Al Musaffa Mosque

The Umayyad Mosque in Mosul is considered the first mosque built in the city after the Islamic conquest, and the fifth mosque established in Islam after Quba, the Prophet's Mosque, Basra, and Kufa. It is located in the western part of old Mosul in the Al Qulayat area, which contains the Bash Tabia Citadel, approximately 350 meters from the Tigris River, the area considered the origin of modern Mosul.

It was built by the commander Uqba ibn Nafi' Al Sulami in 16 AH, corresponding to 638 CE, then expanded by Harthamah ibn Arfajah Al Baraqi, Governor of Mosul appointed by Caliph Umar ibn Al Khattab, in 22 AH. He built residences and markets around it to transform the city into one of the garrison cities of the Islamic state. When it became too small for worshippers at the beginning of the second Hijri century, the Umayyad ruler Marwan ibn Muhammad demolished it and rebuilt and expanded it until it could accommodate more than eleven thousand worshippers, and it has been called the Umayyad Mosque ever since.

Abbasid Caliph Al Mahdi then demolished and expanded it again in 167 AH until it could accommodate approximately twenty thousand worshippers. In the mid-fifth Hijri century, the Atabegs rebuilt the mosque in 543 AH/1148 CE under Sayf Al Din I ibn Imad Al Din Zanki, calling it in that era "the Ancient Mosque" to distinguish it from the Great Nuri Mosque built later.

Over long centuries, the mosque was subjected to deliberate destruction and vandalism multiple times. The Mongols destroyed it in 660 AH/1261 CE to erase its features as the fifth mosque in Islam, then Tamerlane destroyed it twice in the years 798 and 804 AH, destroying it completely. It remained in that state for a long period until the benefactor Muhammad Musaffi Al Dhahab restored it in 1225 AH/1810 CE, after which it also became known as the Musaffi Mosque.

It was then fully restored by the General Awqaf Directorate in 1917 CE. Throughout the ages it was rich with Mosul Islamic architecture of plaster, stone, and varied Islamic ornamentations.

In 2017, it was subjected to destruction again during the war to reclaim Mosul from ISIS, as it is located in old Mosul which was the organization's last stronghold. It still awaits reconstruction, a witness to the deepest layers of the ancient city's history.