Mosul

Mosul, a decayed town of Asiatic Turkey, in the province of Al-Jezireh (ancient Mesopotamia), is situated on the right bank of the Tigris, opposite the ruins of ancient Nineveh (q.v.), 200 miles up the river from Bagdad. It is partly surrounded by crumbling walls. During the middle ages it was a very prosperous city, with much industry—muslin takes name from this town; now its bazaars are filled with the manufactures of the West, and almost the only export is gall-nuts, from the Kurdish mountains. Mosul was formerly the metropolis of the Mesopotamian Christians (the Nestorians, the United Chaldæans, the Jacobites, &c.), and still contains many Catholic Christians. Pop. estimated at 30,000. The town, which existed in 636, enjoyed its greatest prosperity in the 9th century, and onwards, until the desolating invasions of the Mongols in the 12th. Then came the Seljuks; and they were followed by the Turks, and since then Mosul has steadily declined.