The announcement of the military shrine responsible for the shrines of the two imams Ali al-Hadi and al-Hasan al-Askari, in Samarra, north of Baghdad, of its intention to change the name of the “Great Mosque of Samarra”, one of the oldest mosques in the city, to “the owner of the matter”, great discontent among the Sunnis, and an official protest from the Iraqi Sunni Endowment.
In a statement, the Sunni Endowment expressed its condemnation of the “provocative” step of opening the Samarra Mosque and changing its name.
The court said that this measure is “a religious, popular and social error whose dangers must be rectified,” adding that it is “a step towards escalation and provocation of the Sunni component.”
He demanded that the Sunni Endowment investigate “the perpetrators of the crisis.”
The Iraqi Fiqh Academy, which participates in nominating the head of the Sunni endowment, and is widely considered the Sunni authority in Iraq, said that “the irresponsible behavior of some parties to seize the Great Mosque of Samarra [..] Behavior contrary to the provisions of Islamic law and far from wisdom and mercy, provoked the religious feelings of ordinary people and their elite.
The complex added in a statement that this “warns of provoking sectarian strife, which the people of our people are keen to extinguish,” stressing that “the seizure of this mosque [..] It is a form of crimes that affect the religious feelings of a wide segment of the Iraqi people.”
The Fiqh Council denounced the “serious attack” and warned of “serious consequences for the cohesion of the Iraqi fabric,” and called on the (Shiite) religious authorities, Iraqi presidencies, the government, parliament, and the Sunni alliances (Sovereignty and Azm) to assume their responsibility and return the mosque to the Sunni Endowment Office.
The Great Mosque of Samarra is both a mosque and a religious school that was established hundreds of years ago, according to a source in the Sunni Endowment in Samarra who asked not to be named.
The source says that the mosque has always been “run by the heads of the Shafi’i school of thought in Iraq, and there are the bodies of two Shafi’i imams buried in it for decades.”
According to the source, “study and prayer were continuous in the mosque since its founding until the bombing of the shrine of the two imams al-Askari in 2006, and then returned until the entry of ISIS in 2014, when the mosque was closed and still is today.”
Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Rifai, a representative of the Association of Muslim Scholars, told Al-Hurra that “the mosque was affiliated with the Sunni endowment and owned by it under the pretext of official ownership since the start of the endowment season.”
The mosque is located adjacent to the western wall of the military shrine, and a wall separated it from the shrine, but the wall was “demolished by the shrine administration,” as the sheikh says.
He added, “In 2010, the mosque returned to us following many mediations, and the lesson began, and a part of its yard was occupied by a workshop for making gilding for the dome of the two military imams, with our approval and following confirming the threshold that the workshop would be removed following the completion of the gilding work.”
And he continues, “The threshold refused to talk to us following announcing the reconstruction of the mosque’s dome and changing its name, and so far there is no indication that the mosque will be returned to us.”
Al-Rifai says this is “very sad in a city like Samarra that has been a symbol of coexistence for hundreds of years.”
The head of the Azm Alliance, Muthanna al-Samarrai, visited the mosque and said that “no internal changes took place in it,” but Sheikh al-Rifai says that “the pulpit was demolished and there are other changes that took place in the building” without the permission of the Sunni Endowment.
For his part, Mr. Muhammad al-Badri, a Shiite cleric, says that “the endowment is the evidence of the endower,” noting that “this means that it is not permissible to dispose of endowments other than what the endowers wanted.”
But Al-Badri tells Al-Hurra that “there is a rule of no harm and no harm as well, and if the mosque harms the shrine, then there may be a justification for organizing its management.”
The threshold did not answer the questions of the “Al-Hurra” website, while a spokesman for the Shiite endowment refused to comment on the matter.
Activists on social media circulated a picture that they said was from an advertisement for the shrine, referring to the reopening of the “dome of the Sahib al-Amr Mosque” following its rehabilitation, in a post on Facebook.
But it seems thatPage of the General Administration of the Holy Military ShrineThe one on which the post was posted has stopped working.
Al-Hurra might not confirm that the publication actually belongs to Al-Ataba.
The Sovereignty Coalition, led by Iraqi politician Khamis al-Khanjar, protested the “provocation” of the threshold, according to a statement.
Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the former speaker of the Iraqi parliament and the current head of the Religious Endowments Committee in Parliament, criticized the name change, describing it in a statement as “contrary to the Sharia and the law.”
Samarra is a city with a majority of Sunni Muslims, but the Shrine of the Askari Imams is one of the most important shrines of Iraqi Shiites.
The mosque is located adjacent to the shrine, whose bombing sparked a sectarian war in Iraq in 2006.
The city also enjoys great historical value, as it was for a long time the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate during the reign of the Caliph Al-Mu’tasim Billah 835 AD. The Abbasid Palace and the Malawi minaret are located in it, which is one of the most famous Islamic minarets, built by the Caliph Al-Mutawakkil with a mosque that is still standing until now.
