Under Threat: Baghdad’s ‘One Thousand and One Nights’ Houses

The Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities also cried financial foul. “Efforts are constrained by lack of finances,” says Ali Abdul-Hussein, the spokesperson for the Ministry, who added that his Ministry monitored the buildings in question on an ongoing and regular basis.

However Abdul-Hussein suggested the owners of the historic homes were partially to blame for the current situation. “The owners of these buildings have taken advantage of their locations and they’ve asked for extremely high prices, if the government wants to buy them,” he explained. “That’s why we haven’t been able to buy the buildings from them.”

Of course, not everybody feels this way. “We have been waiting for more than seven years for a special committee to visit us and estimate the value of the house so we can sell it to the government,” another of the historic homes’ owners, Fatima Hussein complained. “Up until now though, there’s been nobody here.”

“Our house needs work and it’s almost unfit to live in at the moment. It feels as though it might actually fall down around us,” Hussein continued. “But,” she added, “we are aware of the historic value of houses like ours. And we see it as part of Baghdad’s legacy. Our family doesn’t want to trade that for money – we want the building to continue to tell Baghdad’s one thousand and one nights’ worth of stories,” she said proudly.