ourlife74

Cigarette Box and Lighter, A Small Aluminum Plate, Engraved Silver Objects

Cigarette Box and Lighter
What secrets do this cigarette box and lighter hold? When I was 6 years old I saw them in my grandfather’s hands. He used to burn up his days smoking one cigarette after the next. When he died, my grandmother handed them to me with tears in her eyes. When I left Iraq, I only took these two things and my degree from university. They have traveled with me to every place that I have gone, whether this has been by choice or compulsion. They still always remind me of Iraq and my grandfather and our days together. Hand-rolled cigarettes burn quickly.

DR HASSAN AL SUDANI, arrived in Sweden 2002

A Small Aluminum Plate
This small object is part of an aluminum set, which a friend of my father’s gave to me as a present, as I prepared to leave Iraq. I could see the sadness in my father’s eyes, because he was to be separated from me and also from his dear friend. This friend was one of dozens my father’s who, along with thousands of other Iraqis, were forcibly deported from the country because their origins were Iranian and they had no Iraqi citizenship papers (this is how the government ‘justified’ it). I didn’t want to take the whole set with me, so I just took this small piece. Maybe, it’s a kind of witness to the moment of farewell or indeed to one among many of the tragedies of Iraq. I went to visit some relatives in Al Hurriya, one of Baghdad’s working class areas. The streets were narrow and the houses crammed together. I noticed how quiet the street was. My relative explained to me – “Yes, well they deported five families from this street and they sealed the doors of their houses”. She talked about one of the families who had asked the authorities to give them just a week, so their daughter could come back from university in Mosul, but they refused and insisted that they had to leave within an hour. A week later, the daughter arrived to find the front door of her family’s home sealed up. She sat down in the street and cried. All the neighbours surrounded her and tried to comfort and help her. She was deported with another wave of people left at the Iraqi-Iranian border, to cope with the extremes of heat and cold.

To date, hundreds of these people still live in refugee camps inside Iran, deprived of the most basic necessities of life. Some of them have managed to find asylum in Europe and a few have stayed in Iran and found work. This small aluminum plate has accompanied me on my travels since 1980 when I left Iraq for Algeria and then London. Perhaps it will come with me to another harbour or just end up in some sack or another.

IBTESAM YOUSUF, arrived in London in the late ‘80s

Engraved Silver Objects
Bracelet engraved with black mina

FAIZA AL CHALABI, left Iraq late 70’s

Silver Palm Tree Decoration
Necklace of silver engraved with black mina

NAWAL AL KHAFFAF, left Iraq late 80’s

Silversmithing is a very ancient craft in Iraq. And the engraving with black mina, in particular, is only practiced by the Mandaeans (early Iraqi Christians and followers of John the Baptist). Black mina silversmithing was invented by Zahroun Mullah Khadhir and his brother Rashid during the First World War. They came from Amarah in the south of Iraq.

Mina is made by mixing silver with lead and double the amount of yellow sulphur, yellow as bananas. It used to be sold in the Shorja market (a market in Baghdad). The mixture is put in a pot and allowed to melt over a very high heat. You stir it like soup. Then you add tincar (to clear the impurities). You carry on stirring and puifying until the mixture is transparent. Then you pour it into a large container to cool. Then you wash and purify the mixture again and add boureg to further purify it. You do this 3 times until the amalgam is so brittle you can break it. And this is the black mina that you use in engraving silver. It’s very important to make sure that the mixture is completely clean, otherwise it will not take when you apply it to the silver. Four different people are involved in engraving with mina; the master, the assistant, the engraver, the cleaner. The cleaner is very important because he is responsible for sanding the silver with 3 different grades of sandpaper, 2,1and 0. He then polishes the silver until it shines like a mirror. He knows exactly when to stop so that the silver doesn’t get eaten into.

This kind of silversmithing used to be called Amarah work because tourists went there to buy the silverwork. After the Second World War many of us moved to Baghdad because the demand for the work had increased. I am a master craftsman because I know how to do all the jobs: engraving, silversmithing and cleaning. I was born in 1927 and I embarked on my vocation when I was 6 – with my uncle, Abu Aziz Spahi, after my father died. I went with him to live in Swera (near Amarah) and I worked for one rupee a month. When the Jews left Iraq (early 50’s), many of us who worked in silver began working in gold and I was one of them because the work was easier and the profit greater. (In Iraq it was the Jews who were the goldsmiths).

I had a jewelry workshop and shop on Nahr Street near all the bridal shops. Mina engraving on silver became rare, and indeed, almost extinct because most of our children either decided to pursue their studies, or became goldsmiths. The subjects we engrave are palm trees, the river, boats, mosques, camels, Sumerian and Babylonian antiquities because these are the things we see around us and which represent Iraq.

ABU MUNDHIR, the master jeweler told us this story. He left Iraq in 1991 and now lives in Manchester