Najaf

Najaf grew from a grave. Shia tradition holds that Imam Ali, killed at Kufa in 661, was buried secretly on the desert ridge west of the town to protect his tomb, and that the site was revealed in the late eighth century. A shrine was built, destroyed and rebuilt several times, and the Buyid ruler Adud al-Dawla endowed a substantial building in the tenth century. Pilgrims, endowments and the wish to be buried near Ali made the settlement grow, and the cemetery of Wadi al-Salam spread across the ridge beside it.

From the eleventh century Najaf was the leading centre of Shia learning, and its seminary is the oldest still teaching. Its hawza, the network of seminaries and study circles around the shrine, trains clerics from across the Shia world, and the senior scholars of the marja'iyya, whose rulings are followed by millions, have long been based here. Safavid and Qajar patronage paid for gold plating and tile, and Indian and Iranian endowments built libraries and hostels.

The city's clergy shaped modern Iraqi politics. Najaf was one of the centres of the 1920 revolt against British rule, holding out until the rebels gave the city up that October, and it remained a centre of opposition under later governments, which imprisoned and exiled its scholars and restricted the pilgrimage. Heavy fighting damaged the old city and the shrine surroundings in 2004. Since then the pilgrimage has returned on a scale without precedent, the airport has opened to international flights, and rings of new hotels and housing have been built out towards it.

Najaf's life is organised around religious learning and burial. The hawza gives the city an unusual population: thousands of students, many from Iran, Pakistan, India, Lebanon, the Gulf and East Africa, living in modest lodgings near the shrine and studying Arabic grammar, logic, law and theology in circles that meet in mosques and private rooms. Religious publishing, manuscript libraries and bookshops cluster in the same streets, and the senior clerics' offices are a quiet but constant presence in Iraqi public life.

Burial is the city's other calling. Bodies are brought to Wadi al-Salam from all over Iraq and from Shia communities abroad, carried around the shrine before burial, and whole trades — stonecutting, coffin making, grave digging, funeral catering — depend on it. Death is visible and matter-of-fact here in a way visitors often find striking.

The religious calendar dominates. Muharram brings black cloth, nightly recitations and processions; Eid al-Ghadir fills the streets with lights and sweets; and Arba'een turns the city into a departure point, with pilgrims walking north to Karbala past lines of volunteer tents. Hospitality to pilgrims is a matter of pride, and strangers are fed as a religious duty. The city is almost entirely Shia Arab, but the bazaars run in several languages, and Persian is widely understood.

About 1.4 million people live in Najaf, and the city has grown quickly outwards from the old ridge into new districts along the airport road. The economy is built on pilgrimage and burial: hotels, transport, restaurants, gold and money-changing, religious goods and publishing, funeral services and construction. The shrine administration is itself a large employer, running hospitals, schools, libraries and building projects, and the university adds several thousand students to the seminary population.

Beyond the ridge, farmers grow dates, rice and vegetables on Euphrates water around Kufa and out towards Abu Sukhair, while the desert to the west holds quarries and the shallow depression known as the Najaf sea. Falling river flows, salty groundwater and drought have made farming harder, and summer power cuts push households onto neighbourhood generators, as across Iraq.

The rhythm follows prayer times and the sun: early mornings at the shrine, a slow afternoon when shops shut against the heat, then a long busy evening in the souks and on the streets around the courtyards, which stay open very late. Jobs for graduates, the cost of housing near the shrine, water and electricity, and the management of enormous seasonal crowds are the issues that occupy the city.

Najaf eats the food of the mid-Euphrates, cooked in quantity for pilgrims. Tashreeb is the local staple: thin bread torn into a bowl and soaked in the broth of slow-cooked lamb or chicken, with the meat piled on top and a spoonful of the fat poured over. Qeema, minced meat cooked down with chickpeas into a thick sauce and served over rice, is handed out free in enormous pots during Muharram, along with hareesa, wheat and meat pounded to a porridge.

Grills work all evening on kebab, chicken and lamb chops, served with samoon, the diamond-shaped bread baked against the oven wall, with raw onion, sumac and pickles. Rice dishes with meat, raisins and almonds are cooked in pilgrim kitchens; dolma stuffs vine leaves and vegetables with spiced rice; and stews of okra, white beans or aubergine are sharpened with noomi Basra, the dried black lime that gives Iraqi cooking its sour edge. Breakfast is kahi pastry with geymar clotted cream and honey, or pacha for those who want it.

The surrounding groves supply dates in many varieties, eaten fresh in late summer, dried the rest of the year, boiled into dibis syrup and baked into kleicha for Eid. Sweet shops sell baklava, zalabia and sesame halva, often bought as gifts after a visit to the shrine. Tea is drunk strong and very sweet in small istikan glasses through the day, with cardamom coffee to finish.