King Faisel II In The United States

Below are various pictures of King Faisal II during his visit to the United States in 1952. King Faisal (b. 5 May 1935) is the last king of Iraq, from 4 April 1939 to 14 July 1958.

Click on the photo to see full size.

The Picture are courtesy Iraqism.com

Al Rasheed Street

Al Rasheed Street used and still one of the main centers in Baghdad, where retail storage spaces, cafés and restraunts, small and big shops, private and government services buildings, clinics, pharmacies, photography studios, laboratories, record shops, sawing factories, and many more of every profession one can imagine, all interlaced within each other. The same goes for the masses of people of different ages and gender walking on each side of the street, and the hundreds of cars drove by side by side dead slow - from ancient cars (like the Russian Volga) to the most luxurious Alpha Romeo. Any visitor can acknowledge that Al Rasheed Street is just one perfect example of random society classes in one place; where the extremely poor can be seen as well as the lavish rich. There was also time when movie theaters used to show the latest Arab and Western movies, where families became regular visitors to these theaters, but this has been gradually diminished over the years to the level of showing what it used to be called "film every 15 minutes" for teens from surrounding public areas and soldiers from military units located around the capital, who used to seek a cool place so they can have some sleep during the bloody hot summer days. Thus, no interest if the star in the film gets killed or he discovers that the old women found in the abandoned village is in fact his forgotten aunt from childhood!!

The origin of Al Rasheed Street goes back to the Ottoman era who ruled Iraq from 1534 to 1918. During that time, the only known public street in Baghdad was Al Naher Street (Shari al-Naher), which was constructed in 1910, during the rule of Nazim Pasha (1848 - 1912), who governed Baghdad twice: the first in 1908, and the second for 11 months between 1910 and 1911. Al Naher means River - the street is stretching few kilometers along the east banks of the river Tigris and this might be the reason behind its name. However, people used to call the narrow Shari al-Naher with other names, such as Gold Street, because of the countless number of goldsmith and jewelry shops spread on both sides, and Girls’ Street, because the majority of the street’s visitors were females from different ages.

After the defeat of the British by the Ottomans on the 29th of April 1916 in Kut (south of Baghdad), where tens of thousands of Anglo-Indian troops dead or wounded, and thousands more taken prisoners, including their commander, Sir Charles Townshend (It is regarded by many historians as the biggest humiliation in British military history), the military governor of Baghdad, Khalil Pasha (1864 – 1923), decided to honor this victory by giving orders to build the first ever "real" street in Baghdad. Work began in May 1916, after the head of Baghdad’s municipality, Ra’ouf Al Chadirchy met with owners of houses to pay them compensations for the demolition of their houses which will be demolished. The way that street was constructed in the planning phases was very primitive and strange: a long rope was put through on top of the houses from the beginning to the end. Some people sighted the laying robe over the roof of their house as a catastrophe; hence, the rope has been thrown many times from the roof of one house to the other. There were more problems, though: there was the burial place of a religious Imam Taha (where the statue of poet Ma'rouf Al Risafi now stands) and the wall of Haider Khana Mosques. Both were dealt with: The wall was demolished in the middle of the night, and the remains of the Imam Taha also has been extravagated and moved to Salman Pak (west of Baghdad) in the middle of the night.

The street was first opened for the public on July 23, 1916 (the anniversary of declaration of the country’s constitution). The first name given to the street was by Khalil Pasha who named the street “Jadde Si”. The name of the street was written then on a ceramic plate and put on the main wall of Sultan Ali Mosque till mid fifties of the last century. For almost a year, the street was badly maintained, filled with dust, mud, and holes untill the British seized Baghdad on 11 March 1917, when a decision was made to reconstruct the street. The British paved the street and gave it a new name: "New Street" (Al Sahri Al Jadeed). However, the Baghdadis preferred to call it "the Main Street" (Al Jadde Al Umomiyeh).

During the 1920s, people began to identify regular passers and visitors, such as cars where prostitutes sitting in the backseat their covered head - The government during that time made an order that every prostitute must cover their head and body with the common black robe (Abaya, in Arabic) and wear dark blue soaks to diffrintiate them from other women. In the 1930s Baghdadis got used to see every afternoon twice a day two big black Buick seven seats drive by: one of them belonged to the famous estates owner Bahiya Al Urbiya. She used to sit in the backseat and was known for her beautiful smile she greets the pedestrians with when she passes by. The other black Buick belongs to Regina Murad, also a well known estate owner and a woman of power due to her connections with officials such as ministers and political party members. From the 1930s onwards, other streets in the meantime were constructed and re-organization of the great city of Baghdad took place. In addition, many new faces of people from country side moved to the city during the forties and fifties where they brought their own cultures and traditions. All in all gave the street different and unique flavor! On this same street young men and woman from different political parties in the fifties came out carrying their slogans against what they believe wrong. The street also was the theater of political assassination attempts, such as that of the first president of Iraq, Qasim, and confrontation with the British occupation.
There are a lot to talk about Al Rasheed Street, which will remain an eternal spot in the history of Baghdad forever despite attempts to silence its unique music made by its inhabitants.

The Queen of Contemporary Arab Poetry

She was a writer, an innovator, an activist, an artist, a musician, and the least to say about her that she was someone who could speak English, French, German and Latin fluently.

The 20th of June, 2007, marked another sad day in the modern history of Iraq when Nazik Al-Mala'ikah has died at the age of 84 years old in Cairo, Egypt. Mrs Al-Mala'ikah is known as the one who revolutionized Arab poetry in the late 1940s by introducing free verse (or taf'ila) or what formally known as the prose poet. She was born in Baghdad in 1922 from an educated family whom both parents used to write poets and they were distinguished writers at that time. This gave little Nazik the motivation to start writing on a very early age, and when she was in college, her poems and writings were already published in newspapers and magazines.

Nazik Al-Mala’ikah obtained the BA degree in Literature from University of Baghdad in 1944 and the MA degree in Literature in 1954 from the University of Wisconsin. In addition, she has been granted scholarship in 1959 to study at Princeton University, New Jersey, the United States where she studied Latin, French and English. During her years before traveling to the U.S, Mrs Al-Mala’ikah joined the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad where she learned to play the Oud (Arabic Lute) and took lessons in acting too.

Both her early works, the 1947 ‘A'shiqat Al-Layl’ (Lovers of the Nights) and the 1949: ‘Shazaya wa ramad’ (Shrapnel and Ashes) were considered the pillars for changing the 500 years classic form and structure of standard Arabic poetry, but the one and only work which marked the beginning of using the free verse poetry (or the prose poet) was in ‘Cholera’, which based on the tragedy that plagued Egypt (and Iraq afterwards) in the late forties of the twenty’s century. However, there is who dispute this claim and give the credit to another legend in contemporary Arab literature, the Iraqi writer Badr Shakir Al Sayyab.

In the years to follow, especially in the 1960s, Mrs Nazik Al-Mala’ka kept on calling for the modernization of the forms Arab poetry is written and to find new ground for more sophisticated methods. This was clearly illustrated in her work Qadaya 'l-shi'r al-mu'asir (Issues On Contemporary Poetry) in 1962.

In addition to being a poet and a writer, Mrs. Al-Mala’ika was regarded as a strong defender of Women rights and her various articles and lectures in the 1950s are a better witness of her strong stand regarding this issue.

Al-Mala'ika did not limit herself within the boundaries of Arab litreture and poetry, she also expanded her knowledge and her translations of western/ foreign writers such as Byron, Thomas Gray, and Rupert Brooke is another great achievement. I wonder if there is any achievement by writers and literates to translate this legend’s works into other languages!

In 1957, she became a lecturer at the University of Education until the late 1950s she left to live in Beirut, Lebanon, where most of her works have been published. She is also gave lectures at the University of Basra, a place which she with the help of her husband and former university colleague, Abdel-Hadi Mahbouba, both found in the mid 1960s. In addition, Mrs Nazik Al-Malayka taught at the University of Kuwait for many years until 1990 when she was forced to return to Iraq after the invasion of Saddam to that Gulf state, and after the end of the 1991 war, she moved with her family to Cairo where she went through a semi self-isolation till the last day. Despite that, Mrs Al-Mala’ika published in 1999 her last book, called Youghiyar Alouanah Al-Bahr, which in fact a collection of her writings dated back to 1974. Further more, the Egyptian Supreme Council for Culture has published big collection of Al-Mala'ika's work (if not all) in two big volumes. The first includes Qadaya Al-Shi'r Al-Mu'asir (Issues of Contemporary Poetry, 1962) and Sykolojia Al-Shi'r (The Psychology of Poetry, 1979), while the second includes Al-Sawma'a wal-Shurfa Al- Hamraa (The Hideaway and the Red Balcony, 1965), Al-Tajazu'iya fil- Mujtama' Al-Arabi (Disintegration in Arab Society, 1974) and Al-Shams Allati wara' Al-Qimma (The Sun behind the Summit), a collection of short stories written through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Here is a page where it claims to contains all the work and writings of Nazik Al-Mala’ika (in Arabic)

My condolences to Mrs. Al-Mala’ika’s family and May God rest her soul in peace. The 20th of June 2007 is another sad day in the life of Iraqis because another candle that lit the literature domain in the history of modern Iraq is put down!

Al-Mala’ika’s is a pride for all the Iraqis due to her achievements. She became the symbol for many Iraqi women around the years to follow in her steps: full of motivation, carry many dreams, and high hopes for a better future for themselves as individuals as for their country they love. This is another Iraqi woman I am proud of.

Al Sarrafiya Bridge

Many Iraqis used to call it the Iron Bridge, but the official name was Al Sarrafiyah bridge. It links al Wazeeriya district east of Baghdad (Risafa) with Al Latifiya district on the west of Baghdad (Karkh).

Al Sarrafiya Bridge was built in 1951by the British when they were occupying Iraq at that time. Some sources indicated that the bridge was meant to be built in Sydney, Australia, but at later date the British decided to build and put the bridge in Baghdad. Some sources indicate that the main purpose for building that bridge was military.

There is who believed that the interlaced steel at the top of the bridge were made to make the shape of the British flag and can be clearly seen from an airplane above! There also some myths about that bridge; that the Imam Al Mahdy had appeared for some people at that bridge. According to historians, Al Sarrafiya Bridge was built on the same location a house for mentally ill people used to be kept in the late 18’th century, and maybe before that date.

The bridge is 450 meter long above the Tigris River and 6 meters wide. There is two meter wide for pedestrians. There is also a railway track on one side of the bridge, and until the 1970 of last century, the train used to pass through crossing between the east and west side of Baghdad. In later years, when railway tracks were suspended, the Iraqi government extended the pedestrian space to include some of that area set for the train tracks.