Culture Minister mentioned he had not given permission to destroy the mosque’s minaret

The demolition on Friday of a 300-year-old minaret of a mosque in Iraq’s southern metropolis of Basra to make approach for street enlargement has enraged locals, non secular and cultural authorities who condemned it as an extra erosion of Iraq’s cultural heritage.

Built in 1727, the 11-metre (36 ft) Siraji minaret and its mosque have been toppled by a bulldozer at daybreak on Friday morning, its brown mud-brick spire with turquoise ornaments disappearing in a cloud of mud.

Plans by the Basra governor to take away the minaret to finish a visitors bottleneck within the metropolis have been recognized to spiritual and cultural authorities, together with the Sunni Muslim endowment and antiquities officers, however they mentioned it was imagined to be preserved and relocated, moderately than destroyed.

“All peoples preserve their heritage and history and here they destroy our history and heritage?” Basra resident Majed al Husseini mentioned, standing by the rubble of the mosque.

Much of Iraq’s wealthy cultural heritage – relationship again 1000’s of years to a few of the world’s first empires in historic Mesopotamia, and extra just lately to its Islamic historical past – has been degraded by neglect and years of battle akin to with Islamic State.

Now, heritage conservationists concern a constructing growth in Baghdad and plans to broaden roads, bridges and different infrastructure throughout the nation may destroy what stays.

Culture Minister Ahmed al-Badrani instructed Reuters he had not given permission to destroy the Siraji Mosque’s minaret and that native antiquities authorities had agreed with the governor to relocate it.

The ministry would now search to get better and protect its stays and reconstruct a mannequin, much like what was being achieved with Mosul’s Al-Nuri mosque that was blown up by Islamic State in 2017.

Basra Governor Asaad Al Eidani, who oversaw the demolition in particular person, defended the transfer, saying the Sunni endowment and antiquities authorities didn’t dismantle and relocate the minaret regardless of being given greater than a yr to take action.

He mentioned they have been just lately given discover of its imminent destruction and didn’t protest, including he deliberate to construct a brand new mosque in its stead.

Mohammed Munla, the pinnacle of Basra’s Sunni endowment on the time when Reuters spoke to him, mentioned the physique had not agreed to, nor had its officers been knowledgeable of, plans to demolish the mosque’s minaret, including it had as a substitute agreed with the governor to discover a firm that might relocate it.

Munla was relieved of his duties shortly after talking to Reuters however earlier than this interview was revealed.

The Sunni endowment didn’t reply instantly to a Reuters request for remark.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)