Shiite religious songs, banned during Saddam Hussein's reign, now top the hit parade in the new Iraq, upstaging the usual Egyptian and international mix of music.
"It's a real stampede. We're practically selling little else," said Abu Mohammad Sabri, a wholesale vendor of CDs and cassettes.
"I've been in the business since 1977 and only once did I see such a rush - when Egyptian singer Amr Diab emerged in the mid-1980s," he said.
"Now, Hussein al-Karbalai has dethroned Amr Diab and his elegies have eclipsed love and pop songs," said Abu Mohammad as he started a copier of compact discs.
"The machine churns out five copies in four minutes, and we're selling 10,000 copies a day to retailers, who say they are selling 1,000 a day," he said.
The window of his shop, Sawt al-Fann (Voice of Art), in central Baghdad features a poster of Imam Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of Islam's Prophet Mohammad and father of the Shiites' martyr Hussein.
A banner in the black color of Shiism announces in yellow characters that the shop sells "Radoud al-Hussein," songs glorifying Hussein who was beheaded in the holy city of Karbala in 680 AD.
"Radoud" refers to the choir which accompanies the singer by beating their chests. Some Shiite faithful flog their backs with leather whips or metal chains to the rhythm of the songs.
Like many singers of Shiite tunes, namely his main rival Abu Bashir al-Najafi, Hussein al-Karbalai fled Iraq as a result of the repression of the country's Shiite majority during Saddam Hussein's 24-year rule and took refuge in Damascus.
Saddam, who was ousted by US-led forces in April, partly built his power on discrimination against the Shiites - who make up some 60 percent of Iraq's 25-million population - in favor of his Sunni minority.
"Owning or selling such songs was punishable by a one-and-a-half-year prison sentence under Saddam," said Ahmad, who now sells them in his shop in central Baghdad.
"After being oppressed for 35 years (since the Baath Party seized power in 1968), we are now scrambling to grab these songs, to which we listen with impunity," he said as the tunes blared toward the street from a loudspeaker.
"We sell around 1,000 CDs and 2,000 cassettes a day," he said, adding that most of his customers were young people aged 17 to 35.
"Sales are likely to go up tenfold during major Shiite festivals, namely Ashura," he said, thanking God for blessing him with business and freedom.
Hundreds of thousands of Shiites took part in a long-suppressed pilgrimage in Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, less than two weeks after Saddam's ouster, to commemorate the 40th day after the anniversary of Hussein's death.
Saddam stepped up his represssion of Shiites after crushing an uprising they staged in southern Iraq in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.
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