WASIT
Wasit Governorate is located 180 km southeast of the capital, Baghdad. The ruins of the city of Wasit, which was built by the Arabs in the Umayyad period, are located 65 km from the city of Kut, the center of Wasit Governorate. It became famous for its vital location and its founder is Al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf Al-Thaqafi, worker of the Caliph Abdul-Malik bin Marwan around the year 83 AH. The construction of the city took three years from 83-86 AH and its establishment cost the whole Iraqi levies for five consecutive years, i.e. about 43 million dirhams, and its ruler thought that it was good idea to take it as a seat of wisdom and to make it a palace in order to secure control, supervision and ease of military movement to Basra and Kufa, as the city was built between these two cities and that is why it was called Wasit.
Among the most prominent monuments in the city:
Al-Manara (Wasit City Gate):
Which rises about 11 meters and is in the eastern part of the city and represents the remains of the gate of Al-Sharabiya School in Wasit. Al-Sharabiya School is one of the oldest academic schools in Iraq. It is located in the ancient city of Wasit, in Al-Hay neighborhood, where the palace and the mosque are. It is the last remnant of the ruins of the city of Wasit, and is one of three schools that were built during the time of Caliph al-Mustansir, as the first was built in Baghdad, the second in Wasit, and the third in Mecca by Sharaf al-Din Iqbal al-Sharabi in the year 632 AH, that is, after a long period of building the city of Wasit by Al-Hajaj who died in the city in the year 95 AH.
Athar Al-Najmi, Al-Najmi Palace, or Al-Najmi Mosque:
It is located in Wasit Governorate, 23 km northwest of the city of Numaniyah. The names of the sites are due to the stories circulated by the people of the region and the surrounding areas that Al-Najmi is a mosque built at the end of the Abbasid era in Iraq and the date of its construction is unknown except that it was built during the Abbasid era. In the middle of the palace are two tombs, where it was written on one of them in Arabic that it is the tomb of the scholar Al-Jabali and the tomb next to him belongs to his wife.
Al-Mutanabbi Shrine:
He is Abu al-Tayyib Ahmad Husayn al-Ja’fi, better known as al-Mutanabbi, born in 915 AD and died in 965 AD, al-Mutanabbi is a wise poet, and is one of the greatest Arab poets. He was born and raised in Kufa and traveled to many Arab and Islamic countries and cities, and ended up being killed, along with his son Mehsad, at the hands of Fatek Al-Asadi, a bandit, and was buried in Numaniyah.
Al-Mutanabbi’s tomb is located 3 km north of the Numaniyah Junction in Wasit Governorate in Iraq. It was first built of mud in the thirties of the last century by Hamoudi Al-Shakour (one of the notables of the region). Then, at the end of the forties, certain international committees came to analyze the remains of the body to ensure that it belonged to the poet Abu Al-Tayyib Al-Mutanabbi, and when the remains were confirmed, the current building was built in the year 2000 AD.
Zurbatiya:
Zurbatiya is an Iraqi district in Wasit Governorate, and is a border crossing with Iran. The word Zurbatiya means (pot of gold), which is the name that this city deserves, as it is an entirely touristic city because of its picturesque nature where you enjoy the view of natural water springs between the hills and rocky mountains of the Zagros mountain range.
