A drone view shows the Al-Hadba Minaret in the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, which was rebuilt after it was blown up by Islamic State militants, in Mosul, Iraq on January 9, 2025. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Mosul’s Grand al-Nuri Mosque, known for its eight-century-old leaning minaret, destroyed by Islamic State militants in 2017, has been renovated in a boost for Iraq’s second city as it rebuilds after long years of war.

From the pulpit of this medieval mosque on July 4, 2014, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a self-styled ‘caliphate’ spanning parts of Syria and Iraq.

Three years later, the ultra hardline group demolished the mosque in the final weeks of a U.S.-backed Iraqi campaign that ousted the jihadists from Mosul, their de facto capital in Iraq.

Protracted and fierce urban warfare largely reduced the historic landmarks of Iraq’s second city to rubble.

Mahmoud Thannon, 70, a tailor who lives near the mosque and runs a tailor shop overlooking the mosque’s minaret, said his two sons were killed before the al-Hadba minaret was demolished.

“When I saw it collapse, I felt even sadder than when I lost my sons,” he said. “Watching the Hadba minaret rise again is a joyous day. I feel our pride soaring high as well.”

“My dear martyred sons would be proud to see the minaret rebuilt if they were alive.” said Thannon, speaking inside his shop with images of his two sons hanging behind him.

He broke into tears as he recalled their deaths by shelling in May and June 2017 in the war against Islamic State.

Reconstruction and restoration of the mosque and minaret were carried out in partnership with the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, the European Union (EU) and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said over $115 million were mobilised from no less than 15 partners, with the United Arab Emirates and EU the most prominent.

“The fact to have it (the minaret) here behind me is like history coming back; is like the identity of this city coming back,” said Azoulay in a speech delivered on February 5 near the mosque to celebrate the completion of the rebuilding work.

The Iraqis called the 150-foot (45-metre) leaning minaret Al-Hadba, or “the hunchback.”

The mosque was named after Nuruddin al-Zanki, a noble who fought the early crusaders from a fiefdom that covered territory in modern-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq. It was built in 1172-73, shortly before his death, and housed an Islamic school.

The Old City’s stone buildings, where the mosque is located, date mostly from the medieval period. They include market stalls, a few mosques and churches, and small houses built and rebuilt on top of each other over the ages.

A United Nations agency said it has discovered five bombs in a wall of Mosul’s iconic Al-Nuri mosque, planted years ago by Islamic State group jihadists, during restoration work in the northern Iraqi city.

Five “large-scale explosive devices, designed to trigger a massive destruction of the site,” were found in the southern wall of the prayer hall on Tuesday by the UNESCO team working at the site, a representative for the agency told AFP late Friday.

Mosul’s Al-Nuri mosque and the adjacent leaning minaret nicknamed Al-Hadba or the “hunchback”, which dates from the 12th century, were destroyed during the battle to retake the city from IS.

Iraq’s army accused IS, which occupied Mosul for three years, of planting explosives at the site and blowing it up.

UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, has been working to restore the mosque and other architectural heritage sites in the city, much of it reduced to rubble in the battle to retake it in 2017.

“The Iraqi armed forces immediately secured the area and the situation is now fully under control,” UNESCO added.

One bomb was removed, but four other 1.5-kilogram (3.3-pound) devices “remain connected to each other” and are expected to be cleared in the coming days, it said.

‘Complex manufacturing’

“These explosive devices were hidden inside a wall, which was specially rebuilt around them: it explains why they could not be discovered when the site was cleared by Iraqi forces” in 2020, the agency said.

Iraqi General Tahseen al-Khafaji, spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command of various Iraqi forces, confirmed the discovery of “several explosive devices from ISIS jihadists in Al-Nuri mosque.”

He said provincial deminers requested help from the Defence Ministry in Baghdad to defuse the remaining munitions because of their “complex manufacturing”.

Construction work has been suspended at the site until the bombs are removed.

It was from Al-Nuri mosque that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the then-leader of IS, proclaimed the establishment of the group’s “caliphate” in July 2014.

The jihadists took over large swathes of territory in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, which they ruled with brutality.

Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition drove IS out of Mosul in 2017.

The Al-Nuri mosque derives its name from Nureddine al-Zinki, the unifier of Syria who also reigned for a time over Mosul and ordered its construction in 1172.

It was destroyed and rebuilt in 1942 in a renovation project, with only the ancient minaret remaining from the original structure.

The current restoration of Al-Nuri, largely funded by the United Arab Emirates, is still expected to be completed in December 2024.

This, said UNESCO, will finally erase “the stigma” of IS occupation.

The minaret — which will be reconstructed at a slant upon the request of locals — is being rebuilt with 45,000 of the original bricks saved from the rubble, only a third of the original structure.

The bomb scare was not the first surprise discovery at Al-Nuri. In January 2022, restoration teams unearthed an underground prayer room from the original 12th century building.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)