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A decision by Iraqi officials to demolish a 300-year-old religious spire and tourist attraction in the city of Basra has prompted outcries from the local community.
For three centuries, the al-Siraji Mosque remained a distinctive feature in southern Iraq but Basra’s governor, Asaad al-Eidani, said officials decided to tear down its minaret, fashioned from weathered bricks and blue ceramic tiles, to widen a road the city built after the mosque was already constructed.
“The actions of official authorities that have put an end to our heritage,” Jaafar Jotheri, an assistant professor of geoarchaeology at Al-Qadisiyah University in Iraq, told The Associated Press.
City officials claimed the minaret encroached on the street, but Jotheri protested: “The minaret predates the street and it is one of the oldest sites in Basra. It was not encroaching on the street; rather, they encroached upon it.”
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A man walks past the rubble of the demolished minaret of al-Siraji Mosque in Basra, Iraq, on Monday, July 17, 2023. (AP Photo/Nabil al-Jurani)
Ali Nazim, a resident of Basra, agreed with expanding the street but said “the way it was done has caused anger.”
“In other countries, they protect even a tree during street expansions,” said Ali Hilal, an Iraqi photographer who promotes historical sites in Iraq. “Why did we destroy a three-century-old site to widen the street?”
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Despite the outcries, Basra’s governor said in a statement that the local government received permission from Iraq’s Sunni Endowment Office, which has authority over Sunni religious sites, before it demolished the minaret on Friday morning, July 14.
“We requested the Basra governorate to relocate the minaret, not destroy it,” Mishaan al-Khazraji, the head of the Sunni Endowment, told The Associated Press.
An aerial…
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