Some of the city residents said that the land acquisitions were sometimes made under duress. Therefore, Sunni clerics issued a fatwa prohibiting the sale of the land surrounding the shrine of the two Imams. In this context, Sheikh Abdul Malak al-Saadi issued a fatwa that was published on his website, prohibiting the sale of the lands surrounding the shrine, except to residents of Samarra.
The Sunnis who objected to this law claim that the land acquisition aims at turning the city into a holy Shiite town, as is the case in Najaf and Karbala.
For its part, the Shiite Endowment rejected such accusations. In a January 2013 press statement, the endowment said that the purchase of land is a legal process and that land procurement has never been carried out under duress, adding that this process aims at expansion and development.
In another statement quoted by the official Iraqi Media Network on Aug. 22, 2012, the head of the Shiite Endowment, Saleh al-Haidari, declared that the endowment is ready to return the purchased lands, provided that the sellers will return the amounts they had received in exchange. However, things are more complicated than this, as the issues regarding land acquisition have been referred to the competent courts.
The sectarian controversy over Samarra has returned to the forefront, following demands on the part of certain Shiite and Sunni parties to turn the city into an independent governorate, with the support of some Iraqi members of parliament. Suhad al-Obeidi, for instance, revealed that she filed a demand to parliament in March 2014 to turn Samarra into an independent governorate.
Samarra the Key to Reducing Tensions?: By Shukur Khilkhal for Al-Monitor. Any opinions expressed are those of ... http://t.co/2WXANC8mZH
There are some wrongs in this article, the Imam al Askari was the 11th imam not the twelves as the shias believe that the 12th imam is in hiding (son of al Askari a.s) and the abbasides had it as their capital in the 9th century not the 19th..