Karbala’s Khan al-Rubaa monument groaning under wars – negligence

KARBALA / IraqiNews.com: Khan a l-Ru baa and Khan al-Nekheila are two interchangeable names for the same monument in southern Karbala city, boasting a square-shaped architecture that was first built during the Ottoman era in the mid-18th century. Famous for serving as a resting place for pilgrims going on their trek toward the holy shrines and tombs in the Shiite cities of Karbala and Najaf, the building has been one of the nation’s important facilities that footed the bill of wars and negligence. ” Khan al-Ru baa, built in the Ottoman time in the year 1793, is one of the key historic and heritage sites in the city for it tells the story of a period that Iraq, and religious cities in particular , have gone through,” said Janan Abdulrida al-Mashkour, the Karbala antiquities & heritage director, told Iraqi News. She noted that the building, erected by the Turkish wali (ruler) of Baghdad, Soliman Pasha al-Kabeer, is one of a series of khans (inns) stretching to the Levant set up during that period to offer a resting house for travelers. “Prior to the year 1990, the khan , lying on the highway linking Karbala to Najaf and 20 km away from Karbala, has been suffering from a lack of maintenance works, and the conditions worsened with the Second Gulf War and the occupation of Kuwait in 1990 as well as the following al-Intifada al-Shaabaniya (Mid-Shaaban Uprising) broke out and the former regime used the site as military barracks and a depot for arms and munitions,” said Mashkour. She pointed out that the khan even came under sabotage when the Polish forces, based in Karbala , used it as their headquarters after the year 2003. However, the site obtained a new lease on life during the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. “Work commenced again on a project to restore, maintain and re-build the khan ‘s southern and eastern parts. The northern part, the mostly harmed one, will be restored later after the munitions under the debris are removed by specialized teams from the civil defense department and bomb squads,” she said. AmR (S) 1