Three extra aisles have recently been added to the original building, and I understood the church to be shared between the Syrians and the Chaldæans. If the Christian architects continued to make use of a primitive Oriental plan, it is even more certain that they continued to be dependent upon Eastern artists for their decorative schemes, and were in no way linked with the West. Their decoration is the same as that which is to be found in contemporary Mohammadan buildings. For instance, a lintel which now lies in the atrium of Mâr Shim’ûn, a church which has been almost entirely rebuilt, is carved with an entrelac unmistakably Mohammadan ([Fig. 172]). Over one of the doors of Mâr Tûmâ there is a band of ornament which may perhaps have been taken from a Mohammadan building, though it is more probable that it formed part of the original Christian work ([Fig. 171]).[148] The style of this deeply undercut relief is so marked that it imprints itself upon the memory. I saw other examples of it in the beautiful tomb of the Imam Yaḥyâ which, according to an inscription, was built by the Sultan Lûlû ([Fig. 174]).[149] A mosque for the Friday prayers existed in the time of Ibn Baṭûṭah close to the Tigris, and this is in all probability the building which is praised by Mustaufî, who says that “the stone sculptured ornament is so intricate that it might stand for wood carving.”[150] This particular kind of stone relief, which is to be found both in Moslem and in Christian buildings, does in fact closely resemble wood carving, and the Christian examples cannot be of a different date from the Moslem. The first recorded mosque in Môṣul was built by Marwân II, the last of the Omayyad khalifs (744-750), not far from the Tigris, according to Ibn Ḥauḳal; so far as I know, no trace of it has survived. Nûr ed Dîn, the Atabeg (1146-1172), built a second Friday mosque in the bazaar, and this must be the great mosque with the leaning minaret which stands in the centre of the town, but how much of the original work remains I could not determine, for Mohammadan feeling was running high when I was in Môṣul, and at such times it is wiser not to ask for admittance into mosques.[151] Finally a third Friday mosque was erected near the Tigris (represented, as I conjecture, by the tomb of the Imâm Yaḥyâ), and to Lûlû’s day belongs also the ziyârah of ’Abdullah ibn Ḥassan in the heart of the town. The entrelac round the door of this ziyârah is very similar to the decoration of the sanctuary door in Mâr Tûmâ, except that the figures are absent. In the interior there is a band of deeply-cut stone relief of the wood-work type. The fluted cone-like roof with which the ziyârah is covered is found in all the Moslem tombs of Môṣul. There is another fragment of Lûlû’s handiwork which, ruined though it be, is of great architectural importance, the Ḳal’at Lûlû on the Tigris bank, not far from the tomb of the Imâm Yaḥyâ.[152] Only the eastern end of two vaulted halls is standing, but in one of these remains of stucco ornament still cling to the walls ([Fig. 173]). The ornament consists of a band of inscription and a band of tiny arcades, each arch containing the representation of a nude human figure, depicted from head to waist.[153] Below this band there has been another design of larger arches covered with rinceaux which are adorned with flowers and birds. The town walls are comparatively modern, but the Sinjâr Gate, on the west side, is worthy of note. It resembles the gates of Aleppo, and like them it bears a blazonry of lions.
One other memory of the days at Môṣul stands very freshly in my mind. There exists in the town a small and indigent Jewish community—neither too small nor too poverty-stricken to have attracted the watchful care of the Alliance Juive.[154] Under their auspices, M. Maurice Sidi, a courageous and highly cultivated Tunisian, has opened a school for the children, and by precept and example he imparts the elements of civilization, letters and cleanliness, to young and old. The English vice-consul, who had witnessed his efforts with great sympathy and admiration, invited him to bring a deputation of his co-religionists to the consulate while I was there, and a dignified body of bearded and white-robed elders filed one morning into the courtyard. We returned their visit at the school, where we were received by a smiling crowd, dressed in their best, who pressed bunches of flowers upon us. The class-rooms were filled with children proudly conscious that their achievements in the French, Arabic and Hebrew tongues had called down honour upon their race. The scholars in the Hebrew class, who were of very tender years, were engaged in learning lists of Hebrew words with their Arabic equivalents, Hebrew being an almost forgotten language among the Jews of Môṣul. M. Sidi drew forward a tiny urchin who stood unembarrassed before us, and gazed at him expectantly with solemn black eyes.
“What do you know?” said the master.
The black-eyed morsel answered without a shadow of hesitation: “I know Elohim.” And while I was wondering how much of the eternal secret had been revealed to that small brain, he began to recite the first list in the lesson-book, which opened with the name of God: “Elohim, Allah”—I do not remember how it went on, neither did he remember, without M. Sidi’s prompting. Elohim was what he knew.
Over against Môṣul lies Nineveh. The pontoon bridge that spans the Tigris had been swept away by the floods; the masonry arches on the further side stood out into the river, but where the causeway dips down to meet the bridge of boats it met nothing but the swiftly-flowing stream. We crossed therefore by a ferry, and so rode up to the mound of Ḳûyûnjik, where Xenophon saw the ruins of Nineveh and thought them to be a city of the Medes. His description of the immense area they covered scarcely seemed incredible as we stood upon the mound. The line of the walls ran out far to the north, far, too, to the south, embracing the neighbouring mound of Nebî Yûnus, which is the site of one of Jonah’s many tombs. The corn grew deep on Ḳûyûnjik, and the blue bee-eaters flew in and out of Layard’s excavation pits; across the fertile plain rose the towers of Môṣul; the broad Tigris ran between, which Saladin sought to turn from its bed when he laid siege to Nûr ed Dîn. His imperious folly is as forgotten as the splendours of Sennacherib—
“And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as this summer time o’erspreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city....”
Had the poet been dreaming of Nineveh when he wrote Love Among the Ruins?