Shrine of al-Imam Awn al-Din

مشهد الامام عون الين

Variant Names: Ibn al-Hassan, Shrine or Mashhad of Awn al-Din, Madfan al-Ja`fari
Location: W.
Mahallat al-Imam `Awn al-Din 
Coordinates:
36.339218, 43.13122
Date of Construction: 646/ 1248-1249, Badr al-Din Lu’lu 
Current Status: partially ruined
Date of Destruction:
July 24, 2014
Religious affiliation: Islam
Sources: Janabi, Mosques of Mosul, Mosul after Islamic State (2021)

One of the most elaborate shrines in Mosul, the Shrine of Awn al-Din was discovered to be a series of buildings. This shrine or is attributed to the reign of the Atabeg Badr al-Din Lu’lu’. As suggested by recent scholarship, the shrine’s affiliation with Imam ‘Awn al-Din was established after the Lu’lu’id era (Novacek et al). It is dated by inscription to 645/1248.  The now partially destroyed building was best known for its beautiful carving and an elaborate wooden cenotaph. The earliest known reconstructions occurred in the 1770s. The shrine has been well documented and studied and photographed by Herzfeld and Sarre in 1907 and Tabbaa in 1997.  The square domed building is similar in plan to the Imam Yahya ibn al-Qasim shrine. The destruction of the shrine occurred in the summer of 2014 by IED.

Imam Awn al-Din. View of dome’s exterior from the cemetery. Yasser Tabbaa Archive, courtesy of Agha Khan Documentation Center at MIT