Iraq ( or ,
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
: ), officially the
Republic of Iraq (
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
:
, ,
Komara Îraqê,
AssyrianAssyrian Neo-Aramaic is a modern Eastern Aramaic language. Assyrian Neo Aramaic is neither to be confused with Assyrian Akkadian, nor the Old Aramaic dialect that was adopted as a lingua franca in Assyria in the 8th century BC. Although this latter Aramaic is also an Aramaic language, it is...
: ܥܝܪܐܩ), also known as
Mesopotamia, is a
countryIn geography, a country is a geographical region. The term is often applied to a political division or the territory of a state, or to a smaller, or former, political division of a geographical region...
in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the
Zagros mountain rangeThe Zagros Mountains are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq...
, the eastern part of the
Syrian DesertThe Syrian Desert , also known as the Syro-Arabian desert is a combination of steppe and true desert that is located in the northern Arabian Peninsula. It is part of the Al-Hamad, which covers portions of Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Its border on the west is the Orontes Valley, and its...
and the northern part of the
Arabian DesertThe Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers...
.
Iraq shares borders with
JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
to the west,
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
to the northwest,
TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
to the north,
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
to the east, and
KuwaitThe State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab emirate bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south and Iraq to the north and west. The greatest distance from north to south is 200 km and from east to west 170 km . The name is a diminutive of an Arabic word meaning "fortress built near water." It has a...
and
Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south...
to the south. Iraq has a narrow section of coastline measuring 58 km (35 miles) on the northern
Persian GulfThe Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf by most Arab states or simply The...
. The capital city,
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
(
), is in the center-west of the country.
Two major rivers, the
TigrisThe Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates. The river flows from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
and
EuphratesThe Euphrates is the longest and historically one of the most important rivers of Southwest Asia. Together with the Tigris, the Euphrates is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...
, run through the centre of Iraq, flowing from north to south. These provide Iraq with agriculturally capable land and contrast with the
steppeIn physical geography, a steppe is a biome region characterised by grassland plain without trees . The prairie can be considered a steppe. It may be semi-desert, or covered with grass or shrubs or both, depending on the season and latitude...
and
desertA desert is a landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. In the Köppen climate classification system,...
landscape that covers most of Western Asia.
Historically, Iraq was known in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
by the
GreekGreek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical...
eponym '
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
'
(Land between the rivers); after the foundation of the
Kingdom of IraqThe Kingdom of Iraq was the sovereign state of Iraq during and after the British Mandate of Mesopotamia. The League of Nations mandate started in 1920. The kingdom began in August 1921 with the coronation of Faisal bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi as King Faisal I...
in 1932, it became known by its ancient endonym 'Iraq'. Iraq has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the
6th millennium BCDuring the 6th millennium BC, agriculture spreads from the Balkans to Italy and Eastern Europe and from Mesopotamia to Egypt. World population is essentially stable at ca. 5 million people.-Events:...
. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is identified as the
cradle of civilizationThe cradle of civilization is any of the possible locations for the emergence of civilization.It is usually applied to the Ancient Near Eastern Chalcolithic , especially in the Fertile Crescent , but also extended to sites in Anatolia and the Persian Plateau,besides other Asian cultures situated...
and the birthplace of
writingWriting is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and the recording of language via a non-textual medium such as magnetic tape audio.In Eurasia writing began as a...
and the wheel.
Throughout its long history, Iraq has been the center of the Akkadian,
AssyrianThe Neo-Assyrian Empire was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 934 BC and ended in 609 BC. During this period, Assyria assumed a position as a great regional power, vying with Babylonia and other lesser powers for dominance of the region, though not until the reforms of Tiglath-Pileser...
,
BabylonianThe term Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean refers to Babylonia under the rule of the 11th dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 626 BC until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, notably including the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II....
,
HellenisticThe Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan...
, Parthian,
SassanidThe Sassanid Empire or Sasanian Empire, known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr, was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty who reigned from 224 to 651 CE...
and Abbasid empires, and part of the
AchaemenidAthura was a geographical area within the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the period of 539 BC to 330 BC...
,
RomanThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
, Rashidun, Umayyad,
MongolThe Ilkhanate, also spelled Il-khanate or Il Khanate , was a Mongol khanate established in Persia in the 13th century, considered a part of the Mongol Empire...
,
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
and
BritishThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom, that had originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was...
empires.
Beginning with the
invasion in 2003The 2003 invasion of Iraq, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 20 to May 1...
, a multinational coalition of forces, mainly American and
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, occupied Iraq.
The occupation ended when sovereignty was transferred to the
Iraqi Interim GovernmentThe Iraqi Interim Government was created by the United States and its coalition allies as a caretaker government to govern Iraq until the Iraqi Transitional Government was installed following the Iraqi National Assembly election conducted on January 30, 2005...
June 2004. A new
Constitution of Iraq-History:The current constitution was approved by a referendum that took place on 15 October 2005. The constitution was drafted in 2005 by members of the Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee to replace the Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period...
has since been approved by referendum and a new
Government of IraqThe current government of Iraq took office on May 20, 2006 following approval by the members of the Iraqi National Assembly. This followed the general election in December 2005...
has been
electedFollowing the ratification of the Constitution of Iraq on October 15 2005, a general election was held on 15 December to elect a permanent 275-member Iraqi Council of Representatives....
. Some dispute whether Iraq is
de facto sovereign (see
Iraqi sovereigntyIraqi sovereignty was interrupted by the multinational forces which overthrew Saddam Hussein in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.On 8 June 2004, the United Nations Security Council resolution 1546 was adopted unanimously, calling for "the end of the occupation and the assumption of full responsibility and...
, United States-Iraq relations).
Etymology
The Arabic name
has been in use since before the 6th century. There are several suggested origins for the name. One dates to the
SumerSumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Iraq . It is the earliest known civilization in the world and is known as the Cradle of Civilization...
ian city of
UrukUruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some 30 km east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā,...
(Biblical Hebrew
ErechErech was an ancient city in the land of Shinar, the second city built by king Nimrod after the destruction of the Tower of Babel...
) and is thus ultimately of
SumerianSumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BCE . It was gradually replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE , but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary...
origin, as
Uruk was the
AkkadianAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
name for the Sumerian city of
, containing the Sumerian word for "city",
URUUru was the Sumerian term for a city or city state, written with the cuneiform ideogram URU .In Akkadian and Hittite orthography, URU became a determinative sign denoting a city, or combined with KUR "land" the kingdom or territory controlled by a city, e.g...
. another maintains according to Professor Wilhelm Eilers, "The name al-‘Irāq, for all its Arabic appearance, is derived from
Middle PersianMiddle Persian is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as Western Iranian language...
erāq lowlands".
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
has always been called "
the land of Iraq" in Arabic, meaning "
the fertileThe Fertile Crescent is a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia, and often incorrectly extended to Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization and saw the development of the earliest human civilizations and is the birthplace of writing and the wheel.The...
" or "
deep-rooted land". During the medieval period, there was a region called ''ʿIrāq ʿArabī
("Arabian Iraq") for lower Mesopotamia and ''ʿIrāq ʿajamī ("
Persian IraqPersian Iraq , also spelled Persian Irak, is an obsolete term for the central region of Iran, including cities such as Isfahan, Ray, Qazvin, and Kashan. From the 11th to 16th centuries, the term Iraq referred to two distinct regions: Arabian Iraq and Persian Iraq...
" or "Foreign Iraq"), for the region now situated in Central and Western Iran. The term historically included the plain south of the
Hamrin MountainsHamrin Mountain is a mountain range that extend from Diyala Province, 60 km east of Baghdad the capital of Iraq and borders on Iran and extends to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 260 km north of Baghdad...
and did not include the northernmost and
westernmostFor other uses, see the disambiguation, Jazira.Al-Jazira is the traditional Arabic name for the modern-day regions of northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria. It corresponds to upper Mesopotamia, extending from the Euphrates river to the Tigris river...
parts of the modern territory of Iraq.
As an Arabic word,
عراق means
hem, shore, bank, or edge, so that the name by folk etymology came to be interpreted as "the
escarpmentIn geomorphology, an escarpment is a transition zone between different physiogeographic provinces that involves a sharp, steep elevation differential, characterized by a cliff or steep slope. Usually escarpment is used interchangeably with scarp...
", viz. at the south and east of the
JaziraFor other uses, see the disambiguation, Jazira.Al-Jazira is the traditional Arabic name for the modern-day regions of northwestern Iraq and northeastern Syria. It corresponds to upper Mesopotamia, extending from the Euphrates river to the Tigris river...
Plateau, which forms the northern and western edge of the "al-Iraq arabi" area.
The
Arabic pronunciationWhile many languages have numerous dialects that differ in pronunciation, the Arabic language is more properly described as a collection of different varieties or Macrolanguage. This article deals primarily with Modern Standard Arabic, which is the standard variety shared by educated speakers...
is . In English, it is either (the only pronunciation listed in the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press , is a comprehensive dictionary of the English language...
and the first one in
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary) or (listed first by
MQDThe Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics...
), the
American Heritage Dictionary, and the
Random House Dictionary. is frequently heard in US media.
Ancient Iraq
Iraq has been home to continuous successive civilizations since the
6th millennium BCDuring the 6th millennium BC, agriculture spreads from the Balkans to Italy and Eastern Europe and from Mesopotamia to Egypt. World population is essentially stable at ca. 5 million people.-Events:...
. These civilizations produced the earliest
writing,
literatureSumerian literature is the oldest literature in the world.The Sumerians invented the first writing system, beginning with cuneiform logograms, which evolved into a syllabary writing system....
, sciences,
mathematicsBabylonian mathematics refers to any mathematics of the peoples of Mesopotamia, from the days of the early Sumerians to the fall of Babylon in 539 BC. Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited...
,
lawsArchaeological material for the study of Babylonian law is singularly extensive. So-called "contracts" exist in the thousands, including a great variety of deeds, conveyances, bonds, receipts, accounts, and most important of all, actual legal decisions given by the judges in the law courts...
, and philosophies of the world; hence its common epithet, the "
Cradle of CivilizationThe cradle of civilization is any of the possible locations for the emergence of civilization.It is usually applied to the Ancient Near Eastern Chalcolithic , especially in the Fertile Crescent , but also extended to sites in Anatolia and the Persian Plateau,besides other Asian cultures situated...
".
Iraq was home to the earliest known
civilizationA civilization is a complex society or culture group characterized by dependence upon agriculture, long-distance trade, state form of government, occupational specialization, population, and class stratification.-Definition:...
on
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
, the
Sumerian civilizationSumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Iraq . It is the earliest known civilization in the world and is known as the Cradle of Civilization...
, which arose in the fertile
Tigris-Euphrates river valleyThe Tigris-Euphrates river system is part of the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh ecoregion of West Asia, and is characterized by two large rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates. The rivers have several small tributaries which feed into shallow freshwater lakes, swamps, and marshes, all surrounded...
of southern Iraq in the mid
6th millennium BCDuring the 6th millennium BC, agriculture spreads from the Balkans to Italy and Eastern Europe and from Mesopotamia to Egypt. World population is essentially stable at ca. 5 million people.-Events:...
. It was here in the late
4th millennium BCThe 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing.The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt are established and grow to prominence. Agriculture spreads widely across Eurasia...
, that the world's
first writing systemCuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing...
and recorded history itself were born. The Sumerian civilization flourished for over 3,000 years and was succeeded by the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the
24th century BCThe 24th century BC is a century which lasted from the year 2400 BC to 2301 BC.-Events:*c. 2900 BC – 2334 BC: Mesopotamian wars of the Early Dynastic period continue....
. Over two centuries of Akkadian dominance was followed by a Sumerian Renaissance in the
21st century BCThe 21st century BC is a century which lasted from the year 2100 BC to 2001 BC.- Events :* c. 2100 BC – c. 2050 BC: Nanna Ziggurat, Ur is built.* 2091 BC: Beginning of the Patriarchal Age is traditionally set in this year....
. An
ElamElam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province , as far as Jiroft in Kerman province and Burned City in Zabol, as well as a small part of...
ite invasion in 2004 BC brought the
Third Dynasty of UrThe Third Dynasty of Ur, also known as the Sumerian Renaissance, Neo-Sumerian Empire or the Ur III Empire refers simultaneously to a 21st to 20th century BC Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of Ur and a short-lived territorial-political state that some historians regard as a nascent empire...
to an end. By the
18th century BCThe 18th century BC was the century which lasted from 1800 BC to 1701 BC.-Events:*1800 BC: Iron age in India*1800 BC: Beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age in the period system devised by Oscar Montelius....
a new civilization,
BabyloniaBabylonia was a civilization in Lower Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad...
, had risen to dominance in central and southern Iraq while a contemporaneous civilization,
AssyriaAssyria was a civilization centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
, had formed in northern Iraq.
In the
6th century BCThe sixth century BC started the first day of 600 BC and ended the last day of 501 BC.In India, Panini, sometime during this century, composed a grammar for Sanskrit, which is the one of oldest extant grammar of any language after 15 other proto-dravidian languages like Brahmi.In the Near East,...
,
Cyrus the GreatCyrus the Great , also known as Cyrus II of Persia and Cyrus the Elder, was the first Zoroastrian Persian Shāhanshāh...
of neighbouring
PersiaThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
defeated the
Neo-Babylonian EmpireThe term Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean refers to Babylonia under the rule of the 11th dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 626 BC until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, notably including the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II....
at the
Battle of OpisThe Battle of Opis, fought in September 539 BC, was a major engagement between the armies of Persia under Cyrus the Great and the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nabonidus during the Persian invasion of Mesopotamia. At the time, Babylonia was the last major power in western Asia that was not yet under...
and Iraq was subsumed into the
Achaemenid EmpireThe Achaemenid Empire or Persian Empire was the successor state of the Median Empire, ruling over significant portions of what would become Greater Iran. The Persian and the Median Empire taken together are also known as the Medo-Persian Empire, succeeding the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
for nearly four centuries. In the late
4th century BCThe 4th century BC started the first day of 400 BC and ended the last day of 300 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period.-Overview:This century marked the height of Classical Greek civilization in all of its aspects...
,
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
conquered the region, putting it under
HellenisticHellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BC to about 146 BC ; note, however that Koine Greek language and Hellenistic philosophy and religion are also indisputably elements of the Roman era till Late Antiquity...
SeleucidThe Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic empire, i.e. a successor state of Alexander the Great's empire. The Seleucid Empire was centered in the near East and at the height of its power included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan...
rule for nearly two centuries. A Central Asian tribe of
ancient Iranian peoplesAncient Iranian peoples who settled Greater Iran in the 2nd millennium BC first appear in Assyrian records in the 9th century BC. They remain dominant throughout Classical Antiquity in Scythia and Persia.-Origins:...
known as the
ParthiaParthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasts, after which the Arsacid Empire is then also known as the 'Parthian Empire'....
ns later annexed the region, followed by the
RomansThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican phase of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean. The term is used to describe the Roman state during and after the time of the first emperor,...
, then the Sassanid Persians. The region remained a province of the Persian Empire for nine centuries, until the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia in the 7th century AD.
Islamic Golden Age
The Islamic conquest in the
7th century CEThe 7th century is the period from 601 to 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian/Common Era.-Overview:The Muslim conquests began after the death of Muhammad in 632. Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate...
established
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
in Iraq. Under the
Rashidun CaliphateThe Rashidun Caliphate , comprising the first four caliphs in Islam's history, was founded after Muhammad's death in 632. At its height, the borders of the Caliphate extended throughout North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Iranian highlands....
, the prophet Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law
Ali' was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and ruled over the Islamic Caliphate from 656 to 661...
moved his capital to
KufaKufa is a city in Iraq, about 170 km south of Baghdad, and 10 km northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000....
"fi al-Iraq" when he became the fourth
caliphThe Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transliterated version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
. The
Umayyad CaliphateThe Umayyad Caliphate was the second of the four Islamic caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. It was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty, whose name derives from Umayya ibn Abd Shams, the great-grandfather of the first Umayyad caliph. Although the Umayyad family originally came from the...
ruled the province of Iraq from
DamascusDamascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and its current population is estimated at about 1,669,000...
in the 7th century. (However, eventually there was a separate, independent
Caliphate of CordobaThe Caliphate of Córdoba ruled the Iberian peninsula and North Africa from the city of Córdoba, from 929 to 1031. This period was characterized by remarkable success in trade and culture; many of the masterpieces of Islamic Iberia were constructed in this period, including the famous Great Mosque...
.)
The Abbasid Caliphate built the city of
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
in the 8th century as their capital, and it became the leading metropolis of the
ArabThe Arab World refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast...
and
Muslim worldThe term Muslim world has several meanings. In a cultural sense it refers to the worldwide community of Muslims, adherents of Islam. This community numbers about 1.3-1.5 billion people, roughly one-fifth of the world population. This community is spread across many different nations and ethnic...
for five centuries. Baghdad was the largest
multiculturalMulticulturalism is the acceptance of multiple ethnic cultures, for practical reasons and/or for the sake of diversity and applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g. schools, businesses, neighborhoods, cities or nations...
cityA city is a relatively large and permanent settlement, particularly a large urban settlement. Although there is no agreement on technical definitions distinguishing a city from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status...
of the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
, peaking at a population of more than a million, and was the centre of learning during the
Islamic Golden AgeThe Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
. The
MongolsThe Mongol Empire was an empire from the 13th and 14th century spanning from Eastern Europe across Asia. It is the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world...
destroyed the city during the
sack of BaghdadThe Battle of Baghdad in 1258 was a key event in world history in which the Mongols under Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan, destroyed Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and at the time the greatest center of Muslim power. Anywhere from 100,000 to one million inhabitants were...
in the 13th century.
Turco-Mongol rule
In 1257,
Hulagu KhanHulagu Khan, also known as Hulagu, Hülegü or Hulegu , was a Mongol ruler who conquered much of Southwest Asia. Son of Tolui and the Kerait princess Sorghaghtani Beki, he was a grandson of Genghis Khan, and the brother of Arik Boke, Möngke Khan and Kublai Khan...
amassed an unusually large army, a significant portion of the
Mongol EmpireThe Mongol Empire was an empire from the 13th and 14th century spanning from Eastern Europe across Asia. It is the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world...
's forces, for the purpose of conquering Baghdad. When they arrived at the Islamic capital, Hulagu demanded surrender but the last Abbasid Caliph
Al-Musta'simAl-Musta'sim Billah was the last Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad; he ruled from 1242 until his death.- Mongol invasion :...
refused. This angered Hulagu, and, consistent with Mongol strategy of discouraging resistance, Baghdad was decimated. Estimates of the number of dead range from 200,000 to a million.
The Mongols destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate and The Grand Library of Baghdad (Arabic بيت الحكمة Bayt al-Hikma, lit.,
House of WisdomThe House of Wisdom was a library and translation institute in Abbassid-era Baghdad, Iraq. It was a key institution in the Translation Movement and considered to have been a major intellectual center of the Islamic Golden Age. The House of Wisdom acted as a society founded by Abbasid caliphs Harun...
), which contained countless, precious, historical documents. The city has never regained its status as major center of culture and influence. Some historians believe that the Mongol invasion destroyed much of the
irrigationIrrigation is an artificial application of water to the soil. It is usually used to assist in growing crops in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
infrastructure that had sustained
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
for many millennia. Other historians point to
soil salinationSoil salinity is the salt content in the soil.Salt affected soils are caused by excess accumulation of salts, typically most pronounced at the soil surface. Salts can be transported to the soil surface by capillary transport from a salt laden water table and then accumulate due to evaporation;...
as the culprit in the decline in agriculture.
The mid-14th-century
Black DeathThe Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged...
ravaged much of the Islamic world. The best estimate for Middle East—Iraq,
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
,
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
, etc.—is a death rate of a third.
In 1401, warlord of Turco-Mongol descent Tamerlane (Timur Lenk) invaded Iraq. After the capture of Bagdad, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred. Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at least two severed human heads to show him (many warriors were so scared they killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign just to ensure they had heads to present to Timur).
Ottoman Empire
During the late
14thAs a means of recording the passage of time, the 14th century was the century which lasted from 1301 to 1400.-Events:* The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age...
and early
15th centuriesAs a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was the century which lasted from 1401 to 1500.Spanish and Portuguese explorations led to discovery of the Americas and the sea passage along Cape of Good Hope to India for the European civilization...
, the Black Sheep Turkmen ruled the area now known as Iraq. In 1466, the White Sheep Turkmen defeated the Black Sheep and took control. In the 16th century, most of the territory of present-day Iraq came under the control of
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
as the pashalik of Baghdad. Throughout most of the period of Ottoman rule (1533–1918) the territory of present-day Iraq was a battle zone between the rival regional empires and tribal alliances. The
Safavid dynastyThe Safavids were one of the ruling dynasties of Iran. They ruled one of the greatest Iranian empires since the Islamic conquest of Persia and established the Ithnāˤashari school of Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the...
of
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
briefly asserted their hegemony over Iraq in the periods of 1508–1533 and 1622–1638.
During the years 1747–1831 Iraq was ruled by the
MamlukA mamluk was a soldier who converted to Islam and served the Muslim Arab caliphs from the 9th to the 16th centuries. They were of mixed ancestry but mainly Kipchak Turks...
officers of
GeorgianGeorgia Georgia Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan...
origin who succeeded in obtaining autonomy from the Sublime Porte, suppressed tribal revolts, curbed the power of the Janissaries, restored order and introduced a program of modernization of economy and military. In 1831, the Ottomans managed to overthrow the Mamluk regime and imposed their direct control over Iraq. The population of Iraq had shrunk to under 5 million by the early 20th century. Importantly, it was during the Ottoman era of Iraq that Shia Islam in Iraq was increased numerically through the conversion of Sunni Muslim Arabs to Shi’a Islam.
World War I
During
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
the Ottomans were driven from much of the area by the United Kingdom during the
dissolution of the Ottoman EmpireThe dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was the period following the decline of the Ottoman Empire , including the watershed events of the Young Turk Revolution and the establishment of the second constitutional era, and ending with the partitioning of the Empire by the victorious sides of World War...
. The British lost 92,000 soldiers in the
Mesopotamian campaignThe Mesopotamian campaign was a campaign in the Middle Eastern theatre of the Great War fought between the Allies represented by the British Empire, mostly troops from the Indian Empire, and the Central Powers, mostly of the Ottoman Empire.- Background :...
. Ottoman losses are unknown but the British captured a total of 45,000
prisoners of warA prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a combatant who is held in continuing custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
. By the end of 1918 the British had deployed 410,000 men in the area, though only 112,000 were combat troops.
During World War I the British and French divided Western Asia in the
Sykes-Picot AgreementThe Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was a secret agreement between the governments of the UK and France, with the assent of Imperial Russia, defining their respective spheres of influence and control in west Asia after the expected downfall of the Ottoman Empire during World War I...
. The
Treaty of SèvresThe Treaty of Sèvres was the peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and Allies at the end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles was signed with Germany before this treaty to annul the German concessions including the economic rights and enterprises. Also, France, Great Britain and Italy...
, which was ratified in the
Treaty of LausanneThe Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres that was signed by the Constantinople-based Ottoman government; as the consequence of the...
, led to the advent of modern Western Asia and Republic of Turkey. The
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
granted France mandates over
SyriaThe French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon was a League of Nations mandate created after the First World War and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire...
and
LebanonThe French Mandate of Lebanon was a League of Nations Mandate created at the end of World War I. When the Ottoman Empire was formally split up by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, it was decided that four of its territories in the Middle East should be League of Nations mandates temporarily governed by...
and granted the United Kingdom mandates over Iraq and Palestine (which then consisted of two autonomous regions:
PalestinePalestine is a conventional name used, among others, to describe a geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands.As a geographical term, Palestine can also refer to 'ancient Palestine,' an area...
and
TransjordanThe Emirate of Transjordan was a former Ottoman territory incorporated into the British Mandate of Palestine in 1921 as an autonomous political division under as-Sayyid Abdullah bin al-Husayn. This move was formalized by the addition of an August 1922 clause to the charter governing the Mandate...
). Parts of the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
on the
Arabian PeninsulaThe Arabian Peninsula , Arabia, Arabistan, and the Arabian subcontinent is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia...
became parts of what are today
Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south...
and
YemenYemen , officially the Republic of Yemen is a country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia...
.
British Mandate of Mesopotamia
At the end of World War I, the
League of NationsThe League of Nations was an inter-governmental organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members...
granted the area to the United Kingdom as a
mandateA League of Nations mandate refers to a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League...
. It initially formed two former
OttomanThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
vilayets (regions):
BaghdadBaghdad Vilayet was a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. The capital was Baghdad....
and
BasraBasra Vilayet was a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. The capital was Basra. Its lands included the territory of present-day Kuwait....
into a single country in August 1921. Five years later, in 1926, the northern vilayet of
MosulIn 1879 Mosul Vilayet was separated from Baghdad Vilayet. Arbil became a town within the sanjak of Shehrizor. On 11 November 1918 the Governorate of Arbil was established, and both towns of Koysanjaq and Rowanduz were annexed to it....
was added, forming the territorial boundaries of the modern Iraqi state.
For three out of four centuries of Ottoman rule, Baghdad was the seat of administration for the vilayets of Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra. During the mandate,
British colonialThe British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom, that had originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height it was...
administrators ruled the country, and through the use of
British armed forcesIraq Command was the RAF-led inter-service command in charge of all British forces in Iraq in the 1920s and early 1930s, during the period of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia...
, suppressed Arab and Kurdish rebellions against the occupation. They established the
HashemiteHashemite is the Latinate version of the and traditionally refers to those belonging to the Banu Hashim, or "clan of Hashim", a clan within the larger Quraish tribe...
king, Faisal, who had been forced out of
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
by the French, as their client ruler. Likewise, British authorities selected Sunni Arab elites from the region for appointments to government and ministry offices.
Kingdom of Iraq
Britain granted independence to Iraq in 1935, on the urging of
King FaisalFaisal bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi , was for a short time King of Greater Syria in 1920 and King of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 1933...
, though the British retained
military baseA military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations.- Etymology :...
s and transit rights for their forces. King
GhaziGhazi bin Faisal was the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq from 1933 to 1939. He was born in Mecca , the only son of Faisal I, the first King of Iraq.- Early life :...
ruled as a figurehead after King Faisal's death in 1933, while undermined by attempted military
coupsA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
, until his death in 1939. Ghazi was followed by his under age son,
Faisal IIFaisal II was the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq's last King. He reigned from 4 April 1939 until July 1958, when he was killed during the "14 July Revolution" together with several members of his family...
.
'Abd al-IlahCrown Prince Abd al-Ilāh of Iraq, GCB, GCMG, GCVO , , was a cousin and brother-in-law of King Ghazi of the Kingdom of Iraq. Abdul Ilah served as Regent for King Faisal II from April 4, 1939 to May 2, 1953, when Faisal came of age...
served as
RegentA regent, from the Latin regens "reigning", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Thus, the common use is for an acting deputy governor....
during Faisal's minority.
On 1 Aprl 1941, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and members of the
Golden SquareThe Golden Square was a group of four officers of the Iraqi armed forces who played a part in Iraqi politics throughout the 1930s and culminated in supporting Rashid Ali al-Gaylani in his overthrow of government in 1941....
staged a coup d'état and overthrew the government of 'Abd al-Ilah. During the subsequent
Anglo-Iraqi WarThe Anglo-Iraqi War was a conflict between the United Kingdom and the rebel government of Rashid Ali in Iraq during the Second World War. The war lasted from 2 May to 31 May 1941. It is also referred to as the Rashid Ali Rebellion...
, the United Kingdom invaded Iraq for fear that the Rashid Ali government might cut oil supplies to Western nations because of his links to the
Axis powersThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
. The war started on 2 May and an armistice was signed 31 May.
A
military occupationBelligerent military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
followed the restoration of the pre-coup government of the
HashemiteHashemite is the Latinate version of the and traditionally refers to those belonging to the Banu Hashim, or "clan of Hashim", a clan within the larger Quraish tribe...
monarchy. The occupation ended on 26 October 1947. The rulers during the occupation and the remainder of the Hashemite monarchy were Nuri al-Said, the autocratic Prime Minister, who also ruled from 1930–1932, and 'Abd al-Ilah, the former Regent who now served as an adviser to King Faisal II.
Republic of Iraq
The reinstated
HashemiteHashemite is the Latinate version of the and traditionally refers to those belonging to the Banu Hashim, or "clan of Hashim", a clan within the larger Quraish tribe...
monarchy lasted until 1958, when it was overthrown by a
coup d'etatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
of the
Iraqi ArmyThe Iraqi Army is the land army of the Iraqi military, active in various forms since being formed by the British during their mandate over the country after World War I....
, known as the
14 July RevolutionThe Iraqi coup d’état of 1958- alternatively known as the 14th July Revolution, 14 Tammuz Revolution and the Massacre of al-Zuhoor Palace- was a military coup responsible for the overthrow of the Iraqi Hashemite monarchy under Faisal II and the regime of Prime Minister Nuri al-Said...
. The coup brought
Brigadier GeneralBrigadier General is the lowest ranking General Officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of Colonel and Major General.The rank can be traced back to the militaries of Europe where a brigadier general, or simply a brigadier, would command a brigade in the field...
Abdul Karim QassimAbd al-Karim Qasim , was a nationalist Iraqi Army officer who seized power in a 1958 coup d'état, wherein the Iraqi monarchy was eliminated. He ruled the country as Prime Minister of Iraq until his downfall and death in 1963....
to power. He withdrew from the Baghdad Pact and established friendly relations with the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
, but his government lasted only until the
February 1963 coupThe February 1963 Iraqi coup d'état was a February 8, 1963 armed military coup which overthrew the regime of the Prime Minister in Iraq, Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Qassem. Revolutionary leaders and supporters of the coup referred to it as a movement, rather than a coup...
, when it was overthrown by
ColonelColonel is a military rank of a commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every country in the world. It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
Abdul Salam ArifAbdul Salam Arif was President of Iraq from 1963 to 1966. He played a leading role in the coup in which the Hashemite monarchy was overthrown on July 14, 1958.-1958 revolution and conflict with Qasim:...
. Salam Arif died in 1966 and his brother,
Abdul Rahman ArifHajj Abdul Rahman Arif was president of Iraq from April 16, 1966 to July 16, 1968.-Biography:...
, assumed the presidency.
In 1968, Rahman Arif was overthrown by the
Arab SocialistArab socialism is a political ideology based on an amalgamation of Pan-Arabism and socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the Arab World, which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years.- Background and influence :Arab socialism...
Baath PartyThe Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus in the 1940s by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both Syrian intellectuals, as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to unify all Arab countries in one State and to combat Western colonial rule that dominated the Arab region at that...
. Ahmed Hasan Al-Bakir became the first Baath
President of IraqThe President of Iraq is the head of state of Iraq and "safeguards the commitment to the Constitution and the preservation of Iraq's independence, sovereignty, unity, the security of its territories in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution." The President is elected by the Council of...
but then the movement gradually came under the control of
Saddam Hussein al TikritiSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
, who acceded to the presidency and control of the
Revolutionary Command CouncilThe Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council was established after the military coup in 1968, and was the ultimate decision making body in Iraq before the 2003 American-led invasion. It exercised both executive and legislative authority in the country, with the Chairman and Vice Chairman chosen by a...
(RCC), then Iraq's supreme executive body, in July 1979.
In 1979, Saddam Hussein took power as Iraqi President after knocking down his close friend and the leader of his party (Ahmed Hasan Al-Bakr) and killing and arresting his leadership rivals. Shortly after taking power, the political situation in Iraq's neighbor Iran changed drastically after the success of the Islamic Revolution of
AyatollahAyatollah is a high ranking title given to Usuli Twelver Shī‘ah clerics. Those who carry the title are experts in Islamic studies such as jurisprudence, ethics, and philosophy and usually teach in Islamic seminaries...
Ruhollah KhomeiniSayyid Ruhollah Mousavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
, which resulted in a Shi'ite Muslim theocratic state being established. This was seen as a dangerous change in the eyes of the Iraqi government, as Iraq too had a Shi'ite majority and was ruled by Hussein's government which, apart from having numerous Sunnis occupying leading positions, had a pan-Arab but non-religious ideology.
This left the country's Shiite population split between the members and supporters of the Ba'ath Party, and those who sympathized with the Iranian position. In 1980, Hussein claimed that Iranian forces were trying to topple his government and declared war on Iran. Saddam Hussein supported the Iranian
Islamic socialistIslamic socialism is a term coined by various Muslim leaders to meet the demand for a more spiritual form of socialism. Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of the Qur'an and Muhammad are compatible with principles of equality and the redistribution of wealth...
organization called the
People's Mujahedin of IranThe People's Mujahedin of Iran is an Islamic socialist organization that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic government of Iran....
which opposed the Iranian government. During the Iran–Iraq War Iraqi forces attacked
Iranian soldiersThe Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran include the IRIA , the IRGC , and the Police Force .These forces total about 945,000 active personnel . All branches of armed forces fall under the command of General Headquarters of Armed Forces...
and civilians with
chemical weaponsChemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons to kill, injure, or incapacitate an enemy....
.
Hussein's regime was notorious for its human rights abuses; a well-known example is the
Al-Anfal campaignThe al-Anfal Campaign , also known as Operation Anfal, was a campaign against the Kurdish population of Iraq led by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid...
as well as attacks on
KurdKürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
civilians inside Iraq, such as the
Halabja massacreThe Halabja poison gas attack occurred in the period March 16–17 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War. Chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja....
, as punishment for elements of Kurdish support of Iran. The war ended in
stalemateStalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
in 1988, largely due to American and Western support for Iraq. This was part of the US policy of "
dual containmentDual containment was an official United States foreign policy aimed at containing Iraq and Iran, Israel's two most important strategic adversaries, first outlined in May 1993 by Martin Indyk at WINEP and officially announced on February 24, 1994 at a symposium of the Middle East Policy Council by...
" of Iraq and Iran. Between half a million and 1.5 million people from both sides died in the 1980–88 war.
In 1977, the Iraqi government ordered the construction of
OsirakOsirak, also spelled Osiraq, , was a French-supplied 40 MW light-water nuclear materials testing reactor in Iraq. It was constructed by the Iraqi government at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, 18 km south-east of Baghdad in 1977...
(also spelled Osiraq) at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, 18 km (11 miles) south-east of
BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
. It was a 40 MW light-water nuclear materials testing reactor (MTR). In 1981, Israeli aircraft
bombed the facilityOperation Opera was a successful surprise Israeli air strike against the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981....
, in order to prevent the country from using the reactor for creation of nuclear weapons.
Persian Gulf War
In 1990, faced with economic disaster following the end of the Iran–Iraq War, Saddam Hussein looked to the oil-rich neighbour of Kuwait as a target to invade to use its resources and money to rebuild Iraq's economy. The Iraqi government claimed that Kuwait was illegally slant drilling its oil pipelines into Iraqi territory, a practice which it demanded be stopped; Kuwait rejected the notion that it was slant drilling, and Iraq followed this in August 1990 with the
invasion of KuwaitThe Invasion of Kuwait, also known as the Iraq-Kuwait War, and perhaps more appropriately as Iraqi abolition of Kuwait was a major conflict between the Republic of Iraq and the State of Kuwait which resulted in the seven-month long Iraqi occupation of Kuwait which subsequently led to direct...
. Upon successfully occupying Kuwait, Hussein declared that Kuwait had ceased to exist and it was to be part of Iraq, against heavy objections from many countries and the
United NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and the achieving of world peace...
.
The UN agreed to pass
economic sanctionsEconomic sanctions are domestic penalties applied by one country on another for a variety of reasons. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, tariffs, trade barriers, import duties, and import or export quotas...
against Iraq and demanded its immediate withdrawal from Kuwait (see United Nations sanctions against Iraq). Iraq refused and the UN Security Council in 1991 unanimously voted for military action against Iraq. The
United Nations Security CouncilThe United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
, under Chapter VII of the
United Nations CharterThe United Nations Charter is the treaty that forms and establishes the international organization called the United Nations. It was signed at the Herbst Theatre of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on June 26, 1945, by 50 of the 51 original...
, adopted Resolution 678, authorizing U.N. member states to use "all necessary means" to "restore
international peace and securityPeacekeeping, as defined by the United Nations, is "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace." It is distinguished from both peacebuilding and peacemaking....
in the area." The United States, which had enormous vested interests in the oil supplies of the Persian Gulf region, led an international coalition into Kuwait and Iraq.
The coalition forces entered the war with more advanced weaponry than that of Iraq, though Iraq's military was one of the largest armed forces in Western Asia at the time. Despite being a large military force, the Iraqi army was no match for the advanced weaponry of the coalition forces and the air superiority that the U.S. Air Force provided. The U.S. proceeded with a bombing campaign targeting military including an occupied public shelter in Baghdad.
Iraq responded to the invasion by launching
SCUDScud is a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and exported widely to other countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name SS-1 Scud which was attached to the missile by Western intelligence agencies...
missile attacks against
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
and Saudi Arabia. Hussein hoped that by attacking Israel, the Israeli military would be drawn into the war, which he believed would rally
anti-Israeli sentimentAnti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism, and a term which has been used to describe several very different religious and political points of view, both historically and in current debates. All these points of view have in common some form of opposition to Zionism, but their diversity of motivation...
in neighboring Arab countries and cause those countries to support Iraq. However, Hussein's gamble failed, as Israel reluctantly accepted a U.S. demand to remain out of the conflict to avoid inflaming tensions. The Iraqi armed forces were quickly destroyed, and Hussein eventually accepted the inevitable and ordered a withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Before the forces were withdrawn, however, Hussein ordered them to sabotage Kuwait's oil wells, which resulted in hundreds of wells being set ablaze, causing an economic and ecological disaster in Kuwait.
After the decisive military defeat, the agreement to a ceasefire on February 28, and political maneuvering, the UN Security Council continued to press its demands that Hussein accept previous UN Security Council Resolutions, as stated in
UNSCR 686United Nations Security Council Resolution 686, adopted at the 2978th meeting of the Security Council on 2 March 1991, re-confirmed a dozen UN resolutions related to Iraq and demanded that Iraq "implement its acceptance" of all twelve resolutions...
. By April,
UNSCR 687United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 which was on 3 April 1991 set the terms with which Iraq was to comply after losing the Gulf War....
recognized Kuwait's sovereignty had been reinstated, and established the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). Two days later,
UNSCR 688United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 was adopted on April 5, 1991. The United States and the United Kingdom used Resolution 688 to justify enforcing the Iraqi no-fly zones and launching Operation Desert Fox, though the resolution contains no language explicitly authorizing those actions...
added that Iraq must cease violent repression of ethnic and religious minorities.
The aftermath of the war saw the Iraqi military, especially its
air forceThe Iraqi Air Force or IQAF is the military branch in Iraq responsible for the policing of international borders, surveillance of national assets and aerial operations...
, destroyed. In return for peace, Iraq was forced to dismantle all chemical and biological weapons it possessed, and end any attempt to create or purchase nuclear weapons, to be assured by the allowing UN weapons inspectors to evaluate the dismantlement of such weapons. Finally, Iraq would face sanctions if it disobeyed any of the demands.
Shortly after the war ended in 1991, Shia Muslim and Kurdish Iraqis engaged in protests against Hussein's regime, resulting in an
intifadaThe 1991 uprisings in Iraq were a series of anti-governmental rebellions in southern and northern Iraq during the aftermath of the Gulf War. The revolt was fueled by the perception that the power of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was vulnerable at the time; as well as by heavily fueled anger at...
. Hussein responded with violent repression against Shia Muslims, and the protests came to an end. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people were killed. The US, UK and France, claiming authority under UNSCR 688, established the
Iraqi no-fly zonesThe Iraqi no-fly zones were a set of two separate no-fly zones , and were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom and France after the Gulf War of 1991 to protect humanitarian operations in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south. Iraqi aircraft were forbidden from flying inside the...
to protect Kurdish and Shiite populations from attacks by the Hussein regime's aircraft.
Disarmament crisis
While Iraq had agreed to UNSCR 687, the Iraqi government sometimes worked with inspectors, but ultimately failed to comply with disarmament terms, and as a result, economic sanctions against Iraq continued. After the war, Iraq was accused of breaking its obligations throughout the 1990s, including the discovery in 1993 of a plan to assassinate former President
George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States . He was also Ronald Reagan's Vice President , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence....
, and the withdrawal of
Richard ButlerRichard William Butler, AC served as an Australian diplomat, United Nations weapons inspector, and Governor of Tasmania.-Life and career:...
's UNSCOM weapon inspectors in 1998 after the Iraqi government claimed some inspectors were spies for the U.S.
Central Intelligence AgencyThe Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government.It is an independent agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior United States policymakers....
. On multiple occasions throughout the disarmament crisis, the UN passed further resolutions (see United Nations Resolutions concerning Iraq) compelling Iraq to comply with the terms of the ceasefire resolutions.
It is estimated more than 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the sanctions. With humanitarian and economic concerns in mind,
UNSCR 706The United Nations Security Council Resolution 706 was submitted by the United States of America in August of 1991, following the sanctions placed on Iraq for their invasion of Kuwait, as a way for Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods in a way similar to that which was later...
and UNSCR 712 allowed Iraq to sell oil in exchange for
humanitarian aidHumanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
. This was later turned into the
Oil-for-Food ProgrammeThe Oil-for-Food Programme, established by the United Nations in 1995 and terminated in late 2003, was established with the stated intent to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs for ordinary Iraqi citizens without allowing Iraq to...
by
UNSCR 986UN Security Council Resolution 986 was issued on 14 April, 1995, creating the Iraqi Oil-for-Food Programme . The programme was formally terminated on 21 November 2003 following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and its major functions turned over to the Coalition Provisional Authority.-External links:*...
. Over the years, U.S.
land forcesOperation Vigilant Warrior was a military operation from October 8, 1994 to December 15, 1994 by the United States in response to Iraqi ground troops moving toward the Kuwait border...
were deployed to the Iraq border, and U.S. bombings were carried out to try to pressure Hussein to comply with UN resolutions.
As a result of these repeated violations, US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, US Secretary of Defense
William CohenWilliam Sebastian Cohen is an author and American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as Secretary of Defense under Democratic President Bill Clinton.-Early life and education:...
, and US National Security Advisor
Sandy BergerSamuel Richard "Sandy" Berger served as the 19th United States National Security Advisor, under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001. In his position, he helped to formulate the foreign policy of the Clinton Administration...
held an international
town hall meetingA town hall meeting is an informal public meeting. Everybody in a community is invited to attend, voice their opinions, and hear the responses from public figures and elected officials, although attendees rarely vote on an issue...
to discuss possible war with Iraq, which seemed to have little public support. In October 1998, U.S. President
Bill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He was the third-youngest president; only Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy were younger when entering office...
signed the
Iraq Liberation ActThe Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq. It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.-Findings and declaration of policy:The Act found that between 1980 and 1998 Iraq had:...
, calling for "
regime change"Regime change" is the replacement of one regime with another. While it is widely believed that the term was first coined by former US President Bill Clinton, use of the term dates to at least 1925....
" in Iraq, and initiated Operation Desert Fox. Following Operation Desert Fox, and end to partial cooperation from Iraq prompted
UNSCR 1284In UNSC Resolution 1284, the United Nations Security Council decided to establish, as a subsidiary body of the Council, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission . The resolution was largely drafted by British civil servant Carne Ross, and was adopted by the Council on...
, disbanding UNSCOM and replacing it with
United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection CommissionThe United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission was created through the adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1284 of 17 December 1999....
(UNMOVIC).
The Bush administration made a number of allegations against Iraq, including that Iraq was acquiring uranium from
NigerNiger , officially the Republic of Niger is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
and that Iraq had secret weapons laboratories in trailers and isolated facilities throughout Iraq; none of these allegations have proven true. Saddam Hussein, under pressure from the U.S. and the U.N., finally agreed to allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq in 2002, but by that time the Bush administration had already begun pushing for war.
In June 2002,
Operation Southern WatchOperation Southern Watch was an operation conducted by Joint Task Force Southwest Asia with the mission of monitoring and controlling airspace south of the 32nd Parallel in Iraq, following the 1991 Gulf War until the 2003 invasion of Iraq.-Summary:Operation Southern Watch began on August 27, 1992...
transitioned to
Operation Southern FocusOperation Southern Focus was a period in the months leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq in which the military responses to violations of the southern Iraqi no-fly zones were increased, with more intensive bombing of air defense artillery installations and other military complexes...
, bombing sites around Iraq. The first CIA team entered Iraq on July 10, 2002. This team was composed of elite CIA
Special Activities DivisionThe Special Activities Division is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service , responsible for covert action and "special activities". These activities include covert political action and paramilitary operations...
and the U.S. Military's elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) operators. Together, they prepared the battle space of the entire country for conventional U.S. Military forces.
Their efforts also organized the Kurdish Peshmerga to become the northern front of the invasion and eventually defeat Ansar Al-Islam in Northern Iraq before the invasion and Saddam's forces in the north. The battle led to the killing of a substantial number of terrorists and the uncovering of a chemical weapons facility at Sargat. In October 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, and in November the UN Security Council passes
UNSCR 1441United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a United Nations Security Council resolution adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on November 8, 2002, offering Iraq under Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out...
.
2003 invasion
On March 20, 2003, a United States-organized coalition
invaded IraqThe 2003 invasion of Iraq, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 20 to May 1...
, with the stated reason that Iraq had failed to abandon its nuclear and chemical weapons development program in violation of U.N. Resolution 687. The United States asserted that because Iraq was in material breach of Resolution 687, the
armed forcesThe armed forces of a country are its government-sponsored defense, fighting forces, and organizations. They exist to further the foreign and domestic policies of their governing body, and to defend that body and the nation it represents from external and internal aggressors. In some countries...
authorization of Resolution 678 was revived. The United States further justified the invasion by claiming that Iraq had or was developing
weapons of mass destructionThe term weapon of mass destruction is often used to describe a weapon that can kill large numbers of humans and/or cause great damage to man-made structures , natural structures , or the biosphere in general....
and stating a desire to remove an oppressive dictator from power and bring democracy to Iraq. In his
State of the Union"State Of The Union" is the debut single from British singer-songwriter David Ford. It had previously been featured as a demo on his official website, before appearing as a track on a CD entitled "Apology Demos EP," only on sale at live shows....
Address on January 29, 2002,
PresidentThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000....
declared that Iraq was a member of the "
Axis of Evil"Axis of evil" is a term coined by United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 in order to describe governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction. President Bush named Iran, Iraq and North Korea...
", and that, like
North KoreaNorth Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , is a state in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer area between North Korea and South Korea...
and Iran, Iraq's attempt to acquire weapons of mass destruction posed a serious threat to U.S.
national securityNational security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the nation-state through the use of economic, military and political power and the exercise of diplomacy.Measures taken to ensure national security include:...
. These claims were based on documents that were provided to him by the CIA and the government of the United Kingdom. Bush added,
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostilities toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gasNerve agents, also referred to as nerve gases though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature, are a class of phosphorus-containing organic chemicals that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs...
, and nuclear weapons for over a decade... This is a regime that agreed to international inspections — then kicked out inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world... By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes [Iran, Iraq and North Korea] pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred.
However, according to a comprehensive U.S. government report, no complete, fully functional weapons of mass destruction have been found since the invasion. There are accounts of Polish troops obtaining antiquated warheads, dating from the 1980s, two of which contained trace amounts of the nerve gas cyclosarin, but U.S. military tests found that the rounds were so deteriorated that they would "have limited to no impact if used by insurgents against coalition forces." Iraq was also home to 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, miscellaneous other nuclear materials, and chemical weapons paraphernalia; the nuclear material was under the supervision of the IAEA until the beginning of the war.
Post-invasion
Following the invasion, the United States established the
Coalition Provisional AuthorityThe Coalition Provisional Authority was established as a transitional government following the invasion of Iraq by the United States, United Kingdom and the other members of the Multinational force in Iraq which was formed to oust the government of Saddam Hussein in 2003...
to govern Iraq. Government authority was transferred to an
Iraqi Interim GovernmentThe Iraqi Interim Government was created by the United States and its coalition allies as a caretaker government to govern Iraq until the Iraqi Transitional Government was installed following the Iraqi National Assembly election conducted on January 30, 2005...
in June 2004, and a permanent government was elected in October 2005. More than 140,000 troops, mainly Americans, remain in Iraq.
Some studies have placed the number of civilians deaths as high as 655,000 (see The Lancet study), although most studies estimate a lower number; the
Iraq Body Count projectThe Iraq Body Count project is one of several efforts to record civilian deaths attributable to coalition and insurgent military action, sectarian violence and criminal violence in Iraq since the US-led 2003 invasion of Iraq. This refers to excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action...
indicates a significantly lower number of civilian deaths than that of The Lancet Study, though IBC organizers acknowledge that their statistics are an undercount as they base their information off of media-confirmed deaths. The website of the Iraq body count states, "Our maximum therefore refers to reported deaths - which can only be a sample of true deaths unless one assumes that every civilian death has been reported. It is likely that many if not most
civilian casualtiesCivilian casualties is a military term describing civilian or non-combatant persons killed, injured, or imprisoned by military action. The description of civilian casualties includes any form of military action regardless of whether civilians were targeted directly...
will go unreported by the media."
After the invasion,
al-QaedaAl-Qaeda , alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida, is an Islamist group founded sometime between August 1988 and late 1989 and early 1990...
took advantage of the insurgency to entrench itself in the country concurrently with an Arab-Sunni led insurgency and
sectarian violenceSectarian violence or sectarian strife is violence inspired by sectarianism, that is, between different sects of one particular mode of thought or ideology, not necessarily religious...
.
On December 30, 2006, Saddam Hussein was hanged. Hussein's half-brother and former intelligence chief
Barzan HassanBarzan Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti was one of three uterine half-brothers of Saddam Hussein, and a leader of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service...
and former
chief judgeChief Judge is a title that can refer to the highest-ranking judge of a court that has more than one judge. The meaning and usage of the term vary from one court system to another...
of the Revolutionary Court
Awad Hamed al-BandarAwad Hamad al-Bandar was an Iraqi chief judge under Saddam Hussein's presidency. He was the head of the Revolutionary Court which issued death sentences against 143 Dujail residents, in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on the president on July 8, 1982 Awad Hamad al-Bandar ' onMouseout='HidePop("9513")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Taha_Yassin_Ramadan">Taha Yassin Ramadan
Taha Yasin Ramadan al-Jizrawi was the Vice President of Iraq from March 1991 to the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.- Capture, trial and execution :...
, Saddam's former deputy and former vice-president (originally sentenced to life in prison but later to death by hanging), on March 20, 2007. Ramadan was the fourth and last man in the
al-Dujail trialThe Trial of Saddam Hussein was the trial of the deposed President of Iraq Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Interim Government for crimes against humanity during his time in office....
to die by hanging for
crimes against humanityCrimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
.
At the Anfal genocide trial, Saddam's cousin
Ali Hassan al-MajidAli Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikritieh is a former Ba'athist Iraqi Defense Minister, Interior Minister, military commander and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service...
(aka Chemical Ali), former defense minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed al-Tay, and former deputy Hussein Rashid Mohammed were sentenced to hang for their role in the
Al-Anfal CampaignThe al-Anfal Campaign , also known as Operation Anfal, was a campaign against the Kurdish population of Iraq led by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid...
against the Kurds on June 24, 2007. Al-Majid was again sentenced to death for the 1991 suppression of a Shi'a uprising along with Abdul-Ghani Abdul Ghafur on December 2, 2008.
Acts of sectarian violence have led to claims of
ethnic cleansingEthnic cleansing is a term that has come to be used broadly to describe all forms of ethnically inspired violence, ranging from murder, rape, and torture to the forcible removal of populations...
in Iraq, and there have been many attacks on Iraqi minorities such as the Yezidis, Mandeans,
AssyrianThe Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people are an ethnic group whose origins lie in the Fertile Crescent, their homeland today being divided between Northern Iraq, Syria, Western...
s and others. A U.S.
"troop surge"In the context of the Iraq War, the surge refers to United States President George W. Bush's 2007 increase in the number of American troops in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Province....
became a contentious political issue in US politics and the 2008 US presidential election.
Although violence declined from the summer of 2007, the U.N. reported of a
cholera outbreak in IraqA lack of clean drinking water in Iraq in 2007 has led to an outbreak of cholera.According to Dr. Ryadh Abdul Ameer, the director of the Basra health ministry, basic water sterilization has become impossible in some places due to restrictions on the availability of chlorine for water...
.
The mandate of the
multinational force in IraqThe Multi-National Force - Iraq is a military command, led by the United States, that is fighting the Iraq War against Iraqi insurgents or resistants. Multi-National Force - Iraq replaced the previous force, Combined Joint Task Force 7, on May 15, 2004. General Ray Odierno serves as Commanding...
, last extended by
UN resolution 1790United Nations Security Council Resolution 1790 was adopted unanimously by the United Nations Security Council on December 18 2007, extending the mandate of the multinational force in Iraq until December 31 2008...
, ended on December 31, 2008.
In June 2009, U.S. troops formally withdrew from Baghdad streets, in accordance with former U.S. President
George W. BushGeorge Walker Bush was the 43rd President of the United States from 2001 to 2009 and the 46th Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000....
's security pact with Iraq known as a Status of Forces Agreement. The SOFA pact stated, among other things, that U.S. troops will withdraw from Iraq's cities by June 30, 2009, and will leave the country on Dec. 31, 2011. Throughout the country, as the citizens of Iraq celebrated with fireworks, television programs declared June 30 as National Soverignty Day. In the months following the American forces leaving Baghdad and other cities, however, violence spiked in Iraq. As Iraqi security forces struggled to suppress the sudden influx of crime, the number of kidnappings, robberies, bomb assaults, and shootings increased dramatically. According to the Associated Press, Iraqi military spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said investigations found that 60 to 70 percent of the criminal activity is carried out by former insurgent groups or by gangs affiliated with them — partly explaining the brutality of some of the crimes. The withdrawal of U.S. forces currently remains in doubt amid the rising violence, and the deaths of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers and citizens have added to the growing concern that the promised drawdown may be delayed in the face of escalating crime and violence. Although United States Secretary of Defense
Robert GatesRobert Michael Gates is currently serving as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense. He took office on December 18, 2006. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W. Bush as Director of...
said that the withdrawal caused a change of chemistry with “a real sense of empowerment on the part of the Iraqis,” U.S. troops continue to be embedded with Iraqi forces.
Geography
Iraq is located at . Spanning 437,072 km² (168,743 sq mi), it is the 58th-largest country in the world. It is comparable in size to the US state of
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, and somewhat larger than
ParaguayParaguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay , is one of the two landlocked countries which lie entirely within the Western Hemisphere, the other being Bolivia, both in South America....
.
Iraq mainly consists of
desertA desert is a landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. In the Köppen climate classification system,...
, but near the two major rivers (
EuphratesThe Euphrates is the longest and historically one of the most important rivers of Southwest Asia. Together with the Tigris, the Euphrates is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...
and
TigrisThe Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates. The river flows from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...
) are fertile alluvial plains, as the rivers carry about 60 million cubic metres (78 million
cu. ydA cubic yard is an Imperial / U.S. customary unit of volume, used in the United States, Canada, and the UK. It is defined as the volume of a cube with sides of 1 yard in length.- Symbols :...
) of
siltSilt is soil or rock derived granular material of a grain size between sand and clay. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...
annually to the
deltaA delta is a landform that is created at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...
. The north of the country is mostly composed of mountains; the highest point being at 3,611 metres (11,847 ft) point, unnamed on the map opposite, but known locally as Cheekah Dar (black tent). Iraq has a small coastline measuring 58 km (35 miles) along the
Persian GulfThe Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Historically and commonly known as the Persian Gulf, this body of water is sometimes controversially referred to as the Arabian Gulf by most Arab states or simply The...
. Close to the coast and along the Shatt al-Arab (known as
arvandrūd: اروندرود among Iranians) there used to be marshlands, but many were drained in the 1990s.
The local
climateClimate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other meteorological elements in a given region over long periods of time...
is mostly
desertA desert is a landscape or region that receives almost no precipitation. Deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than per year, or as areas where more water is lost by evapotranspiration than falls as precipitation. In the Köppen climate classification system,...
, with mild to cool winters and dry, hot, cloudless summers. The northern mountainous regions (Kurdistan region ههرێمی کوردستان) have cold winters with occasional heavy snows, sometimes causing extensive flooding.
With its of proved oil reserves, Iraq ranks third in the world behind
Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south...
and
IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
in the amount of
Oil reservesOil reserves are the estimated quantities of crude oil that are claimed to be recoverable under existing economic and operating conditions.The total estimated amount of oil in an oil reservoir, including both producible and non-producible oil, is called oil in place...
; yet the
United States Department of EnergyThe United States Department of Energy is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material...
estimates that up to 90% of the country remains unexplored. These regions could yield an additional . Iraq's oil production costs are among the lowest in the world, but only about 2,000
oil wellAn oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and produce petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest known oil...
s have been drilled in Iraq, compared with about 1 million wells in
TexasTexas is the second-largest U.S. state in both area and population, and the largest state in the contiguous United States.The name had wide usage among native Americans, meaning "friends" or "allies"...
alone.
Environment
The ancient
SumerSumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Iraq . It is the earliest known civilization in the world and is known as the Cradle of Civilization...
ian cities in
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
had collapsed largely because of crop failure due to high soil salinity, and during the period from 2100 BC to 1700 BC, it is estimated that the population in this area declined by nearly three fifths.
Iraq's environment has deteriorated over a period of decades. As a result of the construction of a large number of upstream dams in Iran, Syria and Turkey, combined with reduced rainfall over a period of years, has contributed to both to drought and to higher levels of salinity in the Shatt Al-Arab, destroying farms, threatening livestock and causing civilians in southern areas to flee their areas.
Government
The
federalFederalism is political philosophy in which a group of members are bound together with a governing representative head. The term federalism is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent...
governmentA government is the body within a community, political entity or organization which has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws and regulations.....
of Iraq is defined under the current
Constitution-History:The current constitution was approved by a referendum that took place on 15 October 2005. The constitution was drafted in 2005 by members of the Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee to replace the Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period...
as an
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic,
democraticElectoral democracies require a majority of the votes cast. Many representative democracies are constitutional republics in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law".- Criticisms :...
,
federalA federation , also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central government...
parliamentaryA parliamentary system is a system of government where in the ministers of the executive branch are drawn from the legislature, and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined...
republicA republic is a form of government in which the head of state is not a monarch and the people have an impact on its government. The word 'republic' is derived from the Latin phrase res publica which can be translated as "a public affair".Both modern and ancient republics vary widely in their...
. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as numerous independent commissions. Aside from the federal government, there are regions (made of one or more governorates), governorates, and districts within Iraq with jurisdiction over various matters as defined by law.
Regions, governorates and districts
Currently,
KurdistanIraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region also referred to as Southern Kurdistan as part of Greater Kurdistan is an autonomous, federally recognized region of Iraq...
is the only legally defined region within Iraq, with its own
governmentThe Kurdistan Regional Government , is the official ruling body of the predominantly Kurdish region of northern Iraq referred to as Iraqi Kurdistan, or sometimes simply, Kurdistan...
and quasi-official
militiaThe term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
, the
PeshmergaPeshmerga, Peshmerge or Armed Forces of Kurdistan is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters...
.
Basra GovernorateBasra province, or Al Basrah province, is a province in southern Iraq bordering Kuwait to the south and Iran to the east. The provincial capital is Basra city...
is preparing to hold a referendum to establish a Basrah Region. Iraq itself is divided into eighteen
governorateA governorate is an administrative division of a country. It is headed by a governor. As English-speaking nations tend to call regions administered by governors either states, provinces, or colonies, the term governorate is often used in translation from non-English-speaking administrations.The...
s (or
provinceA province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Roman provinces:The word is attested in English since c.1330, deriving from Old French province , which comes from the Latin word provincia, which referred to the sphere of activity which a...
s) (Arabic:
muhafadhat, singular –
muhafadhah, Kurdish: پاریزگه
Pârizgah). The governorates are subdivided into
districts (or
qadhas).
The following governorates are within the region
Iraqi KurdistanIraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region also referred to as Southern Kurdistan as part of Greater Kurdistan is an autonomous, federally recognized region of Iraq...
:
DahukDuhok is one of the governorates of Iraq. It is in the north of the country. Its capital is Duhok city. It also includes the city of Zakho, which has at various times served as a checkpoint for the border with Turkey...
ArbilErbīl is a governorate of Iraq located in the north of the country. It derives its name from the city of Arbil, which is also its capital ....
SulaymaniyahAs Sulaymānīyah province As Sulaymānīyah province As Sulaymānīyah province (Arabic: محافظة السليمانية, is a province of Iraq, within the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Its capital is a city of the same name, As Sulaymaniyah.The province is surrounded by mountains (Goyzha, Azmir, Glazarda and Piramagrun)...
Politics
Iraq was under Baath PartyThe Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus in the 1940s by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both Syrian intellectuals, as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to unify all Arab countries in one State and to combat Western colonial rule that dominated the Arab region at that...
rule from 1968 to 2003; in 1979 Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the President of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
took control and remained president until 2003 after which he was unseated by a US-led invasionThe 2003 invasion of Iraq, was led by the United States, backed by British forces and smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland and Spain. Four countries participated with troops during the initial invasion phase, which lasted from March 20 to May 1...
.
On October 15, 2005, more than 63% of eligible Iraqis came out across the country to vote on whether to accept or reject the new constitution-History:The current constitution was approved by a referendum that took place on 15 October 2005. The constitution was drafted in 2005 by members of the Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee to replace the Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period...
. On October 25, the vote was certified and the constitution passed with a 78% overall majority, with the percentage of support varying widely between the country's territories. The new constitution had overwhelming backing among the Shia and Ķurdish communities, but was overwhelmingly rejected by Arab Sunnis. Three majority Arab Sunni provinces rejected it (Salah ad Din with 82% against, Ninawa with 55% against, and Al Anbar with 97% against).
Under the terms the constitution, the country conducted fresh nationwide parliamentary electionsFollowing the ratification of the Constitution of Iraq on October 15 2005, a general election was held on 15 December to elect a permanent 275-member Iraqi Council of Representatives....
on December 15 to elect a new government. The overwhelming majority of all three major ethnic groupAn ethnic group is a group of humans whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or presumed.Ethnic identity is further marked by the researcher Seng Yang in the recognition from others of a group's distinctiveness and the recognition of common cultural,...
s in Iraq voted along ethnic lines, turning this vote into more of an ethnic censusA "census" is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.In other words every 10 years...next one would be in 2010 The term is used mostly in connection with...
than a competitive election, and setting the stage for the division of the country along ethnic lines.
Iraqi politicians have been under significant threat by the various factions that have promoted violence as a political weapon. The ongoing violence in Iraq has been incited by an amalgam of religious extremists that believe an Islamic CaliphateThe term caliphate refers to the first form of government inspired by Islam. It was initially led by Muhammad's disciples as a continuation of the political authority the prophet established, known as the 'rashidun caliphates'. It represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah, and was the...
should rule, old sectarian regime members that had ruled under Saddam that want back the power they had, and Iraqi nationalists that are fighting the U.S. militaryThe United States armed forces are the overall unified military forces of the United States.The history of the United States armed forces dates to 1775, even before the Declaration of Independence marked the establishment of the United States...
presence.
Iraq has a number of ethnic minority groups: KurdsThe Kurds are an Ethnic-Iranian ethnolinguistic group mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
, AssyriansThe Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people are an ethnic group whose origins lie in the Fertile Crescent, their homeland today being divided between Northern Iraq, Syria, Western...
, Mandeans, Iraqi TurkmenThe Iraqi Turks or Iraqi Turkmens are a distinct Turkic ethnic group, the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq, living mostly in northern Iraq, in an area which they call "Turkmeneli", notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul...
, ShabaksThe Shabak people is a minority group of Kurdish origin who live mainly in the villages of Ali Rash, Khazna, Yangidja and Tallara in Sinjar district in the province of Ninawa in northern Iraq. Their language, Shabaki, is a Northwestern Iranian language, belonging to Zaza-Gorani group, and similar...
and Roma. These groups have not enjoyed equal status with the majority Arab populations throughout Iraq's eighty-five year history. Since the establishment of the "no-fly zones" following the Gulf WarThe Persian Gulf War , known also as the Gulf War, the First Gulf War,or often as the Second Gulf War and by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as The Mother of all Battles, or commonly as Desert Storm, for the military response...
of 1990–1991, the situation of the Kurds has changed as they have established their own autonomous regionAn autonomous area is an area of a country that has a degree of autonomy, or freedom from an external authority. Typically it is either geographically distinct from the country or is populated by a national minority. Countries that include autonomous areas are often federacies...
. The remainder of these ethnic groups continue to suffer discrimination on religious or ethnic grounds.
In 2008, according to the Failed States Index, Iraq was the world's fifth most politically unstable country. On November 17, 2008, the U.S. and Iraq agreed to a Status of Forces AgreementA Status of Forces Agreement is an agreement between a country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country.-Agreements:...
, as part of the broader Strategic Framework Agreement. This agreement notably states "the Government of Iraq requests" U.S. forces to remain in Iraq to "maintain security and stability in Iraq," and that Iraq has jurisdiction over military contractors, and US personnel when not on US bases or on-duty.
Economy
Iraq's economy is dominated by the oilPetroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds.The term "petroleum" was first used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in...
sector, which has traditionally provided about 95% of foreign exchange earnings. In the 1980s financial problems caused by massive expenditures in the eight-year war with IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
and damage to oil export facilities by Iran led the government to implement austerity measuresIn economics, austerity is when a national government reduces its spending, to pay back creditors. Austerity is usually required when a government's fiscal deficit spending is felt to be unsustainable....
, borrow heavily, and later reschedule foreign debtExternal debt is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. The debtors can be the government, corporations or private households...
payments. Iraq suffered economic losses from the war of at least US$100 billion1,000,000,000 is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001.In scientific notation, it is written as 10
9....
. After hostilities ended in 1988, oil exports gradually increased with the construction of new pipelines and restoration of damaged facilities. A combination of low oil prices, repayment of war debts (estimated at around US$3 billion a year) and the costs of reconstruction resulted in a serious financial crisis which was the main short term motivation for the invasion of KuwaitThe Persian Gulf War , known also as the Gulf War, the First Gulf War,or often as the Second Gulf War and by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as The Mother of all Battles, or commonly as Desert Storm, for the military response...
.
On November 20, 2004, the Paris ClubThe Paris Club is an informal group of financial officials from 19 of the world's richest countries, which provides financial services such as debt restructuring, debt relief, and debt cancellation to indebted countries and their creditors...
of creditor nations agreed to write off 80% ($33 billion) of Iraq's $42 billion debt to Club members. Iraq's total external debt was around $120 billion at the time of the 2003 invasion, and had grown by $5 billion by 2004. The debt reliefDebt relief is the partial or total forgiveness of debt, or the slowing or stopping of debt growth, owed by individuals, corporations, or nations...
will be implemented in three stages: two of 30% each and one of 20%.
At the end of 2005, and in the first half of 2006, Iraq implemented a restructuring of about $20 billion of commercial debt claims on terms comparable to that of its November 2004 Paris Club agreement (i.e. with an 80% writeoff). Iraq offered to its larger claimants a U.S. dollar denominated bond maturing in 2028. Smaller commercial claimants received a cash settlement of comparable value.
Reconstruction
There have been attempts by the international community to improve and repair the infrastructure of Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, when much was destroyed. Iraq was governed, after the 2003 invasion, by the Coalition Provisional Authority and, after June 28, 2004 by a series of Iraq-led governments (see Politics of Iraq). During this period efforts were made to repair and replace damaged Iraqi infrastructure, including: water supply systems, sewage treatment plants, electricity production, hospitals and health clinics, schools, housing, and transportation systems. Reconstruction efforts have also encompassed the promotion of economic development and government institutions such as the criminal justice system.
While reconstruction efforts have produced some successes, problems have arisen with the implementation of internationally funded Iraq reconstruction efforts. These include inadequate security, pervasive corruption, insufficient funding and poor coordination among international agencies and local communities. Many suggest that the efforts were hampered by a poor understanding of Iraq on the part of the occupiers.
International assistance
Much reconstruction work in Iraq has been carried out by the Iraqi people in their own communities using local resources. A major benchmark for international assistance was the Madrid Conference on Reconstruction held in Spain October 23–24, 2003 and attended by representatives over 25 nations. Funds assembled at this conference and from other sources have been administered by the United Nations and the World Bank. This assistance has primarily funded large-scale projects.
United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq focuses on implementing the International Compact with IraqThe International Compact with Iraq is an initiative of the Government of Iraq for a new partnership with the international community. The Compact, jointly chaired by the Government of the Republic of Iraq and the United Nations, with the support of the World Bank, establishes a vision that, "five...
, to aid economic and political development in Iraq.
Demographics
An April 2009 estimate of the total Iraqi population is 31,234,000.
Around 75%-80% of Iraq's population is Arab; the other major ethnic groups are the KurdKürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
s at 15%-20%, the Assyrians, the Iraqi TurkmenThe Iraqi Turks or Iraqi Turkmens are a distinct Turkic ethnic group, the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq, living mostly in northern Iraq, in an area which they call "Turkmeneli", notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul...
and others (5%), who mostly live in the north and northeast of the country. Around 20,000 indigenous Maʻdān peopleThe Marsh Arabs , also known as the Maʻdān , are inhabitants of the Tigris-Euphrates marshlands in the south and east of Iraq and along the Iranian border....
live in southern Iraq. The Iraqi population includes a community of around 20,000 ArmeniansThere is a small ethnic minority of Armenians in Iraq, mostly living in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. It is estimated that there are about 20,000 Armenians living in the entire country with communities in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, Kirkuk and Dohuk.-History:...
, a small community of Circassians, and a community of 2500 ChechensChechens constitute the largest native ethnic group originating in the North Caucasus region. They refer to themselves as Nokhchii , which comes from the name of a large Chechen tribe, the Nokhchmekhkakhoi, and their homeland.The isolated mountain terrain of the Caucasus and the strategic value...
. In southern Iraq there is a community of Iraqis of African descent, a legacy of the slaverySlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
practiced in the Islamic Caliphate beginning before the Zanj RebellionNote: The Zanj Rebellion was not a single revolt but a series of small revolts that eventually culminated to a large revolt. This article details the largest revolt led by Ali bin Muhammad....
of the 9th century AD, and BasraAl-Baṣrah is the capital of Basra Province, and had an estimated population of 3,800,200 as of 2009. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it is incapable of deep water access, which is handled at the the port of Umm Qasr...
's role as a key port.
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
and KurdishKurdish is the language spoken by Kurds in western Asia. Unlike many other languages it does not have a single standardized linguistic entity with the status of an official or state language...
are official languageAn official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
s. AssyrianAssyrian Neo-Aramaic is a modern Eastern Aramaic language. Assyrian Neo Aramaic is neither to be confused with Assyrian Akkadian, nor the Old Aramaic dialect that was adopted as a lingua franca in Assyria in the 8th century BC. Although this latter Aramaic is also an Aramaic language, it is...
and TurkmenTurkmen is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,000,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by an additional approximately 380,000 in northwestern Afghanistan and 500,000 in northeastern Iran.- Classification, related languages and dialects :Turkmen is in the...
are official languages in areas where the Assyrians and Iraqi Turkmen are located respectively. ArmenianThe Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
and PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
are also spoken but to a lesser extent. EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
is the most commonly-spoken European language.
No official figures exist, due to the politically sensitive nature of the subject, recent violence, and Ba'athistThe Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was founded in Damascus in the 1940s by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar, both Syrian intellectuals, as the original secular Arab nationalist movement, to unify all Arab countries in one State and to combat Western colonial rule that dominated the Arab region at that...
views on information and religion. Religious composition includes:
- Islam
Islam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, 97%; ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
or other, 3%.
Two estimates of the Muslim proportions of the population are:
- Shi'a up to 60%, Sunni about 40% (source: Encyclopedia Britannica).
- Shi'a 60%–65%, Sunni 32%–37% (source: CIA World Fact Book).
Linguistically, the adherents of Shia Islam in Iraq predominantly speak ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
and a bilingual minority speak PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
, while the Iraqi TurkmenThe Iraqi Turks or Iraqi Turkmens are a distinct Turkic ethnic group, the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq, living mostly in northern Iraq, in an area which they call "Turkmeneli", notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul...
speak Turkmeni and the Feyli KurdsFeyli Kurds are largely a Shi'a community living in Baghdad and the Diyala Province of Iraq around Khanaqin and Mandali. They are an estimated 2-3 million Feylis living in Iraq...
speak FeyliFeyli can refer to:*Feyli, a group of Kurdish tribes located mainly in Lorestan.*A general name used since middle of twentieth century by Iraqi Arabs for the southern dialects of the Kurdish language spoken in Southern Kurdistan and Eastern Kurdistan Feyli (also Fayli or Faili) can refer...
, a dialect of KurdishKurdish is the language spoken by Kurds in western Asia. Unlike many other languages it does not have a single standardized linguistic entity with the status of an official or state language...
, almost all belong to the Twelver school. Adherents of Sunni IslamSunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. It is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘ah or Ahl as-Sunnah for short...
include ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
speakers, Iraqi TurkmenThe Iraqi Turks or Iraqi Turkmens are a distinct Turkic ethnic group, the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq, living mostly in northern Iraq, in an area which they call "Turkmeneli", notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul...
(who are mostly HanafiThe Hanafi school is one of the four schools of law or jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The Hanafi madhhab is named after Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man ibn Thābit , and his legal views were preserved primarily by his two most...
school), and Kurds (who are Shafi school).
It is estimated that around 60%–65% of Iraqis follow Shia Islam, and around 35%–40% follow Sunni IslamSunni Islam is the largest denomination of Islam. It is also referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘ah or Ahl as-Sunnah for short...
, however the question of religious demographics is controversial and some Iraqis who follow Sunni Islam dispute these figures, including an ex-Iraqi ambassador, referring to American sources. claiming that many reports only include Arab Sunnis as "Sunni", missing out the Kurdish and Turkmen Sunnis. Most Kurds are Sunnis, although the Feyli KurdsFeyli Kurds are largely a Shi'a community living in Baghdad and the Diyala Province of Iraq around Khanaqin and Mandali. They are an estimated 2-3 million Feylis living in Iraq...
are largely Shi'a.
Ethnic Assyrians (most of whom are adherents of the Chaldean Catholic ChurchThe Chaldean Catholic Church or the Chaldean Church of Babylon The Chaldean Catholic Church or the Chaldean Church of Babylon The Chaldean Catholic Church or the Chaldean Church of Babylon ( ,Syriac ܥܕܬܐ ܟܠܕܝܬܐ ܩܬܘܠܝܩܝܬܐ is an Eastern particular church of the Catholic Church, maintaining full...
, Syriac Orthodox ChurchThe Syriac Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Middle East, with members spread throughout the world. It parted ways with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism over the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which the Syriac Orthodox Church rejects. It is a major...
and the Assyrian Church of the Eaststyle="float: right;"|- |The Assyrian Church of the East known officially as the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East , in Persian القدس وابسته به پاپ کاتولیک آشوری...
) account for most of Iraq's ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
population, along with Armenians. Estimates for the numbers of Christians suggest a decline from 8–10% in the mid-20th century to 5% at the turn of the century, to 3% in 2008. About 600,000 Iraqi Christians have fled to Syria, Jordan or other countries or relocated to Kurdish-controlled areas. There are also small populations of Bahá'ísThe Bahá'í Faith is a monotheistic religion founded by Bahá'u'lláh in nineteenth-century Persia, emphasizing the spiritual unity of all humankind. There are an estimated five to six million Bahá'ís around the world in more than 200 countries and territories.The Bahá'í Faith teaches a doctrine of...
, Mandaeans, Shabaks, and Yezidis. The Iraqi Jewish community, numbering around 150,000 in 1941, almost entirely left the country.
In November 2006, the UNHCR estimated that 1.8 million Iraqis had been displaced to neighboring countries, with nearly 100,000 Iraqis fleeing to SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
each month, while another 1.6 million were displaced internally. A May 2007 article noted that in the previous seven months, only 69 people from Iraq had been granted refugee status in the United States.
Iraqi diaspora
The dispersion of native Iraqis to other countries is known as the Iraqi diaspora. There have been many large-scale waves of emigration from Iraq, beginning early in the regime of Saddam Hussein and continuing through to 2007. The UN High Commission for Refugees has estimated that nearly two million Iraqis have fled the country in recent years, mostly to SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
and JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
. Although some expatriates returned to Iraq after the 2003 invasion, the flow had virtually stopped by 2006.
In addition to the 2 million Iraqis who fled to neighboring countries, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates the number of people currently displaced within the country at 1.9 million.
In 2007, the U.N. said that about 40% of Iraq's middle class is believed to have fled and that most are fleeing systematic persecution and have no desire to return. Refugees are mired in poverty as they are generally barred from working in their host countries.
In recent times the diaspora seems to be reversing with the increased security of the last few months, and the Iraqi government claims that so far 46,000 refugees have returned to their homes in October 2007 alone. More than half of Iraqi Christians have fled to neighboring countries since the start of the war, and few plan to return.
Culture
Some important cultural institutions in the capital include the Iraqi National Orchestra – rehearsals and performances were briefly interrupted during the Occupation of Iraq but have since returned to normal, the National Theatre of Iraq – The theatre was looted during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, but efforts are underway to restore the theatre.
The live theatre scene received a boost during the 1990s when UN sanctions limited the import of foreign films. As many as 30 movie theatres were reported to have been converted to live stages, producing a wide range of comedies and dramatic productions.
Institutions offering cultural education in Baghdad include the Academy of Music, Institute of Fine Arts and the Music and Ballet school Baghdad. Baghdad also features a number of museums including the National Museum of IraqThe National Museum of Iraq is a museum located in Baghdad, Iraq. It contains priceless relics from Mesopotamian civilization, thousands of which were looted in 2003 during the Iraq War. On February 23, 2009, the museum was reopened for a day by Iraqi prime minister Al-Maliki, with about half of...
- which houses the world's largest and finest collection of artifacts and relics of Ancient Iraqi civilizations; some of which were stolenSince the 2003 invasion of Iraq, archaeological looting has become a major problem. Though some sites, such as Ur and Nippur, are protected by US and Coalition forces, most are not...
during the Occupation of Iraq.
Music
Iraq is known primarily for an instrument called the oudThe oud is a pear-shaped, stringed instrument, which is often seen as the predecessor of the western lute, distinguished primarily by being without frets, commonly used in Middle Eastern music.-Name:The words "lute" and "oud" are both suspected to be derived from the...
(similar to a luteLute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
) and a rebabThe rebab , also rebap, rabab, rebeb, rababah, or al-rababa) is a type of string instrument so named no later than the 8th century and spread via Islamic trading routes over much of North Africa, the Middle East, parts of Europe, and the Far East...
(similar to a fiddleThe term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, including the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
); its stars include Ahmed MukhtarAhmed Mukhtar Arabic ,أحمد مختار is an Iraqi musician who is internationally renowned for his playing of the oud. He was born in Baghdad and is a graduate of the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad.- Biography :...
and the Assyrian Munir BashirMunir Bashir
was one of the most famous musicians in the Middle East during the 20th century and was considered to be the supreme master of the Arab maqamat scale system....
. Until the fall of Saddam Hussein, the most popular radio stationRadio broadcasting is an audio broadcasting service, broadcast through the air as radio waves from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast common programming, either in syndication or simulcast or both...
was the Voice of Youth. It played a mix of western rockRock music is a genre of popular music that entered the mainstream in the 1960s. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country music and also drew on folk music, jazz and classical music....
, hip hopHip hop music is a musical genre which developed alongside hip hop culture, and is commonly based on concepts of loop, rapping, freestyle, DJing, scratching, sampling and beatboxing. The music is used to express concerns of political, social, and personal issues...
and pop musicPop music is a music genre that developed from the mid-1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music. It has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs...
, all of which had to be imported via JordanJordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in Western Asia spanning the southern part of the Syrian Desert down to the Gulf of Aqaba. Jordan shares borders with Syria to the north, Iraq to the northeast, Saudi Arabia to the east and south, the Gulf of Aqaba to the southwest,...
due to international economic sanctions. Iraq has also produced a major pan-Arab pop star-in-exile in Kathem Al SaherKathem Al Saher , is an Iraqi singer, composer, and poet. He has been dubbed as the "Elvis of the Middle East", "Robbie Williams of the Middle East", "Iraq’s Diplomatic Ambassador to the world", "Iraq’s Ambassador for Peace" and is hailed as a true legend of Arabic Music.Kathem has established...
. The folk songs of Iraqi Turkmens are also well known, and Abdurrahman Kızılay is a leading name.
Sport
Football is the most popular sport in Iraq. Football is a considerable uniting factor in Iraq following years of war and unrest. BasketballBasketball is a team sport in which two teams of 5 players try to score points against one another by placing a ball through a
10 foot high hoop under organized rules...
, swimmingThe aquatic sport of swimming involves competition amongst participants to be the fastest over a given distance under self propulsion.The different events include 25, 50, 100, 200, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly, the 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, 500, 800, 1000, 1500, and 1650 free and the 100,...
, weightliftingPowerlifting is a strength sport, consisting of three events: the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift.Powerlifting resembles the sport of olympic weightlifting, as both disciplines involve lifting weights in three attempts. It evolved from a sport known as 'odd lifts' which followed the same 3...
, bodybuildingBodybuilding is a form of body modification involving intensive muscle hypertrophy; an individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. In competitive bodybuilding, bodybuilders display their physiques to a panel of judges, who assign points based on their appearance...
, boxingBoxing is a combat sport where two participants, generally of similar weight, fight each other with their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee and is typically engaged in during a series of one to three-minute intervals called rounds. There are three ways to win...
, kick boxing and tennisTennis is a sport played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a strung racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court....
are also popular sports.
The Iraqi Football Association is the governing body of football in Iraq, controlling the Iraqi National TeamThe Iraqi national football team is the national team of Iraq and is controlled by the Iraq Football Association. They are the reigning champions of the Asian Football Confederation .-The Golden Generation:...
and the Iraqi Premier League (also known as Dawri Al-Nokba). It was founded in 1948, and has been a member of FIFAThe International Federation of Association Football, commonly known by its French acronym, FIFA , is the international governing body of association football. Its headquarters are in Zürich, Switzerland, and its current president is Sepp Blatter...
since 1950 and the Asian Football ConfederationThe 46 member Asian Football Confederation is the governing body of football in Asia, excluding Cyprus and Israel, and including Australia....
since 1971. The Iraqi National Football Team are the 2007 AFC Asian Cup ChampionsThe Asian Football Confederation's 2007 AFC Asian Cup finals were held from July 7 to July 29, 2007. For the first time in its history, the competition was co-hosted by four nations: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The tournament was won by first-time champions Iraq, who defeated Saudi...
after defeating Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia , is an Arab country and the largest country of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south...
in the final.
Cuisine
Iraqi cuisineIraqi cuisine or Mesopotamian cuisine has a long history going back some 10,000 years - to the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and Ancient Persians. Tablets found in ancient ruins in Iraq show recipes prepared in the temples during religious festivals - the first cookbooks in the world...
has a long history going back some 10,000 years - to the SumerSumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Iraq . It is the earliest known civilization in the world and is known as the Cradle of Civilization...
ians, AkkadThe Akkadian Empire was an empire centered in the city of Akkad and its surrounding region in Ancient Iraq ....
ians, BabyloniaBabylonia was a civilization in Lower Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi created an empire out of the territories of the former kingdoms of Sumer and Akkad...
ns, AssyriaAssyria was a civilization centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
ns and Ancient Persians. TabletsIn ancient times, small tablets made out of clay were used as a writing medium.From the 4th millennium BCE in the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Hittite civilisations of the Mesopotamia region, cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylus often made of reed. Once...
found in ancient ruins in Iraq show recipes prepared in the temples during religious festivals - the first cookbooks in the world. Ancient Iraq, or MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
, was home to many sophisticated and highly advanced civilizations, in all fields of knowledge - including the culinary arts. However, it was in the medieval eraThe Islamic Golden Age or the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 9th to 13th centuries for 400 years C.E., but has been extended to the 15th century by recent scholarship...
when BaghdadBaghdad is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is coterminous. Having a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq and the second largest in the Arab World....
was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate that the Iraqi kitchen reached its zenith. Today, the cuisine of Iraq reflects this rich inheritance as well as strong influences from the culinary traditions of neighbouring TurkeyTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
, IranIran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanid period and came into international use from 1935, before which the country was known internationally as Persia...
and the Greater SyriaGreater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....
area.
Some characteristic ingredients of Iraqi cuisine include - vegetables such as aubergineThe eggplant, aubergine, or brinjal , is a plant of the family Solanaceae and genus Solanum. It bears a fruit of the same name, commonly used as a vegetable in cooking...
, tomatoThe tomato is a herbaceous, usually sprawling plant in the Solanaceae or nightshade family that is typically cultivated for the purpose of harvesting its fruit for human consumption...
, okraOkra , known by many other names, is a flowering plant in the mallow family , valued for its edible green fruits. Okra's scientific name is Abelmoschus esculentus; it is occasionally referred to as Hibiscus esculentus L.The species is an annual or perennial, growing to 2 m tall...
, onionOnion is a term used for many plants in the genus Allium. They are known by the common name "onion" but, used without qualifiers, it usually refers to Allium cepa. Allium cepa is also known as the "garden onion" or "bulb" onion...
, potatoThe potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes are the world's fourth largest food...
, courgette, garlicAllium sativum, commonly known as garlic, is a species in the onion family Alliaceae. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, and chive. Garlic has been used throughout recorded history for both culinary and medicinal purposes. It has a characteristic pungent, spicy flavor that...
, peppersBell pepper is a cultivar group of the species Capsicum annuum. Cultivars of the plant produce fruits in different colors, including red, yellow, green and orange. Bell peppers are sometimes grouped with less pungent pepper varieties as "sweet peppers". Peppers are native to Mexico, Central America...
and chilliChili pepper is the vegetable of the plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Botanically speaking, the fruit of capsicums are berries...
, cereals such as riceRice is the seed of a monocot plant Oryza sativa, of the grass family . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East, South, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies...
, bulghur wheat and barleyBarley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food. It is used in soups, stews and barley bread in various countries, such as Scotland and in Africa...
, pulses and legumes such as lentils, chickpeas and cannellini, fruits such as dates, raisinRaisins are dried grapes. They are produced in many regions of the world, such as Armenia, the United States, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Macedonia, Mexico, Greece, Syria, Turkey, India, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, China, Afghanistan, Togo, and Jamaica, as well as South Africa and Southern and...
s, apricotThe Apricot is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus...
s, figsThe Common fig is a large, deciduous shrub or small tree native to southwest Asia and the eastern Mediterranean region . It grows to a height of tall, with smooth grey bark. The leaves are long and across, and deeply lobed with three or five lobes. The fruit is long, with a green skin,...
, grapeA grape is the non-climacteric fruit, botanically a true berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, and grape seed oil...
s, melonMelon is a name given to various members of the Cucurbitaceae family with fleshy fruit. Melon can refer to either the plant or the fruit, which is a false berry. Many different cultivars have been produced, particularly of muskmelons...
, pomegranateThe pomegranate is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing to between five and eight meters tall. The pomegranate is native to Southwest Asia and has been cultivated in the Caucasus since ancient times...
and citrus fruitsCitrus is a common term and genus of flowering plants in the family Rutaceae, originating in tropical and subtropical southeast regions of the world. The most well known examples are the orange, the lemon, the grapefruit, and the lime. The Latin word citrus was borrowed from ancient Greek kedros...
, especially lemonThe lemon is a small evergreen tree originally native to Asia, and is also the name of the tree's oval yellow fruit. The fruit is used for culinary and nonculinary purposes throughout the world – primarily for its juice, though the pulp and rind are also used, mainly in cooking and baking...
and limeLime is a term referring to a number of different fruits, both species and hybrids and generally citruses, which have their origin in the Himalayan region of India and which are typically round, green to yellow in colour, 3–6 cm in diameter, and generally containing sour and acidic pulp. They are...
. Other Iraqi culinary essentials include butterClarified butter is butter that has been rendered to separate the milk solids and water from the butterfat. Typically, it is produced by melting butter and allowing the different components to separate by density...
, olive oilOlive oil is a fruit oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. The wild olive tree originated in Asia Minor and spread from there as far as southern Africa, Australia, Japan and China. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and...
, olivesThe Olive is the fruit of the Olive tree and is a major component of the agriculture and gastronomy along the Mediterranean both in Europe and North Africa, as well as in the Middle East.-History:...
, tamarindThe Tamarind is a tree in the family Fabaceae. The genus Tamarindus is monotypic .- Origin :...
, vermicelliVermicelli is a type of pasta, round in section and somewhat thinner than spaghetti. Vermicelloni is less common, and about the same size as fedelini . Both are thinner than spaghettini .-History in Italy:In 14th-century Italy, extra-fine spaghetti had varying local names...
, tahiniTahini , zhimajiang , nerigoma, טחינה or sesame paste is a paste of ground sesame seeds used in cooking. Middle Eastern tahini is made of hulled, lightly roasted seeds. East Asian sesame paste is made of unhulled seeds.Tahini is a major component of hummus bi tahini and other Middle Eastern foods...
, pistachioThe pistachio is a small tree native to mountainous regions of Greece, Syria, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey and western Afghanistan, that produces an important culinary nut. Pistacia vera often is confused with other species in the genus Pistacia that are also known as pistachio...
s, almondThe Almond is a species of tree native to the Middle East. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated nut of this tree...
s, honeyHoney is a sweet food made by some insects using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
, date syrup, yogurtStrained yoghurt, yoghurt cheese, labneh/labaneh, dahi, or Greek yoghurt is yoghurt which has been strained in a cloth or paper bag or filter, traditionally made of muslin, to remove the whey, giving a consistency between that of yoghurt and cheese, while preserving yoghurt's distinctive sour taste...
and rose water, cheeses such as baladiBaladi cheese is a soft, white cheese originating from the Middle East. It has with a mild yet rich flavor....
, fetaFeta is a brined curd cheese traditionally made in Feta is a brined curd cheese traditionally made in Feta is a brined curd cheese traditionally made in (Greece. A sheep's milk cheese, varying amounts of goats’ milk may be added, as long as goat milk makes up less than 30% of the total...
and halloumiHalloumi or haloumi is a Traditional Cypriot cheese, that is also popular in Greece and throughout the Middle East and is now made the world over. It is made from a mixture of goat's and sheep milk, although some halloumi can be bought that also contains cow's milk...
, and herbs and spices such as cinnamonCinnamon is a small evergreen tree belonging to the family Lauraceae, native to Sri Lanka, or the spice obtained from the tree's bark...
, cardamomThe name "cardamom" is used for herbs within two genera of the ginger family Zingiberaceae, namely Elettaria and Amomum. Both varieties take the form of a small seedpod, triangular in cross-section and spindle-shaped, with a thin papery outer shell and small black seeds...
, fenugreekFenugreek is a plant in the family Fabaceae. Fenugreek is used both as an herb and as a spice . It is cultivated worldwide as a semi-arid crop. It is frequently used in curry.-History:...
, cuminCumin is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native from the east Mediterranean to East India.-Etymology:...
, oreganoOregano or is a species of Origanum, of the mint family, native to Europe, the Mediterranean region and southern and central Asia. It is a perennial herb, growing from 20-80 cm tall, with opposite leaves 1-4 cm long...
, saffronSaffron is a spice derived from the flower of the saffron crocus , a species of crocus in the family Iridaceae. A C. sativus flower bears three stigmas, each the distal end of a carpel. Together with their styles—stalks connecting stigmas to their host plant—stigmas are dried and used in cooking...
, baharatBahārāt is a spice mixture or blend used throughout the Levant, in Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Iraqi, Israeli and Palestinian cuisine. Baharat, in Arabic, means "spices". The name originated in Medieval India, as Bhārat , a Sanskrit name for India, was the source of these spices...
, sumacSumac is any one of approximately 250 species of flowering plants in the genus Rhus and related genera, in the family Anacardiaceae....
and za'atarZa'atar is a generic name for a family of related Middle Eastern herbs from the genera Origanum , Calamintha , Thymus and Satureja...
. Similarly with other countries of Western Asia, chicken and especially lamb are the favourite meats. Most dishes are served with rice - usually BasmatiBasmati is a variety of long grain rice grown in India and Pakistan, notable for its fragrance and delicate, nuanced flavour. Its name means "the fragrant one" in Sanskrit, but it can also mean "the soft rice." India and Pakistan are the largest cultivators and exporters of this rice; it is...
, grown in the marshesThe Mesopotamian Marshes are a wetland area located in Southern Iraq bordering Iran. Historically the marshlands, composed of the Central, Hawizeh and Hammar Marshes, used to be the largest wetland ecosystem of Western Eurasia. It is a rare aquatic landscape in the desert, providing habitat for...
of Southern Iraq. Bulghur wheat is used in many dishes - having been a staple in the country since the days of the Ancient AssyriansAssyria was a civilization centered on the Upper Tigris river, in Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times in history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
.
Meals begin with appetizers and salads - known as Mezze. Some popular dishes include KebabKebab refers to a variety of meat dishes in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Caucasian, Central Asian, South Asian and some of the African cuisines, consisting of grilled or broiled meats wrapped in bread accompanied by lettuce and tomatoes with garlic sauce.The...
(often marinated with garlic, lemon and spices, then grilled), ShawarmaShawarma , is a Middle Eastern sandwich-like wrap of shaved lamb, goat, chicken, turkey, beef, or a halal mixture of meats. The meat is placed on a spit, and may be grilled for as long as a day. Chunks of fat within the meat ensure that the shawarma stays juicy. Shawarma is a fast-food staple...
(grilled meat sandwich wrap, similar to Döner kebabDöner kebab , is a Turkish dish made of lamb meat cooked on a vertical spit and sliced off to order. Two similar dishes are called shawarma in Arabic and gyros in Greek, although ingredients and sauces differ...
), Bamia (lamb, okra and tomato stew), QuziMansaf is a Jordanian dish originating in Arabia. Today it has been adopted as the national dish of Jordan, made of lamb cooked in a sauce of fermented dried yogurt and served with rice.-Preparation:...
(lamb with rice, almonds, raisins and spices), FalafelFalafel is a fried ball or patty made from spiced chickpeas and/or fava beans. Originally from Egypt, falafel is a popular form of fast food in the Middle East, where it is also served as a mezze....
(fried chickpea patties served with ambaAmba is a tangy mango pickle condiment popular in Israeli cuisine. It is also popular in India, where it is widely manufactured and bottled for the world market. The main differences between amba and achar are that amba has large pieces of mango rather than small cubes and that it uses more...
and salad in pitaPide or pita , also called and less commonly known as pite , питка , is an often round, brown, wheat flatbread made with yeast....
), KibbehKibbeh or kibbe is a Levantine Arab/Assyrian dish made of burghul and chopped meat. The best-known variety is a torpedo-shaped fried croquette stuffed with minced beef or lamb...
(minced meat ground with bulghur or rice and spices), MasgoufMasgouf is a traditional Iraqi dish, it is an open cut fish grilled and spiced with salt, pepper and tamarind. While keeping the skin on, it is then brushed with olive oil....
(grilled fish with pepper and tamarind), and MaqlubaMaqluba, or Makloubeh, often pronounced as Maalouba or Maglouba is an upside-down rice and eggplant casserole, hence the name which is literally translated as "upside-down". It is sometimes made with fried cauliflower instead of eggplant and usually includes meat -- often braised lamb...
(a rice, lamb, tomato and aubergine dish). Stuffed vegetable dishes such as DolmaDolma is a family of stuffed vegetable dishes in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and surrounding regions, including Turkey and Cyprus,the Balkans, many Arab countries, Iran and the Caucasus and Central and South Asia. Perhaps the best-known is the grape-leaf dolma, which is more...
and MahshiStuffed peppers is a dish which exists in different names and forms around the world.-India:Stuffed Peppers is one of several stuffed vegetable dishes in Indian cuisine...
are also popular.
See also
- Iraqi people
The Iraqi people or Mesopotamian people are natives or inhabitants of the country of Iraq, known since antiquity as Mesopotamia , and by virtue of a wide-ranging diaspora, throughout the Arab world, Europe, the Americas and Australasia...
- Mesopotamia
- Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent is a region in the Near East, incorporating the Levant and Mesopotamia, and often incorrectly extended to Egypt. Mesopotamia is considered the cradle of civilization and saw the development of the earliest human civilizations and is the birthplace of writing and the wheel.The...
- Index of Iraq-related articles
External links
Government
- Iraqi Presidency Website http://www.iraqipresidency.net/index.php?language=english
- Iraqi Government Website http://www.cabinet.iq
- Iraqi Parliament Website http://www.parliament.iq/english/index.php?newlang=english
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs http://www.mofa.gov.iq/english/home.aspx
- Citizen Affairs http://www.citizenaffairs.com/
- Ministry of Defense http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.iraqmod.org/EN+-+Pages/EN-Home+page.html
- Ministry of Oil http://www.oil.gov.iq
- Ministry of Trade http://www.mot.gov.iq/default_en.aspx
- Ministry of Industry http://www.industry.gov.iq
- Ministry of Higher Education http://www.mohesr.gov.iq/EngPages/indexE.htm
- Ministry of health http://www.moh.gov.iq
- Chief of State and Cabinet Members
- Kurdistan Regional Government
General information
- Iraq at UCB Libraries GovPubs
- Iraq from al-Bab
- Country Profile from BBC News
BBC News, formerly BBC News and Current Affairs, is the department within the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the corporation's news-gathering and production of news programmes on BBC television, radio and online....
- Iraq from Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Iraq from Encarta Encyclopedia
- Iraq Country Profile from Reuters AlertNet
Reuters Group Limited is a UK-based, Canadian-controlled news service and former financial market data provider that provides reports from around the world to newspapers and broadcasters. News reporting once accounted for less than 10% of the company's income. Its main focus was on supplying the...
- US State Department - Iraq includes Background Notes, Country Study and major reports
- Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Iraq
- Country Briefing: Iraq from The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in an office in the City of Westminster, London. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843. While The Economist calls itself a...
- Energy Information Administration – Energy Profile of Iraq
Other
- The Virtual Museum of Iraq
- Operation Iraqi Children
- Iraq Image, a cultural resource on Iraq cities and locations
- Iraqi Truth Project
- Juan Cole, a leading scholar and public intellectual
- The Ground Truth Project – A series of exclusive interviews and other resources capturing the voices of Iraqis, aid workers
Humanitarian aid is material or logistical assistance provided for humanitarian purposes, typically in response to humanitarian crises. The primary objective of humanitarian aid is to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity...
, military personnelA soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
and others who have spent significant time on-the-ground in Iraq.
- The World Monuments Fund's Iraq Cultural Heritage Conservation Initiative
- Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) – A Washington DC-based nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals . Examples of NPOs include charities , trade unions, and public arts organizations...
promoting a free and secure Iraq
- Amnesty International Report on Iraq
- Internal Displacement in Iraq – Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
- Coalition Provisional Authority Now-defunct occupation authority; site is archived
- Iraq Law from the University of Pittsburgh’s Jurist project
- 1900–2000 a history of Iraq
- US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq
- Charity Helping the People of Iraq
- IraqLinks.com - The Iraq Guide
- The worldwide update on civilians killed in the Iraq war and occupation
News media