BASRA, Iraq - Mohammed Zaki's black hair glistened with gel, his muscular body bulged through his T-shirt, and on his chin, he sported a wisp of goatee. He held the hand of his girlfriend, Sabreen Jawad, whose cascade of hair was unfettered by an Islamic head scarf. The sounds of violins and saxophones flowed through the corridor, notes of musical freedom.

This was anything but an ordinary day inside Basra University's College of Fine Arts. Under the harsh constraints imposed by extremist Shiite Muslim clerics and militias that until recently controlled this city, men with Western hairstyles were threatened and beaten. Women without head scarves were sometimes raped and killed. Love was a secret ritual.

"I wouldn't even be able to stand next to her," said Zaki, 26.

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Two months after the Iraqi government ordered its fledgling military to root out the religious militias here in Iraq's third-largest city, Basra is beginning to awaken from a four-year dormancy. A recent week-long visit that included several dozen interviews revealed that many of the city's nearly 3 million residents are resuming lives that had been interrupted by an austere interpretation of Islam.

But their new freedom in this historically cosmopolitan city near the head of the Persian Gulf comes with boundaries drawn by fear of the future. The root cause of their previous grievances -- well-armed militias fighting for power and economic resources -- continue to exert influence over day-to-day life.

Conservative Shiite religious parties, backed by these militias, still control government ministries. Security is brittle, ushered in by a temporary deployment of 30,000 Iraqi soldiers and expedient political cease-fire agreements. Corruption as well as a lack of basic public services, jobs and investment are deepening frustrations.

And in today's Iraq, even moderate Shiite clergy view themselves as protectors of the nation's Islamic identity, ensuring that Basra might never fully regain its freewheeling, secular past.

For now, though, a collective sense of relief is washing over this sprawling port city, which sits at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

On this day, Zaki embraced the forbidden. He walked to an organ and played "Listen to Your Heart" by the 1980s Swedish pop band Roxette. He then swung into a medley of Western and Arab tunes, as Jawad, 23, watched adoringly.

Another student joined him, strumming the oud, a traditional pear-shaped instrument outlawed here because its music was branded secular.

When the pair finished, their classmates applauded loudly, itself an act of courage. Even enjoying music was banned in recent years.

Zaki smiled. A tattoo in Chinese on his right arm, which he once hid because body art was deemed un-Islamic, read:

"I love life."

More confidence in Maliki's rule
Once Iraq's most vibrant city, Basra attracted traders and seamen from across the Arab world, Asia and Africa. It was dubbed the Venice of the Middle East because of its network of canals.

Now most of those carry sewage.

The city was shelled repeatedly during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. The following decade, President Saddam Hussein brutally crushed two Shiite rebellions here. His government then purposely neglected the city, allowing it to collapse into a state of desert decay.

In 2003, some of the heaviest fighting of the U.S.-led invasion unfolded on the city's outskirts. The British soldiers who then took control were greeted by thousands of Basrans, many of them with flowers.

But religious hard-liners flourished despite the British administration, infiltrating every nook of society, including mosques and universities. Shiite militias with such names as Vengeance of God and Soldiers of Heaven mingled with the larger and better-known Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Assassinations and kidnappings gripped the city.

"People called them the Taliban," said Abdul Sattar Thabid al-Beythani, dean of the College of Fine Arts, referring to Afghanistan's puritanical former rulers.

Other politically connected militias smuggled oil and controlled the ports. Three months after the British handed over control of Basra in December, Iraqi forces, backed by U.S. and British airpower, launched their crackdown. It was intended to return Basra, the chokepoint of Iraq's oil, to the central government's authority. The fighting stopped after Sadr ordered his fighters to stand down.

Today an Iraqi army battalion occupies the Sadrist headquarters at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, pocked with bullet holes like a giant slab of Swiss cheese. The office and mosque of the Iranian-backed Vengeance of God militia has been reduced to rubble.

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Where Mahdi Army fighters once manned checkpoints across the city, Iraqi soldiers and policemen check vehicles behind blast walls on virtually every stretch of road. Iraqi army Humvees patrol militia strongholds.

In a traffic circle, Sadr's face has been scratched out on a billboard, the same treatment given to Hussein murals in the weeks after the invasion. Fresh graffiti in many neighborhoods praise Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shiite prime minister who sent in the troops despite U.S. warnings that they were ill-prepared.

"It shows the government is tough," said Ayad al-Kanaan, 43, a tribal leader and local council member. "Now, there is more confidence in Maliki's government and in Iraq's army."

CONTINUED : Booming business in non-Islamic music

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