An Najaf Imam Ali Mosque

Over the last several months I have been fortunate enough to see a large amount of the country of Iraq. I have traveled by convoy in trucks and Humvees, Black Hawk helicopters, CH-46 Helicopters and by foot in the communities. To date, the coolest part has been flying in the Black Hawks. On the day of the national referendum, we flew around central Iraq. I flew over many cities and much open desert. I love helicopters so this was very exciting for me. However, I also love to see new places so this doubly exciting.

During our journey we were able to look out the doors and see miles and mile of the countryside. We also flew over cities where we saw score of children waving at us madly. It was interesting to see them doing everything they could to get out attention. Later, I saw the two air crew (non-pilots who work in the back of the helicopters) pulling little bags of candy and dropping them out the doors. Ah Haa. That was it. The kids were happy to see us, but they also wanted the candy. I was happy to see that the air crew guys primarily dropped the candy to kids who were on the out skirts of the cities, the ones who were poor and did not get visited by the Army guys who give away food packages to needy families.

While we were fly around, I saw a giant gold building off in the distance. I was amazed how brightly the gold roof shined. It was the Mosque of Imam Ali in Najaf. Later, I was told that it is the Shi’a equivalent to the Catholic Vatican. It was beautiful. I was lucky to get a few photos. I also did a little research after I had been back for a few days.

The Imam Ali bn Abi Talib (cousin of the Prophet) Mosque was built by Azoud ad Dowleh in 977. It has been damaged, rebuilt and damaged again many times. Ali is considered the leader of the Shi’a. He was the cousin and the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. And after the Prophet Mohammed died, Shiites thought that he should be the successor after the Prophet's death because he was married to the Prophet's daughter, and he was assigned by the prophet to be the carrier of the message after Mohammed's death. He was later murdered in the doorway of his recently completed mosque by one of the local tribal leaders.

Fast forward to 2004. In August 2004 there was a large battle in the city of Najaf, the Wadi-al-Salam cemetery and all around the Mosque. A large portion of the fighting was done right in the cemetery. Reports say that the gorillas even fired mortars from within the walls of the Mosque.

Any way, here are some cool photos. One is mine, the others are from a website.