Kufa

Kufa (Arabic: الْكُوفَة "al-Kūfah"), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000.

Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Najaf, Kufa is one of five Iraqi cities that are of great importance to Shi'ite Muslims. The city was founded in 638 CE (17 Hijrah) during the reign of the second Rashidun Caliph, Umar ibn Al-Khattab, and it was the final capital of the last Rashidun Caliph, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Kufa was also the founding capital of the Abbasid Caliphate. During the Islamic Golden Age it was home to the grammarians of Kufa. Kufic script is named for the city.

The Palestinian keffiyeh, also known as kufiya and worn by Arab men, originated from Kufa, and is worn today to convey diverse political sentiments. Due to heightened global consumer demand, most keffiyehs are now manufactured in China.

After the Arabian hegemony and the fall of Persian Empire, and its geographic proximity to the imperial capital, Ctesiphon) at Battle of Al-Qadisiyyah in 636, Kufa was founded and given its name in 637–638 CE, about the same time as Basra. Kufa and Basra were the two amsar (garrison cities) of Iraq, serving as military bases and administrative centers. The Companion of the Prophet Saʻd ibn Abī Waqqas founded it as an encampment adjacent to the Lakhmid Arab city of Al-Hirah, and incorporated it as a city of seven divisions. Non-Arabs knew the city under alternate names: Hīrah and Aqulah, before the consolidations of ʻAbdu l-Mālik in 691. Umar, who assigned the land of the Jews in Arabia to his warriors, ordered the relocation of the Jews of Khaybar to a strip of land in Kufa, in 640. In the 640s, the Kufan commons were agitated that Umar's governor was distributing the spoils of war unfairly. In 642 ʻUmar summoned Saʻd to Medina with his accusers. Despite finding Sa'd to be innocent, Umar deposed him to avert ill feelings. At first, Umar appointed Ammar ibn Yasir and secondly Basra's first Governor Abū Mūsā al-Ashʻarī; but the Kufan instigators accepted neither. ʻUmar and the Kufans finally agreed on Al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʻbah.

The city was built in a circular plan according to the Partho-Sasanian architecture.

Following Umar's death (644), his successor Uthman replaced Mughirah with Al-Walid ibn Uqba in 645. This happened while the Arabs were continuing their conquest of western Persia under Uthman ibn Abi al-As from Tawwaj, but late in the 640s, these forces suffered setbacks.

Uthman in 650 reorganised the Iranian frontier; both Basra and Kufa received new governors (Sa'id ibn al-'As in Kufa's case), and the east came under Basra's command while north of that remained under Kufa's. The few but noticeable trouble makers in Kufa sought in 654 and had Sa'id deposed and instead showed satisfaction with the return of Abu Musa, which Uthman approved seeking to please all. Kufa remained a source of instigations albeit from a minority. In 656 when the Egyptian instigators, in co-operation with those in Kufa, marched onto the Caliph Uthman in Medina, Abu Musa counselled the instigators to no avail.

Upon Uthman's assassination by rebels, governor Abu Musa attempted to restore a non-violent atmosphere in Kufa. The Muslims in Medina and elsewhere supported the right of Ali ibn Abu Talib to the caliphate. In order to manage the military frontiers more efficiently, Ali shifted the capital from Medina to Kufa.