KUFA, Iraq — The Great Mosque of Kufa (aka al-Sahla) is located in the city of Kufa (97 miles south of Baghdad) and is considered one of the earliest mosques in the Islamic world. Built in 638, it was the birthplace of the Shiite religious and political ideology.

Throughout Iraq’s tumultuous modern history, the mosque’s role changed according to the nature of the Iraqi regime. During the era of former President Saddam Hussein who fought political Islam, the Kufa mosque’s political significance was curbed, only to prosper after the fall of this regime in 2003 in the aftermath of the US invasion. The Kufa mosque was always an intellectual hub and a political starting point, but it became a center to oppose the US invasion of Iraq, then a platform for protests and sermons demanding the eradication of corruption.

The history of the Kufa mosque still resonates with the ideas that saw the light within its walls. In addition to being a place of worship, the mosque remained for decades a platform for political opposition and mobilizing the people.

In 1999, the Saddam regime closed down the mosque in an attempt to suspend the Friday prayers and gatherings attended by large numbers of Shiite Muslims, under the leadership of cleric Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, who was assassinated by the regime on his way back from praying at the Kufa mosque before it was closed in February 1999.