Samarra, Iraq
May 29,2023
The name Samarra immediately brings to mind an ancient Mesopotamian tale that was retold by W. Somerset Maugham. The tale goes:
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market. The servant came back trembling with fear because he said he had bumped into Death at the market who had made a threatening gesture. “Oh Master” said the servant, lend me your horse that I can go to Samarra and avoid Death. So he got on a horse and rode as hard as he could to Samarra. Later that day, the merchant went to the market and asked Death why he had threatened his servant. “I was just startled to see him in Baghdad” said Death, because I have an appointment with him tonight at Samarra.
The story rattled through my mind as we drove toward Samarra from Baghdad. I had found a few other travelers and we were splitting the cost of a taxi to take us there for the day. While Samarra has origins that go back to the 5th millennium BCE, it is the monuments from the 9th Century CE that draws most travelers and pilgrims. Samarra is home to a gigantic mosque built by the Abbasid Caliph Al Mutawakkil in 847 CE, the largest in the world at that time. Adjacent to the mosque is its unusual minaret, a cross between Islamic architecture and the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. The shape is that of a tapering spiral with stairs going up on the outside.
Today the roof of the mosque is missing and it is undergoing extensive restoration. We met with stiff resistance from the onsite police guards and were told flatly that we could not only not go up the stairs, but could not even go closer than 300 m to it. The same was true for the mosque. Basically we were to take photos from the entrance and then leave. Strangely enough, they said we could come back at 2 pm. But that was 2.5 hours and we would long gone from Samarra. We valiantly took turns in wheedling, whining, coaxing and cajoling. Who knew our little group had latent histrionic talents? Rescue however came when the man overseeing the re-construction emerged and turned out to be a Swede. One of our motley crowd was Oskar, from Sweden. Bond firmly established, we trooped in to be given a nanosecond tour of the inside.
The other attraction of Samarra is the Al Askari mosque, with the tombs of 10th and 11th Shia imams and thus a place of pilgrimage. A chador, the all-enveloping black cloth that women have to wear at holy sites was helpfully loaned by the women at the security gate. Bundled into it, I fumbled my way into the mosque to join the guys who had simply sauntered in. Segregation rules here. The entry is separate, where we leave out shoes is separate, the entry into the mosque is separate, the halls where they hand out free food is likewise separate. The large courtyard around the tomb however is open to both sexes.
The inner courtyard is covered end to end with beautiful carpets and teeming with people. In the center is the tomb. The beautiful designs on the walls bring back memories of Iran. It is the same designs, the same colors, the same beautiful handiwork. And I hear more Farsi than Arabic. There are hordes of pilgrims from Iran who make this pilgrimage. I get smiles and nods from the other women who assume I am Iranian. I simply go along and jabber in Farsi. They take me under their wing and usher me into the inner sanctum.
It is wonderfully cool inside, a respite from the blistering heat outside. Gold and glitter rules here as in every other Shia site. It is crowded with black-clad women, some sit and pray, some take selfies, some touch the gold bars of the tomb and lay their heads against it. I have a sense of déjà vu – it is much like many of the shrines in Iran. The art and architecture is just as intricate and spellbinding here as it was there. A couple of guardians shake their finger at me and admonish me for taking photos but I see plenty of pilgrims doing so and take some albeit discreetly.
ITCHY FEET TRAVELS 