Al-Rashid Street

Al-Rashid Street (Arabic: شارع الرشيد, romanized: Shari' al-Rashīd) is one of the main avenues in downtown Baghdad, Iraq. Named after Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid, it is one of the most significant landmarks of the city due to its political, spiritual, urban, and cultural history. Opened from al-Maidan Square, the boulevard is considered an important urban heritage site of Baghdad and bears witness to what Iraq has gone through in terms of political events, intellectual stature, and commercial success that Iraq saw over more than a century, as well as being a tourist attraction. The avenue includes many historic landmarks such as Haydar-Khana Mosque, the Murjan Mosque, al-Zahawi Café, and Souk al-Haraj.
Historically, the street has gone by many names. Al-Rashid Street became recognized as a symbol of the transformation of Baghdad due to the many changes the city has seen through the last century. The street has been compared to various notable streets around the world such as the Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Muhammad Ali Street in Cairo, and the Hamra Street in Beirut due to their artistic, historic, and influential significance. The street has also been suggested to be enlisted on UNESCO's World Heritage Site due to its history and significance and many efforts were done to get it enlisted and was observed as the main historic avenue and commerce area of Baghdad in the past and its area was compared to the Rive Gauche in Paris.
In recent years, the avenue has been recognized as the heart of Baghdad and nicknamed "Baghdad's living memory" due to its significance.
The street names were changed several times such as "Hindenburg Street" a name used by the British and then later "al-Nasr Street". It was until the name settled on its current name in 1936, which was launched by the Iraqi linguist and historian Mustafa Jawad after Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid. The name "Al-Rashid" (Arabic: الرشيد) was an honorific title given to the Abbasid Caliph which meant "followers of the right path."
Before the establishment of the street, the areas around the current street held several significant positions. These include localities in which Christians lived, especially near the St. Joseph Latin Cathedral which was built in 1866 located near the current street, silversmith shops that the Baghdadi Sabian-Mandaeans community operated, the shrine of Ibn Ruh al-Nawbakhti, the souks of al-Shorja, the ancient Sayyid Sultan Ali Mosque, several Abbasid Era commercial centers, the Khan Murjan for merchants, the ancient Murjan Mosque, several coffeehouses, and the Haydar-Khana Mosque. One of the localities, the Sababikh al-A'al locality, was also the home of several foreign missionaries such as the first French consul to Baghdad, followed by the American consul, and the directors of several British companies.
The street's origin dates back to the late Ottoman Empire period. Between 1915 and 1917, the demolition of around 700 houses took place to pave the way for the road. The demolishing was carried out by a group of German military engineers, Germany being the main ally of the Ottomans during World War I, and was named "Halil Pasha Street" after Ottoman army general Halil Pasha who was governor of Baghdad at the time. The avenue was opened in 1914 by the Ottoman administration as a modern avenue for transportation and to expand trade. Because the narrow road networks that were common in Iraq at the time didn't suit carriages or transportation, the street was wider with sidewalks that included arcades that acted as shading for pedestrians. The street would later be expanded along the older parts of Baghdad and was always kept parallel to the Tigris River.
The road was originally paved to coumarate the Siege of Kut. However, the street's gull construction was completed once the British Empire took over Iraq and was wide enough for vehicles to pass through. The street became shaded by hanging balconies which were held by arcades. During the British colonialist rule of Iraq, the Haydar-Khana Mosque, a mosque located on the street, started to become one of the brewing aspects of the Iraqi Revolt due to how frequent the notables and personalities of the city gathered in opposition to the British. British troops reportedly stormed the mosque in an attempt to arrest the revolutionaries. One instance, the Haydar-Khana Mosque saw several anti-British meetings by Iraqi Muslims and prominent Iraqi figures. On 23 May 1920, the mosque was one of the many mosques where mawlid was held. A speech was given by young Iraqis, including Mullah 'Uthman al-Mawsili, in favor of expelling the British. In response, British forces exiled al-Mawsili to Basra. Iraqis on the street responded by closing shops on the road and protesting, calling for a national government. This led the British forces to block the road and close it. They would then surge the mosque using an armored car, at least one person was reported to have been killed during this event which was a deaf-mute who got run over after getting his foot stuck. Even after the independence of the Kingdom of Iraq, the area stayed as a hot spot for revolutionary gatherings.
Al-Rashid Street became home to many political and cultural events and establishments. As well as Baghdad's most famous coffeehouses, restaurants, and markets. Coffeehouses such as ones themed after Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum and the al-Zahawi Café. This caused artists, students, and intellectuals to visit the avenue commonly. Due to this, al-Rashid Street became the main street for the coffeehouse culture of Baghdad, alongside Abu Nuwas Street. Throughout the decades, literary coffeehouses started to be established and were inhabited by all generations. Some coffeehouses started to be associated with the big three Neo-Classical Iraqi poets al-Zahawi, al-Rusafi, and al-Jawahiri, who met with several younger poets in the cultural coffeehouses. Al-Rashid Street was also connected to al-Mutanabbi Street which played a role in exposing readers to old and new Arabic knowledge alongside translated global knowledge. Many newly established printers were established on that street.
Examples of prominent coffeehouses on the avenue were the Arif Agha Café, which was inhabited by al-Rusafi, al-Zahawi Café, which was famous for its literary battles between al-Zahawi and al-Rusafi, and Hassan 'Ajami Café, which was inhabited by al-Jawahiri and was also his favorite. The Hassan 'Ajami Café was also located next to the Shamash School for Iraqi Jews, as well as the Hajj Zabala Shop for Raisins Juice and al-Sayyid's Cakes that was located in front of the former. Other coffeehouses that were on the street were the Parliament Café, which al-Jawahiri also visited frequently, and the Brazilian Café which was the home to the modern Iraqi literary movement, and was where Iraqi painter Jawad Saleem claimed he learned the use of color from. The Brazilian Café, alongside another nearby Coffeehouse named the Swiss Café, was unique compared to the coffeehouses due to their European items and theme. The coffeehouses also saw political activities such as gatherings in protest against the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1948, which were held in the Hassan 'Ajami Café.
Around the 1930s, many cinemas and theaters such as al-Rashid Cinema, al-Zawra'a Cinema, and Roxy Cinema started to be established on al-Rashid Street. The cinemas were divided between summer and winter theaters and showed Flash Gordon, Fox Film, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films. Cinemas played a major role in Iraqi society, and Baghdadi cinemas used to distribute weekly advertisements for movies in Arabic and English. At the time, going to cinemas was a weekly event for the working and the middle class. Thursday became the traditional day of the week when Baghdadi families went to theatres and acted as a break day for students. Around the mid-1950s, many cinemas in Bab al-Sharqi area started demolishing.
During the 1950s, the street saw a flourishing in commercial and financial centers which also spread to the nearby street called "Al-Samu'al Street" which became known for its financial pulse and role in the Baghdadi stock exchange at the time. This street area contained the main al-Rafidain Bank headquarters and other private commercial banks. Before 1948, many of the workers in these financial institutions were Iraqi Jews, Indians, and British people. Iraqi businessmen met with sellers in coffeehouses on al-Samu'al Street to complete sales and discuss purchasing bargains.
One of the most influential figures to visit Iraq during the Royal era was the Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum. She hosted several concerts around al-Rashid Street's theaters. Most notably the al-Hilal Theater which Umm Kulthum visited in 1932 with a welcoming poem recited by al-Rusafi. Al-Istiqlal newspaper published an article about the visit entitled “The Magic of Babylon and Pharaohs at the al-Hilal Nightclub" in which it documented that starting from 18 October 1932, Umm Kulthum hosted eight concerts in the theater. Umm Kulthum's popular song "Baghdad, O' Castle of Lions" would be broadcast daily for decades until 2003 in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq. Due to Umm Kulthum's popularity, coffeehouses themed after her were established and visited by her Iraqi fans.
Another well-known figure to visit Baghdad was Indian Bengali poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore in 1932 who also visited al-Zahawi Café and met with the Iraqi poet that the coffeehouse takes its name. Another celebrity who also visited the street was the Syrian-Egyptian singer Fayza Ahmed who, just like Umm Kulthum, held concerts in several theaters.
During the 14 July Revolution, the 1958 military coup that overthrew the Iraqi Monarchy, the Crown Prince Abd al-Ilah's corpse was dragged along the street and then cut to pieces. That day, the street was full of demonstrations and marches. During the afternoon of that same day, many bodies were dragged into the street including the body of a Jordanian delegation from the Hashemite Federal Parliament who happened to be on a visit to Iraq was dragged through the area with a stick being shoved into his bottom while the crowded shouted for the capture of Muhammad Fadhel al-Jamali, the former-Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs. Iraq and Jordan were united into the Arab Federation at the time. It was also around this time Iraqi photographer Latif al-Ani started to take pictures of the daily life at the street.
The following year after the overthrow, on 7 October 1959 Iraqi Republican leader Abd al-Karim Qasim, who led the revolt that overthrew the Monarchy, narrowly avoided death in a botched assassination attempt during a residential motorcade on the avenue. The assassination attempt was planned out by the regional leadership of the early Ba'ath Party. A young Saddam Hussein participated in the assassination attempt. The plan was to have five of the perpetrators stand behind the pillars of the buildings on the street in front of the Brazilian Café and open fire on Qasim. Saddam would then emerge from the Umm Kulthum Café, which he sat in, and then shoot Qasim. The leader then jumped out of the car in time. Soldiers on the car reacted. While Qasim survived, his assistant, Qasim al-Janabi, was killed in the attack by one of the assassins. Saddam had also injured one of his legs in the attack. Seventy-eight members of the Ba'ath Party were arrested and put on trial. The Ba'ath would later gain enough support to overthrow Qasim.
By the beginning of the 1960s, al-Rashid Street started to lose a lot of European products of higher quality that were imported from outside countries and made the street's markets famous. Despite its loss, al-Rashid Street remained the living center of Baghdad throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Many of its libraries, restaurants, coffeehouses, and theaters still being active with a statue of al-Rusafi in the middle of the street.
Throughout the era of president Saddam Hussein, al-Rashid Street remained the main center of Baghdad despite some of the older buildings being worn out. The street became more busy with organized thoroughfare. The most notable and active parts of the avenue were the shops, coffeehouses, art museums, banks, schools, and the historic mosques located within the avenue. With the street still connecting to old Baghdadi suburbs that contain narrow alleyways.
Along the street are sidewalks which include arcades built to shade the pedestrians from the sun with three-story buildings along the avenue. Around 70% of the avenue is covered with these shaded arcades which gave al-Rashid Street a lot of its architectural character. These arcades are located on both sides of the avenue with each column is about five meters long and have diameters ranging from 38cm to 55cm and the width of the road not exceeding 12 meters between each side. However, the road isn't a straight line which was made to not demolish some heritage buildings such as the mosques despite the demolishing of the Murjan Mosque's side walls to make way for the avenue. It is estimated that there are more than a thousand columns on the avenue although most of the buildings and arcades have fallen into neglect and despair after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The arcades hold several buildings, many of which are multi-leveled and include post-modernist colonial European, traditional Iraqi, and Renaissance architectural influence which was considered modern for its time. The old visual appearance of the avenue was supposed to convey a sense of harmony and formal unity to the average pedestrian.
Swiss architectural historian Stefano Bianca described parts of al-Rashid Street's architecture as being reminiscent of European colonial architecture due to the fact that the Ottoman Empire's architecture showed features of westernization in its last decades when it was establishing western-type municipalities since at least the 1870s in Syria and Iraq. He also noted the arcades of the street having Mediterranean influence although still keep some native traditional aspects persistent such as the height of the buildings.
Some of the houses on al-Rashid Street also include shanasheel, an old Islamic balcony that was a common architectural feature to preserve privacy. Often made from carved and paneled wood, these shansheel can still be found around the street in the houses in narrow alleyways and have become part of Iraqi folklore.
Al-Rashid Street is usually divided into five distinctive sections as a result the many places it runs across: Al-Sinak, al-Murabba'a, al-Shorja souks, Haydar-Khana, and al-Maidan areas. As such, the avenue includes many notable landmarks and sights of interest throughout its existence, some dating back to before the construction of the street. These include:
Coffeehouses in Baghdad were considered social and intellectual houses for many social classes. As such, the city has an abundance of cafés and many are located on al-Rashid Street. These consist of al-Zahawi Café, al-Baladiyya Café, Shatt al-'Arab Café, Hassan 'Ajami Café, the Parliament Café, the Brazilian Café, Umm Kulthum Café, the Swiss Café, and many more. These include:
The avenue contained one of the headquarters for the Chakmakchi Company, an Iraqi music company originally founded in 1918. The well-established institution played a role in preserving the old musical and artistic history of Iraq and the Middle East. Among the Iraqi singers that the company recorded were Muhammad al-Qubanchi, Nazem al-Ghazali, Hudiri Abu Aziz, Salima Pasha, and Afifa Iskandar while among the other singers include Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Muhammad Abdel Wahab, Farid al-Atrash, and Fayza Ahmed. After the introduction of cassettes and CDs in the 1990s, the company declined in its activities.
The avenue was also home to many cinemas and theatres. Baghdad, along with Cairo and Beirut, was one of the only Middle Eastern cities that imported American movies that were shown in theatres and cinemas. The movies that were imported and shown included movies from Warner Brothers, 20s Century Fox Studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal and Columbia Pictures as well as other Arab movies. The street included cinemas such as the Roxy Winter Cinema, the Roxy Summer Cinema, al-Zawra'a Cinema, the Rex Cinema, the Broadway Cinema (which later changed its name to Aladdin Cinema), al-Watan Cinema (later converted into a theater for the plays of Jassem Sharaf), al-Rashid Cinema, al-Rafidain Summer Cinema, the Royal Cinema, the Central Cinema, al-Hamra Cinema, the Cairo Summer Cinema and al-Sharq Cinema which was later demolished.
In the 1940s, after the death of Iraqi poet al-Rusafi, a statue for the poet was built in his honor at the crossroads of al-Rashid Street and al-Ma'mun Street and faces the direction in front of the al-Karkh district.
After World War I, a Scottish immigrant in Iraq named Kenneth Mackenzie established the Mackenzie Library in the center of al-Rashid Street, a private library. After its owner suffered a heart attack in 1928 his brother, Donald Mackenzie, gave the management of the library to his brother's assistant, Jawad Karim, who would change management over time after each owner passed away. The library exported English literature, newspapers, magazines such as the Burda Style, and books such as Das Kapital.
The Khan Murjan is located on the street, opposite the Murjan Mosque and next to the Central Bank. Recognized as one of the finest caravanserais in the Middle East, the caravanserai became a notable historical landmark and a restaurant in the 1970s. In 2015, the Abd al-Karim Qasim Museum was opened after the former house of Halil Kut was restored to preserve the history of the era. The museum includes a lot of his belongings and gifts he received.
Baghdad Jewish Community Center is located on al-Rashid Street. It is the main community center and headquarters of the Administrative Committee for Iraqi Jews. It also serves as a cultural center for the small remnant Jewish community of Iraq, which is now around 160.
The first attempt to restore the street and return to its historical position was in 2001 under the leadership of Saddam Hussein who had ordered the restoration of the Sayyid Sultan Ali Mosque located on the outskirts of the street the year before. The municipality of Baghdad announced a campaign to develop and organize al-Rashid Street. Mayor of Baghdad, Adnan Abd al-Hameed al-Douri, made it clear that the campaign was aimed to make the street a social, commercial, and political movement as it was in the past, and it also falls within the framework of a broad plan to develop and organize Baghdad. This campaign was launched due to the hardships Baghdad had gone through due to the international sanctions against Iraq and the decline of the street due to the sanctions. Many establishments, such as the Brazilian Café, survived the decline. Hussein has also ordered the reconstruction of several mosques in the area such as the Haydar-Khana Mosque, Murjan Mosque, Mosque-Madrasa of al-Asifyah, al-Wazeer Mosque, and the Uzbek Mosque, as well as Churches and synagogues.
Al-Rashid Street began to see a decline as a general social and intellectual location during the UN embargo on the country, especially the later 2003 invasion of Iraq. Many of its shop owners have since fled the country although many Iraqis have accused the new government of neglecting and ignoring the street's heritage. Reportedly, the street saw many buildings damaged by bullets due to the infighting between its people and clashes that had happened. Additionally, due to the invasion and sectarian violence that followed, the street became a victim of several bombing incidents that were planted near it. Al-Qaeda had started to monitor the avenue around the early days of the Iraq War.
On 17 September 2004, a car bomb exploded near a police station on the street and al-Mutanabbi Street, leaving at least 52 dead. Officials arrested 63 suspects who were foreign militants that came from other Arab countries. In June 2010, al-Rashid Street's Central Bank building was raided by unidentified terrorists disguised in military uniforms using several bombs to get through and rob the bank's Iraqi dinars and gold supplies to fund their insurgent group. The attack left 14 people dead and caused the avenue's shopkeepers to barricade their shops and flee. The last bombing on the avenue took place in 2016 which killed more than two dozen people.
Many of the famous shops on the streets that used to sell clothes were turned into shops selling tools, industrial supplies, and tools needed by construction workers, in parallel with the spread of shops selling electricity generators due to the electricity situation in Iraq after 2003. Coffeehouses such as the Parliament Café and the Brazilian Café also became shops selling electrical appliances and hardware. The cinema halls for al-Zawra'a and the Royal Cinema have been turned into large wards.
Over the years, there have been a lot of attempts to restore and preserve the street and to turn it back into an important street and a tourist site although several issues hindered it. According to the Municipality of Baghdad, 80% of the street buildings are owned by citizens and not by the state, so an agreement must be reached with them. As of 2018, 30% of the street's buildings have been restored. However, the Municipality was criticized for the restoration attempts due to having no architects, conservationists, or architecture historians working on the avenue. The street has also witnessed protests that demand the preservation of Iraqi heritage, reportedly sixteen protesters have died since. Fears of the destruction of the avenue's heritage were especially high after the demolishing of the Syriac Catholic Church in the Shorja areas in favor of a commercial store in 2019. According to writer Mehdi Falih, one of the reasons why the avenue is neglected is due to being named after Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid which contradicts the Sectarianist Shi'i Muslim-dominated government due to allegations of Abbasid Caliphs assassinating the Twelver Imams.
Throughout the 21st century, many residents and activists have raised many campaigns to call attention to preserving the street. The Baghdad Municipality has announced a preservation plan several times since 2007. After the collapse of the Hilal Theater without an effort to rebuild it, concerns over the residents of the avenue were raised as other neglected arcades could fall on people and their shops. As of 2024, the avenue remains neglected and littered, many of its landmarks have already disappeared.
33°20′34″N 44°23′19″E﻿ / ﻿33.342702°N 44.388671°E﻿ / 33.342702; 44.388671