Koufa

Koufa or Kûfa (الكوفة) is a town of Iraq, approximately 170 km in the south of Baghdad, and with 10 km in the North-East of Nadjaf. It is located on banks of the river Euphrate. The population in 2003 was estimated at 110 000 inhabitants. It is the second city of the province of Nadjaf.

With Kerbala, and Nadjaf, Koufa of the three Iraqi cities of great importance for the Moslems Shiite S. is one.

History

On a decision of the caliph `Omar, Koufa was built to be an Arab pole of immigration in the south of Mésopotamie, and to become the capital. The Arabs sought a place where they would not suffer from diseases. With the site of Koufa, there was a city Sassanide which belonged to a Persian province.

The Arab districts of the city were built in 638, about at the same moment as with Bassora, when the Arab armies fought the Sassanides. The city was built out of cooked bricks. One started by building the mosque in the center of the city with 1,5 km of Euphrate. One dug a water tank envisaged for 20 000 inhabitants. The population of Koufa was made of Arab immigrants coming either from the area of Mecque, or of the south of Arabia, Yemen and Hadramaout, some of them were Christian or Jewish.

In 655, the inhabitants of Koufa support `Alî against the caliph `Uthman.

When `Alî became caliph, it moved its general headquarter with Koufa while it prepared with the battle with Mu `âwîya which carried out a revolt starting from the Syria. `Alî made dig a well in the city (656).

“Ali was killed in Koufa (661), and was buried in the city close to Nadjaf. After the accession of Driven `âwîya to the caliphate, Koufa became the base of the partisans of `Alî and the kharijites. Later its inhabitants sheltered his son Husayn.

Towards 670, a dam was built to protect the city from raw from the river.

In 685, Koufa was the theater of the revolt Kharijite of Al-Mukhtâr.

It is of Koufa that the Abbasid revolution left which was going to reverse the Omeyyades (750).

In 754, the Abbasid caliph Al-Mansûr made build the fortress and dig a ditch to surround the city. But it left Koufa for Baghdad of which it made its capital.

Towards 877, Hamdan Qarmat Ben Al-Acha `HT (??? - 891) deployed an intense activity in the area of Koufa. In 917, under the reign of his/her son Abû Tahir (??? - 932), the Qarmates plundered Koufa and Bassora.

At the beginning of the 10th century, the Bouyides built not far from Koufa the new town of Nadjaf of which it made their capital. Nadjaf contained the mausoleum of `Alî. Koufa declined. The large mosque which still existed at the 12th century is now a building site of archaeological excavations.

In the middle of the 8th century, the city became temporarily the capital of Abbasids while waiting for the construction of Baghdad. Currently, Koufa remains an important center of study, it is there that developed Arab penmanship and the first Arab style of writing: the style Coufique. This style of writing, known later as the style coufic began one century before the foundation of the town of Koufa. The style derives from the one of the four Arab styles preislamic which then reached its level of decorative perfection.

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