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| Planning | Reports | Data | Old City | Guest Book | Investment | About Us | الواجهة العربية | |
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Introduction Karbala is one
of special cities in the Islamic world. It is founded after the
martyrdom of Imam Hussain (pbuh), the grandson of prophet of Islam
(saw). His stance against Yazid was the clash of the Youth Master of
the Heaven and the drinker. Although this event took place at 680AD,
but it is as much alive and relevant. All those who want to voice
their opposition to tyranny and give allegiance to the holy Prophet
(saw) and his progeny (pbut) travel to Karbala to visit his Shrine.
Even today the number of pilgrims who come to Karbala exceed 15
million people per year. These people come from cities of Iraq and
from abroad. The events of Arbaeen, half of Shabaan, Ashura, and
Arafah are all testimony to huge number of people who come by foot
from as far as Basrah. Nowadays, even Thursday nights attracts huge
number of pilgrims to the Shrine of Imam Hussain (pbuh) and his
brother Abbas (pbuh).
A Brief history of city of Karbala The city and
tombs were greatly expanded by successive Muslim rulers, but
suffered repeated destruction from attacking armies. The first tomb
was made by Mukhtar al Thaqafi in 686. This tomb was built and
destroyed during the early reign of Abbasid Caliphs. Mutawakkil
destroyed the whole surroundings of the tomb in 850. The present
building was built in 979 by **. It was partly destroyed by fire in
1086 and was rebuilt yet again.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, Medhat Pasha, the Ottoman
governor of Iraq expanded the city by building two well designed
districts of eastern and western Abbasi. But city centre was
neglected since then. In 1977, government planners decided to
improve the situation by demolishing adjacent buildings to the
courtyard of the Shrines and build special walls around them.
Moreover, they wanted to open a 30m wide road between two shrines so
that whoever leave one of them could see the other Shrine or part of
it at least. The first part was carried out right away, but the
space between two shrines was created by blasting houses in this
area after the uprising of 1991.
The current situation of the old city The old city
is the complex of residential and commercial buildings surrounding
the Shrines. It was created organically and is located between
Streets of Bab Baghdad, Meytham Al Tammar, Jumhurieh, Mukhayyam,
Muhit, and Maqam Saheb Al Zaman.
The main feature of the city is its huge number of pilgrims. This in
turn creates a lot of jobs and attracts commercial activities in
this part of the city. Moreover, it has religious activities too and
enjoys from many mosques and Hussayniehs. All these amenities need
to be serviced. The current situation of the city with old
buildings, narrow alley ways, and unorganised market places. It can
barely accept millions of pilgrims who come at each ritual.
Therefore, there is a dire need to redesign the whole city centre
and the area surrounding the holy Shrines. |
