IRBIL, Iraq (AP) 鈥� Seven days after the died, women sat wrapped in black veils and abayas, their faces wet at her family home in the northern city of Irbil. Some were family members and others were fans who had loved her for decades.
Bitter black coffee, the drink of Iraqi mourning, passed quietly from hand to hand. The music drifting in from outside filled the spaces between sobs.
Outside, men sat under a canvas tent in the street. A traditional band beat the daf as some of the men wiped their eyes. In Iraq, the seventh day marks a return, a final gathering before grief begins to thin into memory.
Obaid died on April 4 at the age of 68 after a battle with lung cancer. The news was overshadowed by the But for her fans, her death felt personal 鈥� the loss of a woman whose voice had given them, for a few hours at a time, something close to freedom.
A space for women to let loose
In Iraq, a woman moving through public life carries weight with her; eyes watching what she wears, how she moves, whether she is stepping too far outside the lines. So Obaid decided to hold parties only for women. Every staff member including the DJ, the waiters, the security, and the organizers was a woman. No phones were allowed to prevent photography. To protect the women in the room, their freedom stayed inside those walls.
Women who would never dream of dancing in front of male audience came. They dressed how they wanted and danced the way they had forgotten they could.
Virgin Jaji, 68, was one of them. While the Arab world traditionally begins its mornings with the dreamy songs of the Lebanese singer Fayrouz, Jaji said she has listened to Obaid every morning for years, in the car, at home, even at the gym. 鈥淓ven my parrot only dances to Sajida Obaid鈥檚 music.
鈥淚n her women鈥檚 parties we danced like we had no cares in the world,鈥� Jaji said, her eyes red from crying. 鈥淲e felt free. Truly free.鈥�
Mina Mohammed, 40, said, 鈥淭he first time I heard about a women-only party by Sajida, I borrowed money from friends just to be in that hall. Her voice will always take me back to the best moments of my life.鈥�
A quick rise to stardom
Obaid was born in Baghdad in 1957, the daughter of a Roma family. In Iraq, Roma people are known as 鈥淜awliya,鈥� a community long tied to music and performance, but also one that has lived for generations at the edge of society. Sajida began singing at 12, performing at parties to help her family pay the bills.
By her teenage years she was already a known name. Her voice was warm and commanding, rooted in the dance rhythms of the Kawliya and in the older, more tender Iraqi style known as mawal. By the 1980s, it had reached the most powerful and most dangerous men in Iraq.
security guards would pull her away mid-performance from other people鈥檚 weddings and bring her to sing. She performed at the weddings of Saddam鈥檚 children and at birthday parties for his sons and daughters. It was the complicated price of being a national star in an era of dictatorship. She traveled the world, performed at international festivals and sometimes played as many as seven shows a week.
Shrinking space for Iraqi women
But the women-only parties were always special to her, said her brother and manager, Aayed Awda.
鈥淭hose parties were something the women themselves asked for, including women from the most conservative families, because they wanted a place where they could dress freely, move freely, be themselves,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ajida believed deeply in helping women and giving them that space.鈥�
Obaid鈥檚 songs sometimes pushed social boundaries, like 鈥淚nkasarat al-Sheesha鈥� (“the shisha broke鈥�), about a woman who has lost her virginity and must now face her family. 鈥淲hat will I tell my mother?鈥� the lyrics ask. In Iraq, that is not a light question. Obaid sang it with a full voice, without apology.
Many Iraqi women feel that the gains they had made in rights over the years are receding. Last year, Iraqi Parliament passed amendments to the country鈥檚 personal status law that opponents say would in effect and erode women’s rights in matters like divorce and inheritance.
鈥淚raq feels like it鈥檚 moving backward, and the space for women’s freedom is shrinking,鈥� said Mohammed, the fan who borrowed money to attend Obaid’s parties. She hopes that the carefree moments they brought can 鈥渂e carried forward, even in small ways, like women-only DJ nights with her music.鈥�
A quiet end
In her final months, the woman who had sung on stages across five continents lived quietly in Irbil, in the home of her elder brother鈥檚 family. She had no children. She had married twice and divorced twice. She rarely went out. She spent her days close to the people she loved and played with the children in the house.
鈥淪he was gentle and warm, and she never once caused harm to anyone,鈥� said her niece Sahar Sabti, 38, who shared the home with her. 鈥淪he took care of everyone around her.鈥�
About four months before Obaid died, doctors found lung cancer, Sabti said. She still insisted on flying to Canada for a concert. But when she came home to receive her first chemo session, her body gave up.
She was hospitalized in Irbil, where she remained for more than two weeks before being sent home on oxygen. Her family took her to the hospital once more, and this time she didn鈥檛 come home.
Her brother recalled the 40 years they worked together, and their sibling bickering about the shade of her makeup, the cut and color of her dress, the theme of the next party.
鈥淲e disagreed on everything,鈥� Awda said, his voice breaking. 鈥淎nd I miss every single one of those arguments.鈥�
On the seventh day of mourning, as the drum outside finally fell silent and the women inside dried their faces, they spoke about Obaid the way people speak about someone who has stepped out of the room for a moment.
鈥淔or me and my friends, dancing and Sajida are the same word,鈥� said Leila Botrus, 55. 鈥淪he brought people together everywhere she went through joy, through music.”
Outside in the tent, the band played its last song of the evening. The coffee in the cups grew cold, but the women stayed a little longer together.
In that room, filled with women sitting close together, it felt as though Sajida had left behind exactly what she always gave them; a space of their own.
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