Muslims In Iraq Celebrate Easter With Christians To Promote Solidarity
(ANALYSIS) In war-torn Iraq, Muslims will join Christians in celebrating Easter every year, fostering a spirit of solidarity and coexistence. The celebrations have gained prominence since ISIS was forced out of major strongholds.
Around 140,000 Christians in Baghdad, Mosul, the disputed territory of Nineveh plains and areas such as Erbil, Duhok and Sulaymaniyah under the Kurdistan Regional Government celebrate Lent, which culminates with Easter Sunday.
Muslims often help prepare traditional pastries like kleicha, a round or crescent-shaped pastry with a spiral center brimming with sweet ingredients like dates and aromatic spices that Iraqis consider their national cookie.
READ: Why Is Lent In America No Big Deal?
Days before Easter, the two communities often work alongside one another to prepare desserts for the Feast of Alklejeh. They participate in shared community meals, reflecting a tradition of interfaith harmony.
In a similar gesture of goodwill, Christians in northern Iraq’s Mosul also prepare the fast-breaking iftar meal for Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan.
Christianity post-ISIS
In Iraq, Christianity has existed since the first century AD. According to US State Department, approximately 67 percent of Christians are Chaldean Catholics (an Eastern rite of the Catholic Church), and nearly 20 percent are members of the Assyrian Church of the East. The rest are Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholic, Armenian Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Anglican and other Protestants and evangelical Christians.
The number of Christians in Iraq has fallen dramatically since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion. Back then, there were around 1.5 million Christians.
The numbers have further dwindled after ISIS attacks. During the 2014 Northern Iraq Offensive, ISIS sought to create a caliphate in northern Iraq without minorities. Qaraqosh, the largest Christian city in Iraq, and Karamlesh, primarily a Christian district, witnessed severe violence at the hands of ISIS. The town's entire population of 800 families living in Karamlesh was uprooted and forced to flee.
Christians were subjected to “forced transfer, persecution, pillage, sexual violence and slavery, and other inhuman acts such as forced conversions and the intentional destruction of cultural heritage.”
Churches, homes and relics were destroyed, looted, and marked, while cemeteries were desecrated to erase cultural and religious identity. Many fled to Erbil during that time.
When these districts were liberated from ISIS in October 2016, shops still had graffiti left on them by the Islamic State stating, “The Islamic State will remain.”
Around 40 percent of Christian residents of these areas had already emigrated abroad or had decided to stay in the Kurdistan Region. In April 2017, Syriac Catholic and Chaldean Catholic communities in these districts celebrated Easter for the first time after the ISIS defeat.
Apart from civilians, government representatives also participate in the Easter celebrations. In Diyana, a small city in Erbil, where Muslims and Christians have been living together for years, local government officials from different political parties, despite being Muslims, visit St. George's Church on Easter.
Christians see it as a sign of respect, acceptance of each other's beliefs and true coexistence in a country haunted by decades of ethnic and religious intolerance. Nechirvan Idris Barzani, the Kurdish politician serving as the second President of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, last year, chose Easter as an occasion to send the message to strengthen the culture of tolerance, mutual acceptance, and peaceful coexistence.
As a step to promote inclusivity, on 16 December 2020, Iraq’s parliament passed a bill making Christmas Day an annual national holiday in the majority-Muslim country.
In 2020, the KRG Council of Ministers established a high-level committee to resolve outstanding land disputes affecting Christian communities. By November 2022, the committee had returned 55 Christian properties that had been confiscated by the former Ba’athist regime.
The government provided Christian religious education in public schools in some areas with a high concentration of Christians, and there is a Syriac curriculum division within the Ministry of Education.
Christians still face challenges
However, outside observers say Christian communities in Iraq continue to face numerous challenges, and the occasional interfaith support — limited to Easter — may not be sufficient to address their struggles.
A 2023 report by the U.S. State Department cited some Christian leaders stating that authorities force Christian families to be formally registered as Muslim, but “privately practicing Christianity or another non-Islamic faith to either register their children as Muslims … thereby denying them the ability to legally convert from Islam.”
A 2024 U.K. Home Office report stated that the State-backed Popular Mobilization Forces, which formed to combat ISIS, have allegedly seized the property of Christians, restricted their freedom of movement, harassed them at checkpoints as well as kidnapped them for ransom.
Sonia Sarkar is a journalist based in India. She writes on conflict, religion, politics, health and gender rights from Southeast Asia. Her work has appeared in a range of international publications, including the South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia and Al Jazeera.