The religions of Nineveh.
Nineveh has been, for most of two thousand years, one of the most religiously plural provinces of the Middle East. Sunni and Shia Muslims, Eastern Christians of half a dozen denominations, Yazidis, Shabak, Kakai, Mandaeans, and historically a substantial Jewish community have lived here in overlapping geographies. The 2014–2017 catastrophe disrupted that plurality more profoundly than any event in modern history. This entry surveys what each community is, what was lost, what survives, and the questions of return and coexistence that remain.
The religious geography of Nineveh is one of the most complex in the world. Within the province's 37,000 km², before 2014, lived a Sunni Arab majority concentrated in the city of Mosul and the Jazira plain, a substantial Shia community concentrated in Tal Afar and parts of the Nineveh Plain, the Christian communities of the Nineveh Plain villages numbering perhaps 200,000 in the early 2000s, a Yazidi population centred on Sinjar district and the Yazidi villages of Šeẖan numbering perhaps 400,000 to 500,000, the Shabak community of perhaps 200,000 to 300,000 concentrated east of Mosul, smaller Kakai (Yarsan-affiliated) communities in the eastern districts, a small Mandaean presence, and the historical traces of a Jewish community that had departed in 1948–1951. Each of these communities had its own institutions, its own religious geography of mosques, churches, shrines and pilgrimage sites, its own internal organisation, and its own relationship to the wider Iraqi state. The province was, in the standard scholarly description, one of the most religiously diverse small areas anywhere on earth.
The events of 2014–2017 disrupted this plurality more profoundly than any event in modern history. Daesh declared an "Islamic State" from the al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul in July 2014; over the following weeks and months, the group conducted what international tribunals and parliaments have classified as genocide against the Yazidi community of Sinjar, ethnic cleansing of Christians from Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, sustained persecution of Shia Muslims and the Shabak, attacks on Kakai communities, and destruction of religious heritage across all communities including the Sunni heritage that the group claimed to defend. Approximately 300,000 Yazidis, 200,000 Christians, and hundreds of thousands of Muslims, Shabak, Kakai and others were displaced; thousands of Yazidi women and girls were trafficked into sexual slavery; an estimated 5,000 Yazidis were killed; major religious heritage including the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah and the Yazidi shrines at Bashiqa and Bahzani were destroyed.
The 2017 liberation and the work since has involved the partial recovery of each of these communities. Some have substantially returned; others have not. Some heritage sites have been restored; others remain in ruins. Some questions of justice — the prosecution of perpetrators, the return of remains from mass graves, the location of those still unaccounted for — remain substantially unresolved. This entry surveys each community in turn, treats the 2014–2017 events in their separate sections, and ends with the contemporary picture.
i. Overview: a region of religious plurality
The religious history of Nineveh is among the deepest of any inhabited region. The pre-Christian Mesopotamian religions that produced the Assyrian temples and the texts of the Library of Ashurbanipal predate Christianity by more than two millennia. Christianity arrived early, with the Edessene tradition and the apostolic mission of Thomas (according to Syriac Christian tradition) reaching the region in the first century; Mosul and the Nineveh Plain were among the earliest substantially Christian regions in human history, with continuous Christian presence from approximately the second century onwards. The Arab-Islamic conquest of the 630s and 640s brought Islam to the region, where it spread alongside continuing Christian, Jewish and other communities; the medieval Islamic period saw Mosul develop as a centre of both Sunni religious scholarship (the city's classical reputation in Arabic literature is "al-Mawṣil al-Ḥaḍbāʾ") and of Sufi orders (the Qadiri, Rifa'i and Naqshbandi orders all maintained important presences). The non-Muslim communities — Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Mandaeans — continued throughout the Islamic centuries with varying degrees of formal recognition as dhimmi ("protected") communities under classical Islamic law.
The Ottoman period (mid-sixteenth century to 1918) systematised this plurality under the millet system, in which each religious community had its own legally recognised internal authorities, courts and educational institutions. The British Mandate (1920–1932) and independent Iraq (1932 onwards) inherited a version of this framework, modernised but retaining the recognition of distinct religious communities. The Iraqi constitution of 2005 (still in force in 2026) names Sunni and Shia Islam, Christianity, Yazidism and the Mandaean religion among the recognised religions of the country; the Shabak community is partly recognised within the Shia frame; the Kakai are not separately constitutionally recognised but are administratively acknowledged.
The numbers below are approximate; reliable contemporary religious-demographic data for Iraq is scarce, since the last census to collect detailed religious data was in 1987. Pre-2014 estimates for Nineveh Governorate combine multiple sources: the 2009 IDP returnee data of the International Organization for Migration, the Iraqi central government's demographic estimates, reports by USCIRF, Minority Rights Group International, and academic studies. Post-2017 estimates rely on UN OCHA, IOM, UNDP, Yazda Foundation, Hammurabi Human Rights Organization and the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee. All numbers in this entry are best-available estimates rather than exact figures.
ii. Sunni Islam
Sunni Islam is the largest religious tradition of Nineveh Governorate, comprising the religious affiliation of the great majority of the province's Arab and Kurdish population, and the predominant tradition of the city of Mosul itself. The classical Mosul tradition, going back to the medieval period, has been principally Hanafi (the school of jurisprudence followed by the Ottoman state and the dominant school of the Arab world east of Egypt) with a substantial Shafi'i minority (the school followed by many Kurds and by parts of the urban scholarly establishment); the Hanbali and Maliki schools have had smaller presences. The principal mosque of the city has historically been the Al-Nuri Mosque, founded 1172–1173 by Nur al-Din Mahmud Zangi, which served as the principal Friday mosque and the centre of religious life until 2014. Beyond the Al-Nuri Mosque, the city has historically had several dozen significant Friday mosques and several hundred neighbourhood mosques.
The Sufi tradition has been important in Mosul throughout the Islamic centuries. The Qadiri order (Qādiriyya), founded by Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani in twelfth-century Baghdad, has had a long Mosul presence with several active tekkes (Sufi lodges). The Rifa'i order (Rifāʿiyya), founded by Ahmad al-Rifa'i in twelfth-century Iraq, also has Mosul branches. The Naqshbandi order (Naqshbandiyya) became important from the Ottoman period and is the order with the largest presence in Iraqi Kurdistan; its Mosul branches have historically connected the city's religious life to the broader Kurdish Naqshbandi tradition. The Shabak community, treated separately below, draws on Sufi-Shia syncretic traditions that overlap with the Sunni Sufi orders.
The Sunni religious-institutional structure of Iraq is organised under the Sunni Endowment (Dīwān al-Awqāf al-Sunniyya), established in its current form in 2003 by Order 12 of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which separated the Sunni endowment from the Shia endowment that had previously been a single Ministry of Endowments. The Sunni Endowment administers the public mosques, the Sunni religious schools and seminaries, the Sunni religious courts (for matters of personal status), and the network of religious imams and preachers. The Nineveh branch of the Sunni Endowment has been a substantial provincial-level institution since 2003, with its headquarters in Mosul and branches in the districts.
The 2014–2017 occupation affected Sunni Islam in Mosul more profoundly than is sometimes recognised. Daesh's claim to authority was nominally Sunni, but the group's practice involved sustained violence against Sunni religious leaders who refused to endorse its programme, against Sunni Sufi orders (which Daesh's particular ideological strain considers heterodox), against Sunni religious heritage including shrines and tombs (the destruction of the Tomb of the Prophet Jonah being the most internationally visible), and against the Sunni religious-institutional structure of the Sunni Endowment itself, which was suppressed in the territory under Daesh control. Many Sunni imams and preachers were executed, others displaced, the network of mosques substantially damaged. The 2017 liberation has been followed by the gradual reconstruction of this institutional structure under the Sunni Endowment, with the September 2025 reopening of the Al-Nuri Mosque (Heritage, § ii) marking the principal symbolic recovery point.
iii. Shia Islam
Shia Muslims constitute a substantial minority in Nineveh Governorate, concentrated overwhelmingly in Tal Afar district, where the Turkmen population is divided between Sunni and Shia communities. The Tal Afar Shia community is principally Twelver Shia (the dominant Shia tradition of Iraq, Iran and most of the Middle East), with religious leadership oriented towards the marja'iyya (the network of senior Shia scholars) in Najaf and Karbala. The community maintains husseiniyyas (ritual gathering halls for the commemoration of Imam Hussein's martyrdom), Twelver shrines, and a network of religious schools and Friday mosques.
Smaller Shia communities exist in parts of the Nineveh Plain, particularly in the Shabak villages east of Mosul (treated separately below, since Shabak religious identity is distinct from mainstream Twelver Shia practice though it overlaps substantively). The city of Mosul itself has historically had only a small Shia presence, with a handful of Shia institutions and shrines.
The Shia Endowment (Dīwān al-Waqf al-Shīʿī), the counterpart of the Sunni Endowment established in 2003, administers Shia public institutions, mosques, schools and personal-status courts. Its Nineveh provincial branch is substantially smaller than the Sunni branch, reflecting the demographic balance.
Shia communities in Nineveh suffered severely during the 2014–2017 occupation. Daesh's particular ideological strain treats Shia Muslims as apostates ("rāfiḍa") and conducted targeted violence against them in the territory under its control. The Shia community of Tal Afar was substantially displaced during the 2014 occupation, with many residents fleeing to Karbala, Najaf and other southern Iraqi cities; Shia shrines and husseiniyyas in Tal Afar were destroyed or damaged. The Shabak villages east of Mosul (treated below) were also targeted. The 2017 liberation has been followed by substantial return, but the Shia community of Nineveh in 2026 is smaller than its pre-2014 size, and several Shia heritage sites remain unrestored.
iv. Eastern Christianity
The Christian communities of Nineveh Governorate are among the oldest in the world. According to Syriac Christian tradition, Christianity reached the region in the first century through the apostolic missions of Thomas, Thaddeus and Bartholomew; the historical record confirms substantial Christian presence from approximately the second century onwards. The Church of the East (often called the "Nestorian" church, though that term is contested), which separated from the Roman-Byzantine church in the fifth century over the Christological controversies of the Council of Ephesus, had its principal demographic base in Mesopotamia and present-day Iraq; the early-medieval Church of the East was the most geographically extensive Christian tradition of the period, with missions extending to China, Mongolia and India. The Syriac Orthodox Church (Miaphysite, sometimes called "Jacobite"), separating in the sixth century over the same Christological questions, has had its principal historical centres in present-day Turkey, Syria and Iraq.
The Christian communities of pre-2014 Nineveh comprised six principal denominations:
Chaldean Catholic Church: the largest Christian denomination of Iraq, formed in the sixteenth century when a section of the Church of the East entered communion with Rome while retaining its East Syriac liturgical tradition. The Chaldean patriarch is based in Baghdad. The principal Chaldean centres in Nineveh were the towns of Tilkaif (Tel Keppe), Tel Esqof (Tel Skuf), Alqosh and Batnaya in the Nineveh Plain, along with substantial Chaldean populations in Mosul itself.
Syriac Catholic Church: formed in the eighteenth century from a section of the Syriac Orthodox Church that entered communion with Rome while retaining its West Syriac liturgical tradition. The Syriac Catholic patriarch is based in Beirut. The principal Syriac Catholic centres in Nineveh were the city of Mosul (with the Al-Tahera Cathedral, Heritage § iii), Qaraqosh (Bakhdida) and Bartella.
Syriac Orthodox Church: the historic Miaphysite tradition with no Roman affiliation, headed by the Patriarch of Antioch. Mar Mattai Monastery on Mount Maqlub (founded fourth century) is the principal Syriac Orthodox monastery of the region.
Assyrian Church of the East: the continuation of the historic Church of the East that did not enter the Catholic communion, headed by the Catholicos-Patriarch of the East (whose seat moved to Chicago in 1933 after the catastrophe of the Assyrian community in the 1910s and 1933 and is now in Erbil since 2015). Substantial Assyrian Church of the East communities existed in the Nineveh Plain and in Mosul.
Ancient Church of the East: a smaller traditionalist branch of the Church of the East that separated in 1968 over calendar reforms; principal Iraqi centres in Baghdad and the Nineveh Plain.
Armenian Apostolic Church: a small Armenian community in Mosul descending from refugees of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, with an Armenian church in the city.
The combined pre-2014 Christian population of Nineveh Governorate was approximately 200,000, of whom perhaps 50,000 lived in the city of Mosul itself and the remainder principally in the Nineveh Plain. The community had been declining for decades — the 2003 invasion, the resulting insecurity, and a series of targeted attacks on churches between 2004 and 2010 had already prompted substantial emigration, with the Mosul Christian population falling from approximately 35,000 in 2003 to fewer than 10,000 by 2014.
The 2014 catastrophe was definitive. When Daesh took Mosul in June 2014, the remaining Christians of the city were given the standard ultimatum (convert, pay jizya, leave, or be killed); their homes were marked with the Arabic letter "nūn" (ن, for Nasrani, "Christian"); the vast majority departed within a week, most fleeing to Erbil and Dohuk in the Kurdistan Region, others to Lebanon and beyond. In August 2014, Daesh advanced into the Nineveh Plain and seized the Christian towns; the population of perhaps 120,000 to 150,000 Christians of the Plain departed virtually en masse, with most reaching Erbil within days. By the time of the 2017 liberation, the Nineveh Christian community was almost entirely displaced.
The post-2017 return has been substantial but partial. The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, an ecumenical partnership between the Chaldean, Syriac Catholic and Syriac Orthodox churches working with international donors (notably Aid to the Church in Need, the Knights of Columbus and the Hungarian government's Hungary Helps programme), has restored several thousand houses in Qaraqosh, Bartella, Tel Esqof, Tilkaif, Batnaya and other Plain towns; some 11,000+ displaced Christians had returned to the Plain by the early 2020s. The September 2024 return of the Al-Tahera Church to the Syriac Catholic community and its September 2025 reopening alongside the Al-Nuri Mosque and Al-Saa Convent (Heritage, § iii) marked the principal symbolic moment of Christian return in the city of Mosul itself. The current Christian population of Mosul city is estimated at perhaps 1,000–2,000, with perhaps 30,000–50,000 in the Plain towns combined.
The unresolved questions are substantial. Return to the Plain has been uneven, with some towns (Tel Esqof, Alqosh) substantially repopulated and others (Batnaya) much less so. The demographic landscape has shifted; in several Plain villages, the post-2014 demographic balance has changed in ways that the returning Christian community finds concerning, with concerns over security guarantees, militia presence, and the broader political question of who governs the disputed territories between the Iraqi Federal Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government. The Christian community of Iraq as a whole has declined from perhaps 1.5 million in 2003 to fewer than 250,000 in 2026; the long-term sustainability of the Nineveh Christian presence remains an open question that the international community, the Iraqi government and the church hierarchies are working to address.
v. Yazidism
The Yazidi religion (also Êzîdî, ̩Yezidi, or Êzdîtî in its own self-description) is an ancient monotheistic faith indigenous to the Kurdish-speaking population of upper Mesopotamia. Yazidi theology centres on the worship of one God who created the world and entrusted its administration to seven angels, the most prominent of whom is Melek Taûs (the Peacock Angel), who is venerated as the chief among them. Yazidi religious texts include the Mishefa Reş (Black Book) and the Kitêba Cilwe (Book of Revelation), though much of Yazidi religious knowledge is transmitted orally through hymns (qewls) sung in religious gatherings. The principal Yazidi shrine and pilgrimage site is the Lališ valley in Šeẖan district of Nineveh, where the shrine of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (a twelfth-century Sufi-influenced Yazidi reformer) is the central focal point. Yazidi religious authority is hierarchical, headed by the Mîr (Prince) of Yazidis and the Baba Sheikh (chief religious authority), with a complex system of priestly castes (Sheikh, Pîr, Mirîd) regulating religious practice.
The Yazidi community of Nineveh Governorate pre-2014 numbered approximately 400,000–500,000, comprising the great majority of the global Yazidi population (the smaller diaspora in Syria, Turkey, Germany and elsewhere added perhaps another 200,000). The principal demographic concentrations were the Sinjar district in western Nineveh (the city of Sinjar and the dozens of Yazidi villages around the Sinjar Mountain), the Šeẖan district in the northeast (including Lališ itself and Yazidi villages around it), and the towns of Bashiqa and Bahzani east of Mosul (where the Yazidi population was historically integrated with Shabak and Christian neighbours).
The events of August 2014 constitute the most catastrophic episode in modern Yazidi history. On 3 August 2014, Daesh forces advanced into Sinjar; the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government, who had been responsible for security in the district, withdrew, leaving the Yazidi population unprotected. Daesh occupied Sinjar district within days, conducting what international tribunals, parliaments and the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry have classified as genocide. The pattern was systematic: men and elderly women were killed in mass executions, with the village of Kocho the most-documented single case (almost the entire male population was executed in mid-August 2014); women and girls between approximately 9 and 50 were captured and trafficked into sexual slavery, distributed among Daesh fighters as "sabaya" (slaves), and resold on slave markets that operated in Mosul, Raqqa and elsewhere; boys were forcibly conscripted into Daesh training camps. UN estimates suggest approximately 5,000 Yazidis killed in the initial weeks and over the subsequent period of captivity, and approximately 10,800 women and girls trafficked. Yazidi religious shrines in Bashiqa, Bahzani and Sinjar were systematically destroyed; the Lališ temple complex in Šeẖan, though it was not occupied, became inaccessible to the displaced community for whom it is the principal pilgrimage site.
By 2015, approximately 71% of the global Yazidi population was displaced. The principal displacement was to camps in Dohuk province of the Kurdistan Region (Khanke, Sharya, Kabarto and others), with perhaps 300,000 Yazidis in those camps at peak. Smaller numbers escaped through humanitarian corridors to Syria and onwards to Europe; the principal European reception was by Germany, which received perhaps 50,000 Yazidi refugees in 2015–2016. The advocacy work of Nadia Murad (Yazidi survivor and 2018 Nobel Peace Laureate), Murad Ismail and the Yazda Foundation, and others, raised the international profile of the genocide and led to formal recognitions of the genocide by the United Nations, the European Parliament, the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Armenia, Australia and several others, and by individual states.
The post-2017 picture is one of partial return and unresolved trauma. As of 2026, approximately 2,500 Yazidis remain unaccounted for, presumed to be either deceased in unidentified mass graves or still in captivity. Of the 94 mass graves identified in the Sinjar district by Iraq's Mass Graves Directorate, approximately 33 have not yet been excavated; of the remains of approximately 696 people recovered from the 61 excavated mass graves, only 243 have been identified through DNA matching. Approximately 200,000 Yazidis remain in displacement camps in Dohuk province as of 2026, with limited return to Sinjar district due to continuing security concerns (Sinjar lies within the territorial dispute zone between Baghdad and Erbil and hosts multiple competing armed actors), inadequate reconstruction of housing and infrastructure, and the lack of resolution of the broader questions of justice, return of remains, and protection. The Yazidi Female Survivors Law passed by the Iraqi Parliament in 2021 has been implemented only partially; many of those eligible for compensation under it have not received the promised support. Justice for Daesh perpetrators has been minimal: only a handful of Daesh members have been prosecuted internationally for crimes against Yazidis, with only one conviction for genocide.
The Yazidi community of Nineveh in 2026 is in a state best described as continuing trauma combined with the slow and contested work of return. The Lališ temple complex has been continuously accessible to the diaspora and to Yazidis remaining in the Nineveh region since 2017 and remains the principal symbolic anchor of Yazidi religious continuity. The Yazidi villages of Bashiqa and Bahzani have been partially repopulated. Sinjar district itself remains the most-contested geography in the province.
vi. The Shabak, Kakai, Mandaeans, and Jewish heritage
The Shabak are a distinct ethno-religious community concentrated in the Nineveh Plain east of Mosul, particularly in the towns of Bartella (which they share with Christians), Yangijah, Khurshid and the dozens of Shabak villages of the Hamdaniya and Bartella areas. The Shabak community numbers approximately 200,000–300,000 in pre-2014 estimates. Shabak religion combines elements of Twelver Shia Islam (the community has historically identified itself with the Shia tradition for purposes of the Iraqi state) with distinctive Sufi-influenced practices that some scholars trace to the Bektashi or Safavid orders, an oral religious literature in the Shabaki language (a Northwestern Iranian language related to Gorani), and ritual practices that have no exact parallel elsewhere. The community has historically been internally organised with religious authorities (pîr and raîs) regulating ritual practice.
The Shabak community suffered severely under the 2014–2017 occupation, with Daesh treating Shabak religion as a form of Shia heresy and targeting Shabak villages for destruction. The community substantially displaced to Erbil and Dohuk during 2014, with return underway since 2017. As of 2026, most of the Shabak villages have been repopulated, though with significant infrastructure damage and some community members not yet returning.
The Kakai (also Yarsan or Ahl-i Haqq) are a smaller religious community indigenous to the borderlands of present-day Iran and Iraq, with adherents in the eastern districts of Nineveh, particularly in some of the villages of the Hamdaniya district and adjacent areas. The Kakai religion combines elements of Sufism, indigenous Iranian religious tradition and esoteric mysticism, with the central figure of Sultan Sahak (a fourteenth- or fifteenth-century mystic) as the principal religious teacher. The Kakai community is not separately recognised in the Iraqi constitution and has historically faced administrative difficulties. The Nineveh Kakai community is small (perhaps 30,000–50,000 in pre-2014 estimates) and suffered during the 2014–2017 occupation alongside the other minority communities; return has been partial.
The Mandaean community of Mosul was historically small, with the larger Iraqi Mandaean centres in the south (around Baghdad, Amarah and Basra). The few hundred Mandaeans of Mosul departed during the years of insecurity from 2003 onwards; very few remain in 2026. The Mandaean religion, with its baptismal rituals in flowing water, its scriptures in Mandaic Aramaic, and its veneration of John the Baptist as the principal prophet, has its principal Iraqi presence in Baghdad and the southern provinces, where the community has likewise declined substantially since 2003.
The Jewish heritage of Mosul is one of the oldest in the world. The Jewish community of Mosul traced its origin to the Babylonian exile of the sixth century BCE and the subsequent Jewish presence in Mesopotamia; the community maintained a continuous presence through the Assyrian, Persian, Hellenistic, Parthian, Sasanian, early Islamic, medieval Islamic, Ottoman and modern Iraqi periods, a continuity of more than 2,500 years. The Mosul Jewish community at its early-twentieth-century height numbered approximately 10,000–13,000, with synagogues, schools, a Jewish quarter in the Old City, and substantial commercial presence. The community departed for Israel in two waves: the 1948–1951 emigration (the Aliyah following the establishment of Israel and the resulting collapse of the legal position of Iraqi Jews) saw the great majority depart, with the small remainder departing in the 1970s. The synagogues and Jewish quarter of Mosul have been progressively converted to other uses; some structures survive, others have been demolished or substantially altered. The 2022 Iraqi law making "normalisation" with Israel a criminal offence has complicated efforts at heritage preservation, since restoration work might be construed as falling under the law's prohibitions. The Jewish heritage of Mosul in 2026 is in a state of substantial disrepair, with no continuing community and limited international engagement.
vii. Religious institutions and governance
The administrative framework for religious institutions in Iraq is one of the more complex in the region. The Sunni Endowment (Diwan al-Awqaf al-Sunniyya) and the Shia Endowment (Diwan al-Waqf al-Shi'i), established as separate institutions by Coalition Provisional Authority Order 12 of 2003 (replacing the previous unified Ministry of Endowments), administer the religious infrastructure of their respective communities — mosques, religious schools, religious courts, religious endowments and properties. A Diwan for the Christian, Yazidi and Mandaean Endowments, also established in 2003, administers the non-Muslim religious infrastructure under a single umbrella, though within it the Christian, Yazidi and Mandaean communities maintain their own internal structures. The Shabak community is administratively treated under the Shia Endowment; the Kakai are not separately recognised. The provincial structure of each of these endowments includes a Nineveh branch.
The religious-court systems for matters of personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance) operate separately for each recognised community: Sunni Sharia courts for Sunnis, Jaafari Sharia courts for Shias, ecclesiastical courts for Christians, Yazidi councils for Yazidis. The 1959 Personal Status Law of Iraq, which unified family law across communities while retaining religious-court jurisdiction over religious questions, remains the principal legislation, with subsequent amendments and ongoing debates over its provisions.
The interaction between the federal religious-institutional structure and the provincial level has been particularly complex in Nineveh because of the territorial-political situation. Parts of the province (Sinjar, parts of the Nineveh Plain, the eastern districts) lie in the disputed-territory zone between Baghdad and Erbil, where Iraqi federal and Kurdistan Regional Government authorities both claim administrative jurisdiction and where multiple armed actors operate. The religious endowments and institutions navigate these complexities, with some communities (notably the Yazidis, who have historical ties to the Kurdish authorities, and the Christians, who have varying community-level orientations) caught between competing authorities.
viii. The 2014–2017 catastrophe and its aftermath
The events of 2014–2017 are described community by community in the sections above. This section gathers the comparative picture.
The Daesh "Islamic State" project, in its self-understanding, claimed to defend Sunni Islam against perceived deviations and to enforce a particular interpretation of Islamic law. In practice, the project conducted sustained violence against virtually every religious community of Nineveh: against Yazidis as genocidal targets, against Christians as dhimmi communities to be expelled or eliminated, against Shia and Shabak Muslims as apostates, against Sufi Sunnis as heretics, against Kakai as outside any recognised category, and against Mandaeans and the small Jewish heritage as targets of more sporadic destruction. The pattern across communities was sustained for the duration of the occupation, was systematic, and was documented in real time by international human-rights organisations and subsequently established through extensive testimony and forensic evidence.
The cumulative scale of the displacement was extraordinary: approximately 300,000 Yazidis, 200,000 Christians, 200,000–300,000 Shabak, smaller but substantial numbers from each of the other communities, and hundreds of thousands of Sunni Muslims who fled the territory under Daesh control. The recovery has been partial. The Sunni return to liberated Mosul has been substantial. The Shabak return to the Plain villages has been substantial. The Christian return has been partial: substantial in some Plain towns, minimal in others, and very limited in Mosul city itself. The Yazidi return has been the most difficult of all, with the majority of the community still displaced ten years after the genocide.
The questions of justice remain substantially unresolved. The international prosecution of Daesh perpetrators has been minimal (approximately nine global convictions, only one for the specific crime of genocide against Yazidis). The Iraqi domestic prosecutions of Daesh members under terrorism legislation have been numerous but have generally not engaged the specific crimes against minority communities. The work of the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL (UNITAD), established by Security Council Resolution 2379 (2017), produced substantial evidence on the crimes; UNITAD's mandate concluded on 17 September 2024 by Iraqi government request, leaving substantial open questions about future accountability mechanisms. The Yazidi Female Survivors Law passed by the Iraqi Parliament in 2021 has been only partially implemented; the broader programme of reparations, restitution, and support for genocide survivors remains in progress.
ix. Religious life in Nineveh today
The religious life of Nineveh in 2026 is the work of communities continuing, in each of their distinctive traditions, the centuries-long patterns of ritual practice and communal life that the events of 2014–2017 disrupted but did not end. The reopened Al-Nuri Mosque hosts Friday prayers attended by tens of thousands. The Al-Saa Convent and Al-Tahera Church host Sunday Mass for the Catholic and Syriac Catholic communities of Mosul. The Lališ temple complex hosts the annual Yazidi Cejna Cemaiya festival, attended by tens of thousands of Yazidis from across the diaspora. The Shabak villages of the Plain mark their distinctive religious calendar. The Sufi tekkes of Mosul continue their traditional rituals. The reopening of these institutions, after the catastrophe of the occupation, is in itself an event of considerable significance for the wider Iraqi narrative of recovery.
The questions that remain open are substantial. They include the long-term sustainability of the Christian community, the still-displaced majority of the Yazidi community, the unresolved questions of justice for genocide, the protection of religious heritage that has not yet been restored, the management of inter-communal relations in the disputed territories, the legal status of communities not currently constitutionally recognised, and the broader question of whether the religious plurality that has been the historical hallmark of Nineveh can be sustained in the post-2017 institutional and political environment. None of these questions has a clear answer in 2026.
What can be said is that the communities of Nineveh have not, despite the gravity of what was done to them, withdrawn from the project of their continuation in the province. The Christian church bells of Bartella ring on Sunday mornings. The Yazidi pilgrims walk the paths of Lališ. The Sunni Friday prayers fill the Al-Nuri Mosque. The Shabak villages mark their festivals. The continuity of religious life in Nineveh, in its plural form, is the principal answer the province has so far given to the events that sought to end it.
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