Boys in the Book of Ibn al-Mustawfi, Erbil, Kurdistan. 1991.
“I was in Erbil, Kurdistan, covering the Gulf War in 1991. Walking the streets, I heard voices; and as I looked up, I was astonished t
(...) o see these small children sitting in the book of the prophet Muhammed. Except I learned many years later that the statue wasn’t of the prophet; he was the historian and poet Ibn al-Mustawfi, who wrote the history of Erbil and was minister of the city in the thirteenth century. Fact and fiction: it’s so easy to confuse them.”
- Don McCullin
Copyright © Don McCullin