Draft:Prophet Yunus Mosque

The Prophet Younis Mosque is one of the historical archaeological Iraq Mosques, located on the western foot of the hill of Repentance, or the hill of the Prophet Younis (Jonah) also known as Tel Younis. It was mentioned by Ibn Battuta on his travels in Mosul.

On 24 July 2014 CE (26 Ramadan 1435 AH), the organization ISIS demolished and bombed the mosque. A statement by the governor of Mosul, Atheel Al-Nujaifi, hinted and said that ISIS blew up the houses of God and removed a its minarets and neither a prophet nor a guardian was spared from them.

History of the mosque


The exact date of its construction isn’t known, but it was mentioned by Abu Zakaria Al-Azdi, who died near the year.

While some historians state that this place isn’t the true shrine of the prophet Younis (Jonah), but rather a shrine of one of the former prophets when Nineveh was a religious center, while others claim that it is part of the palace of Esarhaddon, whose monuments are located under the remains of the old mosque. There’s a water eye called "Ain Al-Damlamaja" and the name is the Turkish (Mah Jah Damla) and here means nominating because its water is in the summer a little and filtering from its sides, but in the spring its water increases and may fill a section of the valley where the eye is located.

Bombing of the mosque


The outer wall was slightly damaged after an explosive device exploded near the mosque on 25 June 2010 CE. Four people were injured in the blast.

The mosque building containing the shrine of the Prophet Younis was destroyed and demolished by elements of ISIS on 24 July 2014 CE in an organized campaign launched by the organization to demolish historical shrines and evidence that according to ideology, the organization worships without God. This act was described in the media as ideological terrorism and was considered an act contrary to the Freedom of religion.

On 24 July 2014 CE, a group of ISIS operatives placed explosives on the inner and outer walls of the mosque. The gunmen then ordered worshipers to leave and residents were instructed to stay away from the building by at least 500 meters.

Within seconds of the bombing, the shrine of the Prophet Younis turned into rubble. The group also expelled most of the city’s Christian residents in an effort to make Mosul mono-feel for the first time in its history.

The organization published a clip of the bombing of the tomb of the Prophet Younis in 2014 CE, and the event was part of a wave of destruction that affected sites and holy symbols in Mosul.

One of the justifications given by ISIS for destroying the shrine of the Prophet Younis was questioning its legitimacy. One of the organization’s fighters was quoted by the BBC news agency as saying that the shrine was a grave for Christian popes and that “it is forbidden to build a mosque on a fake mausoleum.”

Academic research already suggests that Prophet Jonah is not buried there. It is even known that there are several tombs of the Prophet Yunus in different parts of the world.

Dr. Thomas Carlson, an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma and author of Christianity in 15th Century Iraq, says that in the time of the medieval, with poor means of communication between distances, many ancient celebrities were getting several graves in several locations.

Even the bones believed to belong to the Prophet Yunus may actually be bones of a patriarch in the Church of the East named Hnanisho I who was buried in the monastery in 701 CE.

Archaeologists don’t yet know whether Henisho’s bones survived the explosion. But they found traces that human eyes hadn’t seen in thousands of years.

The Mutmur Palace
When excavating under the shrine of the Prophet Younis, he discovered a buried palace that was the place of residence of the late Assyrian kings and a base for the Assyrian armies. The palace dates back to at least the 7th century BCE.

During the 1850s CE, indications of a possible palace under the shrine of Prophet Yunus (Jonah) were found for the first time, during excavations by two archaeologists, Henry Leyard and his assistant Mosuls of the generator Hormozd Rassam.

The two had turned their attention to the shrine of Prophet Yunus after discovering the ruins of a palace in Koenigke on the other bank of the Tigris River. But the sanctity of the site prevented exploring more. Leotard wrote: “The bigoting of Mosul residents forbids trying to explore a highly revered spot due to its holiness.”

Between 1989 and 1990 CE, the Iraqi government conducted a fossil collection at the site, but its investigation in the research didn’t approach the mausoleum site for fear of damaging its infrastructure. As in 1850 CE, the imam warned that the shrine could be damaged by excavations.

But when the Iraqi army east of Mosul recaptured the site from the Islamic State (ISIS) in January 2017 CE, archaeologists found something strange under the rubble of the mosque. More tunnels than previously documented were found. In fact, there were more than fifty new tunnels, some of which were only a few meters long and others were over 20 meters long.

Dr. Peter Megles, a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg who participated in the initial research on tunnels, described the state of the land under the mosque, saying it was so full of pits that it looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.

Most of these tunnels appear to have been dug using picks, but there is still evidence of the use of a small digger. The largest tunnels are three and a half meters high, while the smallest of them doesn’t exceed one meter.

Initial reports indicated that ISIS fighters dug these tunnels themselves, but some residents east of Mosul said the organization hired some people from the area to do the job.

The group wanted to seize the monuments inside the tunnels. The sale of artifacts is believed to have been the group’s second-largest source of income after oil.

Dr Lamia Al-Kilani, an associate researcher in the Near and Middle East Department at the London School of Oriental and African Studies, says it’s similar to what happened at the Mosul Museum, referring to the group’s 2015 CE looting from the museum. Dr. Lamia adds: “It seems that they stole everything that could be carried from the shrine of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) in order to sell it.”

Carefully looted under the shrine of the Prophet Yunus, in order to preserve what appeared to have been discovered. However, it appears that some of what was found was larger than IS militants could take with them. Some of these large pieces were engraved on the walls of the palace and may not have been possible to be uprooted without threatening the structural integrity of the tunnels dug under the hill.

Photographing statues of women
In March 2018 CE, when foreign journalists, bents of appearance, penetrated dark tunnels under the shrine of Prophet Yunus, many of what had been discovered by archaeologists hadn’t been removed from the site.

Besides small limestone pieces and jars, there were approximately thirty limestone slabs bearing the names of two Assyrian kings, Asarhadun and Ashurbanipal (Ashur Banipal). There was also a brick block engraved with the name of a king named Sennacherib.

But the most surprising discovery was a pair of inscriptions, each showing a row of women. It was this discovery that raised more questions than answers.

Dr Paul Collins of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, believes those engravings are unprecedented and says there is nothing to match them elsewhere. The overwhelming majority of Assyrian palace inscriptions found so far show males, such as images of a king extending his bayonet towards a lion or an army returning to the palace after a hunting trip.

It is uncommon to find female characters on this scale. Women, if they appear in the inscriptions in the first place, are often captive as war spoils or are depicted with smaller inscriptions that do not exceed the falter.

Apart from seals and metal pieces, we don’t know much about Assyrian inscriptions outside royal palaces that focus on military victories, says Dr Collins.

He continues: Images associated with the world of religions, if that is what is meant here, are rare. The deities usually appear to be associated with the king.

What surprised Assyrian art experts is that the women in the inscriptions discovered instead of appearing with side images of the face as is customary for Assyrian sculptures – appear here with a full face.

Dr. Amy Gansell, an assistant professor at St. John’s University in New York, says about women’s sculptures in the wall: “Finding them is incredibly exciting, it’s incredibly exciting, it’s the first time I’ve seen something like this.”

Although some believe that repetition and symmetrical design indicate that the female characters in the inscriptions are gods, Dr. Gansel doesn’t think so. The absence of horns or a special crown, i.e. common symbols used to demonstrate the “deity” in Assyrian art means that the depicted inscriptions may be for a group of human beings.

In accordance with Dr Gansel, women may represent members of the royal family or the elite of society who have been photographed carrying offerings to God, perhaps within a special ritual. She said: “It’s very interesting, shooting them here meant that the shrine had a women’s place of worship. It is further evidence of the role played by women in society and Assyrian religion. It’s really unique!”

No academic study has yet been conducted on what the inscriptions envision. It’s too early to draw important conclusions based on what was found in the tunnels. Not least because some of the inscriptions and writings were found upside down, suggesting they may have been taken from elsewhere.

Lamassu
Besides women’s inscriptions on the walls, images of the mythical “Lamassu”, or the winged bull, were found in the tunnels. There were four stone paintings on which Lamasu appeared, along with a fifth showing his remains. These huge stone models of the winged bull were placed at the entrances to the Assyrian palaces to terrorize enemies or exorcise evil spirits. In Akkadian, the word “lamassu” means the protective spirit. As Lamassu has the body of a bull or lion and two wings of an eagle and a face of human. All two of the Lamassu inscriptions found were standing together and had their faces placed toward those coming to the palace.

There are several factors that call for ISIS’s destruction of Lamaso statues in February 2015 as an echo of the looting and mass displacement of ancient cities such as Nineveh. When enemy armies were destroying entire cities, destroying the king’s images in them was an effective way to erase him from history.

But despite the obliteration and public destruction of Lamaso’s statues, the organization failed to achieve its goal. A short distance from the prophet Yunus (Jonah) and under the rubble of his grave, there are still stone inscriptions of the statues of Lamassu that no one has touched and hasn’t been seen with the human eye for thousands of years. Its recent discovery is a testament to the fact that the story of the shrine of the Prophet Younis hasn’t been completed despite efforts to destroy it.

Architectural style
‎The mosque was built on the hill, which gave it a distinctive and prominent view among the city's landmarks, and its gradual form suggests spiritually ascending to the higher self. Its exterior walls are covered with yellowish white stones, and its architectural design is noted that its affinity with Turkish architecture.