Zaman is a sweet and sad story about love and devotion, hope and fear. Zaman (Sami Kaftan), and his wife, Najma (Shatha Salim), have built their happy life together in their house of reeds and, though childless, adopted a boy, Yacine (Hussein Imad), orphaned by the 1991 Gulf War. They have lived a quiet, contented existence until Najma falls ill. The local doctor tells them she needs surgery or some special medicine he does not have. And so Zaman sets off in his small boat and journeys up the Tigris to Baghdad in search of the precious cure. Thus begins the journey of salvation and discovery for "Zaman, the Man of the Reeds."

The film depicts life in Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war through the characters of the fighters Jabbar and Imad (played by Jalal Kamel and Nizar Al-Samarrai). They live in the city of Basra and the Iraqi countryside amidst the war atmosphere. Jalal develops a love relationship with the beautiful girl Soha, and they both join their military duties.

Before the July 1958 revolution, Abu Saeed decides to incite the peasants to rebel against Sheikh Majid Al-Iqtai, who had burned their crops, exploited them, and enslaved them for many years. He succeeds in rallying the people's spirits against him.

A historical epic about the battle of Qadiseya, which was helmed by the Arabian knight Saad Ibn Abi Waqas, and which enabled Muslims from conquering Persia in 636 A.D.