Kufa

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For other uses, see Kufa (disambiguation).

Kufa

al-Kfa

The Grand Mosque of Kufa in 2014

Kufa

Location in Iraq

Coordinates: 3202N 4424E

Country Iraq

Governorate Najaf

Time zone GMT+3

Kufa (Arabic: al-Kfah) is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10
kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated
population in 2003 was 110,000.
Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Najaf, Kufa is one of five Iraqi cities that are of great
importance to Shiite Muslims. The city was the final capital of Ali ibn Abu Talib, and was founded during 639
AD and 17 Hijra by the second Rashidun Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab.[1] It is also related that, Muslims after
conquest of Al-Madain were searching to have a suitable place for habitation. Likewise others, Salman and
Hudhayfa bin al-Yamman were also looking for. Just choosing the land they offered prayers there. Since
that day the foundation of Kufa had taken place. [2]
The city contains the Great Mosque of Kufa, one of the earliest mosques in Islam, built in the 7th century.
The town has produced several Shiite Muslim scholars.[3]

Contents
[hide]

1History

o 1.1Umar's era

1.1.1Establishment by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas

1.1.2Sad deposed (642)

o 1.2Uthman's era (644656)

1.2.1Governorship of al-Walid

1.2.2Setbacks, governorship of Abu Musa

o 1.3Ali's era

1.3.1Capital of Ali

o 1.4Muawiyah's era

1.4.1Governorship of Ziyad

o 1.5Umayyad-era revolts

o 1.6Abbasid era

1.6.1Kufa in Islamic theology and scholarship

o 1.7Post-Abbasid history

2Shia sites

3People related to Kufa

4See also

5References

6Bibliography
 7External links

History[edit]

Kufa Mosque, 1915

See also: Ancient Mesopotamia

Umar's era[edit]
The Arabs, led by Caliph U mar ibn Khattb, conquered Iraq and began ruling Suristan around 637. Umar,
who assigned the land of the Jews in Arabia to his warriors, ordered the relocation of the Jews
of Khaybar to a strip of land in Kufa in 640.[4]

Establishment by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas[edit]

Umar became the second caliph in 634. After the Arab victory against the East Roman Empire at Battle of
Yarmouk in 636, Kfah was founded and given its name in 637638 CE, about the same time as Basra.
The Companion of the Prophet Sa d ibn Ab Waqqasfounded it as an encampment adjacent to
the Lakhmid Arab city of al-Hrah, and incorporated it as a city of seven divisions. Non-Arabs knew the city
under alternate names: Hrah and Aqulah, before the consolidations of A bdu l-Mlikin 691.[5]

Sad deposed (642)[edit]

In the 640s, the Kfan commons agitated that the Caliph U mar's governor was distributing the spoils of war
unfairly. In 642 Umar summoned Sad to Medina with his accusers. Despite finding Sa'd to be innocent,
Umar deposed Sad to avert ill feelings.
At first, Umar appointed Ammar ibn Yasir and secondly Basra's first Governor Ab Ms al-Ash ar; but the
Kfan instigators accepted neither. Umar and the Kfans finally agreed on al-Mughra ibn Shu bah.

Uthman's era (644656)[edit]

Governorship of al-Walid[edit]
Following Umar's death (644), his successor Uthman replaced Mughira with al-Walid ibn Uqba in 645.
While this was going on, the Arabs were continuing their conquest of western Persia under Uthman ibn
hakam from Tawwaj, but late in the 640s these forces suffered setbacks.

Setbacks, governorship of Abu Musa[edit]

Uthman in 650 reorganised the Iranian frontier; both Basra and Kufa received new governors (Sa'id ibn
al-'As in Kufa's case), and the east came under Basra's command while north of that remained under
Kufa's. The few but noticeable trouble makers in Kufa sought in 654 and had Sa'id deposed and instead
showed satisfaction with the return of Abu Musa, which Uthman approved seeking to please all.
Kufa remained a source of instigations albeit from a minority. In 656 when the Egyptian instigators, in co-
operation with those in Kufa, marched onto the Caliph Uthman in Medina, Abu Musa counselled the
instigators to no avail.

Ali's era[edit]
Capital of Ali[edit]
Upon Uthman's assassination by rebels, governor Abu Musa attempted to restore a non-violent atmosphere
in Kufa. The Muslims in Medina and elsewhere supported the right of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the caliphate. In
order to manage the Military frontiers more efficiently, Ali shifted the capital from Medina to Kufa.
The people of Syria and their governor, Muawiyah, who seized the Caliphate for himself and his family by
using the confusion caused by the assassination of Caliph Uthman and being disturbed by the brutal
assassination of the Caliph Uthman, demanded retribution. As Muawiyah mounted his campaign to hold Ali
responsible for the murder of Uthman, factions developed. In an already emotionally charged atmosphere,
Muawiyah's refusal to give allegiance to Ali as the Caliph without Ali avenging Uthman first eventually, led to
war.
While praying in the Great Mosque of Kufa, Ali was attacked by the Khawarij Abd-al-Rahman ibn Muljam.
He was wounded by ibn Muljam's poison-coated sword while prostrating in the Fajr prayer.

Muawiyah's era[edit]
Governorship of Ziyad[edit]
Muawiyah I appointed Ziyad ibn Abihi as the Governor of Kufa after migration of Hasan ibn Ali to Medina
due to peace treaty which dictated he abdicate his right to caliphate to avoid an open war among Muslims.
Some of the followers of Hasan ibn Ali like Hujr ibn Adi, were unhappy with the peace treaty and did not
changed their ways according to the edicts of the new Governor which was becoming increasingly
noticeable creating a movement of rebellion against the ruler. The new Governor, Ziyad ibn Abihi, was
equally keen strategist & politician and was able to put down all challenges posed by the rebels against his
rule.

Umayyad-era revolts[edit]
Throughout the Umayyad era, as was the case since the inception of the city by Umar ibn Khattab, there
were those among Kufa's inhabitants who were rebellious against their rulers. Yazid I was declared as the
Second Umayyad Caliph which led to a rebellion among Kufans and they turned to Husayn ibn Al,
grandson of the prophet, seeking his help and leadership. Yazid appointed Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad as the
new Governor to put down the rebellion and to kill Husayn ibn Al if he does not acknowledge his
Caliphate. Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad collected armies from Damascus and Kufa. Husayn ibn Al and his family
and companions were surrounded in the desert of Karbala on his way to Kufa and was martyred on 10
Muharram in the Battle of Karbala. There was relative calm during short reign of al-Mukhtar's ruler-ship and
during the Umayyad Governorship of al-Hajjaj.

Abbasid era[edit]
In 749, the Abbasids under al-Hasan ibn Qahtaba took Kufa and made it their capital. In 762, they moved
their seat to Baghdad. Under the Umayyad and early Abbasid decades, Kufa's importance gradually shifted
from caliphal politics to Islamic theory and practice.

Kufa in Islamic theology and scholarship[edit]

Wael Hallaq notes that by contrast with Medina and to a lesser extent Syria, in Iraq there was no
unbroken Muslim or Ishmaelite population dating back to the prophet Muhammad's time.
Therefore, Maliki (and Azwa'i) appeals to the practice (amal) of the community could not apply. Instead the
people of Iraq relied upon those Companions of the Muhammad who settled there, and upon such factions
from the Hijaz whom they respected most. A primary founder of a Sunni school of thought, Abu Hanifa, was
a Kufan who had supported the Zaydi Revolt in the 730s; and his jurisprudence was systematised and
defended against non-Iraqi rivals (starting with Malikism) by other Kufans, such as al-Shaybani.
Shirazi's "Tabaqat", which Hallaq labels "an important early biographical work dedicated to jurists", covered
84 "towering figures" of Islamic jurisprudence; to which Kufa provided 20. It was therefore a center
surpassed only by Medina (22), although Basra came close (17). Kufans could claim that the more
prominent of Muhammad's Companions had called that city home: not only Ibn Abu Waqqas, Abu Musa,
and Ali; but also Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud, Salman the Persian, Ammar ibn Yasir, and Huzayfa ibn Yaman.
Among its jurists prior to Abu Hanifa, Hallaq singles out Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Ibrahim al-Nakhai, and Hammad
ibn Abi Sulayman; and considers Amir al-Shabi a pioneer in the science of judicial precedent.
Additionally, Shi'a Imams like Muhammad al-Baqir and his son Jafar al-Sadiq made decisions from Medina
that contributed to the law of Kufa; and to this day Shiite law follows their example. Abu Hanifa too learnt
from al-Baqir and especially al-Sadiq. As a result, while Hanafi school is doctrinally Sunni, in practical terms
Hanafi law is closer to Imami law than either is to the other schools of jurisprudence i.e. of Malik, Shafii,
and Ibn Hanbal[citation needed].
Kufa was also among the first centers of Qur'anic interpretation, which Kufans credited to the
exegete Mujahid (until he escaped to Mecca in 702). It further recorded general traditions as Hadith; in the
9th century, Yahya ibn Abd al-Hamid al-Himmani compiled many of these into a Musnad.
Given Kufa's opposition to Damascus, Kufan traditionists had their own take on Umayyad history. The
historian Abu Mikhnaf al-Azdi (d. 774) compiled their accounts into a rival history, which became popular
under Abbasid rule. This history does not survive but later historians like Tabari quoted from it extensively.
Kufa is also where the kufic script was developed, the earliest script of the Arabic language. As the
scholar al-Qalqashandi maintained, "The Arabic script [khatt] is the one which is now known as Kufic. From
it evolved all the present hands." The angular script which later came to be known as Kufic had its origin
about a century earlier than the founding of the town of Kufa, according to Moritz in the Encyclopaedia of
Islam. The kufic script was derived from one of the four pre-Islamic Arabic scripts, the one called al-
Hiri (used in Hira). (The other three were al-Anbari (from Anbar), al-Makki (from Mecca) and al-
Madani (from Medina)). The famous author of the Kitab al-Fihrist, an index of Arabic books, Ibn al-
Nadim (died ca. 999), was the first to use the word 'kufic' to characterize this script, which reached a state of
decorative perfection in the 8th century, when surahs were used to decorate ceramics, for representations
of nature were strictly forbidden under the Islamic regime.
In the first decades of Islam, Kufa was prominent in literacy and politics, it was founded before Uthman
(whom Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri among others credited with the canonisation of the Qur'an's text), and it was
opposed to the central authorities of Medina and Damascus. From the perspective of 8th-century CE (2nd-
century AH) Medina and Damascus, Kufa was associated with "variant" readings and interpretations of the
Qur'an, typically in the name of Ibn Mas'ud and often (it was claimed) read from the pulpit as if they were
part of the Qur'an itself. It became said that Uthman had sent an exemplar of the text to Kufa, but that it was
burnt during the wars of Mukhtar and Ibn Zubayr. Al-Hajjaj restored or at any rate promulgated the standard
text under Abd al-Malik, castigating even the memory of Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud as "Ibn Umm Abd (son of a
slave's mother)". But a faction in Kufa preserved the readings "of Abd Allah / Ibn Masud",
whence Mujahid and his fellow mujtahids compiled them along with other readings and interpretations.
From there these readings entered the vast repository of Near Eastern hadith, ultimately to be written down
into collections of hadith and tafsir.

Post-Abbasid history[edit]
Kufa began to come under constant attack in the 11th century and eventually shrunk and lost its
importance. Over the last century, the population of Kufa has begun to grow again. It continues to be an
important pilgrimage site for Shiite Muslims.
Presently, Kufa and Najaf have joined into a single urban area that is mostly commonly known to the
outside world simply as Najaf.

Shia sites[edit]
The Great Mosque of Kufa or Masjid al-Kfa (Arabic: ) , or "Masjid al-Aazam" located in
Kfa, Iraq, is one of the earliest mosques in Islam. It was constructed in the middle of the 7th century after
the Caliph Omar established the city. The mosque contains the remains of Muslim ibn Aqlfirst cousin
of Husayn ibn Al, his companion Hn ibn Urwa, and the revolutionary Mukhtr al-Thaqaf.
Masjid al-Kufa in Kf, Iraqcontains the tombs of Muslim ibn Aql, Hn ibn Urwa, and Mukhtr al-
Thaqaf. The Mosque also contains many important sites relating to the Prophets and Al, including the
place where he was fatally struck on the head while in Sujood
The tomb of Zayd ibn Al in Kf, Iraq
Masjid al-Hannaanah in Kf, Iraqcontains some of the skin of Husayn ibn Al which was ripped off of
him post-mortem by the aggressors of Karbal.
The House of Al in Kf, Iraq
Tomb of Maytham at-Tammr in Kufa, Iraq
Tomb of Kumayl ibn Ziyad in Kufa, Iraq
The final Imm, considered to be alive and in occultation, has the Masjid al-Sahlah associated with him.

People related to Kufa[edit]

Al ibn Ab Tlib Governor

Husayn ibn Al ibn Ab Tlib Battle of Karbala

 Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi theologian

Abu Hanifa

Sufyan al-Thawri

Alqama ibn Qays

Dawud al-Zahiri

Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud

Abd-Allah ibn Aamir Hadhrami

Al-Aswad ibn Yazid

Masruq ibn al-Ajda'

See also[edit]
Al-Hirah

Ghurabiyya Shia

Great Mosque (Kufa)

Shiism

tareekh e tabri vol 3

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Al-Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir (2004). Tareekh Tabari (Urdu
translation). Syed Muhammad Ibrahim Nadavi & Habib-ul-Rehman
Siddiqui (Devband Scholar). Nafees Academy, Karachi, Pakistan. pp. 52
53 (Vol.III Part1 Events of 17 AH).

2. Jump up^ Web Admin. "Salman Farsi, the Son of Islam". Sibtayn
International Foundation. Retrieved September 20, 2015.

3. Jump up^ The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, p 330,
Donald P. Wright, Timothy R. Reese

4. Jump up^ History of the Jews, Heinrich Graetz, Vol 3. Page 84, Trans.
Bella Lowy, London 1892.

5. Jump up^ tareekh e tabri,vol 3 page 52.

Bibliography[edit]
Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial and Islamic Law: The Origins of the
Islamic Patronate. Cambridge University Press, paperback ed. 2002

Hallaq, Wael. The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law. Cambridge

University Press, 2005
 Hawting, Gerald R. The First Dynasty of Islam. Routledge. 2nd ed,
2000

Hinds, Martin. Studies in Early Islamic History. Darwin Press, 1997

Hoyland, Robert G. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. Darwin Press, 1998

External links[edit]
Kufa
Coordinates: 3202N 4424E

[show]

Districts of Iraq and their capitals

Categories:
Kufa
Amsar
Capitals of caliphates

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