7th to 10th centuries , formerly the home of Imam Ali, also contains the shrine of
Muslim ibn Aqil After being named
caliph in 657, Imam
Ali ibn Abi Talib established his capital at
Kufa in present-day Iraq. The
Battle of Karbala took place in 680, where
Husayn ibn Ali was martyred by
Umayyad forces of
Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad and
Umar ibn Sa'd at the orders of
Yazid ibn Mu'awiya. Many called for vengeance.
Sulayman ibn Surad led the
Tawwabin uprising in January 685, but was defeated and killed in
Battle of Ayn al-Warda. After the failed uprising,
Mukhtar al-Thaqafi once again called for the establishment of an Alid caliphate and for retaliation for Husayn's killing, and took over Kufa in October 685. Aided by
Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar, they successfully drove the Umayyads out of Kufa and defeated them in several battles, including the
Battle of Khazir in 686, but were defeated shortly afterwards in 687, when Kufa was besieged by the governor of Basra
Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr. In the early Islamic period, Kufa effectively became the "second capital" of Shiism after
Medina, the residence of the
Twelve Imams, and acted as a source of many Shiite scholars and disciples of the Twelve Imams, including:
Hisham ibn al-Hakam,
Zurarah ibn A'yun,
Burayd ibn Mu'awiya,
Mu'min al-Taq,
Aban ibn Taghlib,
Abu Basir al-Asadi and
Muhammad bin Muslim, all disciples of Imam
Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765 CE). It was in Kufa where
Zayd ibn Ali, the principal figure of
Zaydism, led an
uprising against the Umayyad rule of
Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik which ended with Zayd's execution and burning, while
Basra witnessed the
Alid revolt of 762–763 by
Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya's brother Ibrahim, who was said to have amassed a force as large as 100,000. The 7th Twelver Imam
Musa al-Kazim was repeatedly imprisoned in
Baghdad and Basra at the orders of
Abbasid caliphs
al-Mansur,
al-Hadi,
al-Mahdi and
Harun al-Rashid. During
Al-Ma'mun's reign, in a sudden departure of anti-Shia policy, Imam
Ali al-Rida was designated heir apparent of al-Ma'mun, but was later poisoned by al-Ma'mun himself. Some Shia officials managed to gain influence in the Abbasid court, such as
Ali ibn Yaqteen, a Kufan who became a minister of the Abbasid caliph with the approval of Imam Musa al-Kadhim to assist the Shia. The Twelver sect historically had been the most common among Shias in Iraq. However,
Zaydism had a presence among Shia Kurds, and
Isma'ilism had a presence among Shia Arabs in
Musha'sha'. Zaydism and Isma'ilism later declined.
Qizilbashism also had a presence among the Iraqi Turkmen, who continued their practices until the 1920s, when orthodox Twelver missionaries from Southern Iraq began to convert them. A known sect among them was
Ibrahimiyya. The Turkmen with Qizilbash practices were very secretive about their religious practices to outsiders. Aside from mainstream Shia Islam, Iraq was also the home of many Shia sects which no longer exist. Kufan followers of Mukhtar al-Thaqafi later formed the
Kaysanite sect, who traced the line of Imamate to
Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. The Kaysanites had a significant role in the
Abbasid Revolution after they managed to rally Shia support in Iraq for the uprising against the Umayyads. However, after the revolution, most Kaysanites soon joined Ja'far al-Sadiq or Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, and eventually Ja'far al-Sadiq after the demise of Muhammad.
10th to 15th centuries |left The
Hamdanid dynasty of Banu
Taghlib was among the first Twelver Shia dynasties formed in northern Iraq. The Hamdanids first emerged as governors of
Mardin in 890 and
Mosul in 905, and by 950 had expanded into most of
Syria and western Iraq, informally forming a parallel authority to the one in
Baghdad. During the 930s and 940s, the Hamdanids and the
Buyids were in contest with another Shia,
Abu Abdallah al-Baridi, an Iraqi tax-official who used the enormous wealth gained from
tax farming to vie for control of the rump
Abbasid Caliphate, temporarily holding Baghdad with brother twice. The Hamdanids were succeeded in Mosul by another Shia dynasty, the
Uqaylids who ruled roughly the same territory as the Hamdanids from 990 to 1096. In northern Syria, they incorporated the Shia
Mirdasids into their service, who later rebelled against the
Fatimids under
Salih ibn Mirdas and established themselves as the
emirs of most of present-day Syria, western Iraq and
Lebanon, ruling from
Aleppo. In central Iraq, the
Mazyadids ruled an autonomous emirate in the area around
Kūfa and
Hīt between 961 and 1160 from their capital city of
Hillah. They were originally in the service of the
Buyid dynasty, another Twelver Shia dynasty which expanded into most of western Iran and Iraq, seizing Baghdad and making it as their capital. Later on,
Hillah later became one of the central cities of Shia learning, where prominent Shia scholars and poets such as
al-Allama al-Hilli,
Muhaqqiq al-Hilli,
Shahid Awwal and
Safi al-Din al-Hilli lived and taught during the 12th–15th centuries.
15th to 19th centuries When the
Safavid dynasty declared Shia Islam the official religion of
Iran in 1501, Shia scholars from southern Iraq contributed to the conversion movement. The Safavids also invited many Shi'i Arab tribes to
Khuzestan to act as a bulwark against the Ottoman Empire, earning Khuzestan the name of Arabestan. Between the 15th and 19th centuries, many of the tribes living on the banks of the
Euphrates and
Tigris, which were originally Sunni, converted to Shia Islam. During the 19th century, the
Ottoman Empire instituted a policy of settling the
semi-nomadic Sunni Arab tribes to create greater centralization in Iraq. The tribes adopted a sedentary agricultural life in the hinterlands of
Najaf and
Karbala, and frequently traded and interacted with the residents of the two cities. Some Sunni Arab tribes converted to protest their treatment by the Sunni Ottomans. Shia missionaries from Najaf and Karbala operated with relative freedom from the Ottoman Empire, and could proselytize with little official hindrance. The Bani Sallama,
Tayy and al-Soudan in the
Mesopotamian Marshes were converted by the
Musha'sha'iyyah dynasty, a heretical Isma'ili Shia tribal confederation founded by
Muhammad ibn Falah which ruled the town of
Hoveyzeh in
Khuzestan from 1435 to 1924. Another tribe, Banu Khaz'al, as well as the
Banu Kaab converted during the mid-18th century. The conversions continued into the 20th century, as the British noted in 1917. Many Iraqi Shia are relatively-recent converts. The following tribes were converted during this period:
Banu Lam, Albu-Muhammad, many of the
Rabiah (including al-Dafaf'a, Bani Amir and al-Jaghayfa),
Banu Tamim the Bani Hasan (of the
Bani Malik), the Bani Hukayyim, the Shibil of the Khazal, the al Fatla, the tribes along the
Al-Hindiya canal, and the five tribes of
Al Diwaniyah (Aqra’, Budayyir, Afak,
Jubur and Jilaiha) which relied on the Daghara canal for water.
British mandate and Kingdom of Iraq During the start of the 20th century, the Shia opposed
Mandatory Iraq and the Sunni monarchy. As a result of their neglect by Ottomans, and their poverty, the Shiites were increasingly dependent on their
ulama, the religious clerics. In 1920, Iraqis, whether Sunni or Shia, had grown more discontent with
British rule. Many Iraqis began to fear that Iraq would be incorporated into the
British Empire. One of the eminent Shia mujtahideen, Ayatollah
Mirza Muhammad Taqi al-Shirazi, then issued a
fatwa "declaring that service in the British administration was unlawful". The revolt materialized in June 1920 and rapidly spread from
Baghdad to the South, notably the town of
Al-Rumaitha, where the Zawalim sheikh Shaalan Abu al-Jun was arrested and subsequently freed by his tribesmen. More Shia ulama, including
Mirza Mahdi al-Shirazi,
Mehdi Al-Khalissi and
Muhammad Hasan Abi al-Mahasin displayed their support for the revolt, and encouraged the local population to take arms. At the peak of the revolt, around 131,000 Iraqis were active against the British. Under the
Kingdom of Iraq, the Shia tribes of the mid-
Euphrates region saw themselves increasingly under-represented in the Sunni-dominated Iraqi government, which further deteriorated with the exclusion of key Shia sheikhs from the Iraqi parliament in 1934 elections. In addition, King
Ghazi of Iraq, a Hashemite ruler of Iraq from 1933 to 1939, was driven, amongst other things, by anti-Shia ambitions. This ultimately led to the
1935–1936 Iraqi Shia revolts, mostly in the towns of Al-Rumaitha and
al-Diwaniyah, led by Ayatollah
Muhammad Husayn Kashif al-Ghita' and various Shia tribal sheikhs. For many, the 1935–1936 revolt uncovered a lack of community interest within the Iraqi Shia society and absence of strong Shia political leadership, to present their interests in Baghdad, a predicament shared by their
correligonists in
Lebanon. Scholars such as Fanar Haddad have argued that the governments of the new Iraqi state tended to adopt the symbols of Sunni identity while suppressing Shia identity. For example, figures such as
Saladin,
Harun al-Rashid or
Omar ibn al-Khattab who were venerated by Arab nationalists are viewed with suspicion in Shia folklore. This contributes to disaffection among Iraqi Shia, while at the same time Sunni Iraqi politicians have tended to cast Shia political mobilization as alien, in particular Iranian.
The creation of a Shia political movement For many years, Arab nationalism and party politics superseded Shia unity in Iraqi politics, and Shia
ayatollahs were politically quiescent. The Shia were generally less well-off economically and socially, and as a result, they supported
leftist parties, such as
Iraqi Communist Party which was founded by
Husain al-Rahhal in 1934, and the
Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Iraq, which was also founded by a Shia,
Fuad al-Rikabi. To counter the intellectual hold of the left, a group of clerics in Najaf created a movement that eventually evolved into the
Dawa party. Its manifesto, written by
Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, probably in 1960, defined its ultimate goal as an Islamic polity.
Under the Baathist regime is brought in front of
Saddam Hussein after Shia uprisings in 1991. In 1963, a coalition of military officers and others led by the Arab nationalist and socialist
Ba'ath Party seized power in a coup. At that point, 53 percent of its membership was Shia. In the years following the Shia were shunted aside, and by 1968, only six percent of the Ba'ath party were Shia. Due to discrimination by the Sunni government, the Shia became increasingly disaffected during the last 1960s and 1970s. By 1968, Dawa could claim a mass following, and the Baath began to consider it a threat. In 1974, amid rising discontent due to casualties in the
Kurdish insurgency, the regime executed five leading Dawa members. Subsequently, the regime banned annual
Marad al-ras processions during the
Mourning of Muharram in the shrine cities, where mass discontent had been evident in 1974 and 1975. In 1977, tens of thousands of Dawa activists held the processions in defiance of the ban, leading to large-scale clashes known as the
Safar Intifada that the regime quelled with the use of helicopter gunships. At least 16 were killed, eight executed and two died under torture. The success of the
Iranian Revolution intensified unrest and repression. In June 1979, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr was arrested and placed under house arrest. Less than a year later, due to encouraging the
1979–1980 Shia uprising in Iraq, Sadr and his sister
Bint al-Huda were both executed in April 1980. In 1982, the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was formed in Iran by Iraqi cleric
Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim as an umbrella group to overthrow Iraq's Sunni-dominated regime. In Iran, Hakim attempted to unite and co-ordinate the activities of al-Dawa party and other major Shia groups:
Peykar (a guerilla organization similar to the Iranian
Mujahideen) and ''Jama'at al-'Ulama'' (groups of pro-
Khomeini ulama). and had
executed 142–146 Shia rebels in the town of
Dujail earlier in 1982. Unrest renewed with the
1991 Iraqi uprisings throughout Iraq, which took place in the Shiite and Kurdish areas of the country. In the south, the rebels seized the shrine as Ba'ath Party officials fled the city or were killed. The uprising spread within days to all of the largest Shia cities in southern Iraq:
Amarah,
Diwaniya,
Hilla,
Karbala,
Kut,
Nasiriyah and
Samawah. Smaller cities were swept up in the revolution as well. Many exiled Iraqi dissidents, including thousands of Iran-based
Badr Brigades militants of SCIRI, crossed the borders and joined the rebellion. During the
1991 Iraqi uprisings, over 200,000 Shia Arabs and 100,000 Marsh Arabs died in southern Iraq. A short period of rest once again occurred during the
1999 Shia uprising in Iraq after the killing of
Muhammad-Sadiq al-Sadr in the Shia neighborhoods of
Baghdad, as well as southern majority
Shiite cities of
Karbala,
Nasiriyah,
Kufa,
Najaf, and
Basra. Though the allegations on the government behind the assassination has never been proved.
During the Iraqi conflict (2003–present) After the US-led
2003 invasion of Iraq, sectarian violence between Shia and the Sunnis steadily escalated. By 2007, the United States'
National Intelligence Estimate described the violence as a "civil war". During the
2006–2008 sectarian violence, tens to hundreds of thousands of people were killed (mainly Shia civilians) and 1.7 million were internally displaced by February 2007, according to António Guterres, UN
High Commissioner for Refugees. In ISIL-occupied Iraq (2014–2017) Shias faced some of the worst treatment, and thousands were killed for their faith. ==Demographics==