to Ragusa. Pop. (1900), about 14,500 including the garrison. Mostar is the seat of Roman Catholic and Orthodox bishops, a district court, and an Austrian garrison. Half Turkish, half Italian in character, it commands the gateway through which all heavy traffic must pass on the seaward road. A single arch of great beauty, 8912 ft. in span, and 61 ft. high, leads to the Roman Catholic quarter, on the right bank of the river. This bridge has been the theme of many legends, and its origin has been much debated. Probably it was built by the Turks, in the 15th or 16th century, after Italian designs; but some antiquaries ascribe its foundation to the Romans. Since 1881, when an iron bridge was opened, its use has been confined to foot passengers. Mostar possesses a gymnasium, a school of viticulture, and a massive Orthodox cathedral.
The present name of the city has been derived from the Serbo-Croatian most, a bridge, and star, old. Its earlier Slavonic name was Vitrinicha. Whether it may be identified with Pons Vetus, Andretium, Bistuae, Saloniana, or Sarsenterum, it certainly dates from Roman times. Mostar was enlarged in 1440 by Radivoi Gost, mayor of the palace to Stephen, first duke of St Sava. Immediately on their conquest of Herzegovina it was chosen by the Turks as their headquarters. The environs of the city are interesting. Within a few miles are the sources of the Buna, a small affluent of the Narenta, which issues from a cavern at the foot of Podvelež, amid scenery celebrated for its wild grandeur.
See Sir G. Wilkinson, Dalmatia and Montenegro (London, 1848), vol. ii. (view and plan at pp. 59, 60); J. Asboth, An Official Tour through Bosnia and Herzegovina (London, 1890), pp. 255–262; and R. Munro, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Edinburgh, 1900), pp. 179–188.
MOSUL, a town of Mesopotamia, capital of a Turkish vilayet
and sanjak of the same name, on the right bank of the Tigris,
in 36° 35′ N., 43° 3′ E. Pop. 40,000 (Moslems 31,500, Christians
7000, Jews 1500). In Mosul, as in Bagdad, only part of the
space within the walls is covered with buildings and the rest is
occupied by cemeteries; even the solid limestone walls of
the ancient town are half in ruins, being serviceable only in the
direction of the river, where they check inundations. Of the
town gates at present in use, five are on the south, two on
the west, two on the north, and the great bridge gate on the east.
Leaving Mosul by the last named, the traveller first crosses a
stone bridge, 157 ft. long; then a kind of island (140 ft.), which is
overflowed only in spring and summer by the Tigris; next a
stretch of the river which, at such times as it is not fordable,
is spanned by a bridge of boats, the bridge proper covering only
one-sixth of the full width of the stream. During the season of
low water excellent vegetables, particularly water-melons, are
grown upon the islands and dry portions of the river-bed.
The interior of Mosul has an insignificant appearance, only a few of the older buildings being left, among which may be mentioned the Great Mosque, with its leaning minaret, formerly a church dedicated to St Paul. The streets are for the most part badly paved and very narrow, a small square in the marketplace, overlooked by airy coffee-booths, being almost the. only open space. The shops are few and poor. The industry in comparison with former times, when the town had so considerable a manufacture in muslin as to give its name to that fabric, is very unimportant; trade also, which is almost exclusively in the hands of native merchants, has fallen off greatly, although the town remains the collecting and distributing centre for the north Mesopotamian desert and Kurdistan. The exports and most of the imports pass through Bagdad. Mosul is the meeting-point of roads from Aleppo, Diarbekr, Bitlis, north and west Persia and Bagdad; and it is on the projected line of railway from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf. Gall nuts, gathered on the neighbouring Kurdish mountain slopes, are mostly exported, but are also made use of by native dyers; and hides, wax, cotton and gum are sold. Christians and Moslems have lived together on better terms here than elsewhere. Both are animated by an active local patriotism, and both honour the same patron saints, Jirjis (St George) and Jonah; the grave of the latter is pointed out on an artificial mound on the left bank of the Tigris.
The language of the people of Mosul is a dialect of Arabic, partly influenced by Kurdish and Syriac. The Moslems call themselves either Arabs or Kurds, but the prevalent type, very different from the true Arabian of Bagdad, proves the Aramaean origin of many of their number. Of the Christians the community of the Chaldaeans, i.e. those who have gone over from Nestorianism to Catholicism, seems to be the most important; there are also Syrian Catholics and Jacobites. Mosul has for several centuries been a centre of Catholic missionary activity, the Dominicans especially, by the foundation of schools and printing-offices, having made a marked impression upon an intelligent and teachable population. There are very few Protestants. The town is the seat of British, French and Russian consulates.
Mosul shares the severe alternations of temperature experienced by upper Mesopotamia. The summer heat is extreme, and in winter frost is not unknown. Nevertheless the climate is considered healthy and agreeable; copious rains fall in general in winter. The drinking water is got from the muddy Tigris. At the north-east corner of the town is a sulphur spring, and 4 leagues to the south there is a hot sulphur spring (Ḥammām ʽAli), much frequented by invalids.
Mosul probably occupies the site of a southern suburb of ancient Nineveh (q.v.) but it is very doubtful whether the older name of Mespila can be traced in the modern Al-Mauṣil (Arab., “the place of connexion”); it is, however, certain that a town with the Arabic name Al-Mauṣil stood here at the time of the Moslem conquest (636 A.D.). The town reached its greatest prosperity towards the beginning of the decline of the caliphate, when it was for a time an independent capital. The dynasty of the Hamdanids reigned in Mosul from 934, but the town was conquered by the Syrian Okailids in 990. In the 11th century it belonged to the Seljuks, and in the 12th, under the sway of the Atabegs, particularly of Zenki, it had a short period of splendour. Saladin besieged it unsuccessfully in 1182. The Persians occupied Mosul for a short time in 1623, until it was, soon afterwards, recovered by sultan Murad IV; The governorship of the pashalik was long hereditary in the originally Christian family of the 'Abd-al-Jalil, until the Porte, during the course of the 19th century, succeeded after a long and severe contest in establishing a more centralized system of government.
The Vilayet of Mosul lies mainly east of the Tigris. It is divided into three sanjaks, Mosul, Shehrizor and Suleimanieh, and has an area of 29,000 sq. m. Pop. 295,000 (Moslems 245,000, Yezidis 15,000, Christians 30,000 and Jews 5000).
See Karl Ritter, “Asien,” vol. vii. in Die Erdkunde (Berlin, 1844). A map of the town accompanies J. Cernik’s paper, “Studienexpedition durch die Gebiete des Euphrat und Tigris,” in Ergänzungsheft No. 45 of Petermanns Mitteilungen (Gotha, 1876); Parry, Six Months in a Syrian Monastery (1895); E. Sachau, Am Euphrat und Tigris (Berlin, 1899); Baron von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf (Berlin, 1900).
MOSZKOWSKI, MORITZ (1854–), Polish musical composer,
was born at Breslau, and studied at Dresden and Berlin.
He started as a pianist, and had a great success at the chief European
centres. He was made a member of the Berlin Academy in
1899. In 1897 he settled in Paris. He became a prolific composer
both for pianoforte and for orchestra, but is best known
by his Spanish dances, written for four hands on the piano,
and his waltzes. His opera Boabdil was performed at Berlin
in 1892.
MOTALA, a town of Sweden, in the district (län) of Östergötland, on the east side of Lake Vetter at the outflow of the river Motala, 175 m. S.W. by W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900), 3047. It is on the Göta canal route (q.v.). The town was founded in 1880, but the Motala mechanical works, 2 m. east, were founded in 1823 by the Göta Canal Company under the direction of Daniel Fraser, an Englishman. Iron war-ships, railway locomotives, iron bridges, machinery, &c., are built; the company has branches in Norrköping, Gothenburg, and elsewhere.
MOTANABBI, strictly Al Mutanabbī[1] (Abū-Ṭ-Tayyib AḤmad Ibn Al-Ḥusain of Kufa) (915/6–965), the most famous represen-
- ↑ I. e. “he who plays the prophet.”
