Abu Hanifa Mosque

Listen first. Traffic hums along the streets of Adhamiyah, and somewhere a motorbike coughs past. Then, from the minaret, the call to prayer rises over the rooftops. It is a long, rising voice, and the whole neighbourhood seems to slow for it. Pigeons lift off the courtyard stones. The air carries dust, river damp from the Tigris nearby, and sometimes the smell of bread from a bakery down the lane.

You are standing at the Abu Hanifa Mosque, one of the oldest and most loved religious sites in Baghdad. It sits on the eastern bank of the Tigris, in the district of Adhamiyah. For many Sunni Muslims around the world, this is a place of real importance. The reason lies beneath the dome. This is the resting place of a scholar whose ideas still shape daily life for hundreds of millions of people.

His name was Abu Hanifa al-Nu'man ibn Thabit. He lived in the eighth century, in the early years of Islam's great expansion. He came from a merchant background and traded in silk, and he became a teacher of law. He founded what is now called the Hanafi school. That is one of the main schools of Sunni Islamic law, a structured way of reasoning about prayer, family, trade and justice.

Here is something many visitors miss. The Hanafi school became the official legal school of the Ottoman Empire. It spread with Ottoman power, and later with trade and migration. Today it is followed widely in Turkey, Central Asia, the Balkans, and much of South Asia. So a Muslim family praying in Istanbul, Tashkent or Lahore may follow rules of law first argued over by the man buried here.

Abu Hanifa's life ended in hardship. According to the traditional accounts, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur offered him the post of chief judge. Abu Hanifa refused. Many tellings say he did not want to give the state control over his judgement. He was imprisoned, and he died in Baghdad in the year 767. Baghdad itself was then very new — al-Mansur had founded his round city only a few years before.

The district around you carries his memory in its name. Abu Hanifa is often called al-Imam al-A'zam, which means the Greatest Imam. Adhamiyah grew from that title. In other words, this whole neighbourhood is named after the man in the tomb. For centuries the mosque was its heart, and the streets, markets and homes grew outward from it.

The buildings you see today are not the original eighth-century structures. They are the result of many rounds of building, damage and repair. In the eleventh century, under the Seljuks — a Turkic dynasty who held real power in Baghdad at the time — a dome was raised over the tomb, and a school for teaching law was built beside it. Learning and burial were joined here from early on.

That link to learning continues. Over the centuries, students came to study law and religion near the imam's grave. In modern times, the mosque has been connected with a college of Islamic studies carrying the imam's name. So this is not only a shrine for remembering the dead. It is also a working place of study, prayer and community life, every single day.

The site has also suffered. In the early sixteenth century, during the Safavid capture of Baghdad, the tomb was damaged. The Safavids were a Persian dynasty with a strongly Shia identity, and rivalry between them and the Sunni Ottomans ran deep. When the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent took Baghdad in the 1530s, he ordered the shrine restored. The Ottomans treated the care of this tomb as a statement of faith and power.

Now look up toward the clock tower. It is one of the most recognised parts of the complex, and it was added in the twentieth century. A clock on a mosque surprises some visitors. But clocks helped communities keep exact prayer times. In 2003, during the fighting in Baghdad, the tower was badly hit. It was later repaired, and many residents saw its return as a sign that the neighbourhood had come through.

Notice the materials as you walk. Pale brick and stone shape the walls and arches. The dome rises above the tomb, and the minaret stands tall against the sky. Look closely at the tilework and the bands of Arabic calligraphy. These inscriptions are often verses from the Quran or religious phrases. Light changes their colour through the day, from soft gold in the morning to deeper tones near sunset.

There is one more surprise, and it lies across the water. On the opposite bank of the Tigris is Kadhimiya, home to a major Shia shrine with golden domes. A bridge connects the two districts. One bank has a great Sunni mosque, the other a great Shia shrine, facing each other across the same river. For many Baghdadis, this pairing says something about the long, shared, and sometimes difficult life of their city.

If you visit, move gently. This is an active place of worship, not a museum. Dress modestly, remove your shoes where others do, and keep your voice low. Friday midday prayers bring the largest crowds. Watch how people use the courtyard. Older men sit and talk. Children chase each other along the edges. Students pass with books under their arms.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment in the courtyard. Feel the stones under your feet, worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. Look once more at the dome over the tomb of a man who said no to a caliph. As you walk back into the streets of Adhamiyah, listen again — the traffic, the voices, perhaps the next call to prayer. The neighbourhood still lives around him... just as it has for more than a thousand years.