Kufa

32.02972222222244.394722222222Koordinaten: 32 ° 2 ' N, 44 ° 24' O

Kufa (Arabic الكوفة, al - Kufa ) is a city in Iraq. It lies on the banks of the Euphrates River, some 10 kilometers northeast of Najaf in the province of Najaf. The population is around 128,000 (as of 1 January 2005). The city was very important in the early Islamic period. The so-called Kufic script is also named after her as the headgear Kufiyya ( keffiyeh ).

History

The region was in pre-Islamic times to the sphere of the Persian Sassanids, who could fight back an attacking Muslim army in 634 near the present-day Kufa.

Kufa was founded in 638 as Misr ( Arabic bearing the city ), as there 30,000 veterans were settled (the Badschīla formed the largest tribal group ). Kufa was the first of many actual " capital" of the Islamic empire, considers that, since there also were numerous administrative bodies. Until the time of Uthman there also followers of Musailima from the tribe of Hanifa had Banū but their own mosque.

The Caliph Umar ibn al - Khattab sat 641 the companions of the Prophet ʿ Ammar ibn Yasir as governor of Kufa one. 657 Caliph ʿ Alī made ​​the fourth ibn Abi Talib Kufa as his capital. After his assassination, and the Mu ʿ Selbstproklamierung āwiyas caliph Kufa became the center of Alid opposition to the Umayyads. During the Second Civil War, the town became self-employed for almost two years ( 685-687 ) under al - Mukhtar ibn Abī ʿ Ubaid.

Around the middle of the 8th century expanded from Kufa of the Hanafi school of law. A century later worked here the philosopher al -Kindi.