As part of an extensive modernization during the Hashemite period that left few areas untouched, Iraq experienced an unprecedented growth of the state, the formulation of new modes of politics as well as normative political and cultural values that defined the rules of conduct of the nation. Simultaneously, novel state-sponsored disciplinary discourses sought to implement efficiency and productivity by favoring a strict and clear-cut division between work leisure, and by demanding loyalty to the nation from its citizens. In this context, the notion of a potentially dangerous and non-national idleness emerged as a function of a new and modern temporality and became associated with a particular space, namely the coffee shop, which had previously represented a less rigid boundary between work and leisure. Through an examination of a number of autobiographical and fictional works produced by Iraqi writers and intellectuals who frequented Baghdad’s many coffee shops in the early and mid 20th century, this paper sheds light on the politics of leisure and urban space in Baghdad during this period and explores how the coffee shop, as an important social space, came to represent a problematic site of idleness and indolence. More importantly, this paper argues that the notion of idleness must be historicized and placed in a temporal context. When the office became the fixed workplace and the classroom the primary site for education, a number of places outside of these institutions became increasingly ambiguous. The Iraqi state and normative society rallied around vilifying the vices and dangers of the coffee shop, among other places. In fact, the more time became measured, controlled, and organized, the more unsupervised intellectual and political activity raised suspicion among the former colonial masters and Iraqi intellectuals close to the state. By favoring literary over colonial and state archives, this paper also offers an alternative perspective on Iraq’s political history and culture. By including the voices of its clientele, this paper offers a view of the coffee shop from within and demonstrates how some of Baghdad’s avant-garde intellectuals did not always accept the disciplinary discourses of the state but rather they were able to subvert them with a good amount of playful defiance and challenge.