Iraq · Baghdad Governorate · Baghdad
Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad — Area Guide & Where to Stay
Mutanabbi Street is Baghdad's book market, a car-free lane off Rashid Street named for the poet al-Mutanabbi.
About Mutanabbi Street
Where to stay in Mutanabbi Street
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
Mutanabbi Street offers little lodging of its own, so most visitors base themselves along the surrounding old-quarter blocks and walk in. Stay near Rashid Street. Rooms on the avenue that feeds the book lane put the stalls, the arch and al-Shabandar Café within an easy stroll, while quieter beds sit toward the Tigris behind the Qushla, and the museum end near the National Museum of Iraq suits earlier starts.
Choose by how far you want to carry the books.
About Mutanabbi Street
What are the main landmarks in Mutanabbi Street?
The book stalls are the draw. An arch carved with the poet's verses opens the lane off Rashid Street, and beyond it the booksellers spread their tables the length of the pavement toward the river, past the wood-panelled rooms of al-Shabandar Café where writers have gathered since it opened in 1917. The Qushla and its Ottoman clock tower close the far end above the Tigris, near the entrance to Souk al-Sarai and the al-Sarai Mosque, while a bronze figure of al-Mutanabbi by Mohammed Ghani Hikmat watches the water.
The National Museum of Iraq and the National Museum of Modern Art sit within the wider quarter. Verse still lines the walls.
What is the history of Mutanabbi Street?
The lane took the poet's name in 1932. King Faisal I inaugurated the renamed street after Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi, the tenth-century Abbasid poet, and the booksellers who had long worked the old quarter off Rashid Street gathered here into a single market that fed the saying that Baghdad reads. A car bomb tore through it in 2007, killing more than twenty people and gutting al-Shabandar Café.
The street came back. Rebuilt and reopened in 2021, its stalls and the Café returned to the pavement below the Qushla, and the Friday crowds followed.
Where is Mutanabbi Street?
Mutanabbi Street runs as a narrow, car-free lane through the old quarter of Baghdad, branching off Rashid Street and falling toward the Tigris, where the Qushla and its clock tower stand at the river end. It reaches under a kilometre.
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Updated July 2026