A Sept. 12 article about Sunni-Shiite romances in Iraq incorrectly said that Shiites are the minority population in the country. Shiites are the majority.
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Even Dating Is Perilous In Polarized Baghdad
Qais Jassim, 26, a Shiite from the Adhamiyah section of Baghdad, says he spent his wedding night petrified that his Sunni wife's relatives would behead him.
(By Amit Paley -- The Washington Post)
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Ayad accused his fiancee of fanaticism and broke off the relationship. But to hear him describe Shiite Islam as a "backward" religion suggests that he, too, has sided with his own.
"Even if she were the last woman on Earth, I wouldn't marry a Shiite," Ayad, a recent graduate in business administration from al-Turath University, said as he picked at a breakfast of scrambled eggs and cucumbers. "You could even put her in a frame of gold, but if I will break this gold, I would find mud inside of her."
Like many young Iraqi men, Ayad is so busy just trying to stay alive that he has given little thought to dating over the past three years. "I cannot guarantee my own life," he said. "How can I get married and be responsible for others?"
So when will it be safe enough in Iraq for him to get married?
"When the rooster will lay eggs," he replied, stone-faced.
For young Iraqi women, the isolation is often more extreme. The relentless carnage in the city so petrified Areej Abbas, 25, that she did not leave her home a single time for more than three years. She had no cellphone. No friends. No guests. All day she watched television.
"I was miserable," she said in a Sot al-Jamayaa studio, where she started working as a science show host this month in her first venture out of the house. "I probably would have committed suicide if it weren't for the satellite television."
Universities remain perhaps the safest place for a romantic rendezvous, though religious Shiites have begun to infiltrate campuses such as Baghdad University, posting signs warning about the evils of dating and promiscuity. Still, high school students now say the primary reason they want to attend university is to meet members of the opposite sex, according to a recent survey by Sot al-Jamayaa.
"It's becoming impossible to meet girls outside of the college," said Enad, the Sot al-Jamayaa manager. "Even older men now are desperate to go back to school if they are single."
But even if soul mates find each other on a university campus, sectarian differences can quickly split them apart. Many young people say it is primarily parents who are driving a wedge between members of mixed couples.
Samar Hussein, now a 27-year-old Shiite civil servant, said her parents initially rejoiced when a Sunni classmate asked for her hand in marriage four years ago. Her older brother and aunt had both married Sunnis, and the family cared little about religious affiliation.
But Hussein's family now worries about the practical considerations of intermarriage. Vast swaths of Baghdad have become no-go zones to members of certain sects. Those who do venture there face abduction or death.
