Eight years after Daesh extremists demolished the ancient Al-Nuri Grand Mosque and its leaning tower in the center of Mosul’s Old City, Iraq’s prime minister presided over the mosque’s formal reopening on Monday.
The mosque’s slanting minaret was a famous landmark for around 850 years. Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the head of Daesh, announced the so-called “caliphate” there in 2014 by conducting prayers and giving a Friday sermon. After losing a fight with Iraqi armed troops in 2017 for control of the city, the Daesh organization later demolished the mosque by setting off explosives within the buildings.
The minaret was rebuilt using traditional methods and materials recovered from the debris by UNESCO, the United Nations’ scientific, educational, and cultural agency, in collaboration with Iraqi heritage and Sunni religious authorities.
The European Union and the United Arab Emirates contributed a significant portion of the $115 million that UNESCO collected for the repair effort.
The mosque’s restoration “will remain a landmark, reminding all enemies of the heroism of Iraqis, their defense of their land, and their rebuilding of everything destroyed by those who want to obscure the truth,” according to a statement from Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani.
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