Kufa
— — the courtyard where the first call still echoes.
Not only on a wall.
“A river town on the Euphrates, ten kilometres north of Najaf, founded as a garrison in the seventh century and never quite ordinary again. The Great Mosque holds the centre, its courtyard older than most of the cities that came after. Date palms along the banks, a slow current, the call to prayer threading through the heat.
Kufa, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Kufa sits on the western bank of the Euphrates in Najaf Governorate, about ten kilometres northeast of the city of Najaf and roughly 170 kilometres south of Baghdad. It was founded in 638 CE as a garrison town for Arab forces under the second caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. Within a generation it had become the capital of the Rashidun Caliphate under Ali ibn Abi Talib, who moved the seat of government here from Medina around 656 CE. The modern city is part of a continuous urban area with Najaf and has a population of about 110,000.
The Great Mosque of Kufa is one of the earliest mosques in Islam, founded in the same year as the city, 638 CE, and rebuilt many times since. Its courtyard plan — a rectangular open court ringed by arcades on four sides, with the prayer hall to the qibla side — set a pattern that travelled west through Damascus and Cordoba and east to Samarkand. The current walls and arcades are largely the result of restoration work through the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The Kufic script, an early angular Arabic style used for the first Qur'anic manuscripts, takes its name from this city.
Kufa is reached by road from Najaf in about fifteen minutes, and from Baghdad in roughly three hours along the southern highway. Most visitors are pilgrims continuing on from the Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf; the Great Mosque is open daily and is the focal point of any visit, along with the nearby shrine of Muslim ibn Aqil. Modest dress is expected; women cover the hair inside the mosque precincts. Foreign visitors typically travel as part of an organised pilgrimage group rather than independently. The hot months from June through September are best avoided.