Portal:Iraq

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P:IRAQ

Iraq (Arabic: الْعِرَاق‎, romanized: al-ʿIrāq; Kurdish: عێراق‎, romanized: Êraq), officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جُمْهُورِيَّة ٱلْعِرَاق‎ Jumhūriīyah al-ʿIrāq; Kurdish: کۆماری عێراق‎, romanized: Komarî Êraq), is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Jordan to the southwest, Syria to the west, Kuwait to the southeast and Saudi Arabia to the south. The capital and largest city is Baghdad. Iraq is home to diverse ethnic groups including Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians/Chaldeans, Yazidis, Persians, Shabakis, Armenians, Sabian-Mandaeans, Circassians, and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 40 million citizens are Muslims, with minorities of Christians, Yarsans, Yezidis and Mandaeans also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish while other recoginzed regional languages include English, Neo-Aramaic, Turkish and Armenian language.

The "Cradle of Civilization" is a common term for the area comprising modern Iraq as it was home to the earliest known civilisation, the Sumerian civilisation. Iraq has a coastline measuring 58 km (36 miles) on the northern Persian Gulf and encompasses the Mesopotamian Alluvial Plain, the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range and the eastern part of the Syrian Desert. Two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, run south through Iraq and into the Shatt al-Arab near the Persian Gulf. These rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of fertile land. The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, historically known as Mesopotamia. It was here that mankind first began to read, write, create laws and live in cities under an organised government—notably Uruk, from which "Iraq" is derived. The area has been home to successive civilisations since the 6th millennium BC. Iraq was the centre of the Akkadian, Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires. It was also part of the Median, Achaemenid, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sassanid, Roman, Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, Ayyubid, Seljuk, Mongol, Timurid, Safavid, Afsharid and Ottoman empires.

During the Ottoman occupation of Iraq until the partition of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century, Iraq was made up of three provinces, called vilayets in the Ottoman Turkish language: Mosul Vilayet, Baghdad Vilayet, and Basra Vilayet. In April 1920 the British Mandate of Mesopotamia was created under the authority of the League of Nations. A British-backed monarchy joining these vilayets into one Kingdom was established in 1921 under Faisal I of Iraq. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq gained independence from the UK in 1932. In 1958, the monarchy was overthrown and the Iraqi Republic created. Iraq was controlled by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party from 1968 until 2003. In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, sparking a protracted war which would last for almost eight years, and end in a stalemate with devastating losses for both countries.

After an invasion by the United States and its allies in 2003, Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party was removed from power, and multi-party parliamentary elections were held in 2005. The US presence in Iraq ended in 2011, but the Iraqi insurgency continued and intensified as fighters from the Syrian civil war spilled into the country. On 9 December 2017, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over ISIL and announced full liberation of borders with Syria from Islamic State militants.

Iraq is a federal parliamentary republic consisting of 19 governorates, four of which make up the autonomous Kurdistan Region. The country's official religion is Islam while other recognized religions include Christianity, Yazidism and Mandaeism. Culturally, Iraq has a very rich heritage and celebrates the achievements of its past in both pre-Islamic as well as post-Islamic times and is known for its poets, its painters and sculptors s among the best in the Arab world, some of them being world-class as well as producing fine handicrafts, including rugs and carpets. Iraq is a founding member of the United Nations, the OPEC as well as of the Arab League, OIC, Non-Aligned Movement and the IMF. (Full article...)

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Parliamentary elections were held in Iraq on 12 May 2018. The elections decided the 329 members of the Council of Representatives, the country's unicameral legislature, who in turn will elect the Iraqi President and Prime Minister. The Iraqi parliament ordered a manual recount of the results on 6 June 2018. On 10 June 2018, a storage site in Baghdad housing roughly half of the ballots from the May parliamentary election caught fire.

In October 2018, Adil Abdul-Mahdi was selected as Prime Minister five months after the elections. (Full article...)

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Baghdad International Airport

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Did you know...

...that the oldest known writing system, known as cuneiform, was developed in southern Iraq during the Sumerian civilization.
...that the oldest laws were written in Iraq by the Sumerian King Ur-Nammu.
...that Iraq is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil reserves.
...that the national soccer team of Iraq won the AFC Asian Cup in 2007.
...the wheel was invented in the southern Iraqi city of Ur.
...that Iraq is the largest producer of dates with more than 400 types and more than 22 million date palms.
...that Iraq’s national dish is Masgouf (impaled fish) and its national cookie is Kleicha (meaning circle or wheel), both of which can be traced back to antiquity.
...in the 1940s and 1950s, Iraq had 4/5 of the world's Arecaceae population, these numbers have drastically decreased in the last few decades.

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Silver dirham following Sasanian motives, struck in the name of "Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan"

Abu al-Mughira Ziyad ibn Abihi (Arabic: أبو المغيرة زياد بن أبيه‎, romanized: Abū al-Mughīra Ziyād ibn Abīhi; c. 622 – 673), also known as Ziyad ibn Abi Sufyan (Arabic: زياد بن أبي سفيان‎, romanized: Ziyād ibn Abī Sufyān), was an administrator and statesman of the successive Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates in the mid-7th century. He served as the governor of Basra in 665–670 and ultimately the first governor of Iraq and virtual viceroy of the eastern Caliphate between 670 and his death.

Ziyad's parentage is obscure, but he was raised among the Banu Thaqif in Ta'if and arrived with his adoptive tribesmen in Basra upon its foundation in 636 as the Muslim Arabs' springboard for the conquest of the Sasanian Empire. He was initially employed by the city's first governor, Utba ibn Ghazwan al-Mazini, and was kept on as a scribe or secretary by his successors. Caliph Ali (r. 656–661) appointed Ziyad to Fars to suppress a local rebellion and he maintained his loyalty to Ali's caliphate after the latter's assassination in 661 and the subsequent rule of Ali's enemy, Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680). The latter ultimately overcame Ziyad's opposition, formally recognized him as his own paternal half-brother and appointed him governor of Basra. Ziyad's inaugural speech, in which he announced his carrot-and-stick policies to the city's turbulent population, is celebrated in Arab history for its eloquence. After the death of Kufa's governor, Ziyad's mentor al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba, Mu'awiya made Ziyad the first governor of a unified Iraqi province. He administratively reorganized the garrison cities and minted Sasanian-style silver dirhams in his own name. He firmly established Arab power and recommenced conquests in the Caliphate's easternmost province of Khurasan by relocating there 50,000 Arab soldiers and their families from Iraq and dispatching expeditionary forces against Tukharistan, Balkh and Quhistan. Though the mass resettlement improved Iraq's economic and political conditions by siphoning off Arab tribal soldiers from the overcrowded garrisons and creating new opportunities for war spoils, the move had major ramifications for the Caliphate as the descendants of these Khurasani Arab troops formed the army that toppled the Umayyads in 750. (Full article...)

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Paulos Faraj Rahho Nadhmi Auchi Khamis al-Obeidi Ali al-Sistani Al-Mu'tasim Al-Mu'tadid Abu Taghlib Hussein Saeed Gilgamesh Nasir al-Dawla Al-Muwaffaq Al-Mu'tazz Saddam Hussein Barham Salih

General images

The following are images from various Iraq-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1U.S. Army soldier searches an Iraqi boy, March 2011 (from History of Iraq)
Image 2British ruled Mesopotamia in pink (from History of Iraq)
Image 3Saddam Hussein promoting women's education in the 1970s (from History of Iraq)
Image 4Muhammad al-Qubbanchi performing Maqam. (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 5Kuwait became a Governorate of Iraq (from History of Iraq)
Image 6Facade of Temple at Hatra, declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1985. (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 7Iraq Museum (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 8Abbasid Caliphate at its greatest extent (from History of Iraq)
Image 9The Tower of Babel is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 10The Mongol Empire's expansion (from History of Iraq)
Image 11Riyadh Alazzawi fighting for his seventh world heavyweight kickboxing title in his hometown of Baghdad, Iraq. (from Sport in Iraq)
Image 12a list of gifts, Adab, 26th century BC (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 13Iraqi market in Mosul, 1932 (from History of Iraq)
Image 14Omar Bashir, a modern day oud singer. (from Music of Iraq)
Image 15The Lion of Babylon of The Ishtar Gate has remained a prominent symbol of Iraqi culture throughout history. (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 16This earthenware dish was made in 9th-century Iraq. It is housed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (from History of Iraq)
Image 17The Iraq national football team pose ahead of their 2019 AFC Asian Cup match against Iran in Dubai. (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 18Flood Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 19Munir Bashir, an acclaimed oud singer. (from Music of Iraq)
Image 20Younis Mahmoud is Iraq's all-time most capped player in international matches, having played in 148 official games. (from Sport in Iraq)
Image 21Masghouf fish, one of Iraq's national dishes, a Mesopotamian cuisine dating back to ancient times, typically fish caught from the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris, and grilled near the river bed (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 22Coat of arms of the Kingdom of Iraq 1932–1959 (from History of Iraq)
Image 23Zaha Hadid was an Iraqi architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She is known for being influenced by Sumerian ancient cities. (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 24An Assyrian lamassu, from Sargon's palace at Dur-Sharrukin. (from History of Iraq)
Image 25Occupation zones in Iraq in September 2003 (from History of Iraq)
Image 26Hammurabi (standing), depicted as receiving his royal insignia from Shamash (or possibly Marduk). Hammurabi holds his hands over his mouth as a sign of prayer (relief on the upper part of the stele of Hammurabi's code of laws). (from History of Iraq)
Image 27Sumerian Cuneiform (from History of Iraq)
Image 28Inside the Shanidar Cave (from History of Iraq)
Image 29The Age of the Caliphs
  Prophet Mohammad, 622–632

  Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661

  Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750
(from History of Iraq)
Image 30A Lamassu, from the entrance into the kings private apartments; 865–860 BC (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 31Al-Mutanabi, regarded as one of the greatest, most prominent and influential poets in the Arabic language, much of his work has been translated into over 20 languages worldwide (from Culture of Iraq)
Image 32"Entry of Alexander into Babylon", a 1665 painting by Charles LeBrun, depicts Alexander the Great's uncontested entry into the city of Babylon, envisioned with pre-existing Hellenistic architecture. (from History of Iraq)