Shafaq News- Baghdad

Before spring slips away each year, Suad Ali follows a journey she has known since childhood. Alongside her mother and grandmother, she heads to the shrine of al-Khidr on the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad, carrying candles, silent prayers, and wishes too personal to say aloud.

As darkness settles over the river, dozens of small flames begin drifting across the water. Families gather quietly along the shore, watching the candles float into the night as if the river itself might carry their desires somewhere beyond reach.

“With every candle, we carry a wish,” Ali reflected to Shafaq News. “We pray that it will come true.”

Known in Iraq as “al-Khidr Candles,” the ceremony remains one of the country’s oldest surviving folk traditions. For generations, families living near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have marked certain spring evenings by lighting candles and placing them on palm fronds or small wooden boards before releasing them into the current. The occasion is especially associated with the month of May, which Iraqi popular tradition links to blessings, renewal, and answered prayers.

Many Iraqis believe al-Khidr —a revered figure in Islamic tradition associated with wisdom, guidance, and miraculous appearances during hardship— becomes spiritually present during this period. Some arrive hoping for marriage, while others pray for healing, the return of an absent relative, success for a child, or relief from personal struggles. The farther a candle travels without being extinguished, according to popular belief, the greater the chance that the accompanying prayer will be fulfilled.

Although no clear historical account explains how the custom first emerged in Iraq, folklore researchers believe it likely evolved through the blending of local traditions and older spiritual practices tied to rivers and flowing water. Iraqi folklore researcher Ali al-Ward explained that Wednesday and Thursday nights have long been regarded as blessed evenings in Iraqi social life, which is why many families choose one of those nights to perform the ceremony.

Al-Ward stressed that the practice is rooted more in emotional and social memory than in religious doctrine. Over time, he noted, it became part of Iraq’s cultural identity, surviving political upheaval, wars, and the rapid transformations that reshaped everyday life across the country.

For women in particular, the tradition often carries deeply personal meanings shaped by longing, uncertainty, and optimism. Some longstanding customs involve unmarried women removing their abayas inside the shrine courtyard while praying for marriage, while others later return with offerings of myrtle, lit candles, and trays filled with traditional treats after believing their wishes have been fulfilled.

“They arrive carrying flowers while women around them break into ululations,” Bidaa Abdul Zahra described, recalling evenings when marriages or long-awaited prayers were celebrated at the shrine.

Near the al-Khidr shrine in Baghdad’s al-Allawi district, Palestinian-Iraqi resident Nihal al-Zaki still remembers childhood evenings spent watching glowing candles drift toward her neighborhood from distant parts of the capital.

“Whenever a flame stayed lit for a long time, we believed someone’s wish would finally come true,” al-Zaki recalled. “We waited for those candles every Wednesday night.”

Women traditionally remained standing by the riverbank until the candles disappeared into the darkness, holding onto the fragile comfort offered by the tiny moving lights. Over time, “al-Khidr Candles” found their way into Iraqi poetry, folk songs, and oral storytelling, becoming more than a custom —a symbol of patience, longing, and resilience.

The tradition also stretches beyond religious boundaries. Sattar al-Hilu, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Mandaeans —an ancient monotheistic community whose religious practices center on flowing water and baptism— noted that Mandaean religious texts contain no references to vows or offerings linked to al-Khidr, though the figure remains deeply respected among Mandaeans, much as he is among Muslims and other Iraqi communities.

Among Christians, some believers associate al-Khidr with Mar Elias, or Saint Elijah. Raya Emmanuel, from the Christian-majority district of Hamdaniya in Nineveh province, explained that Christians also light candles in his honor, though more as a gesture of reverence toward a sacred figure than a ceremony tied to personal wishes.

Along the rivers that shaped some of humanity’s earliest civilizations, the small floating flames continue to gather Iraqis from different faiths and backgrounds around something profoundly simple: the enduring desire to believe that even the faintest light can survive the current.