Mosul

Official name	Mosul
Native name	الموصل
Pushpin map	Iraq
Pushpin mapsize	300
Coordinates region	IQ
Subdivision type	Country
Subdivision name
Subdivision type1	Governorate
Subdivision name1	Ninawa
Subdivision type2	District
Subdivision name2	Mosul
Population total
Population density
Population density mi2
Population metro
Population urban	1,800,000 (2008)
Timezone	GMT +4
Latns	N
Longew	E
Twin1	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Twin1 country	United States

Mosul (, Maṣlawī Arabic: al-Mōṣul, , , ), is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some 400 km (250 miles) northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linking the two sides. The majority of its population is now Arab (with Assyrians, Armenian, Turcoman and Kurdish minorities). It is Iraq's third largest city after Baghdad and Basra.

The fabric Muslin, long manufactured here, is named after this city. Another historically important product of the area is Mosul marble.

In 1987, the city's population was 664,221 people; the 2002 population estimate was 1,740,000, and by 2008 was estimated to be 1,800,000.

The city's mayor is now Zuhair Mohsin Mohammed Abdulazeez.

The city of Mosul is home to the University of Mosul, one of the largest educational and research centers in Iraq and the Middle East.

The city is also a historic center for the Nestorian Christianity of the Assyrians, containing the tombs of several Old Testament prophets such as Jonah and Nahum.

Etymology

The name of the city is first mentioned by Xenophon in 401 BC in his expeditionary logs. There, he notes a small town of "Mepsila" (Μέπσιλα) on the Tigris at about where modern Mosul is today (Anabasis, III.iv.10). It may be safer to identify Xenophone's Mepsila with the site of Iski Mosul, or "Old Mosul", 20 miles north of modern Mosul, where six centuries after Xenophon's report, the Sasanian Persian center of Budh-Ardhashīr was built. Be as it may, the name Mepsila per se, however, is doubtlessly the root for the modern name, albeit, in its metathetic form of Mosul.

Nineveh gave its place to Mepsila after its violent fall to the Babylonians, Medes and Scythians in 612 BC. In fact, Xenophon makes no mention of it in his expedition of 401 BC (during the reign of the Persian Achaemenid dynasty in this region), although he does note Mepsila.

In its current Islamic form and spelling, the term Mosul, or rather "Mawsil" stands for the "linking point" – or loosely, the Junction City, in Arabic. Mosul should not be confused with the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh which is located across the Tigris from Mosul on the eastern banks, at the famed archaeological mound of Kuyunjik (Turkoman for "sheep's hill"). This area is better known today as the town of Nebi Yunus ("prophet Jonah"). The site contain the tomb of the Biblical Jonah as he lived and died in Nineveh, then the capital of ancient Assyria. Today, this entire area has been absorbed into Mosul metropolitan area. The surviving Assyrians, refer to entire city of Mosul as Nineveh (or rather, Ninawah).

It is also named al-Faiha ("the Paradise"), al-Khaḍrah ("the Green") and al-Hadbah ("the Humped"). It is sometimes described as "The Pearl of the North".

History

Ancient era and early Middle Ages

south of Mosul, Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, dating from the 6th Century]] It is mentioned in Biblical references that Nineveh was founded by Nimrod, son of Cush.

In approximately 850 BC, King Ashurnasirpal II of Assyria chose the city of Nimrud as his capital where present day Mosul is located. In approximately 700 BC, King Sennacherib made Nineveh the new capital of Assyria. The mound of Kuyunjik in Mosul is the site of the palaces of King Sennacherib and his grandson Ashurbanipal, who established the Library of Ashurbanipal.

Mosul later succeeded Nineveh as the Tigris bridgehead of the road that linked Syria and Anatolia with the Median Empire. In 612 BC, the Mede emperor Cyaxares, together with the alliance of Nabopolassar king of Babylon and the Scythians, conquered Nineveh.

It became part of the Seleucid Empire after Alexander's conquests in 332 BC and was later taken by the Parthian Empire in 224 BC.

The city changed hands once again with the rise of Sassanid Persia in 225 AD. Christianity was present among the indigenous Assyrian people in Mosul as early as the 2nd century. It became an episcopal seat of the Nestorian faith in the 6th century. In 637 (other sources say 641), during the period of the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, the city was annexed to the Islamic empire by Utba bin Farqad Al-Salami.

Mosul was promoted to the status of capital of Mesopotamia under the Umayyads in the 8th century, during which it reached a peak of prosperity. During the Abbassid era it was an important trading centre because of its strategic location astride the trade routes to India, Persia, and the Mediterranean. The Muslim general and conqueror of Sindh, Muhammad bin Qasim, is said to have died here in the 8th century AD.

9th to 15th centuries

In the late 9th century control over the city was seized by the Hamdanid Arab dynasty, who, for several decades, made it their main stronghold, first as governors of the Abbassid and later as de facto independent rulers. A century later they were supplanted by the Uqaylids.

Mosul was conquered by the Seljuks in the 11th century. After a period under semi-independent atabeg such as Mawdud, in 1127 it became the centre of power of the Zengid dynasty. Saladin besieged the city unsuccessfully in 1182. In the 13th century it was captured by the Mongols led by Hulegu, but was spared the usual destruction since its governor, Badr al-Din Luʾluʾ, helped the Khan in his following campaigns in Syria. After the Mongol defeat in the Battle of Ain Jalut against the Mamluks, Badr al-Din's son sided with the latter; this led to the destruction of the city, which later regained some importance but never recovered its original splendor. Mosul was thenceforth ruled by the Mongol Ilkhanid and Jalayrid dynasties, and escaped Tamerlan's destructions.

16th to 19th centuries

In the early 16th century Mosul was under the Turkmen federation of the Ak Koyunlu, but in 1508 it was conquered by the Safawids. Finally, in 1535, Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent added it to his empire. Thenceforth Mosul was governed by a pasha. Mosul was celebrated for its line of walls, comprising seven gates with large towers, a renowned hospital (maristan) and a covered market (qaysariyya), and was also famous for its fabrics and flourishing trades.

The Dominican fathers arrived in Mosul in 1750, sent by Pope Benedict XIV (Mosul had a large Christian population, predominantly Assyrians). They were followed by the Dominican nuns in 1873. They established a number of schools, health clinics, a printing press and an orphanage. The nuns also established workshops to teach girls sewing and embroidery. A congregation of Dominican sisters, founded in the 19th century, still has its motherhouse in Mosul. Over 120 Assyrian Iraqi Sisters belong to this congregation.

It remained under Ottoman control until 1918 when it was taken by the British, with a brief break in 1623 when Persia seized the city, and was the capital of Mosul Vilayet one of the three vilayets (provinces) of Ottoman Iraq.

20th century

Mosul's importance as a trading centre declined after the opening of the Suez Canal, which enabled goods to travel to and from India by sea rather than by land across Iraq and through Mosul. The city's fortunes revived with the discovery of oil in the area, from the late 1920s onward. It became a nexus for the movement of oil via truck and pipeline to both Turkey and Syria. Qyuarrah Refinery was built within about an hour's drive from the city and was used to process tar for road-building projects. It was damaged but not destroyed during the Iran–Iraq War. Mosul provides a key portion of the country's electrical needs via Mosul Dam and several neighboring thermal turbine facilities.

The opening of the University of Mosul in 1967 enabled the education of many in the city and surrounding areas, and it includes engineering and linguistics departments among its many other academic departments.

The region had been part of the Ottoman Empire from 1534 until the end of World War I in 1918. The possibility of dissolving this Empire became real with the Great War, since Germany was the ally of the Ottoman Empire. Secret agreements between the French and the British government (known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement) decided in 1916 to draw a straight line from the Jordan heights to Iran: where the northern zone (Syria, and later the upcoming Lebanon) would be under French influence, and the southern zone (Iraq, and later, after renegotiations in 1917, Palestine which included modern Jordan) would be under British influence. Mosul was in the northern zone, and would have become a Syrian city; but early discoveries of oil in the region just before the end of the war (1918), pushed the British government to yet another negotiation with the French; to include the region of Mosul into the southern zone (or the British zone). The border line that divides the two sides has not changed since 1918, but it has helped determine the boundaries of the modern Middle East for the coming century with the creation of different countries from the Ottoman Empire.

At the end of World War I in October 1918, after the signature of the Armistice of Mudros, British forces occupied Mosul. After the war, the city and the surrounding area became part of the British mandate of Iraq. This mandate was contested by Turkey which continued to claim the area based on the fact that it was under Ottoman control during the signature of the Armistice. In the Treaty of Lausanne, the dispute over Mosul was left for future resolution by the League of Nations. Iraq's possession of Mosul was confirmed by the League of Nations brokered agreement between Turkey and Great Britain in 1926.

Some of the villages and towns around Mosul with its large Kurdish population were significantly affected by the 1991 rebellion suppression by the deposed former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, during the 1991 Kurdish-mounted, unsuccessful revolt against the regime. In the wake of the revolt's failure, a swathe of Kurdish-populated territory in the north and northeast of Iraq fell under the control of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Kurdistan Democratic Party, which established autonomous (and de facto independent) rule in the region. Mosul did not fall within the Kurdish-ruled area, but it was included in the no-fly zones imposed and patrolled by the United States and Britain between 1991 and 2003.

Although this prevented Saddam's forces from mounting large-scale military operations again in the region, it did not stop the regime from implementing a steady policy of "Arabisation" by which the demography of some areas of Nineveh Governorate were gradually changed. Despite the program Mosul and its surrounding villages remained home to a mixture of Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens, a few Jews, and isolated populations of Yazidis and Mandeans. Saddam was able to garrison portions of the 5th Army within the Mosul city, had the international flight capable airport under military control, and recruited heavily from the city for his military's officer corps; this may be due to the fact that most of the officers and generals of the Iraqi Army were from Mosul long before the Saddam regime era.

After Saddam's fall

When the 2003 invasion of Iraq was being planned, the United States had originally intended to base troops in Turkey and mount a thrust into northern Iraq to capture Mosul. However, the Turkish parliament refused to grant permission for the operation. When the war did break out in March 2003, US military activity in the area was confined to strategic bombing with airdropped special forces operating in the vicinity. Mosul fell on April 11, 2003, when the Iraqi Army 5th Corps, loyal to Saddam, abandoned the city and eventually surrendered, two days after the fall of Baghdad. Kurdish fighters took civil control of the city, and started what eventually became a widespread looting before agreeing to cede control to US forces.

On July 22, 2003, Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, were attacked and killed by Coalition forces in Mosul. The brothers were killed in a gunbattle that ensued after a failed attempt at their apprehension. The city also served as the operational base for the US Army's 101st Airborne Division during the occupational phase of the Operation Iraqi Freedom. During its tenure, the 101st Airborne Division was able to extensively survey the city and, advised by the 431st Civil Affairs Battalion, non-governmental organizations, and the people of Mosul, began reconstruction work by employing the people of Mosul in the areas of security, electricity, local governance, drinking water, wastewater, trash disposal, roads, bridges, and environmental concerns. Other US Army units to have occupied the city include the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 172nd Stryker Brigade, the 3rd Brigade-2nd Infantry Division, 18th Engineer Brigade (Combat), the 1st Brigade-25th Infantry Division, the 511th Military Police Company, the 812th Military Police Company and company-size units from Reserve components, including an element of the 364th Civil Affairs Brigade.

On June 24, 2004, a coordinated series of car-bombs killed 62 people, many of them policemen.

In November 2004, concurrently with the US and Iraqi attack on the city of Fallujah, the Battle of Mosul (2004) began. On November 10, insurgents conducted coordinated attacks on the police stations. The policemen who were not killed in the fighting fled the city, leaving Mosul without any civil police force for about a month. However, soon after the insurgents' campaign to overrun the city had begun, elements from the 25th Infantry Division and components from the Multinational force composed mainly of Albanian forces, took the offensive and began to maneuver into the most dangerous parts of the city. Fighting continued well into the 11th with the insurgents on the defensive and US forces scouring neighborhoods for any resistance.

On December 21, 2004, fourteen US soldiers, four American employees of Halliburton, and four Iraqi soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on a dining hall at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Marez next to the main US military airfield at Mosul. The Pentagon reported that 72 other personnel were injured in the attack carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest and the uniform of the Iraqi security services. The Islamic terrorist group Army of Ansar al-Sunna (partly evolved from Ansar al-Islam) declared responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.

In early 2005, the head of Mosul's anti-corruption unit, Gen. Waleed Kashmoula, was killed by a bomb which exploded outside his office. In October 2005, the Iraq Interior Department attempted to fire the police chief of Mosul. Mosul Sunni leaders saw it as a Kurdish attempt to seize control over the police. In the end the police chief was replaced by a Sunni Arab, MG Wathiq Al Hamdani, who is a city resident.

In December 2007, Iraq reopened the airport in Mosul. An Iraqi Airways flight carried 152 Hajj pilgrims to Baghdad, the first commercial flight since US forces declared a no-fly zone in 1993, although further commercial flight remained prohibited. On January 23, 2008, an explosion in an apartment building killed 36 people. The following day, a suicide bomber dressed as a police officer assassinated the local police chief, Brig. Gen. Salah Mohammed al-Jubouri, the director of police for Ninevah province, as he toured the site of the blast.

After November 2004, the city of Mosul suffered tremendously due to deteriorated security conditions (including military actions as well as threats and killing of innocent civilians by terrorists and criminals), unprecedented violence levels (especially on ethnic bases), continuous destruction of the main infrastructures of the city, and neglect and mismanagement by the occupation forces, by the Nineveh Governerate Council, by multiple political parties as well as by the central Iraqi Government in Baghdad.

All these factors deprived the city of its historical, scientific, and intellectual foundations in the last 4 years, when a great lot of scientists, professors, academics, doctors, health professionals, engineers, lawyers, journalists, religious clergy (both Muslims and Christians), historians, as well as the professionals and artists in all walks of life, were either killed or forced to leave the city under the threat of being shot, exactly as it happened elsewhere in Iraq in the years following 2003.

On May 10, 2008, a military offensive was launched by US-backed Iraqi Army Forces led by Maj. Gen. Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the commander of military operations in Mosul, in the hope of bringing back stability and security to the city. Though the representatives of Mosul in the Iraqi Parliament, the intellectuals of the city, and other concerned humanitarian groups agreed on the pressing need for a solution to the unbearable conditions of the city, they still believe that the solution is merely political and administrative. They are also questioning whether such a large scale military offensive will spare the lives of innocent people.

In 2008, many Assyrian Christians (about 12,000) fled the city following a wave of murders and threats against their community. The murder of a dozen Assyrians, threats that others would be murdered unless they converted to Islam and the destruction of their houses sparked a rapid exodus of the Christian population. Some families crossed the borders to Syria and Turkey while others were given shelter in churches and monasteries. Accusations and blames were exchanged between Sunni fundamentalists and some Kurdish groups for being behind this new exodus. For the time being the motivation of these acts is unclear, but some claims linked it to the imminent provincial elections which took place in January 2009, and the related Assyrian Christians' demands for broader representation in the provincial councils.

An investigation in 2009 pointed out that more than 2,500 Kurds had been killed and more than 40 families displaced in Mosul since 2003. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan blames Al-Qaeda and former Ba'ath Party's. Despite all the odds, the citizens of Mosul have vowed to bring stability and prosperity to Mosul, to rebuild the city, and to regain its historical and cultural roles as one of the three major cities in Iraq and one of the first historic metropolitan areas in the world.

Demographics

(traditional market) in Mosul city northern Iraq, 1932]] This city is indicative of the mingling ethnic and religious cultures of Iraq. There is a Muslim Arab and some Arab Christians majority in urban areas, such as downtown Mosul on the Tigris. Across the Tigris and further north in the suburban areas, thousands of Assyrians, Kurds, Turkmens, Shabaks and Armenians, make up the rest of Mosul's population. Sunni Arabs make up the majority of the city's population. Sunni Kurds, Yezidi Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrians are also present. Shabaks are concentrated on the eastern outskirts of the city.

The population of Mosul has progressively become a mixture of Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds, Turkmens, The Arabization plans were counteracted in the 1980s by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his Baath party, which forced some of those minorities to move outside the city, back into Kurdish regions.

The city is close to the Kurdish regions of Iraq and is considered by some Kurdish officials to be traditionally Kurdish, and situated in what was historically the Kurdistan region. There have been some demands from Kurdish parties that Mosul should be included in the Kurdistan Regional Government. Kurdish fighters have been moving into the city since the fall of the Ba'ath government, causing some tensions with the Sunni Arabs of the city. Clashes erupted in recent months, between Sunni Arabs in Mosul and Kurdish fighters entering the city from the Kurdish regional governorates.

Religion

The majority of people in Mosul are Sunni Muslims, though Mosul does have a proportion of Assyrian Christians who have had a presence in the villages around of Mosul in ancient Nineveh since the foundation of the city (majority follow the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church and the Syriac Orthodox Church, and a minority follow the Assyrian Church of the East). Have the Arab Christians that majority are from center of the city, some follow the Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church, and a small number of protestants Christians. Other religions, such as Yazidi, Yarsan and Mandean religions also call Mosul home.

Long before the Muslim conquest of the 7th century, the old city Nineveh was Christianized when the Assyrians converted to Christianity during the 1st and 2nd centuries.

Despite institutional ethnic persecution by various political powers, including the Ba'ath Party regime, Mosul has maintained a multicultural and multi-religious mosaic. The difficult history of Mosul, however, still contributes to tensions among its modern inhabitants.

Mosul had a Jewish population. Like most Iraqi Jews, most left in 1950–51. A larger number may have converted to Islam in the past century but some traditions have been retained. It is very difficult to give a reliable estimate of the Jewish population in Iraq because of the remaining Jews have adapted to the Islamic culture. Most Iraqi Jews have moved to Israel, some to the United States. A rabbi in the American army found an abandoned, dilapidated synagogue in Mosul dating back to the 13th century.

Language

Mosul dialect of Arabic is a slick , much softer in its pronunciation. In this, it resembles the dialect of Aleppo and the Levantine Arabic. Iraqis sometimes described it as the feminine version of Iraqi Arabic.

The Arabic of Mosul carries the influence of the languages of all the various ethnic groups who have lived in the city: Kurds, Turkmens, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and others. For example, under the influence from the Armenian language, Mosul Arabic often replaces "r" with a "gh". One finds many Kurdish and words in Mosul Arabic due to the long presence of Kurdish people in and around the city.

The Kurds of Mosul speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish, known as Bahdini (or Badinani) in the region. Other languages such as Armenian and Assyrian (Syriac)/Aramaic are also spoken among their communities.

Arabic is the primary language of communication, education, business, and official work to the majority of the city's residents.

Climate

Mosul experiences a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) with extremely hot, almost rainless summers and cool, rainy winters. Mosul, although not at a particularly high elevation, still receives much more rain than most of Iraq: Close to 3 times that of Baghdad and over twice that of Basra, despite being much further from the Persian Gulf than either. The Kurdish regions to the north are even wetter.

Sports

The city has one football team competing in the top-flight of Iraqi football – Mosul FC, currently playing in the Iraqi premier League. Another team from the region, Al-Hadba FC, plays in second league.

Mosul FC was founded in 1947 and represents the entire Ninevah province in Iraq, but due to lack of funding it withdrew from the league in the 2008/2009 season. On the 28 May 2010, Mosul FC beat the Iraqi champions Arbil, in front of a full crowd at the Al Mosul University Stadium by a single goal scored by Anmar Ismaeil.

Sports venues

Football stadium

Mosul Stadium

Opened in 1964, this is currently the main stadium in the province, and is the home of Mosul FC. It has a capacity of 10,000. As the stadium is not safe for use, the Mosul FC plays their home games in the Al Mosul University Stadium.

Al Mosul University Stadium

The al Mosul University Stadium is a multi-use stadium. It is currently used mostly for football matches and serves as the home stadium of Mosul FC. The stadium holds 20,000 people.

Education

The city's largest university, the University of Mosul was founded on 1 April 1967, by merging with College of Medicine which was opened in 1959.

Health

Health in Mosul is directed by Nineveh Health Directorate which is related to Iraqi Ministry of Health. The most important hospitals in Mosul are: Al Jamhuri hospital, Ibn seena hospital, Al Khansaa teaching hospital, Al-Salam teaching hospital, Ibn Alatheer hospital, Mosul General hospital, Al Batool hospital, Oncology and Nuclear medicine hospital, Al Shifaa hospital for infections. Other hospitals in Nineveh governorate are Telafer general hospital, Al-Hamdania hospital, Sinjar general hospital, Baaj hospital.

Main sights

Mosul is rich in old historical places and ancient buildings: mosques, castles, churches, monasteries, and schools, many of which have architectural features and decorative work of significance. The town center is dominated by a maze of streets and attractive 19th century houses. There are old houses here of beauty. The markets are particularly interesting not simply for themselves alone but for the mixture of types who jostle there: Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Turcoman, Armenians, Yazidi, Mandeans, Roma and Shabaks.

The Mosul Museum contains many interesting finds from the ancient sites of the old Assyrian capital cities Nineveh and Nimrud. The Mosul Museum is a fair, olden building, around a courtyard and with an impressive facade of Mosul marble containing displays of Mosul life depicted in tableau form.

The famous English writer, Agatha Christie, lived in Mosul whilst her second husband, an archaeologist, was involved in the excavation in Nimrud.

Mosques and shrines

Umayyad Mosque: The first ever in the city, built in 640 AD by Utba bin Farqad Al-Salami after he conquered Mosul in the reign of Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab. The only original part still extant is the remarkably elaborate brickwork 52m high minaret that leans like the Tower of Pisa, called Al-Hadba (The Humped).

The Great (Nuriddin) Mosque: Built by Nuriddin Zangi in 1172 AD next door to the Umayyad Mosque. Ibn Battuta (the great Moroccan traveller) found a marble fountain there and a mihrab (the niche that indicates the direction of Mecca) with a Kufic inscription.

Mosque of the Prophet Yunus or Younis (Jonah): On one of the two most prominent mounds of Nineveh ruins, rises the Mosque (a Nestorian-Assyrian Church ear) of Prophet Younis "Biblical Jonah". Jonah the son of Amittai, from the 8th century BC, is believed to be buried here, where King Esarhaddon had once built a palace. It is one of the most important mosques in Mosul and one of the few historic mosques that are found on the east side of the city.

Mujahidi Mosque: The mosque dates back to 12th century AD, and is distinguished for its shen dome and elaborately wrought mihrab.

Mosque of the Prophet Jerjis (Georges): The mosque is believed to be the burial place of Prophet Jerjis. Built of marble with shen reliefs and renovated last in 1393 AD. It was mentioned by the explorer Ibn Jubair in the 12th century AD, and is believed also to embrace the tomb of Al-Hur bin Yousif.

Mashad Yahya Abul Kassem: On the right bank of the Tigris, known for its conical dome, decorative brickwork and calligraphy engraved in Mosul blue marble, 13th century.

Bash Tapia Castle: Mosul's old walls have disappeared, with the exception of these imposing ruins a'rising high over the Tigris.

Qara Serai (The Black Palace): The remnants of the 13th century palace of Sultan Badruddin Lu'lu'.

Churches and monasteries

Mosul has the highest proportion of Assyrian Christians of all the Iraqi cities, and contains several interesting old churches, some of which originally date back to the early centuries of Christianity. Its ancient Assyrian churches are often hidden and their entrances in thick walls are not easy to find. Some of them have suffered from overmuch restoration.

Shamoun Al-Safa (St. Peter, Mar Petros): The oldest church in Mosul, it dates from the 13th century and named after Shamoun Al-Safa or St. Peter (Mar Petros in Assyrian Aramaic). Early, it had the name of the two Apostles, Peter and Paul, and had early been inhabited by the nuns of the Sacred Hearts.

Church of St. Thomas (Mar Touma in Assyrian Aramaic): One of the oldest historical churches, named after St. Thomas the Apostle who preached the Gospel in the East, including India. The exact time of its foundation is unknown, but it can be assumed that it dates yester 770 AD, since Al-Mahdi, the Abbasid Caliph, is mentioned as listening to a grievance concerning this church on his trip to Mosul.

Mar Petion Church: Mar Petion, educated by his cousin in a monastery, was martyred in 446 AD. It is the first Chaldean Catholic church in Mosul, after the union of many Assyrians with Rome in the 17th century. It dates back to the 10th century, and lies 3 m below street level. This church suffered destruction, and it has been reconstructed many times. A hall has been built on one of its three parts in 1942. As a result, most of artistic features have been confused.

Ancient Tahira Church (The Immaculate): Near Bash Tapia, considered one of the most ancient churches in Mosul. No evidence helps to determine its exact area. It could be either the remnants of the church of the Upper Monastery or the ruined Mar Zena Church. Al-Tahira Church dates back to the 7th century, and it lies 3 m below street. Reconstructed last in 1743.

Mar Hudeni Church: It was named after Mar Ahudemmeh (Hudeni) Maphrian of Tikrit who martyred in 575 AD. Mar Hudeni is an old church of the Tikritans in Mosul. It dates back to the 10th century, lies 7 m below street and was first reconstructed in 1970. People can get mineral water from the well in its yard. The chain, fixed in the wall, is thought to cure epileptics.

St. George's Monastery (Mar Gurguis): One of the oldest churches in Mosul, named after St. George, located to the north of Mosul, was probably built late in the 17th century. Pilgrims from different parts of the North visit it yearly in the spring, when many people also go out to its whereabouts on holiday. It is about 6 m below street. A modern church was built over the old one in 1931, abolishing much of its archeological significance. The only monuments left are a marble door-frame decorated with a carved Estrangelo (Syriac) inscription, and two niches, which date back to the 13th or 14th century.

Mar Matte: This famous monastery is situated about 20 km east of Mosul on the top of a high mountain (Mount Maqloub). It was built by Mar Matte, a monk who fled with several other monks in 362 AD from the Monastery of Zuknin near the City of Amid (Diyarbakir) in the southern part of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and the north of Iraq during the reign of Emperor Julian the Apostate (361–363 AD). It has a precious library containing Syrianic scriptures.

Monastery of Mar Behnam: Also called Deir Al-Jubb (The Cistern Monastery) and built in the 12th or 13th century, it lies in the Nineveh Plain near Nimrud about 32 km southwest of Mosul. The monastery, a great fort-like building, rises next to the tomb of Mar Behnam, a prince who was killed by the Sassanians, perhaps during the 4th century AD. A legend made him a son of an Assyrian king.

St. Elijah's Monastery (Dair Mar Elia): The oldest Christian Monastery in Iraq, it dates from the 6th century.

Other Christian historical buildings:

The Roman Catholic Church (built by the Dominican Fathers in Nineveh Street in 1893)

Mar Michael

Mar Elias

Mar Oraha

Rabban Hormizd Monastery, the monastery of Notre-Dame des Semences, near the Assyrian town of Alqosh

Arts

Painting

The so-called Mosul School of Painting refers to a style of miniature painting that developed in northern Iraq in the late 12th to early 13th century under the patronage of the Zangid dynasty (1127–1222). In technique and style the Mosul school was similar to the painting of the Seljuq Turks, who controlled Iraq at that time, but the Mosul artists had a sharper sense of realism based on the subject matter and degree of detail in the painting rather than on representation in three dimensions, which did not occur. Most of the Mosul iconography was Seljuq – for example, the use of figures seated cross-legged in a frontal position. Certain symbolic elements however, such as the crescent and serpents, were derived from the classical Mesopotamian repertory.

Most Mosul paintings were illustrations of manuscripts—mainly scientific works, animal books, and lyric poetry. A frontispiece painting, now held in the Bibliothèque National, Paris, dating from a late 12th century copy of Galen's medical treatise, the Kitab al-diriyak ("Book of Antidotes"), is a good example of the earlier work of the Mosul school. It depicts four figures surrounding a central, seated figure who holds a crescent-shaped halo. The painting is in a variety of whole hues; reds, blues, greens, and gold. The Küfic lettering is blue. The total effect is best described as majestic. Another mid-13th century frontispiece held in the Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, to another copy of the same text suggests the quality of later Mosul painting. There is realism in its depiction of the preparation of a ruler's meal and of horsemen engaged in various activities, and the painting is as hueredful as that of the early Mosul school, yet it is somehow less spirited. The composition is more elaborate but less successful. By this time the Baghdad school, which combined the styles of the Syrian and early Mosul schools, had begun to dominate. With the invasion of the Mongols in the mid-13th century, the Mosul school came to an end, but its achievements were influential in both the Mamluk and the Mongol schools of miniature painting.

Metalwork

Starting from the 13th-century, metal craftsmen centred in Mosul influenced the metalwork of the Islamic world from North Africa to eastern Iran. Under the active patronage of the Zangid dynasty, the Mosul School developed an extraordinarily refined technique of inlay—particularly in silver—far overshadowing the earlier work of the Sāmānids in Persia and the Būyids in Iraq.

Mosul craftsmen used both gold and silver for inlay on bronze and brass. After delicate engraving had prepared the surface of the piece, strips of gold and silver were worked so carefully that not the slightest irregularity appeared in the whole of the elaborate design. The technique was carried by Mosul metalworkers to Aleppo, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, and Persia; a class of similar metalwork from these centres is called Mosul bronzes.

Among the most famous surviving Mosul pieces is a brass ewer inlaid with silver from 1232, and now in the British Museum, by the artist Shujā’ ibn Mana. The ewer features representational as well as abstract design, depicting battle scenes, animals and musicians within medallions. Mosul metalworkers also created pieces for Eastern Christians. A candlestick of this variety from 1238 and housed in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, attributed to Dà’ūd ibn Salamah of Mosul, is bronze with silver inlay. It displays the familiar medallions but is also engraved with scenes showing Christ as a child. Rows of standing figures, probably saints, decorate the base. The background is decorated with typically Islamic vine scrolls and intricate arabesques, giving the piece a unique look.

Notable births

Kathem Al Saher, Iraqi pop singer, songwriter, and musician

Salah al-Din al-Sabbagh, Iraqi Army officer

Paulos Faraj Rahho, Assyrian Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, assassinated, late February or early March 2008

Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer, Interim President of Iraq during 2004–2005

Munir Bashir, Assyrian musician and famous musician in the Mideast during the 20th century

Asenath Barzani, first Jewish female rabbi

Taha Yassin Ramadan, former Vice President of Iraq

Hormuzd Rassam, Assyrian Assyriologist and diplomat

Hawar Mulla Mohammed, Iraqi soccer player for the national team

Ignatius Zakka I, Patriarch of Antioch and all east

See also

Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Mosul

Al-Mishraq, site of 2003 sulfur dioxide disaster

List of Emirs of Mosul

List of places in Iraq

Mosul International Airport

Nineveh plains

Tel Keppe

References

External links

Iraq Image – Mosul Satellite Observation

Detailed map of Mosul by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, from lib.utexas.edu

Category:Populated places in Ninawa Governorate Category:Assyria Category:Arab Christians Category:Fertile Crescent Category:District capitals of Iraq Category:Cities in Iraq