Remembering Amara and the soldiers of WW1
Here are some fascinating pictures, that were taken on the 17/8/2017 at the Amara War Cemetery in Southern Iraq. As Hussein Al-alak explains, the monument lists the names of the British men who died in the Mesopotamia campaign during the First World War. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Amara contains 4,621 burials from World War One, m…
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Campaigners rally to save Agatha Christie's Iraq home
Locals and activists in Iraq's capital of Baghdad have called for authorities to protect and preserve the historic home where renowned English author, Agatha Christie, once lived for around 13 years. "It's [the home] beautiful, but the upper level is collapsing. It's dangerous," a resident and activist told The New Arab . The home,…
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Agatha Christie’s historic Baghdad house in danger of collapsing
The historic house on the banks of the Tigris River in Iraq’s capital Baghdad, where classic British crime writer Agatha Christie lived for many years, is rich in history, but badly in need of repair, Anadolu reports. The walls of the vintage house in the Karadat Maryam district of the capital bear now the warning: “Caution! Danger of collapse.” Despite …
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Rooftop garden brings Arab American culture to life in Dearborn
Metro Detroit’s Arab American community is large and has been through several waves of immigration. Long ago, the attraction was the $5-a-day Ford jobs that brought so many people here. Each of those periods brought new families, culture, and heritage. From Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen, Metro Detroit is home. But the places people emigrated from wil…
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See another side of history with Osnat and Her Dove
Through the power of storytelling and vibrant illustrations, Osnat and Her Dove will pull young and old readers into Osnat’s world. Written by Sigal Samuel with artwork by Vali Mintzi, Osnat and Her Dove: The True Story of the World’s First Female Rabbi is a fantastic illustrated children's book, which looks at the life of Osnat Barzani who lived from …
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Discover the Middle East with Agatha Christie
Travel journalist Andrew Eames was in the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo when he met an elderly lady who had known Agatha Christie. Fascinated by the exotic history of this quintessentially English crime writer, he decided to retrace the trip from London to Baghdad which she made in 1928 . It was a journey which was to change Agatha Christie completely and …
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The Wolf of Baghdad is a journey into Iraqi-Jewish history
In the 1940’s, a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. Within a decade nearly all of Iraq’s 150,000 Jews had fled. The Wolf of Baghdad is a graphic memoir of a lost homeland and a wordless narrative for a home never visited, with its own original soundtrack of Judeo-Arabic and Iraqi music recorded by the ground-breaking band 3yin. The Wolf of Baghdad …
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One Iraqi mechanic’s revival of a bygone era
In Babylon’s Alexandria, mechanic Jaafar Abu Mohammed revives Iraq’s past by restoring vintage cars into pristine condition. As Kamaran Aziz reports for Kurdistan 24, his family-run workshop preserves national heritage on wheels, despite bureaucratic hurdles, offering Iraqis a nostalgic drive through history. Amid the dust and din of Iraq's Babylon pro…
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Will you join the Liverpool Arab Arts Festival 2025?
Liverpool Arab Arts Festival (LAAF) , the longest running annual festival of Arab arts and culture in the UK, returns for its 23rd year this July as Culture Liverpool reports. Founded in 1998, LAAF exists to support and champion creatives from across the Arab region and its diaspora, in the belief that art and creativity have the power to express a shared …
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Iraqi Jews save their last shrine in Baghdad
Once abandoned and filled with rubbish, the tomb of Rabbi Isaac Gaon — a prominent Jewish figure from the 7th century — is now being restored by Iraq’s dwindling Jewish community. Here is a look at the restoration efforts, memories of violence and neglect, and the enduring legacy of Iraq’s Jewish population, which once made-up 40 percent of Baghdad’s popul…
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Iraq retrieves ancient artefacts from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
For decades, three prized items told stories of ancient Mesopotamia from behind museum glass in foreign lands. As Sinan Mahmoud reports, they are now heading home to Iraq as part of a global push to retrieve antiquities that were looted and sold around the world over the centuries. The Iraqi embassy in Washington announced it has recovered three rare arte…
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Spectacular find as monumental images discovered at Nineveh
2,700 years ago, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire. Researchers from the University of Heidelberg have made a spectacular discovery in the palace of King Assurbanipal. As Christoph Debets reports, during excavations, they came across the first large-format depictions of two important Assyrian deities. German archaeologists have made a spectac…
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From Iraq to the world: Mandaeans mark Baptism Day in white and water
Clad in white and gathered by rivers, Mandaeans in Iraq and across the globe celebrate Dehwa Daimana, the Golden Baptism Day—a sacred rite of renewal and purification that flows through every stage of life. As Shafaq News explain, the faithful flock to mandis—their riverside temples—for ritual baptisms and the preparation of thawab, a ceremonial meal offe…
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Discover cooking and culture with Linda Dangoor
This beautifully designed book traces Jewish food writer Linda Dangoor’s journey from her home in Baghdad, and through the various countries she stayed or lived in before finally making her new home in London. Part cookbook, part memoir, From the Tigris to the Thames interweaves delicious recipes with personal stories and musings on the meaning of home an…
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Destruction of cultural heritage inspires Acropolis Museum show on Michael Rakowitz
The looting of Iraq’s antiquities in the wake of the 2003 US invasion, the destruction of Mosul by ISIS in 2015, the enduring consequences of colonialism and migration, as well as the striking commonalities in humanity’s cultural heritage and the urgent need for its recovery, are some of the key themes running through the work of Iraqi-American artist Micha…
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Love for the script: Iraqi calligrapher's personal quest
In Iraq’s Al-Anbar province, where artistic activity has diminished, calligrapher Abdulhamid Nazem al-Dhibban is working to preserve the Arabic script through personal dedication and formal instruction. Born on September 26, 1992, al-Dhibban left formal education after middle school but pursued calligraphy alongside his studies, driven by natural talent an…
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How will you mark Victory in Europe Day?
World War Two was the most destructive global conflict in history. It began when Nazi Germany unleashed ferocious attacks across Europe - but it spread to the Soviet Union, China, Japan and the United States. Cities were destroyed by air raids, the atom bomb was dropped on Japan and six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Over 50 million soldiers a…
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Lawrence of Arabia. The man behind the myth
Few British soldiers have a greater legend attached to them than Colonel TE Lawrence - better known as Lawrence of Arabia . His military and diplomatic efforts have drawn some distinction. But it is Lawrence’s immense cultural impact in the century since his First World War exploits that has attracted the most attention. Thomas Edward Lawrence was born …
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We will never forget Pope Francis
In 2014, Iraq’s religious minorities suffered a devastating wave of attacks launched by Islamic State group fighters, who seized Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh Plains. In 2021, Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit Iraq in a historic apostolic journey. We will never forget the love that Pope Francis showed to the people of Iraq.
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What lessons can we learn from Pope Francis?
Pope Francis was born in Buenos Aires in 1936, the son of Italian migrants, the first of five children born in the working-class barrio of Flores, Jorge Mario Bergoglio qualified as a chemical technician, graduated in philosophy in 1963, and became a priest in 1969. The wish of Pope Francis was for HOPE , on which he had been working for six years, to be p…
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