When I saw the photos coming from the Saffarin Market (where the artisans of metalwork that belongs to the most famous school in the Middle East “Mosul School of Metalwork” a group of 13th-century metal craftsmen who were centred in Mosul, Iraq, and who for centuries to come influenced the metalwork of the Islāmic world from North Africa to eastern Iran.Under the active patronage of the Zangid dynasty ,the Mosul school developed an extraordinarily refined technique of inlay—particularly in silver—that far overshadowed the earlier work of the Sāmānids in Iran and of the Būyids in Iraq.

The market is now open again after the massive destruction of the recent battle to retake the city from ISIS. That’s makes me monstrously happy.