Writing in a 1951 communique back to his superior in New Delhi, Indian Vice-Consul Mohammad Yunus described a particularly tough task: dealing with the “innumerable pensioners” in the Shi’a pilgrimage cities waiting to die. They had traveled from India to Iraq in order to die in Karbala or Najaf, believing that the location of their death would mean assured salvation. These individuals, citizens of newly independent India, had little money and much medical need. Yet Yunus noted that there was little more than a shed at Basra for pilgrims alighting from their voyages, and the only boarding houses for pilgrims of any kind operated by Dawoodi Vohra charitable organizations. This paper examines economic development in the urban areas of the Karbala district during the late monarchical period (1945-1958), particularly the cities of Karbala and Najaf. Due to their role as centers of pilgrimage and scholarship in Shi’a Islam, these communities were spaces of ethnolinguistic diversity both in their resident and transient populations. Largely due to a renegotiation of its royalty agreement with the Iraq Petroleum Company, the Iraqi central government embarked on a new modernization plan that included public service buildings and infrastructure after 1951. While many efforts were situated in the capital, the program did not completely neglect provincial urban areas such as Mosul, Kut, or Basra. Despite having tangible needs, especially in regards to pilgrims and pensioners, the cities of Karbala district were largely an afterthought in these plans. Instead, foreign sources of income such as Shi’a charitable organizations or old bequests such as the Oudh loan often filled the development vacuum. I argue that this is part of a broader narrative situating the pilgrimage cities as spatially dissonant within the construction of the Iraqi nation. These areas, distinguished by their sacrality, pursued their own development utilizing the transnational rather than national. While the government at times would offer some assistance, these token shows of currying political favor never supplanted the tangible labors of Persian and Indian Shi’a both in and out of Iraq. Spatially, economic development in Iraq remained contradictory and contested, giving rise to a seminal yet flawed Iraqi nationalism. Reflecting the international efforts of economic development in Karbala and Najaf, this paper utilizes documents from a variety of national archives, including papers of the British Foreign Office, Indian Ministry of External Affairs, and the United States Department of State.