ALWASEILAH TOURS

Visiting Iraq has been a dream of mine for many years. I was introduced to Adam Jebrin of al-Waseilah via a friend who had visited Iraq more than once thanks to Adam's assistance. I can thoroughly recommend him and his team to people visiting this wonderful country. I visited various locations in the centre & south of the country. These included both the 'atabaat (holy shrines of Shi'a Islam in Najaf and Karbala, as well as Samarra and Baghdad), and Babylon, Samarra, Baghdad, Ur, Uruk/Nasiriyya and Basra. Adam was very accommodating to my numerous requests for a change of programme in the run-up to my arriving in the country. Adam and his team (his nephew Yaser and his great-niece Naba) were both extremely helpful and welcoming, and accommodating to my sometimes strange requests. Since part of the motivation for my visit was to see Basra and its environs for a book I am writing about a ninth century rebellion that was centred in the area, Yaser and Naba were more than willing to take me to what were to them random canals in areas of no obvious tourist interest to the east of the city. I was also thanks to Adam and the team able to meet a number of professors from Basra University with whom I was able to talk about my research. Working with al-Waseilah was invaluable for me in that Iraq, while a hospitable and safe place to visit, is not easy logistically. The hotels I stayed in were all excellent, but not easy to book from abroad. Having Yaser to drive us everywhere (including the out of the way places I wanted to visit) was essential. The highways have frequent checkpoints, there for people's safety, and again, having locals to talk to the police definitely smoothed my passage. Then there were a number of locations, including some of the major tourist sites, where access would have been difficult, if not impossible, without Adam or Yaser to talk to the people guarding the site. And of course, visiting Najaf with Najafis made the experience all the more memorable. As well as ziyarat itself, I saw various places and met with people I would not have seen otherwise. I should also mention that Adam of course speaks fluent English, but Naba's English is also excellent and, as Persian-speaker, I was delighted to find that Yaser spoke Persian too! I think my Arabic actually went backward during this trip. Again, I would thoroughly recommend both visiting Iraq and using al-Waseilah's services to do so.