Great Mosque of al-Nuri

The Great Mosque of al-Nuri is the most important historic monument in Mosul, founded in 1172 by the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din. It was in this mosque that Saladin received the key endorsement of the Mosul religious establishment on his way to becoming the great sultan of the Crusader wars. For eight centuries, its defining feature was the al-Hadba minaret — leaning slightly off-centre, nicknamed "the hunchback" — which served as a landmark visible for miles across the Nineveh plain.

The mosque was extensively damaged during the battle for Mosul, and the minaret was deliberately destroyed by ISIS in June 2017. A UNESCO-led reconstruction project, funded in part by the United Arab Emirates, has been working to rebuild the minaret using salvaged original stone and 12th-century construction techniques. Visiting the site today means seeing an active restoration effort in progress — the courtyard is accessible, the rebuilt prayer hall has reopened, and the rising minaret shaft gives a sense of what was lost and what is being recovered.

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When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared in the mosque in July 2014 to declare the Islamic State caliphate, he stood beneath the famous leaning minaret — the al-Hadba, "the hunchback" — that had graced Mosul's skyline since the twelfth century. When ISIS retreated in June 2017, they blew the minaret up rather than let it fall back into Iraqi hands. UNESCO is now overseeing its reconstruction using original stone and traditional techniques.

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