Sunday, hundreds of religious songs celebrated the Prophet’s birthday for the first time in the Al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul in northern Iraq, since it was destroyed years ago during the battles against Daesh.

The mosque is still under restoration under the auspices of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), especially its twelfth-century al-Hadba minaret, after it was destroyed in June 2017 by explosives placed by Daesh, according to the Iraqi army.

Hundreds celebrated under the lights and banners that decorated the courtyard of the mosque on this occasion. The celebration included a mass prayer after the call to prayer was called in the mosque, an AFP journalist reported.

On a stage in front of the hunchback minaret, of which only its base remains, five men in traditional dress beat their tambourines and sang traditional religious songs praising the Prophet.

The Director of Awqaf in Nineveh Governorate, Abu Bakr Kanaan, confirmed, "This is the first celebration on the occasion of the Prophet's birthday in the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri," which was a mosque, "which had a great position before it was detonated, and the central celebrations were always held in it on the occasion of the birth."

He expressed his "great happiness to see the people and the people of the area" praying in the place and celebrating.

In the summer of 2017, official celebrations were held for the occasion of the "liberation" of Mosul by the Iraqi forces and an international coalition of the organization, which occupied large areas of Iraq for more than three years in 2014, and made Mosul its "capital."

The name of the mosque goes back to its builder, Nur al-Din al-Zanki, in the year 1172. The mosque was destroyed and then rebuilt in 1942, and only its hunchback minaret remains of its original construction after that.

From there, the former leader of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made his first appearance and declared in the summer of 2014 the establishment of a "caliphate".

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has raised about $100 million since 2019, half of it from the United Arab Emirates as part of the "Revive the Spirit of Mosul" project.

The restoration work in the mosque is supposed to be completed by the end of the year 2023.

"The al-Hadba minaret and the prayer hall will be reconstructed in the same way," Abdel Rahman Imad, a local official in the Antiquities Authority, told AFP.

"I feel joy and happiness because this day is unusual. Al-Nouri Mosque reminds me of my childhood and the days gone by," said Marwan Muwaffaq, a 45-year-old educational supervisor from Mosul who was participating in the celebration.

He added that this ceremony takes "a symbolism of returning the call to prayer and prayer to this place...The people of Mosul want to restore life to what it was through this place."