Sightseeing tour of Basrah

Hrant Aghajan

27 كانون الثاني, 2025

         Once, in the mid-1960s, a lonely tourist arrived Basrah, the city of special, historic interest, the land of Biblical stories about Abraham, the faithful and the first patriarch who was the father of three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. As the tourist set his feet in this city, the sun was blazing hot and saw large areas of fertile Lands were covered with huge straight date palm trees heavy with ripe yellow dates in clusters! 
    In the city center, he found himself watching a large number of people how they were dealing with the sellers. Basrah has many old eastern markets, also full of street markets, tin=covered markets, market stalls, traders and markets brimful of fruits and vegetables!
  When thetoudist arrived Basrah, it was Thursday, he found the streets and the shops were overflowed with shoppers and frequent visitors from the near Arab countries! To his utter astonishment, he found in Basrah a curious mixture of old narrow lanes, squares, small food shops, cheap cafes, bars and repair shops!! He was really confused because he did not know what he could do in order to escape the clutches of bitterly hot and humid weather in the summer nights!
   What attracted his interest most was the deafening loud noises during the strange religious professions and feast events that were recognized. The city center was the tourist's main attraction!  He could get pleasure from strolling through Basrah's back lanes that were populated by strangers during the day time and deserted, lifeless at night!
   Actually, what held an immediate and unforgettable attraction for him was the very heart of this ancient Arabian Sindbad the Sailor's city!  Exactly at the heart of this city, there laid a narrow long asphalt road covered with tin sheets! On both sides of the road, there were crowded shops of locally designed, colorful clothes, shoes for men and women, butcher shops, backet shops and little shops of various Indian aromatic oils, herbs and spices!
   When he was tired of walking, the tourist used to sit at an old shappy teacafe that had faded in the bright sunshine and enjoyed the scenery of herbs's delicate fragrance and the scent of wild dried flowers. He couldn't resist the rich aroma of fresh tea...
   This shadowy narrow alley extended as far as the mouth of a long shallow water course. By that time, he liked to take an interest in looking at the other side where groups of people and popular musicians played drums, trumpets and other local musical instruments! 
   With every passing day of wandering, the tourist grew more affected by those very spectacular sights of ships lying at the anchor in the Harbour of this interesting southern Iraqi seaport!