The first Mudhif outside Iraq in Philadelphia, the city of love and brotherhood, at Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. This Mudhif, who was a dream I always had, a dream that represents the glorious Iraq in the most beautiful picture. This dream, which I suppose in the minds of many of the faithful, became a reality. Have you visited Iraq? Unfortunately, no. Do you know Iraq? Yes, and how do I not know Iraq, which is Mesopotamia. Have you met Iraqis and interacted with them; did you meet them in your city? No or not much.
Such questions are always asked with some hypothetical answers. So, let›s build an important historical and cultural material piece that represents Iraq, let›s build our own place that welcomes us all and gives us our space for acquaintance, interaction and building friendships and relationships, an invitation to build our place that will tell you a beautiful story from the stories of Iraq.
I imagine that the circumstances that surrounded Iraq at least since 1990 until the present day had a great impact on creating a communication gap and affected your knowledge of the nature of Iraq and Iraqis. Today, we lay the foundation stone to bridge this gap as much as we can and build healthy communication relationships and distinguished friendships. The important step in building healthy dialogue and communication using the positive energy of the place, Al mudhif represents the first interaction between Mesopotamian people and the available materials in that environment at the time, the interaction that produced the writing reed on the clay (Cuneiform) and later the king›s headdress which made of reed, which is the highest in status, as it is the dress of kings and princes now. How people are always innovative and flexible in finding relationships between the environment and the material. This kind of constructive interaction in the first villages and cities in the land of Sumer on the banks of the marshes and within them and on the banks of the rivers, these cities which provided the basis for much of what we are in now, writing, laws and many of the inventions found there in Mesopotamia, around and on the banks of the marshes. Al Mudhif is not only a high-rise building using simple, available natural materials, but it is an integrated social and cultural relations system. The oldest clay tablets that embody Al Mudhif go back to nearly 5000 years. Al Mudhif is the guest house, and it is derived from the Arabic word guest, and it is a supreme value in our lives because of the warm welcome that should be received. Al Mudhif is an important social school; its attendants learn many of the values and customs of the community. Al Mudhif is a court that solves problems by appealing to those with experience and wisdom. Al Mudhif is the forum that gives space to people to express their opinions. Al Mudhif is a meeting place in joys and sorrows. Al Mudhif is the sanctuary where people in need find their needs. Al Mudhif in which the visitors find welcome and hospitality, all their needs of food and drink, and for an unlimited number of days, the longer it lasts, the happier the owner off Al Mudhif will be. Al Mudhif has rules that must be followed, the first of which is that the handshake starts from the right, and this is one of the priorities of social life within Al Mudhif. As for the second important lesson, it is the lesson of encoding and decoding messages, which represents great intelligence by delivering a big message without words. When you enter Al Mudhif and coffee is served to you as a welcome drink. If you have a need or want to say a certain thing, you only have to put the coffee aside and this is the encoding of the message that the host will understand and this is the decryption process, and so on, the whole of interaction and intelligent and influential messages. I would like to mention an important topic, as the philosopher Marshall McLuhan pointed out, that the medium is the message, and here I suppose that the medium is the material in delivering our message, which we assume is very important, it is the message of the reeds, and since as soon as you see Al Mudhif or enter it, you will receive our message of material and its impact.
Al-Mudhif A Confluence https://www.lenapehoking-watershed- art.com/projects/al-mudhif-a-confluence
By: Yaroub Al-Obaidi
