Saddam Hussein's "renovation" of a mosque complex in Baghdad involved the demolition of several buildings, despite appeals by archaeologists, writes Michael Jansen
Dr Lamia Gailani, her daughter, Hessn, sister, Asmat, and I are on our way to Bab as-Shaikh, the Gate of the Cleric, and the mosque built on the site of the tomb of their ancestor, Abdel Kader Gailani, a 12th-century preacher and mystic who founded a Sufi order.
We halt in a narrow alleyway outside the mosque compound to don our abbayas, loose black cloaks, and tie scarves over our hair. My abbaya is fashionable raw silk with gold edging: conservative chic. Visiting a saint's tomb with his descendants is an experience one does not have often.
Just inside the entrance stands a 19th-century Ottoman clock, fixed atop a square tower built of traditional Iraqi yellow brick. "There were two of these clock towers, the first in Baghdad," Lamia remarks. "This is the survivor." On the right is the mosque, also of yellow brick; on the left, a new building of pink marble out of tune and out of time with the Ottoman structure. "An abomination," growls Lamia, a London-based Iraqi archaeologist attached to the post-war Reconstruction and Development Council.
"Saddam should be tried for his crimes against culture as well as his crimes against humanity." Lamia fought long and hard against the demolition of the buildings across the wide paved courtyard from the mosque, appealing to the ousted president himself to stay the hand of the executioner. To no avail.
We are greeted warmly by officials and taken into the silent, nearly empty mosque. The tomb of Shaikh Abdel Kader is at its heart, beneath the dome. As Lamia lifts her eyes to curved surface high above our heads, she remarks, "It's the largest unsupported brick dome in the world." The tomb, covered in a cloth embroidered in gold thread, stands in a enclosure surrounded by a silver screen, donated by Pakistan in 1987. The decorative motif is the rose.
"Legend says that when Abdel Kader started preaching, his enemies him sent him a bowl of water [to show he was nothing], but he put in a rose. The rose became his symbol." The lights in the chamber are reflected in thousands of tiny mirrors fixed to the walls, work typical of heterodox Shia rather than Orthodox Sunni mosques, like this one.
Our guide takes us to the tombs of Abdel Kader's descendants, beginning with Abdel Rahman Gailani, modern Iraq's first prime minister, who was buried in a wall. The marble tombs of Lamia's parents and grandparents lie in a dim and dusty room containing the control box for the mosque's electricity. Hessn, a British university student who has little idea of her family's glorious past, does not know what to say. Lamia remarks, "No Gailani ever did anything after Abdel Kader. We've always lived on his reputation."
As we step out into the watery sunlight, Lamia quips, "There's a whole village of Gailanis buried here." Crossing the courtyard to the library, she points to the koranic phrases inscribed high on the wall of the new construction. "The Wahhabis [the Saudi puritan school] in the Sunni religious establishment allowed only simple texts praising God to be used. References to people revered by Shias were banned. This sort of attitude creates a schism between the two branches of Islam." In the old building, she says, there was an effort to bring the two together by mentioning figures like Ali, Hassan and Hussein, esteemed by Shias.
At the library Hajji Nuri is waiting to show us the finest of its 2,000 manuscripts. The gentle, scholarly librarian gives us a tour of the magnificent illuminated Korans donated by adherents of the Gailani order, including one from the son of Shah Jihan, the Moghul king who built the Taj Mahal in distant India.
He lifts off cloth coverings on cases holding elaborate Sufi genealogical tables and 13th-century metallurgical, mathematics and astronomy texts. "All are on hand-made paper," he observes. He pauses to point out a crumpled Koran, no larger than a modern-day paperback, its writing faded and blurred. "It is said this Koran was picked from the river after Hulagu sacked Baghdad in the 13th century." Baghdad has centuries of experience of conquerors.
Back outside I ask Lamia what the rooms beside the library contain. "They're supposed to be for pilgrims. They used to come from Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan for a few days, months or even years. They lived here. The kitchen was in one of the rooms. They could always count on the hot daily meal prepared for the poor. Some days they made soup, others rice and meat."
She halts and looks round the courtyard. "This is not the way the mosque used to be. There were always people coming and going, attending prayers, coming for meals, meeting friends and business associates. It was the religious, social and commercial centre of the community. But when Saddam renovated the mosque, the kitchen was relocated across the street. People were discouraged from visiting unless at prayer times. It became a church, divorced from the lives of the people, like in the West. Empty, dead."