Hundreds of thousands of Shiite Muslims, emboldened by Saddam Hussein's fall, on Wednesday marked the death of the Prophet Muhammad with a massive pilgrimage that was both pious and deeply political.
They beat their chests and recited religious verses. Worshippers mingled with beggars, Quranic verses boomed from speakers. Men sprayed people with rosewater to cool them. Most of the pilgrims had walked some from as far away as Baghdad, 140 miles away to reach this holy city.
Millions of pilgrims are expected in Najaf by Thursday.
The prophet's death observed on different days by Shiites and Sunnis, Islam's two largest sects rarely receives such commemoration from Shiites anywhere in the world. Sunnis dominated Iraq under Saddam, and the Sunni ceremony marking the prophet's death was lavishly celebrated during the former regime.
But in postwar Iraq, such a large-scale observance of the Shiite holiday means politics aren't what they used to be and that the Shiites mean to play a big role in the future.
"Saddam didn't like mourning," said Subhiya Ma'rek, 45, sitting on a sidewalk in front of the shrine of Imam Ali, son-in-law of the prophet and, according to Shiite belief, his rightful successor. "We were deprived of this, and now we are enjoying this blessing."
Shiite clerics like Seyed Moqtada al-Sadr demonstrated their organizational abilities earlier this month, staging a huge pilgrimage in Najaf and the nearby holy city of Karbala.
Najaf, a city of 900,000 people, is the final resting place of Imam Ali. The world's 120 million Shiites regard Najaf a center of scientific, literary and theological studies as their third-holiest site, behind Mecca and Medina.
In previous years, the regime limited the attendance of pilgrims and did not allow buses to transport them to Najaf or Karbala. No more.
"We want to fill the vacuum left by the former regime," said Qais Al-Khazali, an official in al-Sadr's office.
Since Saddam's forces fell, clerics under different leaders have taken charge of Najaf, providing some services to its people some law and order water, food and medical assistance.
"But we are still poor," said Hajiya Hamza. "We don't have anything," she said, pointing to her mouth. Other women sitting around her laughed, drawing angry recrimination from a passing man.
"Don't laugh," he admonished them. "You are here to mourn."
Clerics wield great influence over the lives of the deeply religious here, and anyone who wants to establish a political or religious foothold would need to have the support of the religious leadership, which is powerful and well-financed.
Many Shiites claim that a military official, Col. Abdel Monem Aboud, has been installed by the Americans as governor. They say he was a military intelligence officer under Saddam, but U.S. forces say he was merely a colonel in the regular army.
Shiites here say Aboud and his men raided four seminaries in Najaf in recent days under a pretext of looking for weapons. Three people a seminary student, a guard and a visitor were arrested, al-Khazali said.
The raiders, he said, found one gun that belonged to a guard. The three were released 10 hours later after Najaf's religious leaders interceded.
Al-Sadr condemned the raids, saying they only "benefit the infidel West."
Even Saddam did not "violate the sanctity of the religious seminaries but you did," he said in a statement. He warned against "spreading terror and fear among the people, when they must instead spread kindness and goodness."