Prayer Focus—Iraq

Every month Adventist Review and the Office of Adventist Mission highlight one of the world’s most unreached countries and invite readers to pray for its people. After featuring Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria, we now turn to Iraq.—Editors.

In 1911 a young man named Bashir Hasso returned home to Mosul, Iraq, carrying a

book that, as far as anyone knew, no other Iraqi had ever held. In his hands was a copy of Daniel and Revelation.¹

Intrigued by what he read, he began attending meetings conducted by Adventist

missionary Walter Ising. After several months of Bible study he was baptized.

Hasso immediately began sharing his newfound faith with his family. But the task wasn’t easy. He longed for someone to help him.

“I try, by the help of God, to use every opportunity as best I can,” he wrote to Ising, “but how I wish that some brother who is able to explain the prophecies would come here.”

Ising visited Mosul in 1913, but World War I soon interrupted these early efforts. When

international communication was restored after the war, Hasso began appealing again

for an Adventist worker to come to Iraq.

In 1922 Ising returned to Mosul and held public meetings. Before he left, Hasso urged him to establish a church. A baptistry was set up in the basement of the Hasso home, and seven people were baptized, including Bashir’s widowed mother, his wife, two married sisters, and his brother Nassif. A week later Bashir was ordained an elder, and Iraq’s first Seventh-day Adventist church was organized.

From that small beginning, Adventist work began to spread. A church school opened in Mosul in 1929, followed by schools in Baghdad, Basra, and Kirkuk. In the 1940s the Hasso brothers purchased a hotel and converted it into a hospital. Dar El Salaam Hospital opened in Baghdad in 1945 and served the community for more than a decade before being nationalized by Iraq’s new government in 1958.

The loss of the hospital did not end the church’s ministry. By 1978 Iraq had three Adventist churches with a combined membership of 170, and Adventist leaders had gained government permission for students at all levels to observe the Sabbath.

Then came decades of war, sanctions, and political upheaval. Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq by a coalition led by the United States and Great Brittain, life became increasingly dangerous for the country’s Christians. Christian leaders were kidnapped, churches and believers were threatened, and many Christians fled their homes and eventually the country.

The Adventist Church was not spared. Before the invasion Iraq had four Adventist churches, about 200 members, and four ordained ministers. In the years that followed, violence scattered many of these communities.

Another blow came in 2014, when the Islamic State captured Mosul and other areas of northern Iraq. Thousands of Iraqi Christians fled the country. Estimates of Iraq’s Christian population, which had ranged from about 800,000 to 1.5 million in 2003, had fallen to about 200,000 by 2020 

Yet the Adventist presence did not disappear.

Christian leaders were kidnapped, churches and believers were threatened, and many Christians fled their homes and eventually the country. The Adventist Church was not spared.

In Erbil, in northern Iraq, a small congregation remained. The Iraq Field moved its headquarters there in 2013 and began rebuilding the Adventist presence. Land was purchased and a new church constructed, which was dedicated in 2018.

Today Iraq is home to approximately 48 million people,² about 97 percent of whom are Muslim.³  Religious minorities continue to face social and legal challenges. Amid those realities, some 84 Seventh-day Adventists continue to carry the message Bashir Hasso first embraced more than a century ago.⁴

Please pray for this small group of believers who have maintained their faith through war, displacement, and loss. Pray that God will strengthen them and continue opening doors for the people of Iraq to experience His love.

Pray for Iraq

We invite you to explore an interactive map of Iraq, made possible by Joshua Project, and learn about the unreached people groups who call the country home. Select a gray dot to discover more about a community and pray specifically for its people. As you pray, watch the dot light up—a reminder that this community has been lifted before God. Together, let’s surround the people of Iraq with prayer and the hope of Jesus.