Abu Hanifa Mosque

Caliph Abu Ja'far al-Mansur offered Abu Hanifa to be Qadi al-qudat, chief judge, but he refused, which caused him being tortured and put in prison. He was lashed 110 lashes until he agreed. Al-Mansur ordered Abu Hanifa to make fatwas that expand the caliph's authority, which Abu Hanifa disagreed to do, leading him back to prison. While he was in prison, Abu Hanifa died in 150 AH / 767 CE in Baghdad, either from being poisoned or from old age. He was buried in al-Khayzuran Cemetery, named after al-Khayzuran bint Atta that was buried in it, 23 years after Abu Hanifa was. It was said that his funeral was attended by 50,000 people, and was attended by al-Mansur himself. == History ==

Establishment During the Buwayhid rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, in , a medium-sized mosque was built near Abu Hanifa's tomb, by the orders of Samsam al-Dawla. It was said that Abu Ja'far al-Zammam built a hall inside of the mosque in 379 AH. Under the Seljuks Later, in 459 AH / 1066 CE, the Grand Vizier of the Seljuk Emperor Alp Arslan, Abu Saad al-Khwarizmi or al-Mustawfi, built a shrine for Abu Hanifa in the mosque, along with a white Dome. Al-Khwarizmi also built a school near the mosque, named the Great Imam School, for teaching the Hanafi madhab. According to Ibn Khallikan, the school was opened on September 22, 1067, therefore, the Great Imam school is the first school in Baghdad. It took four months and a half to build the school (from January 8, 1067 to May 15, 1067). Under the Ottoman-Safavid Wars After the invasion of Baghdad by the Safavid dynasty in 1508, Abu Hanifa mosque and school were destroyed and abolished, due to sectarian conflicts that the Safavids had. The Ottomans invaded Baghdad in 1534 and replaced the Shi'ite Safavid with the Sunni Ottoman rule. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent first visited, after invading Iraq, Najaf and Karbala. And then, he visited the abolished mosque of Abu Hanifa and ordered to rebuild it and recover all the damages. Along with recovering the mosque, they also added new features to it, like a minaret, a hall, a bathroom, from 50 to 140 shops and the dome that they rebuilt was a dome that was never seen like it before. They also built a square fortress around the mosque and a watchtower. The fortress was armed with 150 soldiers with different military equipment. Under Ottoman care In 1638, the Ottomans recaptured Baghdad, after it was recaptured by the Safavids in 1623. Sultan Murad IV turned to al-A'dhamiyya and particularly, Abu Hanifa mosque, because it was the shrine of the Imam of the sultan's madhab. A luxurious dome was built on the mosque. He also brought some of the al-Ubaid tribe to live in houses around the mosque to protect it. With the administration of Shaykh al-Islām Yahya, the sultan ordered to rebuild the buildings around the mosque and decorate it with strips of gold and silver, decorate the mosque with green wool drapes and expand the upper and lower gates. The mosque became at its greatest during the period of the rule of Sultan Murad IV. The Sunni endowment, with the corporation of several companies and families, rebuilt the destroyed parts of the mosque, until it was fully recovered in 2004. In 2006, missiles fired by a Katyusha rocket launcher fell into the mosque's courtyard without any damage to the mosque. == Description and architecture ==

The total area of the mosque is and it can accommodate 5,000 worshipers. On Friday prayers, the regular number of worshipers is 1,000, while on the regular everyday prayers, 200-250 worshipers come to the mosque. On March 17, 1921, Abdul Razzaq Mahsoob promised to check it and, if possible, fix it. After examining it, he found it very damaged and incapable to function, so he requested making another clock that looks like the old one from the Directorate of Religious Endowments. They accepted the request on March 24. On March 25, 1925, the work started on the clock in Mahsoob's house, where he made a four-faced clock with the help of his sons, Mohammed Rashid and Abd al-Hadi. It was completed on December 28, 1929, where Mahsoob gave it to the Directorate of Religious Endowments, but they did not take it, because they weren't sure of it. He hanged it on a high wall in house until October 10, 1932, where an exhibition was opened, where Mahsoob displayed the clock and got the first place for it. It stayed in the gardens of the exhibition until February 1933, where the directorate accepted the clock but didn't hang it because there was no tower. It stayed for 26 years in the directorate's stocks until 1961, where the tower was built and the clock was hanged. In 1973, the clock tower was covered with golden aluminum sheets. == See also ==