Author: Rumtaya » Sat Sep 17, 2005 1:23 pm
Ancient and Ottoman Mosul
The area around Mosul has been continuously inhabited for at least 8,000 years. The city itself was founded by the Assyrians as an outpost or citadel located on the hill of Q'leat on the right bank of the Tigris, across from the ancient city of Ninevah (now the town of Ninewa). In approximately 850 BC, King Assurnasirpal II of Assyria chose the city of Nimrud to build his capital city where present day Mosul is located. In approximately 700 BC, King Sennacherib made Nineveh the new capital of Assyria. The mound of Kuyunjik in Mosul is the site of the palaces of King Sennacherib and his grandson Ashurbanipal. Probably built on the site of an earlier Assyrian fortress, Mosul later succeeded Nineveh as the Tigris bridgehead of the road that linked Syria and Anatolia with Persia.
Mosul became an important commercial center in the 6th century BC. It was conquered briefly by the Roman Empire before falling under Muslim rule in 637 AD. It was promoted to the status of capital of Mesopotamia under the Umayyads in the 8th century, during which it reached a peak of prosperity. During the Abbassid era it was an important trading centre because of its strategic location, astride the trade routes to India, Persia and the Mediterranean. In 1127 it became the centre of power of the Zengid dynasty. Saladin besieged the city unsuccessfully in 1182 but in the 13th century it was conquered and destroyed by the Mongols; although it was later rebuilt under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and remained important, it did not regain its earlier grandeur. It remained under Ottoman control until 1918, with a brief break in 1623 when Persia seized the city for a short time, and was the capital of one of the three vilayets (provinces) of Ottoman Iraq (the other two being Baghdad and Basra).
The city is a historic center of Nestorian Christianity containing the tombs of several Old Testament prophets such as Jonah, who is commemorated in a rare joint Muslim/Christian shrine (originally a Nestorian church, now a mosque), and the somewhat more obscure Nahum.
to this one who wanted to put mosul too to his kurdish hermi can you read there its nestorian historic center do you know who are meaned here with Nestroian????? no i can help you they mean ASSYRIANS