SWEET MUSIC

Old era of burning CDs gone and stall owners play tunes

Vendor of CDs back at his street stall after ISIL killjoys flee Mosul,

MOSUL // When ISIL controlled eastern Mosul, playing music was a crime punishable by lashes. Today, music stall owner Mohammed Mohsin is making up for lost time.

The extremist group’s religious police confiscated and burned his CDs after taking over the city in a 2014 offensive.

But Iraqi forces regained control of east Mosul in January, and Mr Mohsin set up his stall again on a pavement in a busy shopping district. He plays pop songs from a small set of speakers connected to a computer as he lays out CDs by famous Arab artists.

Iraq’s best-known pop star, Kadhim Al Sahir, and Iraqi-Saudi singer Majid Al Muhandis take pride of place.

“Music is a pleasure that people were deprived of under ISIL,” Mr Mohsin says.

He remembers the day the ISIL fanatics ordered him to shut down his stall. “They told me: ‘You have to close. All this, music, songs, dance, it’s forbidden. Forbidden in the name of religion,’” he says.

“They took my stuff, my CDs and other things. They burned them in the street.” Anyone listening to music risked being summoned by the religious police and whipped. “Thank God Daesh is gone and the shops are re-opening.”

Iraqi forces are still locked in fierce clashes to oust ISIL from west Mosul, and muffled explosions rumble across the Tigris River which divides the city. Despite the destruction left by the fighting in the east of the city, life is returning to normal, little by little.

The return of music after the enforced silence is one example. Across the street from Mr Mohsin’s stall is Mosul University, or what remains of it.

Formerly one of Iraq’s main academic institutions, today, it is little more than ruins, but residents have begun the task of clearing away rubble left by the fighting.

Iraqi flags have replaced the black flags of ISIL, and Iraq’s federal police patrol streets where so-called religious police roamed until weeks ago. Women now go out in public without wearing the black cloaks imposed by the fanatics.

“We had to hide our faces,” says Um Yousef, who now wears a simple shawl. “We couldn’t walk around without being accompanied by a man.” Nearby, women’s clothing stores display fine lingerie, elegant skirts, flowery trousers. All were forbidden by ISIL. One even displays a long tunic adorned with the inscription in English: “Paris is always a good idea”.

Small pleasures, such as sitting in a cafe drinking sweet black tea, smoking and watching American TV on a screen hung on the wall, are permissible again.

But they never forget that the battle is not over for everyone.

“Here, it’s OK now, even if the city needs cleaning up,” says Mohammad Mahmoud, 28.

“But over there, in west Mosul, it’s still war.”