Friday 6 February 2026 - 12:08
From ruins to renewal: Mosul’s resilience and the revival of a historic Muslim heartland

Nearly a decade after the destruction of the ISIS stronghold in Iraq, the city of Mosul has rebuilt its historic mosques, homes and schools, reflecting cultural resilience, religious revival, and the determination of its people to restore their city’s legacy, writes Muhammad Siddeeq.

Hawzah News Agency- Mosul was devastated during the three-year occupation by ISIS from 2014 to 2017 and the subsequent Battle of Mosul, where intense street-to-street fighting, airstrikes, and deliberate demolition of buildings, including historic mosques and infrastructure, left much of the city in ruins and displaced over a million residents.

Mosul was devastated during the three-year occupation by ISIS from 2014 to 2017 and the subsequent Battle of Mosul, where intense street-to-street fighting, airstrikes, and deliberate demolition of buildings, including historic mosques and infrastructure, left much of the city in ruins and displaced over a million residents.

Nearly a decade after the battle that ended the rule of the so-called “Islamic State” in 2017, Mosul has become one of the Middle East’s most powerful stories of the resilience of a people.

Its recovery is not only about bricks and mortar, but about identity, memory, and the determination of its proud Muslim people to restore a way of life that stretches back more than a millennium.

The city of Mosul is revered in the wider Muslim world due to it’s inextricable link with the legendary Muslim ruler Nur Al-Din Mahmoud Zangi, who re-united the Muslims of modern-day Iraq and Syria and paved the way for the re-conquest of Jerusalem.

At the heart of the current revival of Mosul stands one of Mosul’s most revered landmarks, the Great Mosque of al-Nuri. The man who first built this mosque in the 12th century, Nur al-Din Mahmoud Zangi, is remembered today as a champion of justice, religious scholarship, and resistance to the Crusader states.

Nur al-Din’s rule marked a period in which Mosul was not just a frontier city of conflict, but a beacon of organised governance and Islamic revival. His patronage of mosques, schools, and charitable institutions reflected a vision of society rooted in Islamic faith, knowledge, and public welfare.

For Muslims far beyond Iraq, the rebirth of al-Nuri Mosque resonates deeply. Mosul has long been a crossroads of Islamic learning, trade . The restoration of its most iconic mosque signals that a centre of faith and culture, once nearly erased, is alive again. It stands as a reminder that the heritage of the Muslim world is not easily extinguished.

Source: 5 PIlLARS

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