The Built Environment of Historic Islamic Cities: Mosul

by

Karel Nováček

• LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2024
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190922467-0101

Introduction

Mosul was founded as a garrison city (misr) in 640–641, shortly after the Muslim takeover of Iraq, on the western bank of Tigris opposite Assyrian Nineveh, and soon developed to become a capital of Northern Iraq. A millennium-long coexistence of different faiths and sects (represented, e.g., by Christians of at least four denominations; Jews; and Muslims including Shia, Sunni, and Sufi) and different ethnicities (e.g., Arab, Kurdish, Armenian, Turcoman) created a unique, heterogeneous, and eclectic built environment. Leaving aside the understudied Christian architecture, the oldest preserved layer of Mosul’s architecture dates from the reign of the Zangid Atabegs (reigned 1127–1234) and particularly Sultan Badr al-Din Lu’lu’ (reigned 1234–1259). Thanks to a long period of relative prosperity starting with the rule of the al-Jalili dynasty in the first half of the 18th century, a complex and authentic built environment emerged in the old city, a 290-ha (hectare) area with an organic pattern of narrow, winding streets. Even in the 1980s it counted about one thousand registered heritage structures, mainly mosques, churches, shrines, mausoleums, baths, commercial buildings, and residential houses. Compared to other cities of comparable size in the region, Mosul’s Old City has received very little scholarly attention, while large parts of it have been destroyed by modernization projects or long-term neglect. During the so-called Islamic State’s (ISIS, ISIL) occupation from June 2014 to July 2017, the most valuable Islamic architectural landmarks, centers of social life and memory, were deliberately demolished, and the extensive destruction of the old city was completed during the liberation in the spring and summer of 2017. In addition to a number of private initiatives, UNESCO, the Ministry of Sunni Endowments, and foreign Christian foundations are involved in the restoration of the city.

General Works

The earliest systematic surveys of Mosul’s Islamic and Christian architectural heritage by Sarre and Herzfeld 1911–1920 remains the fundamental body of research even after one hundred years and later works draw heavily from it. Iraqi and Turkish scholarship is oriented mainly historically and in terms of art history, and mostly has significant deficiencies in documentation; its active fieldwork phase ended in the 1980s—see Al-Sufi 1940, Al-Janabi 1982, Uluçam 1989, and Mawsu‘at al-Mawsil 1992. As a basic, brief characterization of Mosul architecture Wirth 1991, Hillenbrand 2006 or Nováček 2021 can be used. Nováček, et al. 2021 attempts to analyze in detail structures destroyed by the Islamic State and to explain the ideological background of their destruction, as well as to put them in the context of medieval urban development. Tabbaa 2020 deals with the political and religious circumstances of the architectural patronage of the Mosul’s rulers in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries.

• Al-Janabi, Tariq J. Studies in Medieval Iraqi Architecture. Baghdad, Iraq: Ministry of Culture and Information, State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage, Iraq, 1982.

  Still a representative survey in English, although the passages on Mosul are relatively outdated, very selective, and lacking good documentation.

• Al-Sufi, Ahmad. Al-Athar wa al-mabani al-‘arabiya al-islamiya fi al-Mawsil. Mosul: Matba‘at Umm al-rabi‘ayn, 1940.

  A pioneering work of Mosul’s architectural history, including brief descriptions and analyzes of a dozen major monuments before a wave of modernization.

• Hillenbrand, Robert. “Mosul –Diyar Rabi’a.” In Die Dschazira, Die Kulturlandschaft zwischen Euphrat und Tigris. Edited by Almut v. Gladiss, 18–22. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2006.

  A brief overview putting the medieval Mosul’s art in the wide Jazeeran (North Mesopotamian) context.

• Mawsu‘at al-Mawsil al-Hadariya. 5 vols. Mosul, Iraq: Dar al-kutub li-l- tiba‘a wa al-nashr, 1992.

  The third volume of this extensive Mosul Encyclopaedia contains sections about historical architecture, its types and formal elements, and about individual monuments, with numerous drawings and photographs.

• Nováček, Karel. “Mosul Architecture.” In Encyclopaedia of Islam, Vol. 3. Edited by K. Fleet, G. Krämer, D. Matringe, J. Nawas, and E. Rowson, 124–127. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2021.

  A brief characterization of the development, research history, and formal diversity of Mosul’s historical architecture.

• Nováček, Karel, Miroslav Melčák, Ondřej Beránek, and Lenka Starková. Mosul after Islamic State: The Quest for Lost Architectural Heritage. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-62636-5

  The destruction of Mosul by the Islamic State (2014–2017) studied in all its complexity including its underlying rationale and ideological background, architectural and historical analysis of the destroyed buildings on the basis of all pertinent sources, and 3D digital reconstructions of selected monuments.

• Sarre, Friedrich, and Ernst Herzfeld. Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet. 4 vols. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer, 1911–1920.

  DOI: 10.5962/bhl.title.115772

  Despite a number of errors and omissions, this is still a basic, richly documented survey of Mosul architecture, based on field research conducted in 1907–1908, capturing also monuments that no longer exist today. The chapter on Mosul is in Volume 2 (pp. 203–304) and the epigraphic study by M. van Berchem is in Volume 1 (pp. 16–30), Volumes 3 and 4 contain photographs and several plan drawings.

• Tabbaa, Yasser. “The Politics of Patronage in Medieval Mosul: Nur al-Din, Badr al-Din and the Question of the Sunni Revival.” In The Seljuqs and their Successors: Art, Culture and History. Edited by Sheila R. Canby, Deniz Beyazit, and Martina Rugiadi, 88–109. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.

  DOI: 10.1515/9781474450379-012

  Analysis of architectural realizations of this two most important of Mosul’s patrons of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries aims to reassess their different religious attitudes from strict Sunnism to an acceptance of moderate Shi‘ism (see the polemic in Nováček and Melčák 2023 cited in Shrines and Mausoleums).

• Uluçam, Abdüsselam. Irak’taki Türk Mimari Eserleri. Ankara, Turkey: Kültür Bakanlığı, 1989.

  Catalog of architectural works constructed during the reign of the Turkish dynasties in the twelfth to eighteenth centuries, with in-depth description and good measurement, drawing, and photographic documentation, which is partly the author’s and partly taken from Sarre and Herzfeld 1911–1920.

• Wirth, Eugen. “Zur Inventarisierung schützenswerter Bauwerke und Bauten-Komplexe in Mosul: Vorbericht über ein deutsch-irakisches Gemeinschaftsprojekt.” Baghdader Mitteilungen 22 (1991): 639–658.

  Brief information about the then just begun project of inventorization of monuments in old Mosul with a fairly reliable overall plan of the city, a general characterization of the buildings, and samples of their documentation.