A Friday Tour

Having graduated from a private college, I had to buy the curriculum unlike students of state universities whose education was free. Every Friday, I used to enjoy going to one of the most famous and beautiful streets in Baghdad.

Al-Mutannabi Street in Baghdad is a well-known book market named after the most famous poet in the Arab history, Abu Al-Tayyib Al-Mutanabi (915-965 A.C.).

I used to go there with my friends and some classmates in college. I bought different kinds of books, mostly English poetry and novels. However, the half-mile long street was lined on both sides of the street with books ranging from 1980s computer manuals to linguistics textbooks, copies of the Quran, medical and engineering schools text books.

Back in 199s when Iraq was under the Embargo, this street was never empty. Even people who were starving for food used to go there; some never bought a book but came to water their thirsty souls with walking among books and knowledge hoping they could find something cheap to buy and read.

For three decades, book owners in this street were not allowed to sell any book that opposed the former regime. However, such books were still sold secretly there.

After the fall of the former regime, Al-Mutannabi Street is again filled with customers, from communists to clerics, who would once have faced jail or execution for reading some of the materials that opposes the government.

The street is open for customers seven days a week but the most crowded day is Friday in which dozens of educated people, intellectuals, scholars, students, university professors, etc. come by and spend hours in this wonderful place to carry on improvement and to get knowledge despite the bad situation the country is going through.

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