Misplaced Pages

#873126

134-644: The Mahdi Army ( Arabic : جيش المهدي ) was an Iraqi Shia militia created by Muqtada al-Sadr in June 2003 and disbanded in 2008. The Mahdi Army rose to international prominence on April 4, 2004, when it spearheaded the first major armed confrontation against the US forces in Iraq from the Shia community. This concerned an uprising that followed the ban of al-Sadr's newspaper and his subsequent attempted arrest, lasting until

268-575: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as

402-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By

536-614: A counter-offensive to eliminate the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq following a breakdown in negotiations. The first wave began with simultaneous raids in Karbala and Diwaniyah on militia forces, followed by a second wave on May 5 in Karbala and more attacks that seized the governor's office in Najaf on May 6. 86 militiamen were estimated killed in the fighting along with 4 U.S. soldiers. Several high-ranking militia commanders were also killed in

670-439: A crackdown by Iraqi security forces. At its height, the Mahdi Army's popularity was strong enough to influence local government, the police, and cooperation with Sunni Iraqis and their supporters. The group was popular among Iraqi police forces. The National Independent Cadres and Elites party that ran in the 2005 Iraqi election was closely linked with the army. The Mahdi Army was accused of operating death squads . The group

804-414: A dawn military offensive in the southern city. In Al-Sadr's headquarters of Najaf, the cleric ordered the field commanders of his Mahdi Army militia to go to 'maximum alert' and prepare "to strike the occupiers". Gunmen also reportedly clashed with Iraqi police in the southern city of Kut . The Mahdi Army launched a nationwide civil disobedience campaign across Iraq to protest raids and detentions against

938-1081: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to

1072-458: A disadvantage due to the vastly superior American tactics, training, firepower and airpower, such as helicopters and AC-130 gunships . On August 13, the militia was trapped in a cordon around the Imam Ali shrine. While negotiations continued between the interim government and the Mahdi Army, news came that al-Sadr had been wounded. On August 12, British journalist James Brandon , a reporter for

1206-543: A few firefights with Spanish troops, and Kut has seized after clashes with Ukrainian troops soon afterwards. After sporadic clashes, coalition forces temporarily suppressed most militia activity in Nasiriyah, Amarah, and Basra. Mahdi rebels expelled Iraqi police from three police stations and ambushed U.S. forces in Sadr City, killing seven U.S. troops and wounding several more. U.S. forces subsequently regained control of

1340-470: A further six months by al-Sadr on February 22, 2008. On March 25, 2008, thousands of Iraqi troops carried out a military strike against the Mahdi Army in their stronghold of Basra. This operation, code-named Operation Charge of the Knights, was the first of its kind since British troops withdrew from the city centre. Clashes took place between security forces and the militants loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr after

1474-419: A government building where guards found him, but they phoned his kidnappers, who arrived to collect him. Despite telling them repeatedly that he was a journalist, they assumed he was a spy or agent for the occupation until they saw a report about the kidnap on al-Arabiya television. Afterwards, Brandon's treatment improved markedly and he was released after less than a day, following intervention by al-Sadr. At

SECTION 10

#1732784022874

1608-676: A government reprisal for the Shia uprising under the leadership of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr , who was based in the neighborhood. During the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq , Najaf was a key target of the invading United States Forces . The city was encircled during heavy fighting on 26 March 2003 and was captured on 3 April 2003 ( Battle of Najaf ). The clerical authorities of the Shī‘ī enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad , which claimed autonomy in April 2003, after

1742-487: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic

1876-690: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb  [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak

2010-486: A part of 240 projects. It also includes development of two industrial parks. In 2024, prime minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani announced several projects in the city, during his visit to Najaf. The projects proposed by Al-Sudani included the Holy shrine's carpet-washing factory project will cost 3.46 billion. A cement bag factory covering an area of 75,000 square meters with a production capacity of 240 million bags per year,

2144-411: A press conference, Brandon commented on his treatment and thanked his kidnappers: "Initially I was treated roughly, but once they knew I was a journalist I was treated very well and I want to say thank you to the people who kidnapped me." A spokesman for al-Sadr said: "We apologise for what happened to you. This is not our tradition, not our rules. It is not the tradition of Islam." Brandon was delivered to

2278-601: A prominent scholar close to the Shah, relayed to Shah Abbas that Imam Ali himself had manifested to him in a dream and ordered to use the gift to develop the area where the caravan had stopped. The Shah agreed and thus the city developed and came to be known as Najaf Abad . The name literally translates to "City of Najaf" in Persian . Some of the universities located in Najaf include: Najaf in Iraq and Qom in Iran are considered

2412-594: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from

2546-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",

2680-540: A separate raid by US Special Operations units. On May 8, U.S. forces launched a follow-up offensive into Karbala, launching a two-pronged attack into the city. U.S. tanks also launched an incursion into Sadr City. At the same time, perhaps as a diversionary tactic, hundreds of Mahdi Army members swept through Basra, firing on British patrols and seizing parts of the city. Two militants were killed and several British troops were wounded. On May 24, after suffering heavy losses in weeks of fighting, Mahdi Army forces withdrew from

2814-591: A shadow government in some areas. Al-Sadr's preaching is critical of the American occupation , but he did not initially join the Sunni Islamist and Ba'athist guerrillas in their attacks on coalition forces. Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani played a significant role in the establishment of Mahdi Army as soon as the Iraq War broke out in 2003. Sadr's position changed dramatically, however, by

SECTION 20

#1732784022874

2948-553: A sign of Mahdi Army's unpopularity in Najaf, however, which follows more traditionalist clerics, a small covert movement sprung up to launch attacks on the militants. The uprising did receive a good deal of support from Shiite radicals in Baghdad, however, who were galvanized by the simultaneous siege of the city of Fallujah . Loyalists to al-Sadr ran under the National Independent Cadres and Elites banner in

3082-470: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for

3216-470: A third of the army was now out of his direct control. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized :  al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in

3350-528: A third wing, the Monaseroun, responsible for "the mobilization of supporters". Since 2008, rumors of a Mahdi Army resurgence have cropped up periodically. In April 2010, after winning 40 of 325 seats in the 2010 parliamentary elections , Sadr called for its reestablishment. In 2014 al-Sadr announced the formation of the "Peace Companies", to protect Shia shrines from the Islamic State of Iraq and

3484-511: A truce on June 6. The truce was followed by moves to disband the group and transform al-Sadr's movement into a political party to take part in the 2005 elections; Muqtada al-Sadr ordered fighters of the Mahdi army to cease fire unless attacked first. The truce broke down in August 2004 after provocative actions by the Mahdi Army, with new hostilities erupting. The group was disbanded in 2008, following

3618-507: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means

3752-507: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as

3886-476: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted

4020-590: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak

4154-559: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It

Mahdi Army - Misplaced Pages Continue

4288-508: Is an important logistical hub that plays a pivotal role in facilitating transportation, particularly for religious tourism. Annually, it oversees the transit of over 3 million passengers, predominantly pilgrims visiting the holy sites in Najaf. It is situated in the eastern part of Najaf, approximately 6 kilometres from the city center. In February 2024, the Iraqi National Investment Commission (NIC) unveiled

4422-580: Is being constructed in Najaf. Another project is a glass production factory, which will have a net profit of 32% in the first year of operation because the Najaf desert region has high-quality raw materials for this factory. Najaf being home to the Sanctuary of Imam Ali (considered the first of the Twelve Imams and the patriarch of the subsequent eleven Imams) is the destination of large numbers of Shi’i religious pilgrims annually hailing from around

4556-478: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in

4690-695: Is considered a thriving pilgrimage destination for Shia Muslims and the pilgrimage industry in the city boomed after the end of Saddam Hussein's rule. However, due to the U.S. sanctions on Iran , the number of Iranian pilgrims dropped significantly. Since the end of the 2003–2011 war , numerous projects have been proposed for Najaf. The city has become a model for development in Iraq. Najaf have been experiencing economic boom, along with political events. In 2008, over 50% of about licensed 200 investment projects totaling $ 8 billion were under construction in Najaf Governorate , with most development coming in

4824-538: Is considered sacred by Shi'a Muslims. An-Najaf is renowned as the site of the burial place of Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin, ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib . The city is now a center of pilgrimage throughout the Shi'ite Islamic world. It is estimated that only Mecca and Medina receive more Muslim pilgrims. As the burial site of one of Shi'a Islam's most important figure, the Imam Ali Mosque is considered by Shiites as

4958-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon

5092-472: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and

5226-574: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference

5360-855: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not

5494-572: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As

Mahdi Army - Misplaced Pages Continue

5628-641: Is the home of the Stars League club Al-Najaf as well as Naft Al-Wasat, whilst the former is the home stadium of the neighbouring Al-Kufa SC . The Iranian city of Najafabad was named by Shah Abbas I in honour of Najaf. According to the legend, Shah Abbas wanted to send a gift containing jewellery and coins to the Shrine of Imam Ali, but as the caravan carrying the gift was traveling towards Najaf it stopped at an area called Dahan near Isfahan , Iran , and refused to move. Following this, Shaykh Baha al-Din ,

5762-590: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that

5896-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into

6030-524: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while

6164-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary

6298-575: The Sunday Telegraph was kidnapped in Basra by unidentified militants. A videotape was released, featuring Brandon and a hooded militant, threatening to kill the British hostage unless US forces withdrew from Najaf within 24 hours. In a feature, Brandon describes being beaten, pistol-whipped, and forced to participate in mock executions. He said he escaped after holding a woman at knife-point, to

6432-525: The 2005 Iraqi election . Though a number of the movement's supporters felt that the election was invalid. The party finished sixth overall in the election and was represented in the transitional legislature. Another twenty or so candidates aligned with al-Sadr ran for the United Iraqi Alliance . The movement is believed to have infiltrated the Iraqi police forces, and to have been involved in

6566-589: The Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic

6700-516: The Baghdad offices of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki . A battalion from the Iraqi Army sent from Basra then took control of the city. The stunning and defiant display of militia strength underscored the weaknesses of the Iraqi security forces and the potency of the Mahdi Army, which had been able to operate virtually unchecked in Iraq . This caused many to accuse the Mahdi Army of starting

6834-524: The Civil War in Iraq . In August 2007, during fighting between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi police in Karbala, Muqtada al-Sadr called for a ceasefire and urged Mahdi Army members to stop fighting. The cease-fire has been credited with helping to reduce violence in Iraq between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi Army since August 2007. Amid fears of the ending of the ceasefire in February 2008, it was extended for

SECTION 50

#1732784022874

6968-459: The September 2005 arrest of two British soldiers by Iraqi police. On December 4, 2005, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was assaulted by a mob in Najaf, where the Mahdi Army is influential. In mid-October, a roadside bomb killed Qassim al-Tamimi, the chief of investigations for the provincial police force and a member of the rival Badr Organization . Badr fighters blamed the Mahdi Army for

7102-568: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to

7236-621: The fall of Baghdad , claimed to be taking their orders from senior clerics in Najaf. On 4 April 2004, the Mahdi Army attacked the Spanish-Salvadoran-ALARNG base (Camp Golf, later renamed Camp Baker) in An Najaf, part of a coordinated uprising across central and southern Iraq in an apparent attempt to seize control of the country ahead of the 30 June 2004 handover of power to a new Iraqi government. This uprising led to

7370-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic

7504-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In

7638-727: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c.  8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Najaf According to Ibn al-Manzur ,

7772-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to

7906-411: The 1950s, many historic buildings and monuments, including those adjoining the shrine, were demolished for the construction of Sadeq, Zainulabidin, Rasool and Tousi streets. In 1958, the city wall was torn down and replaced with a ring road . In the 1980s, the entire area between the shrine and the city's western edge was demolished, and the residents resettled outside the city, in what locals perceived as

8040-534: The 1970s had studied at Najaf. As of 2014, it was estimated to have about 13,000 students. The fall of the Ba'athist regime ended restrictions on Shi'ite pilgrimage, which led to a pilgrimage boom in Najaf and increased demand for facilities and infrastructure. In 2006, the government sponsored reconstruction of the previously demolished western area of the city as the City of Pilgrims project. Najaf, alongside Karbala ,

8174-571: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of

SECTION 60

#1732784022874

8308-834: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ    [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized

8442-649: The American troops arriving in the city in the wake of the Spanish withdrawal. In August 2004, heavy fighting broke out again between U.S. forces and Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The battle lasted three weeks and ended when senior Iraqi cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani negotiated an end to the fighting. In 2012, Najaf was named the Cultural Centre of the Arab World. On 6 March 2021, Pope Francis visited

8576-399: The British military police who gave him medical treatment and escorted him to Kuwait the following day. Brandon planned to see his family and go on holiday but said he wanted to return to Iraq : "Only next time, I just want to do the reporting. I have no desire to be the story again." The fact that American troops surrounded the Shrine led to an impasse as the Mahdi army could not leave

8710-637: The Euphrates made its way to the city once again. The shift in the river's flow was the product of a century-long effort by the Ottomans to shift the flow of the river, so as to deprive marsh-dwelling tribes like the Khaza'il of the watery environment that allowed them to evade state control. These long-term efforts rendered successful the construction of the Hindiyya Canal in 1793, which further shifted

8844-425: The Levant and was still active as of 2016. It participated in the recapture of Jurf Al Nasr and the Second Battle of Tikrit . In the Twelver school of Shia Islam , the Mahdī is believed to have been a historical figure identified with the Twelfth Imam , Hujjat Allah al-Mahdi , and is therefore called al-Imām al-Mahdī . It is believed that he is still present on earth in occultation , and will emerge again in

8978-481: The Levant . Although Muqtada Al-Sadr has historically had close ties to Iran, he has generally opposed Iranian clerical and political influence in Iraq. Unlike the Al-Hakim family, of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and many leaders of the Dawa party who fled to Iran following the Persian Gulf War and remained there in exile until the American invasion in 2003 , Muqtada al-Sadr and his family remained in Iraq throughout Saddam's rule. The refusal to leave Iraq garnered

9112-531: The Mahdi Army and Coalition troops in Diwaniyah , BBC news suggested that at the time, the Mahdi Army was not a homogeneous force, with local groups apparently acting on own initiative. In September 2006, a senior coalition intelligence official had remarked to reporters how there were political fractures within Al-Sadr's organization in protest of his relatively moderate political course of action, with one coalition intelligence official claiming that at least six major leaders no longer answer to al-Sadr and as many as

9246-467: The Mahdi Army rarely challenged coalition troops on a wide scale. Neither the coalition nor the Iraqi government made any move to arrest al-Sadr. The Mahdi Army participated in battles against Sunni insurgents and operated its own justice system in the areas it controlled. The Mahdi army operated death squads that frequently killed Sunni civilians particularly during the civil war phase of the Iraq war. When reporting on an early October 2006 clash between

9380-455: The Mahdi Army. The discord threatened to unravel al-Sadr's ceasefire, spark renewed sectarian violence, and prompt the United States to delay troop withdrawals. Violent rivalries among Shiites had been predicted by many observers ahead of the 2008 Iraqi governorate elections , which were to be held by October 1, 2008. Concurrently, on April 6, Iraqi and U.S. forces moved into the southern third of Sadr City to prevent rocket and mortar fire from

9514-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around

9648-690: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from

9782-576: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With

9916-715: The Sadr family much support during and after the collapse of Saddam's regime. Early 2006, al-Sadr pledged military support to Iran and other neighboring Islamic countries if they were to be attacked by a foreign nation. Since then, however, Al-Sadr has opposed the Dawa Party , and in 2006 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a major offensive targeting the Mahdi Army in Basra. In late 2007 or 2008, Muqtada al-Sadr moved to Iran and spent several years studying Shia jurisprudence in Qom before returning to Najaf in 2011. As of August 2006,

10050-527: The advantages of this "night of revival". In the 16th century, Najaf was conquered by the Ottoman Empire . The Safavid dynasty of Iran maintained continuous interest to this Shia site. During the Ottoman–Safavid War (1623–1639) , they were twice able to capture the city, but lost it again to the Ottomans in 1638. Under the rule of the Ottoman Empire , Najaf experienced severe difficulties as

10184-594: The ancient city of Ur . The city itself was founded in 791 [AD], by the Abbasid Caliph Harūn ar-Rashīd , as a shrine to ‘Alī bin Abī Ṭālib. Archaeological discoveries show the existence of a populace dating back to the 1st century BC. Najaf possesses one of the largest burial grounds in the vicinity for Christians. The centuries following have proven this to also be a city with a multicultural and religious people. Mohammed al-Mayali, director of Inspectorate Effects of

10318-467: The area against the Green Zone . U.S. engineers began construction of a concrete barrier along al-Quds Street to seal the southern third of the city off and allow reconstruction to take place. Over the next month, the Mahdi Army launched a number of attacks on the troops building the barrier but sustained heavy losses. On May 11, al-Sadr concluded a cease-fire agreement with Iraqi security forces, ending

10452-454: The author of al-Hawza al-'ilmiyya fi l-Najaf al-ashraf , this is because 'Ali, one of the most dignified persons, is buried in the city. Al-Ghari or al-Ghariyyan, Hadd al-'Adhra', al-Hiwar, al-Judi, Wadi l-Salam, al-Zahr, Zahr al-Kufa (behind Kufa), al-Rabwa, Baniqiya, and Mashhad are other names for this land. The area of An-Najaf is located 30 km (19 mi) south of the ancient city of Babylon , and 400 km (248 mi) north of

10586-723: The battle. Mahdi Army losses were estimated at between 700 and 1,000 casualties. On August 28, 2008, al-Sadr ordered the Mahdi Army to suspend military activity indefinitely. Later, however, al-Sadr created either two or three new organizations to take the place of the Mahdi Army: the Promised Day Brigades , established in November 2008 as a militia, and the Muhamidoon, which focuses on social work and religious education. A 2010 Associated Press report also mentioned

10720-902: The beginning of April 2004. Following the closure of the Sadr-owned newspaper al-Hawza and the arrest of one of his senior aides, Sadr gave an unusually heated sermon to his followers on April 2. The next day, violent protests occurred throughout the Shi'ite south that soon spilt over into a violent uprising by Mahdi Army militiamen, fully underway by April 4. The Mahdi Army forces began an offensive in Najaf , Kufa , Kut , and Sadr City, seizing control of public buildings and police stations while clashing with coalition forces. The militants gained partial control of Karbala after fighting there. Other coalition forces came under attack in Nasiriyah , Amarah and Basra . Najaf and Kufa were quickly seized after

10854-469: The burial place except for a few trusted people. It is narrated that more than a hundred years later the Abbasid Caliph, Harun al-Rashid , went deer hunting outside Kufah, and the deer sought sanctuary at a place where the hounds would not pursue it. On inquiry as to why the place was a sanctuary, he was told that it was the burial place of ‘Ali. Harūn ar-Rashīd ordered a mausoleum to be built on

10988-419: The centuries, numerous hospices, schools, libraries and convents were built around the shrine to make the city the center of Shīʻa learning and theology. The An-Najaf seminary, or Hawza Najaf , is one of the most important teaching centres in the Islamic world. Ayatollah Khomeini lectured there from 1965 to 1978. Many of the leading figures of the new Islamic movement that emerged in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon in

11122-498: The city during his historic papal visit to Iraq and held an interfaith dialogue with al-Sistani, where he expressed a message of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians in the country. Najaf has a hot desert climate , BWh in the Köppen climate classification , with long, very hot summers and mild winters. The average annual temperature is 23.6 °C (74.5 °F). The rainfall averages 69 mm (2.71 in). An-Najaf

11256-411: The city is considered to have started with Ali who instructed that his burial place should remain a secret, as he had many enemies and he feared that his body might be subjected to some indignity. According to legend, the body of Ali was placed on a camel which was driven from Kufah . The camel stopped a few miles west of the city where the body was secretly buried. No tomb was raised and nobody knew of

11390-549: The city of Karbala. This left the only area still under their firm control being the Najaf-Kufa region, also under sustained American assault. Several hundred Mahdi Army militia in total were killed. Unfazed by the fighting, Muqtada al-Sadr regularly gave Friday sermons in Kufa throughout the uprising. On June 6, 2004, Muqtada al-Sadr issued an announcement directing the Mahdi Army to cease operations in Najaf and Kufa. Remnants of

11524-552: The city on foot and in commandeered police vehicles and were setting up roadblocks. Sheik al-Muhamadawi stated early October 20 that "there is no state in the city. Policemen do not have enough weapons and ammunition compared with the militia, which has all kinds of weapons." At least 27 people were killed and 118 wounded in the clashes. The Mahdi Army eventually withdrew from their positions in Amarah following negotiations between local tribal and political leaders and representatives from

11658-574: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after

11792-587: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of

11926-531: The end of Shi'ite uprising. The total number of Mahdi Army militiamen killed in the fighting across Iraq is estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000. The return of Najaf to Iraqi security forces following the cease-fire left Sadr City as the last bastion of Mahdi Army guerrillas still pursuing violent resistance. Clashes continued periodically in the district following the end of the Najaf-Kufa battles. On June 24, Mahdi Army declared an end to operations in Sadr City as well, effectively ending militia activity, at least for

12060-584: The end times. Those Shias of this school believe that Imam Mahdi is the rightful ruler of the Islamic community ( Ummah ) at any given time, and he is therefore also called Imām al-Zamān , meaning "Imam of the Era". Created by Muqtada al-Sadr and a small fraction of Shias, the Mahdi Army began as a group of roughly 500 seminary students connected with Muqtada al-Sadr in the Sadr City district of Baghdad , formerly known as Saddam City. The group moved in to fill

12194-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around

12328-531: The excavation was proof of a thriving glass industry. Pots were decorated with the cross. as well as Hebrew writings, indicating a community of religious coexistence." Wadi-us-Salaam in Najaf was a holy cemetery for Jewish and was Najaf called at that time Baniqia, and could be this is the first name of Najaf area. The name Baniqia also was found in some texts which tell that in one day Abraham visited this village and stayed couple of days, then he continued in his journey from Mesopotamia to Arabia. In Islam ,

12462-403: The expiration of a noon deadline to release them on August 5, the Basra militiamen declared holy war on British forces. On August 5, via his spokesman Ahmed al-Shaibany, al-Sadr re-affirmed his commitment to the truce and called on US forces to honour the truce. He announced that if the restoration of the cease-fire failed "then the firing and igniting of the revolution will continue". The offer

12596-607: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From

12730-412: The flow of the Euphrates. These hydrological shifts were to have religious implications. Most notable was the consolidation and spread of Shi'ism. As the shrine city of Najaf gained access to water again, its notables and holy men began to wield considerable power in the area. In 1811, the last city wall was rebuilt. The Ottomans were expelled in an uprising in 1915, following which the city fell under

12864-505: The foundations for the rise of the city of Qom as the center of the Shi‘ite learning and authority, in lieu of Najaf. Najaf lost its religious primacy to Qom, and was not to regain it until the 21st century, during the establishment of a Shī‘ī -majority government in Iraq after 2003. In the 20th century, much of the Old City was rebuilt in a series of modernization initiatives. Beginning in

12998-510: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and

13132-407: The grave of Ali ibn Abu Talib is thought to be. It is a handsome place and well peopled. There is no governor here, except a sort of tribune. The inhabitants consist chiefly of rich and brave merchants. About the gardens are plastered walls adorned with paintings, and within them are carpets, couches and lamps of gold and silver. Within the city is a large treasury kept by the tribune, which arises from

13266-437: The grave soon after sun-set. People then, some praying, some reciting the Quran, and others prostrating themselves, wait expecting their recovery and rising, when about the night, they all get up sound and right. This is a matter well known among them: I heard it from a creditable person, but was not present at one of those nights. I saw, however, several such afflicted persons, who had not yet received, but were looking forward for

13400-405: The housing and tourism sectors. Najaf has been described as a strategically important city with a stable investment environment and available skilled manpower. The city has experienced an increase in investment. Saudi Arabian firm ACWA Power is in process to construct 1,000 MW solar power plant in Najaf. The government proposed to build 15 housing complexes in Najaf, with a cost of $ 7 billion as

13534-597: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward

13668-731: The interim government was an opportunity to build a unified Iraq. Interim President Ghazi Yawer gave assurances that al-Sadr could join the political process provided he abandoned his militia. Iraqi officials also assured al-Sadr that he was not to face arrest. After Sadr's militia besieged a police station in Najaf and the local governor called for assistance, the US military intervened again. US troops arrested Sadr's representative in Karbala, Sheikh Mithal al Hasnawi on July 31 and surrounded al-Sadr's home on August 3. British troops in Basra also moved against al-Sadr followers, arresting four on August 3. After

13802-510: The killing and in response to this, the police captured a brother of the suspected bomber, who was a member of the Mahdi Army. Fighting began on October 17, when 800 masked members of the Mahdi army stormed three police stations in Amarah . Several firefights occurred between the militia and police over the course of the next four days. By the morning of October 20, 2006, local leaders and residents said that victorious Mahdi fighters were patrolling

13936-613: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about

14070-604: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c.  603 –689)

14204-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA

14338-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya

14472-459: The militia soon ceased bearing arms and halted the attacks on U.S. forces. Gradually, militiamen left the area or went back to their homes. On the same day, Brigadier General Mark Hertling , a top US commander in charge of Najaf , Iraq , stated "The Muqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone. [...] The militia have been defeated, or have left." June 6 effectively marked

14606-782: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum  [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve

14740-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on

14874-549: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on

15008-427: The police stations after running firefights with the fighters, killing dozens of Mahdi militiamen. However, Mahdi Army members still maintained some influence over many of the slum areas of Sadr City. On April 16, Kut was retaken by US forces, and several dozen Mahdi Army members were killed in the battle. However, the area around Najaf and Kufa along with Karbala remained under the control of Sadr's forces. Sadr himself

15142-475: The province of Najaf, states "the excavation on the graves, which we have been working on for years, confirm that "Najaf" contains the largest Christian cemetery in Iraq, with a cemetery area of 1416 acres. We have found indications of Christianity on the graves through representations of crosses and stones with Christ-like engravings. There are also relics that date back to the Sassanid period. Also discovered in

15276-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within

15410-521: The result of repeated raids by Arab desert tribes and the Persian army with acute water shortages causing lack of a reliable water supply. The number of inhabited houses in the city had plummeted from 3,000 to just 30 by the start of the 16th century. When the Portuguese traveller Pedro Texeira passed through Najaf in 1604, he found the city in ruins, inhabited by little more than 500 people. This

15544-616: The rule of the British Empire . The sheikhs of Najaf rebelled in 1918, killing the British governor of the city, Sayyed Mahdi Al-Awadi, and cutting off grain supplies to the Anazzah , a tribe allied with the British. In retaliation the British besieged the city and cut off its water supply . The rebellion was put down and the rule of the sheikhs was forcibly ended. A great number of the Shi‘i ‘Ulema’ were expelled into Persia , where they set

15678-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there

15812-423: The security vacuum in Sadr City and in a string of southern Iraqi cities following the fall of Baghdad to U.S-led coalition forces on April 9, 2003. The group was involved in dispensing aid to Iraqis and provided security in the Shi'ite slums from looters. Gradually, the militia grew and al-Sadr formalized it in June 2003. The Mahdi Army grew into a sizable force of up to 10,000 who even operated what amounted to

15946-504: The shrine and US troops did not want to offend Islam by setting foot inside the shrine. The standoff did not end for three weeks until Sistani emerged from convalescence in London and brokered an agreement between the two forces. The uprising seemed to draw an ambivalent reaction from the Iraqi population, which for the most part neither joined nor resisted the rebels. Many Iraqi security forces melted away, wishing to avoid confrontation. In

16080-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of

16214-403: The spot and in due course the town of Najaf grew around the mausoleum. In early 14th century, Sheikh Ibn Battuta visited the burial site of Ali ibn Abi Talib during his travels in Iraq after his pilgrimage to Mecca. During this period, Najaf was called Meshhed Ali. As Translated by Samuel Lee , Ibn Battuta in his Arabic Rihla relates: We next proceeded to the city of Meshhed Ali where

16348-563: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of

16482-462: The third holiest Islamic site. The Imam ‘Ali Mosque is housed in a grand structure with a gold gilded dome and many precious objects in the walls. Nearby is the Wadi-us-Salaam cemetery, the largest in the world. It contains the tombs of several prophets and many of the devout from around the world aspire to be buried there, to be raised from the dead with Imām ‘Alī on Judgement Day . Over

16616-407: The time being. After the June 4 truce with the occupation forces, al-Sadr took steps to disband the Mahdi Army. In a statement, he called on militia members from outside Najaf to "do their duty" and go home. US forces in Najaf were then replaced by Iraqi police. Al-Sadr told supporters not to attack Iraqi security forces and announced his intention to form a party and enter the 2005 elections. He said

16750-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to

16884-607: The two main centres of traditional Shia Islamic education today, and both have their own separate administrations and curricula. The Najaf Seminary (Hawza) established in the 11th century CE is the oldest hawza among those still active. Some of the prominent scholars that have graduated from the Najaf Seminary, include Murtadha al-Ansari , Muhammad Kazim Khurasani also known as al-Akhund , Mohammed Kazem Yazdi , Abbas Qomi also known as al-Muhaddith , Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei and Ali al-Sistani . Najaf International Airport

17018-516: The votive offerings arrived from different parts: for when anyone happens to be ill, or suffer under any infirmity, he will make a vow, and thence receive relief. The garden is also famous for its miracles; and hence it is believed that the grave of Ali is there. Of these miracles, the "night of revival" is one: for, on the 17th day of the month Rejeb, cripples come from different parts of Fars, Room, Khorasaan, Irak, and other places, assemble in companies from twenty to thirty in number. They are placed over

17152-444: The word, "najaf" ( نجف ), literally means a high and rectangular place around which water is accumulated, although the water does not go above its level. Al-Shaykh al-Saduq appeals to a hadith from Ja'far al-Sadiq , claiming that "Najaf" comes from the phrase, "nay jaff" which means "the nay sea has dried" which gradually changed into "Najaf". "Najaf" is usually accompanied by the adjective "al-Ashraf" (the dignified). According to

17286-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study

17420-561: The world. The city of Najaf is home to Al-Najaf SC and Naft Al-Wasat SC that play in Iraq Stars League (the highest division) and the second tier Iraqi Premier Division League , respectively. Najaf has two football stadiums, the An-Najaf Stadium (also referred to as the old stadium) with a capacity of 12,000 spectators, and the newer Al-Najaf International Stadium with a capacity of 30,000. The latter stadium

17554-583: Was armed with various light weapons , including improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Many of the IEDs used during attacks on Iraqi security forces and Coalition forces used infrared sensors as triggers, a technique that was used widely by the IRA in Northern Ireland in the early-to-mid-1990s. The group was semi-revived in 2014 as Saraya al-Salam in order to fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and

17688-484: Was believed to be in Najaf. Coalition troops cordoned off Najaf with 2,500 troops but reduced the number of forces to pursue negotiations with the Mahdi Army. At the beginning of May, coalition forces estimated that there were 200–500 militants still present in Karbala, 300–400 in Diwaniyah , an unknown number still left in Amarah and Basra, and 1,000–2,000 still in the Najaf-Kufa region. On May 4, coalition forces began

17822-598: Was largely the result of a change in the course of the Euphrates river eastwards in the direction of Hilla , leaving Najaf and Kufa high and dry, leading to the destruction of the local formerly rich agriculture, demise of the palm groves and orchards, followed by the salinization of the underground water due to evaporation. During the 18th century, the scholarly life of Najaf came to be dominated by Farsi -speaking ‘ Ulema ’ ( Arabic : عُلُمَاء , Scholars) from Iran . The water shortages were finally resolved in 1803 when

17956-493: Was rejected by the governor of Najaf, Adnan al-Zurufi ("There is no compromise or room for another truce") and US officials ("This is one battle we really do feel we can win"). In the days that followed fighting continued around the old city of Najaf, in particular at the Imam Ali shrine and the cemetery. The Mahdi Army, estimated at 2,000 in Najaf, was outnumbered by some 2,000 US troops and 1,800 Iraqi security forces, and at

#873126