Al Kufah
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Kufa الكوفة |
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The Grand Mosque of Kufa in 2014
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 Kufa
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| Coordinates: 32°02′N 44°24′E / 32.033°N 44.400°E | |
| Country |
 Iraq
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| Governorate | Najaf |
| Time zone | GMT+3 |
Kufa (Arabic: الكوفة al-Kūfah) is a city in Iraq, about 170 kilometres (110 mi) south of Baghdad, and 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Presently, Kufa and Najaf are joined into a single urban area that is mostly commonly known to the outside world as 'Najaf'.
Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya and Najaf, Kufa is one of five Iraqi cities that are of great importance to Shi'ite Muslims. The city was the final capital of the fourth Rashidun Caliph, that is Ali ibn Abu Talib, and was founded during 639 CE (17 Hijrah) by the second Rashidun Caliph, that is Umar ibn Al-Khattab. It is also related that, Muslims after conquest of Al-Madain were searching to have a suitable place for habitation. Likewise others, Salman and Hudhayfa bin al-Yamman were also looking for. Just choosing the land they offered prayers there. Since that day the foundation of Kufa had taken place.
Even in the days of the Rashidun Caliphate, Kufa was prominent in literacy and politics, being founded before Uthman (whom Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri among others credited with the canonisation of the Quran's text). From the perspective of 8th-century CE (2nd-century AH) Medina and Damascus, Kufa was associated with "variant" readings and interpretations of the Qur'an, typically in the name of Ibn Mas'ud and often (it was claimed) read from the pulpit as if they were part of the Qur'an itself. It became said that Uthman had sent an exemplar of the text to Kufa, but that it was burnt during the wars of Mukhtar and Ibn Zubayr. Al-Hajjaj restored or at any rate promulgated the standard text under Abd al-Malik, castigating even the memory of Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud as "Ibn Umm Abd (son of a slave's mother)". But a faction in Kufa preserved the readings "of ‘Abd Allah/Ibn Mas‘ud", whence Mujahid and his fellow mujtahids compiled them along with other readings and interpretations. From there these readings entered the vast repository of Near Eastern hadith, ultimately to be written down into collections of hadith and tafsir.
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