Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:20:27.387Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

REMEMBERING THE IMĀM YAḤYĀ IBN AL-QĀSIM MASHHAD IN MOSUL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2017

Richard Piran McClary
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article consists of a detailed account of the mashhad of Imām Yaḥyā ibn al-Qāsim. The square-plan building, constructed on the cliff edge above the southern bank of the Tigris in the citadel of Mosul in c. 637/1239, was destroyed in an act of cultural terrorism by ISIS on 23 July 2014. This is a study of the work of earlier scholars on the building, a reassessment of the structure and its regional context, and a number of hypotheses regarding the original appearance of the tomb. In addition, the wide-ranging sources of the formal and decorative elements of the building are examined. The mashhad was the most richly ornamented of the medieval tombs in Iraq which had survived into the modern era, yet it had not been comprehensively studied in over a century. The remaining untranslated inscriptions are given in full, adding useful new information to the discussion regarding the important distinction between the ʿAlids versus Shīʿī associations of the building and its patron. Drawing on the limited published and archival images of the building, the internal appearance is reconstructed, and a series of new architectural plans and elevations are provided in order to preserve the memory of this important structure.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 79 , December 2017 , pp. 129 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

Having never had the chance to visit the building prior to its destruction, I am indebted to all the scholars who have gone before. The work of Sarre and Herzfeld is critical, and the studies by Pagliero and al-Janabi have added further to the understanding of the building. My thanks go to Katie Marsh, Karel Nováček and Yasser Tabbaa for their generosity in allowing me to use their slides, and to Antoinette Harri at the Max van Berchem Foundation in Geneva for all her help. My heartfelt thanks go to Professor Robert Hillenbrand for his many insightful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Although the loss of the Mosul mashhad, and so many other structures, is a tragedy, the scale of human suffering is incomprehensible. This article is dedicated to the countless thousands who have died in the current conflict in Syria and Iraq.

References

Abdel Haleem, M. A. S. (trans.) 2005. The Qur'an. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Al-Diwachi, S. 1968. Mausoleum of Imam Yahya abil-Qasim. Sumer 24: 171–82 [In Arabic].Google Scholar
Al-Janabi, T. J. 1975. Studies in Medieval Iraqi Architecture, PhD Thesis, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Al-Janabi, T. J. 1982. Studies in Medieval Iraqi Architecture. Baghdad: Ministry of Culture and Information, State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage.Google Scholar
Allen, T. 1983. The Tombs of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphs in Baghdād. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 46/3: 421–31.Google Scholar
Bell, G. L. 1911. Amurath to Amurath. London: William Heinemann.Google Scholar
van Berchem, M. 1906. Monuments et inscriptions de l'atābek Lu'lu’ de Mossoul. Pp. 197–210, in Bezold, C. (ed.), Orientalische Studien Theodor Nöldeke zum Siebzigsten Geburtstag, Vol. 1. Giesen: Alfred Töpelmann.Google Scholar
van Berchem, M. 1911. Arabische Inschriften. Pp. 1–51, in Sarre, F. and Herzfeld, E., Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, Vol. 1. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.Google Scholar
Blair, S. 1992. The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Bloom, J. 2012. The Expression of Power in the Art and Architecture of Early Islamic Iran. Pp. 102–19, in Herzig, E. and Stewart, S., (eds.), Early Islamic Iran: The Idea of Iran, Vol. 5. London and New York: I. B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Bourgoin, J. 1879. Les éléments de l'art arabe: le trait des entrelacs. Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot.Google Scholar
Canby, S. R., Beyazit, D., Rugiadi, M. and Peacock, A. C. S. 2016. Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs. New York, NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.Google Scholar
Cohn-Wiener, E. 1939. A Turanic Monument of the Twelfth Century A.D. Ars Islamica 6/1: 88–91.Google Scholar
Cooper, L. 2013. Archaeology and Acrimony: Gertrude Bell, Ernst Herzfeld and the Study of Pre-Modern Mesopotamia. Iraq 75: 143–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gierlichs, J. 1995. Das Mosul-Tor von ‘Amadiya im Nordirak. Baghdader Mitteilungen 26: 195–206.Google Scholar
Grabar, O. 1966. The Earliest Islamic Commemorative Structures, Notes and Documents. Ars Orientalis 6: 7–46.Google Scholar
Hillenbrand, C. 1999. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Hillenbrand, R. 1994. Islamic Architecture: Form, Function and Meaning. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Hillenbrand, R. 2006. Mosul – Diyar Rabi'a. Pp. 18–23, in von Gladiss, A. (ed.), Die Dschazira: Kulturlandschaft zwischen Euphrat und Tigris. Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Stifung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.Google Scholar
Holmes, O., 2014. Militants Destroy Philosopher's Tomb, Poets’ Statues in Iraq. Reuters World News, Source: www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/20/uk-iraq-security-shrines-idUSKBN0EV1JF20140620 (accessed 28 July 2015).Google Scholar
Jones, C. W. 2014. ‘August in Iraq: More Destruction, Humanitarian Catastrophes. Gates of Nineveh Blog, https://gatesofnineveh.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/august-in-iraq-more-destruction-humanitarian-catastrophes/ (accessed 3 June 2015)Google Scholar
Kröger, J. 2005. Ernst Herzfeld and Friedrich Sarre. Pp. 45–99, in Gunter, A. C. and Hauser, S. R. (eds.), Ernst Herzfeld and the Development of Near Eastern Studies, 1900–1950. Leiden and Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Lewis, B. 1960. ʿAlīds. Pp. 400–03, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 1. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Madelung, W. 1997. Shīʿism. Pp. 420–24, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 9. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Mamedov, M. and Muradov, R.. 2001. Gurganj, Architectural and Historical Guide. Padua: Il Punto.Google Scholar
McClary, R. 2014. Brick Muqarnas on Rūm Saljūq Buildings: The Introduction of an Iranian Decorative Technique into the Architecture of Anatolia. Fūnūn/kunsttexte.de 3: 1–11.Google Scholar
McClary, R. 2015. The Rūm Saljūq Architecture of Anatolia 1170–1220. Unpublished PhD thesis, Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Mulder, S. 2008. The Architecture of Co-existence: Sunnis, Shi'is and the Shrines of the ‘Alids in the Medieval Levant. Unpublished PhD thesis, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Nasr, S.H. 1978. Ithnā ʿAshariyya. Pp. 277–79, in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. 4. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Nickel, G. 2009. The Language of Love in Qur’ān and Gospel. Pp. 233–48, in Monferra-Sala, J. P. and Ángel, U. (eds.), Sacred Text: Explorations in Lexicography. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Niebuhr, C. 1776. Voyage en Arabie & en d'autres Pays circonvoisins. Amsterdam: S. J. Baalde.Google Scholar
Nováček, K. 2014. Mosul: Cataclysm and Historical Architecture. Kuděj 2014/2: 115–21 [in Czech].Google Scholar
Pagliero, R. 1965. Conservation of Two Islamic Monuments in Mosul. Sumer 21: 41–68.Google Scholar
Pancaroğlu, O. 2004. The Itinerant Dragon-Slayer: Forging Paths of Image and Identity in Medieval Anatolia. Gesta 43/2: 151–64.Google Scholar
Patton, D. 1982. A History of the Atabegs of Mosul and their Relations with the Ulama A.H. 521–660/1127–1262. Unpublished PhD dissertation, New York: New York University.Google Scholar
Richards, D. S. (trans.) 2008. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fī’l-ta'rīkh. Part 3. The Years 589–629/1193–1221: The Ayyubids after Saladin and the Mongol Menace. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Sarre, F. and Herzfeld, E.. 1911–20. Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, 4 Vols. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.Google Scholar
Snelders, B. 2010. Identity and Christian-Muslim Interaction: Medieval Art from the Mosul Area. Leuven, Paris and Walpole, MA: Peeters Publishing.Google Scholar
Tabbaa, Y. 2001. The Transformation of Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival. Seattle, WA and London: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Tabbaa, Y. 2002. The Mosque of Nūr al-Dīn in Mosul, 1170–1172. Annales Islamologiques 36: 339–60.Google Scholar