Page 37 - Hussein revivalism14

Al-Nikhaila Mosque:
Hussein Revivalism spoke to
Wisam Lateef Safi, the Deputy
Secretary of the Shrine of
Dhul-Kifl, about the mosque.
He told us that the mosque's
history goes back to the time
of Imam Ali, the Commander of
the Faithful, and it was in this
place that he prayed before
heading out to face Muawiyah
at the Battle of Siffeen, and
again before fighting the
Kharijite rebels at the Battle of
Nahrawan. Soon after, the al-
Nikhaila Mosque was built upon 3 metres in depth, 9 metres
the site of Imam Ali's prayers.
The historians record that the
mosque's stone pulpit was
erected by Sayyid Taj al-Deen
al-Aftasy before his death in
171 AH.
Safi brought the story forward
to the reign of the Mongolian
Ilkhanid ruler Muhammad
Khodabanda around 703–716
AH. Though Khodabanda was
from a Mongolian dynasty that
had conquered the area around
Baghdad, he had converted
to Shi‘ah Islam through the
prominent Shi‘ah scholar
Allamah al-Hilli. Khodabanda
renovated the al-Nikhaila
Mosque and the Shrine of
Dhul-Kifl. The mosque's walls
date back more than 700
years to around this time and
measure1.35 metres in width,
in height, and 663 metres in
circumference.
However, the holy niche
(mihrab) where Imam Ali prayed
before the Battle of Siffeen,
which once lied on the left
entrance of the Shrine of Dhul-
Kifl, was tragically removed by
extremists in 1860 AD.
The desecration of the mosque
did not end there; more recently
all but three of the mosque's
towers were buried under
residential building projects in
the vicinity. Sheikh Hazim al-
Ameri, the imam of Imam Ali
Mosque in al-Kifl, told us how
under the last dictatorship the
mosque, known at the time
as Khan Kreish, was closed
for worship and relegated to a
storehouse for various items,
and people began to forget that
Khan Kreish was a monument
of great historical and sacred
importance.
However this religious
repression was ended after the
fall of the dictatorial regime in
2003. The return of religious
freedom allowed the residents
of al-Kifl to re-explore the al-
Nikhaila Mosque and rediscover
Hussein Revivalism 37