Mosul

Mosul is an old city on the Tigris river in northern Iraq that has seen many rulers over the ages. It holds the al-Nuri Mosque with its famous leaning minaret called al-Hadba. In the middle ages it was a city of trade and learning between Baghdad and Syria.

Mosul is a city on the west bank of the Tigris in northern Iraq, opposite the ruins of the Assyrian city Nineveh. It gained its place in Islamic history as a centre of the Jazira, and flourished in the twelfth century under the Zengids when Imad al-Din Zengi made it his capital; the al-Nuri Mosque built by Nur al-Din Zengi stands there, with its leaning Hadba minaret that became the city's symbol until it was destroyed in 2017. It was a station on the caravan routes between Baghdad, Syria and Anatolia, and was known for weaving, scholars and crafts.

Mosul is an Iraqi city on the west bank of the Tigris opposite the ruins of Nineveh, historically tied to the Jazira. The Muslims entered it in the early conquests, and in the middle ages it became a Zengid seat: Imad al-Din Zengi made it his capital in the twelfth century, and building, libraries and craft flourished there. Its most famous monument is the al-Nuri Mosque and its Hadba minaret, which leaned over centuries and was rebuilt after its destruction in 2017. Mosul remained a dry port linking Baghdad to Syria and Anatolia on the trade routes, and a passage between countries. In Ottoman and modern times it became a provincial capital; in the twenty-first century it suffered wide destruction under ISIS (2014–2017) followed by gradual rebuilding. Historians read it as a Jaziran city layering Assyrian, Abbasid, Zengid, Ottoman and modern strata.