With shopping, holy sites, Najaf offers respite from Iraq’s violence
The holy Iraqi city of Najaf has a brand-new and appropriately holy shopping center: the Najaf City Mall. Under banners with Muslim prayers, children rampage through an adventure playground, while conservative women in long black robes browse for cute outfits to wear when they're home with family. Think of Iraq and maybe you picture a […]Alice Fordham reports for NPR:
The holy Iraqi city of Najaf has a brand-new and appropriately holy shopping center: the Najaf City Mall. Under banners with Muslim prayers, children rampage through an adventure playground, while conservative women in long black robes browse for cute outfits to wear when they're home with family.
Think of Iraq and maybe you picture a desert battlefield: the self-styled Islamic State slugging it out with the Iraqi army while American warplanes drop bombs from the sky. But life there's not like that for everyone, not all the time. In fact, because of famous holy shrines in Iraq, millions of international pilgrims actually visit every year. Mohammed Baderi is one of four main investors in the mall. A chatty man with calluses on his forehead from frequent praying, he sits on a neon plastic chair surrounded by families having dinner, and tells me why he came back from 24 years in the U.S. to open a mall.
