, while a truck bomb killed at least 19 in the Kurdish village of Wardek, near Mosul in the north.

In Baghdad, Tourism Minister Qahtan al-Jubori said he had called the conference to spotlight several of Iraq's estimated 12,000 archaeological sites that urgently need international aid to prevent or repair damage from environmental erosion, looting, and the proximity of coalition military bases.

Apart from ancient cities such as Babylon and Ninevah, officials highlighted lesser-known sites such as the Assyrian capital of Ashur in the north and Kifel in the south.

Kifel is believed to be the tomb of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel, who followed the Jews into Babylonian exile. The shrine is also revered by Muslim pilgrims.

Officials eye a second museum

In Baghdad, Tourism Ministry officials say they are trying plan a museum of Islamic antiquities in addition to the main Iraq Museum, which houses treasures from ancient Mesopotamia – the beginnings of the world's first civilization.

The museum opened briefly early this year to highlight a restored Assyrian gallery, but it remains closed to the public.

Its most valuable holdings – including gold jewelry and other treasures from the royal tombs in Nimrud – remain in bank vaults.

The Iraqi government is still working with other countries to identify and retrieve thousands of objects that remain missing after the museum was looted in 2003.

Beyond security problems, the museum also lacks a proper security system and air conditioning. Dr. Eidan says foreign countries have pledged to help renovate the museum, but the work is still in the planning stages.

Tourists? Please don't come – yet.

Although tourism could eventually be a major revenue-earner for Iraq, most officials believe that with security problems and lack of infrastructure, that could be a decade away.

"We get a few tourists, but we try very hard to discourage them," says Italy's ambassador to Iraq, Maurizio Milani, one of several envoys at the conference from countries involved in preserving Iraqi antiquities.

In a sign of the political wrangling that often overshadows government initiatives here, the US boycotted the conference because of an ongoing dispute between the Tourism and Culture ministries over responsibility for antiquities.

The Ministry of State for Tourism, which was set up after 2003 and hosted the meeting, is believed by some Iraqi officials to be an illegal entity. Some embassies refuse to deal with the Ministry of Tourism on purely archaeological issues.

"We look forward to the clarification and institution of the framework in which we can work together with the government of Iraq," Ambassador Milani told the conference, seated near an empty chair and accompanying US flag. "We think this would also help involvement of those not here, like our American friends."

"Oldest Human History Is at Risk"

by

Holland Cotter

February 25th, 2003

New York Times

Iraq has hundreds of thousands of archaeological sites. Some 10,000 have been identified, but only a fraction have been explored. Any of them could change what we know about human history, as past excavations have done. Some have already revealed the world's earliest known villages and cities and the first examples of writing.

The country is also one of the prime centers of Islamic art and culture. It is home to some of the earliest surviving examples of Islamic architecture ? the Great Mosque at Samarra and the desert palace of Ukhaidar ? and it is also a magnet for religious pilgrimage. The tombs of Imam Ali and his son Husein, founders of the Shiite branch of Islam, at Najaf and Karbala, are two of the most revered in the Muslim world.

During the Persian Gulf war in 1991 at least one major archaeological monument, the colossal ziggurat of Ur, was bombed. Shock from explosions damaged fragile structures like the great brick vault at Ctesiphon, and the 13th-century university called the Mustansiriya in Baghdad. These are among the sites most at risk from war:

¶Ur, which flourished in the third millennium B.C. and is identified in the Bible as the birthplace of Abraham. In the 1920's and 30's a British-American team excavated a royal cemetery in which members of a powerful social elite were buried with their servants and exquisitely wrought possessions. Ur's most spectacular feature, though, is its immense ramped ziggurat or tower, the best preserved in Iraq. Although excavation is more advanced here than at most other sites in the country, it is far from complete, with many layers still to be uncovered.

¶Babylon (1700-600 B.C.) is rich in historical glamor. Built on the banks of the Euphrates, it was the capital to Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander the Great. Monumental remains like the Ishtar Gate have been uncovered, and locations for the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens tentatively identified. As home to the captive Israelites, the city is a recurrent and potent symbol in the Judeo-Christian narrative. The site of Nippur, an important religious center of ancient Babylonia dedicated to the god Enlil, is also in this part of southern Iraq, about 100 miles south of Babylon. The spectacular site has yielded an extensive sequence of pre-Islamic pottery.

¶Nineveh, far to the north, the imperial seat of the Assyrian kings Sennacherib (about 704-681 B.C.) and Ashurbanipal (668-627 B.C.). Royal palaces with magnificent sculptures have been found, as have more than 20,000 cuneiform tablets from Ashurbanipal's library. The biblical prophet Jonah preached there. After the gulf war the excavated palaces were looted of sculptures. Nineveh is on the World Monuments Watch list of the 100 most endangered sites.

¶Ctesiphon (100 B.C. to A.D. 900) is high among architectural wonders. The audience hall is just a shell, but its graceful vault, 120 feet high with an 83-foot span, is intact. The cracks that occurred in 1991 are believed to have been patched by Iraqi archaeologists, but more or heavier shocks from military sites in the area could bring it down.

While untold amounts of Iraq's ancient material past remains buried, its Islamic art is mostly above ground, and monuments carrying profound cultural and religious significance abound.

Baghdad itself is one of them. Once legendary for its wealth, learning and beauty ? many of the tales in the "Thousand and One Nights" are were set there ? it has been devastated many times. And while nothing remains of its original circular design, superb late medieval buildings survive, among them tombs, mosques, minarets, the university and the revered Kadhumain, mosque and shrine. Baghdad also has the country's largest archaeological museum, with a collection of the finest Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian art in the world.

Samarra, once briefly a dynastic capital, has extraordinary early Islamic buildings. The ruins of the ninth-century Great Mosque of Mutawakkil, one of the largest ever built, lies outside the modern city, its intact spiral minaret an icon of Islamic art. The city also has one of the oldest known Islamic tombs, an early caliphal palace and the only brick bridge in Iraq, dating from 1128.

Iraq's third largest city, after Basra, is Mosul, far north on the Tigris and little studied by Western scholars. It is rich in architecture, including the leaning minaret of the now destroyed mosque of Nur ad-Din. The city also attracts pilgrims to the tombs of Muslim saints and has some of the earliest Christian monasteries, dating to the fourth century. Its museum holds important Assyrian antiquities from excavations at Nineveh, Khorsabad and Assur.

Of the many Islamic monuments outside cities, one of the oldest is the eighth-century fortified palace of Ukhaidhar. No one knows why it is in so remote a spot, but the surrounding land was probably irrigated for crops and gardens, and the palace seems to have been a self-sustaining miniature city. Architecturally, it is also an example of the multicultural impulse that has always defined Islamic culture, in this case bringing together Persian, Syrian and Byzantine influences.

"If any of the holiest Shiite shrines at Karbala, Najaf or Kadhumain are hit, we can only expect a very angry reaction from Muslims everywhere," said Zainab Bahrani, who was born in Iraq and teaches Islamic art at Columbia University. "It would be like bombing St. Peter's in Rome."

Consequences of the War and Occupation of Iraq

2008

Babylon's History Swept Away in US Army Sandbags (December 8, 2008)

Archeologists say the ancient site of Babylon paid an extremely high price after the US used the site as military headquarters for 5 months. British Museum curator John Curtis calls the US action to build a base on the site as "ignorant and stupid" and says the 170 meter long and two meter deep trenches have caused irreversible damage. (Agence France-Presse)

Iraq: Can Ancient Babylon be Rescued? (November 12, 2008)

The US invasion of Iraq has seriously damaged the ancient city of Babylon. Iraqi officials state that US and Polish forces, from 2003 until 2005, greatly harmed the archeological site by using it as a military base. A UN report, due early in 2009, will examine the damage caused by the US and Polish military during this period. (Associated Press)

Iraq Reclaims 1,000 Artifacts Smuggled into US over Past Two Years (September 18, 2008)

US customs officials have returned more than 1,000 stolen Iraqi artifacts, found in the US, to the Iraqi embassy in Washington. The scale of the recovered antiquities suggests that illegal excavations and smugglings continue. Suspected involvement by US personnel in the theft of artifacts calls into question previous US officials' assertions that Iraqi "extremists" were to blame for the sale of stolen Iraqi artifacts. (Azzaman)

Iraq's Antiquities Looted (July 31, 2008)

During the 2003 US-led invasion thieves looted and destroyed Iraq's archaeological treasures. Important sites remain unguarded and the country has lost priceless historical artifacts. Director of Oriental Science at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, Margarete van Ess, estimates that illegal excavation in Iraq has caused $10 billion worth of damage. (Institute for War and Peace Reporting)

Iraqi Officials Implicated in Smuggling of Antiquities (May 13, 2008)

A leading expert at the British Museum has revealed that members of the Kuwaiti ruling family, officials from the governments of Iraq and Turkey and regional gangs within Iraq possess antiquities looted during the earliest phases of the US occupation of Iraq. In a show of complete disregard for the importance of culture and history, Norwegian businessman, Martin Schoyen, has even "opened a private museum carrying his name in which he is displaying 6,000 smuggled pieces he bought via mediators." (Az-Zaman)

Iraq's Ruined Library Soldiers On (April 9, 2008)

Often called the cradle of civilization, Iraq was also a major center of early scholarship and home to the world's first library. US troops failed to protect the Iraq National Library and Archives (INLA) from looting in 2003. Although this led to the loss of "as many as 60 percent of the Ottoman and Royal Hashemite era documents, the bulk of Ba'ath era documents and 25 percent of the book collections," the budgets for rebuilding the INLA have been pitifully small. (The Nation)

2007

British and American Collusion in the Pillaging of Iraq's Heritage Is A Scandal That Will Outlive Any Passing Conflict (June 8, 2007)

This Guardian article describes how, four years into the occupation, Iraq's cultural heritage continues to be destroyed. The US has used the 10th-century caravanserai of Khan al-Raba for exploding seized insurgent weapons, and looters continue to systematically plunder some of the thousands of sites of incomparable historical importance. By not protecting Iraq's culture, the US and the UK are in contravention of their obligations under the Geneva Conventions, which state that occupying powers must "use all means within [their] power" to preserve the cultural heritage.

Desecration of the Cradle of Civilization (April 15, 2007)

This Independent article points out that the destruction of Iraq's cultural treasures continues unabated. Looters protected by their own private armies are digging into Iraq's archeological sites in search of artifacts to sell to the US and European markets. The illegal digging is destroying entire ancient cities and, according to a professor at the British School of Archeology in Iraq, "a country's past is disappearing while we stand and watch." In violation of the Hague Convention, the Coalition forces have failed to protect some of the world's most precious archeological sites.

2006

Iraq's Head of Antiquities Quits After Looting of Ancient Treasures (August 28, 2006)

Dismayed by the continuous looting of Iraq's irreplaceable ancient artifacts, Donny George, head of Iraq's Antiquities Board, has quit his post after unsuccessful attempts to safeguard 5,000 years of history. George cited a lack of funding as the purpose for his departure, as well as mounting pressure by Shiite officials to emphasize the protection of Iraq's Islamic heritage over earlier civilizations that pre-date Islam. (Washington Post)

Academia's Killing Fields (February 28, 2006)

As the "cradle of civilization," Iraq is well known for its cultural and intellectual heritage. However, years of turbulence have eroded this legacy. During the 13 years of US- and UK-driven UN sanctions, many Iraqi academics, doctors, and scientists fled the country. Following the US-led invasion and occupation, Iraqi professors have been subject to murder, kidnapping, and arrest. By some estimates, as many as 500 prominent academics have "disappeared" or been murdered. (Islam Online)

2005

Looted Iraqi Relics Slow to Surface (November 8, 2005)

Thousands of Iraq's most famous historical artifacts have been stolen, the Washington Post reports. Widespread looting has continued since the 2003 US-led invasion, and occupation forces have not made protection of Iraq's cultural heritage a priority. Given the value of stolen works and the nature of the art trade, most experts doubt that Iraq's most famous artifacts will ever resurface.

Damaged University Science Labs Are Desperately Short of Equipment (October 9, 2005)

Scientific research and education in Iraq have suffered as a result of the US-led invasion. Many university laboratories lack necessary supplies while others have been completely destroyed. Though legislators have proposed to increase funding for equipment and facilities, security needs take priority in budgetary considerations. (Integrated Regional Information Networks)

For Sale: A Nation's Treasures (July 2, 2005)

The looting of Iraq's cultural treasures continues unabated. While some of the plunder is small-scale, large organized gangs are bulldozing sites and selling artifacts on the black market, and Iraqi officials believe the proceeds end up in the insurgents' hands. In response to the looting, vandalism and military occupation, the World Monuments Fund has put Iraq on its list of most endangered sites, "the first time that it has listed an entire country." (Times, London)

At Least 8,000 Treasures Looted from Iraq Museum Still Untraced (May 24, 2005)

More than half the items looted from the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad have yet to be traced or recovered. The author of this Independent piece describes the looting as "evidence of how quickly and irretrievably a country can be stripped of its cultural heritage." To make matters worse, the full extent of the damage cannot be gauged due to the "deteriorating" security condition.

Halliburton Destroys Babylon (March 28, 2005)

Babylon, one of the world's most important archeological sites, has been badly damaged by terrorist attacks, which began when Halliburton built US Camp Babylon at the location of the ancient city. The Iraqi Culture Minister has called for a full investigation to evaluate the damage caused and the level of reparations the ministry should request. (The Nation)

2003

Troops Vandalise Ancient City of Ur (May 17, 2003)

The city of Ur was vandalized by US troops according to aid workers. Ur is home to many ancient monuments and it is believed to be the birthplace of the prophet Abraham. (Observer)

"Cultural Catastrophe" Hits Iraq (April 24-30, 2003)

International experts meeting at UNESCO have deplored the looting of Iraq's cultural heritage in the wake of the US-led invasion, and have called upon the occupying forces to immediately secure Iraq's cultural sites and institutions. (Al-Ahram Weekly)

Expert Thieves Took Artifacts, UNESCO Says (April 18, 2003)

According to UNESCO, organized thieves were involved in the looting of priceless artifacts from Baghdad's National Museum of Antiquities. FBI agents are being dispatched to Baghdad to conduct a criminal investigation into the losses. (Washington Post)

Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict

This is a link to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. The convention is being breached by excessive destruction of historical artifacts in Iraq.

Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasure (April 12, 2003)

Looters vandalized the National Museum of Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's rule, destroying priceless artifacts from over 7000 years of cultural and archaeological heritage. (New York Times)

Scholars Move to Protect "Priceless" Iraqi Heritage (March 21, 2003)

A statement signed by more than 100 distinguished scholars in the US and Europe emphasized the "grave danger" posed to the priceless cultural heritage of Iraq by the US-led war. The statement calls on all governments to respect the international protocol protecting cultural property in armed conflict. (Guardian)

Iraq War Could Put Ancient Treasures at Risk (March 3, 2003)

Scholars are worried that a US-led war against Iraq could threaten the country's antiquities. The Archaeological Institute of America has issued a statement calling on "all governments" to protect cultural sites both during and after a war. (Washington Post)

War in Iraq Would Halt All Digs in Region (February 25, 2003)

War in Iraq will put a halt to archeology in the Middle East and researchers fear post-war looting could cause damage to important archeological sites. (New York Times)

Oldest Human History Is at Risk (February 25, 2003)

Holland Cotter describes valuable archeological sites in Iraq ranging from Babylon with symbolic importance for Judo-Christians to different Islamic monuments in Basra. These sites could be destroyed during a war or looted during post-war instability. (New York Times)

2002

Concern for Cultural Heritage in Iraq (December 18, 2002)

Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) passed a resolution after the 1990 Gulf War urging all governments to respect the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. AIA now re-emphasizes the resolution out of fear that a war on Iraq would threaten some of the world's most important archaeological sites.

Mutanabi Street booksellers--update

Mutanabbi Coalition
Darren De La Pena

I made reference to the book sellers in December of 2008 [ Mutanabi Street--back and thriving ]. Here is the sad update.

"The Vanishing Booksellers of Baghdad"

by

Nick McDonell

March 5th, 2009

Time

Mutannabi Street, in central Baghdad, has had many names. In the second Abbasid period, it was the Paper Market. Under the Ottomans it was Military Bakery Street. Under the British it was Hassan Pasha Street. The current name dates from 1932, when the Ministry of the Interior renamed much of the city. In all its guises, the street has been famous for booksellers — and much beloved. Informally, it is often called the "artery of Baghdad." On March 5, 2007, it was largely destroyed by a car bomb.

"Here, they also sold bridles, saddles and shoes for religious men," says Afram Hussein al-Fufuli, 69, concluding my history lesson. My translator-colleague and I had been directed to Fufuli by a younger bookseller up the street, who called him "the dictionary." In his brown blazer and sweater, Fufuli did indeed have a professorial air. Framed by dusty stacks of books tall as himself (between Arabic volumes: John Le Carré, Macroeconomic Theory, Richard Nixon's Leaders), he conducted slow business out of a small brick storefront, which, he said, his father opened in 1930.

Fufuli described how, when the car bomb exploded nearby, all his books were knocked down and his metal gate was twisted. "Thanks to God, I was away from the shop at the time," he says. After that, for a while, the street was deserted. The explosion killed 38 and was a well-documented tragedy.

In the 23 months since that blast, the rebirth of Mutannabi Street has also been well documented by both journalists and politicians. With its Ottoman architecture and once lively trade, it was a picturesque and perhaps obvious barometer for the city. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki held a reopening ribbon-cutting ceremony at the end of last year. The image he hoped to project was that Baghdad was no longer a city where intellectuals were marked for murder, where university professors lived in fear or fled. The idea was that Baghdad was increasingly a safe and functional place. Which it is. There were plenty of people walking on Mutannabi Street while I was there.

What has been less widely reported is that Mutannabi Street doesn't have so many bookstores anymore. Though low tables of (mostly technical) volumes line the sidewalks, they seem to be equaled or outnumbered by stationery, electronics and knickknack shops. One storefront is stocked entirely with stuffed toys. According to Fufuli, the ratio is now 10% books, 90% other stuff. He is exaggerating, but the change is clear. "Most of the old owners were killed or left because they were afraid, so these stores opened up. Now," he added, with a curmudgeonly frown, "all the Iraqi people want is valentines, stuff for kids."

Picking a nearby store at random, one that sells electronics, I ask the owner, Ayman, 30, about the changing nature of the street. His shop had been a bookshop, he says, but "the old owner was killed and the shop destroyed by the blast" — he raises his eyebrows — "as if the building was a target."

At his desk, between printer cartridges, laminate film and boxes of thumbtacks, Ayman did not think an electronics store on a street of ancient booksellers was strange. "The people who read things need to print," he explains, "so I opened a shop to complete the picture." Ayman does not read himself, he tells me, except manuals for copy machines. Fixing them is his hobby, though he bemoans the current models. "Now all the copy machines are very commercial. You used to be able to fix the old ones yourself."

A strange hobby, granted, and perhaps out of place on a street with so much literary, if bookish, romance attached to it. Mutannabi Street is named for Abu Tayeb al-Mutannabi (1915-65), a famously fierce and brilliant poet from Kufa, south of Baghdad. "The most noble place in the world is the saddle of a fast horse," he wrote in one poem, "and the best companion ever is a book." It may be that copiers are of greater value than horses in Baghdad these days, but one wonders what Mutannabi would have made of the street that bears his name.

Fufuli, for one, shrugs at the street's evolution. "I did not leave [after the bomb blast] because I loved my father's business," he says. "But no one will take over my store. My son studies computer science. It will be sold." In the meantime, he is simply pleased that security has improved, though as he puts it, looking down the street, "it has not reached safety." He shakes his head. "The measurement is when there are a lot of women here."

And that was when I realized another strange thing about Mutannabi Street — over the course of an hour, among the many pedestrians strolling along Baghdad's artery, I had seen only one pair of women.


Mutanabi Street--back and thriving

Mutanabi Street--back and thriving

You can mar and destroy the body, but the body intellect will prevail. This is good news.

"The Bookseller's Story, Ending Much Too Soon"

by

Anthony Shadid

March 12th, 2007

washingtonpost.com

It was a summer day in 2003, when Iraq was still filled with the half-truths of occupation and liberation, before its nihilistic descent into carnage. Mohammed Hayawi, a bald bear of a man, stood in his shop, the Renaissance Bookstore, along Baghdad's storied Mutanabi Street.

On shelves eight rows high rested books by communist poets and martyred clerics, translations of Shakespeare, predictions by Lebanese astrologers, a 44-volume tome by a revered ayatollah and a tract by the austere medieval thinker Ibn Taimiyyah. Dusty stacks spilled across the cream-color tile floor, swept but stained with age. In those cramped quarters, Hayawi tried to cool himself with a fan, as perspiration poured down his jowly face and soaked his blue shirt.

We had met before the American invasion, and nearly a year later, he almost immediately recognized me.

"Abu Laila," he said, using the Arabic nickname taken from the name of a person's child.

He then delivered a line he would repeat almost every time we saw each other over the next few years. "I challenge anyone, Abu Laila, to say what has happened, what's happening now, and what will happen in the future." And, over a thin-waisted cup of tea, scalding even on this hot day, he shook his head.

A car bomb detonated last week on Mutanabi Street, leaving a scene that has grown familiar in Baghdad, a collage of chaotic images, disturbing in their brutality, grotesque in their repetition. At least 26 people were killed. Hayawi the bookseller was one of them.

Unlike the U.S. soldiers who die in this conflict, the names of most Iraqi victims will never be published, consigned to the anonymity that death in the Iraqi capital brings these days. Hayawi was neither a politician nor a warlord. Few beyond Mutanabi Street even knew his name. Yet his quiet life deserves more than a footnote, if for no other reason than to remember a man who embraced what Baghdad was and tried to make sense of a country that doesn't make sense anymore. Gone with him are small moments of life, gentle simply by virtue of being ordinary, now lost in the rubble strewn along a street that will never be the same.

After his death, I thought back to our conversation on that summer day. As he often did, Hayawi paused after an especially vigorous point and dragged on his cigarette. He ran his hand over his sweaty cheeks. "Does this look like the face of 39 years?" he said, grinning. He then knitted his brow, turning grimmer. "We don't want to hear explosions, we don't want to hear about more attacks, we want to be at peace," he told me. He always had dark bags under his limpid eyes, whether or not he had slept. "An Iraqi wants to put his head on his pillow and feel relaxed."

Independent Thinker

Hayawi had worked at the bookstore all his life. His father, Abdel-Rahman, opened it in 1954, and after he died in 1993 his five sons inherited the business, keeping a portrait of the patriarch, in a Russian-style winter hat, hanging on the wood-paneled wall. Over the years, Hayawi and his older brothers would branch out. They owned other shops on Mutanabi -- Legal Bookstore and Nibras Bookstore down the street -- along with a business that sold Korans across town.

His family was Sunni Muslim, but Hayawi played down its importance to his sense of self, and he lived with his wife and young son, Ahmed Akram, in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood. He took pride in his independence, in being someone who celebrated the gray areas, a reflection of the best of what the intellectual entrepot of Mutanabi Street was supposed to represent.

We first met as I wandered into his shop before the invasion, when Saddam Hussein was still in power in 2002. As usual, he was unshaven, and even then, he seized the opportunity to talk. "Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was wrong," he told me quite boldly -- a blasphemous idea at the time.

But years later, he was unable to understand the American obsession with Iraq and Saddam. Why the crisis after crisis? he asked. For weapons of mass destruction? We don't have any. If we did, he declared, we would have fired them at Israel. A war simply for Saddam?

After the invasion and the government's fall, Hayawi described himself much as other Iraqis did in that first uncertain year: as neither for Saddam nor happy with the Americans. He was angry, of course -- at the chaos, the insecurity, the lack of electricity.

"The American promises to Iraq are like trying to hold water in your hand," he told me in one conversation. "It spills through your fingers."

But he was never strident; he was filled with a thoughtfulness and reflection that survival in Iraq rarely permits these days.

Hayawi resented the occupation but voted in the elections the United States backed. He was a devout Muslim, but feared the rise of religion in politics. In his bookstore, once-banned titles by Shiite clerics, imported from Iran, vied with books by radical Sunni clerics, among them Muhammad Abdel-Wahab, the 18th-century godfather of Saudi Arabia's brand of Islam. Profit may have inspired his eclectic mix, but Hayawi also seemed to be making a statement: Mutanabi Street, his Baghdad and his Iraq would respect their diversity.

He was always a proud man. Every so often, Hayawi would repeat this story: He was driving to Syria on business in his yellow Caprice and was stopped at a U.S. checkpoint, manned by two Humvees, outside the Euphrates River town of Ramadi, in western Iraq. Through a translator, one of the American officers, clad in camouflage and dusty from a desert wind, began to ask him routine questions.

" 'What are you doing here?'" the soldier asked.

"I said, 'What are you doing here? You're my guest. What are you doing in Iraq?' "

"He laughed and he patted my shoulder," Hayawi recalled.

Bookstore Retreat

The doorway of the Renaissance Bookstore was a border in a way. Outside were the sirens of ambulances and police cars. Gunfire was common. Horns blared in two lanes of traffic, one more than Mutanabi had been built for. Inside Hayawi went about business as he had every day since he inherited the shop from his father.

The last time I saw him, in 2005, he was sitting behind his desk, sipping a cup of tea that cost 10 cents, a pack of Gauloise cigarettes next to it.

As he did every morning, hour after hour, Hajji Sadiq, the money changer, ambled into the bookstore.

"What's the rate?" Hayawi bellowed.

"I won't tell you unless you're going to buy," Hajji Sadiq answered.

Hayawi waved to friends passing along the street outside. An elderly woman stood at the door, asking for alms. Vendors entered offering everything from books to beach towels.

The day went on, in the rhythm of a life that now no longer exists. Two Kurdish booksellers came in, bringing a gift of honey from Sulaimaniya in the north. They greeted Hayawi in Kurdish, then the conversation continued in Arabic. Hajji Sadiq returned, quoting an exchange rate that had barely changed. The electricity cut off, with no one seeming to notice. Customers from Balad in the north told of the situation there, as did visitors from Basra in the south.

By afternoon, the electricity came on and a water pipe was brought out. Sweet-smelling apple-flavored tobacco smoldered.

"Life goes on," Hayawi told me that day. "We are in the middle of a war, and we still smoke the water pipe."

Literary Loss

Mutanabi Street always seemed to tell a story of Iraq.

Its maze of bookshops and stationery stores, housed in elegant Ottoman architecture, was named for one of the Arab world's greatest poets, a 10th-century sage whose haughtiness was matched only by his skill. The street was anchored by the Shahbandar Cafe, where antique water pipes were stacked in rows three deep. On the walls inside were pictures of Iraq's history: portraits of the bare-chested 1936 wrestling team, King Faisal's court after World War I and the funeral of King Ghazi in 1939.

In its heyday, this street embodied a generation-old saying: Cairo writes, Beirut publishes, Baghdad reads. But under the U.N. sanctions that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, isolating it from the world, its stores were lined with magazines 20 years old, obsolete textbooks and dust-covered religious tomes that seemed more for show than for sale. It became a dreary flea market for used books, as vendors sold off their private collections in an attempt to get by, and Hayawi and his brothers eked out a living by selling religious texts, works of history for university curricula, and course work in English, what he called a passport.

In the months after the invasion, Mutanabi Street revived into an intellectual free-for-all. There were titles by Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, a brilliant theologian killed, as the story goes, when Saddam's executioners drove nails into his forehead. Shiite iconography -- of living ayatollahs and 7th-century saints marching to their deaths -- was everywhere. Nearby were new issues of FHM and Maxim, their covers adorned with scantily clad women. On rickety stands were compact discs of Osama bin Laden's messages selling for the equivalent of 50 cents. Down the street were pamphlets of the venerable Communist Party. As one of the booksellers once said, quoting a line of poetry by Mutanabi, "With so much noise, you need 10 fingers to plug your ears."

Mutanabi Street today tells another story.

When the Mongols sacked Baghdad in 1258, it was said that the Tigris River ran red one day, black another. The red came from the blood of nameless victims, massacred by ferocious horsemen. The black came from the ink of countless books from libraries and universities. Last Monday, the bomb on Mutanabi Street detonated at 11:40 a.m. The pavement was smeared with blood. Fires that ensued sent up columns of dark smoke, fed by the plethora of paper.

A colleague told me that near Hayawi's shop, a little ways from the now-gutted Shahbandar Cafe, a black banner hangs today. In the graceful slope of yellow Arabic script, it mourns the loss of Hayawi and his nephew, "who were assassinated by the cowardly bombing."

And the good news...

"Then and Now: A New Chapter for Baghdad Book Market"

by

Eric Owles

December 18th, 2008

The New York Times

Mutanabi Street has long been the intellectual center of the Iraqi capital. But when a car bomb exploded here in March 2007 killing at 26 people the neighborhood was emptied. Blast walls blocked off the area to traffic and members of Awakening Councils, groups made up largely of former insurgents, opened checkpoints to monitor people entering the neighborhood. Resurrecting this area and breathing life back into the cafes and book stores here has long been a pet project for the Iraqi leadership.

Each step of that resurrection comes with added risks. In September 2007, a curfew was lifted allowing foot traffic to enter the book market. Would a suicide bomber walk back into the cafes? In September 2008, blast walls blocking off the street were taken down. Would a car bomb detonate outside the newly repaved walkway? With each step, more and more shoppers returned to the market. And finally, on Thursday, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Malaki officially reopened the street.

Many writers and their books were banned from Iraq under Saddam Hussein. In the violence that followed the U.S. military invasion in 2003, insurgents again targeted Iraq’s intellectuals. Protecting this community is seen as a test of Iraq’s ability to shore up tenuous security gains made since the 2007 bombing.

I first visited the Mutanabi book market in October with the Fourth Brigade, Tenth Mountain Division. Blast walls had just been removed at one end of the street and the shops were still largely empty. A few men sat in front of stores smoking pipes. At night they would gather in the streets to play dominoes and backgammon. Solar lights had been installed on the street lamps and tiles were lined up to lay over the concrete road.

Now storefronts have been repaired, new water and sewage lines have been installed and the tiles have been put in place. However, the government has made some concessions to the continuing danger inside Iraq — the site of the 2007 car bomb attack in Mutanabi book market is now only open to pedestrian traffic.