Al-Awja () is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

8 miles (13 km) south of Tikrit, Iraq on the western bank of the

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

. It is mainly inhabited by

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Arabs Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...

. The village is known for being the hometown and place of burial of former Iraqi President

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

History

Al-Awja is located between the edge of the plateau and the Tigris basin. Its name is derived from the river’s bends and twists there. Al-Awja is an agricultural land. It was mentioned in the Ottoman calendar in 1877 that it was a rich agricultural village. According to historians Jaber al-Tikriti and Bahjat al-Tikriti said in their article "''Geographical and Historical Locations in Tikrit''" published in the ''Encyclopedia of the City of Tikrit'' in 2001, the first maps of the region were drawn up in the first decades of this century, including topographical and other maps related to the ownership of lands and orchards in al-Awja. And most of the families of this clan reside in the village to supervise and manage their agricultural land. An archaeological hill in the west of al-Awja contains pottery shards from the

Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...

. Ibrahim Fadhil al-Nasseri believed that this hill was the site of an extinct monastery called Dar al-Gharab, which was mentioned in heritage books.

After 2003

When Saddam was captured by JSOC Task Force 121 and 4th Infantry Division during Operation Red Dawn, he was hidden only a few miles from

ad-Dawr Ad-Dawr () is a small agricultural town in Saladin Governorate, Iraq, near Tikrit. It includes a great number of people from four tribes, al-Shuwaykhat, al-Mawashet, al-Bu Haydar and al-Bu Mdallal. Al-Mawashet tribe is famous for supporting Saddam ...

. Saddam Hussein was buried in this village before dawn on December 31, 2006, less than 24 hours after his

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in ...

took place. During the fighting in the Second Battle of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's tomb was levelled by

ISIS Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingdom () as one of the main characters of the Osiris myth, in which she resurrects her sla ...

. After Iraqi forces took control of the village, Shia militiamen of the Popular Mobilization Committee put its insignia around the village, including that of Major Iranian General

Qasem Soleimani Qasem Soleimani (; 11 March 1957 – 3 January 2020) was an Iranian military officer who served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). From 1998 until Assassination of Qasem Soleimani, his assassination by the United States in 2020, h ...

References

{{Iraq-geo-stub Awja Populated places on the Tigris River Saddam Hussein