This book corrects some of the common assumptions about the nature of Shi'a Islam in Iraq, foremost of which is the belief that the Iraqi Shi'a community was formed long ago, and that the Iraqi Shi'a sect was formulated according to the Iranian model. The study focuses on the Shi'a of Iraq during a period of broad change, starting with the rise of Najaf and Karbala as the strongholds of Shi'ism from the mid-eighteenth century until the fall of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.