Dayro d'Mor Zina

Dayro d'Mor Zina

Monastery of Mor Zina or the Monastery of Al-Qayyara (Dayr al-Qayyāra), was a prominent Syriac Orthodox monastic complex located on the western bank of the Tigris River, approximately twenty-five kilometers southeast of Mosul near modern-day Hammam al-Alil. According to hagiographical accounts, the monastery was founded in honor of Mor Zina, a seventh-century Syriac bishop of Barman who was consecrated by Catholicos Samuel of the East. Zina and his sister, Sarah, actively proselytized throughout the region, with Sarah establishing her own ascetical community while Zina was eventually martyred around 640 AD. Local traditions surrounding Mor Zina contain rich legendary motifs, including his petrification of a forty-cubit-long dragon that controlled the area. Following his martyrdom, a regional ruler suffering from a severe skin condition bathed in the local spring and was miraculously cured, prompting his baptism along with five thousand nine hundred followers. Monastic lore also tells of a monk named Musa al-Arabi, who correctly prophesied the injury of a camel in a distant trade caravan and foretold the ruin of the primary complex, leading to the construction of a smaller auxiliary monastery prior to the larger site's ultimate decay. It was built at the end of the sixth century and housed 170 monks. It was still populated in the thirteenth century. It was mentioned by Yby Gregorius Bar 'Ebroyo in his Chronicles.

The monastery was renowned for its proximity to hot, sulfurous thermal springs from which natural tar, pitch, and bitumen flowed—a site historically identified with Ayn al-Qayyarah or Ayn Qir, known today as the Great Spring of Hammam al-Alil. The site functioned as both an industrial bitumen resource and a major regional pilgrimage center for healing. 

During their stay, monks anointed visiting pilgrims with taybuth—also termed hanana or sa'a—a Syriac word meaning grace or blessing, which was a sacred mixture prepared from consecrated oil, water, and the relics of saints.

Numerous geographical, historical, and liturgical records provide key structural and chronological details about the site. Geographical texts confirm its Syriac Orthodox affiliation, located four farsakhs from Mosul above the Monastery of Ba'arabaya, and highlight that the complex featured a prominent standing tower or watchtower-hermitage. Historical commentary noted that while Syriac Orthodox and Melkite monasteries traditionally featured these high towers for ascetics, Nestorian monasteries did not. The monastery also housed a valuable library containing rare manuscripts, prompting Patriarch Timothy I to formally request its catalog in the late eighth century. Historical chronicles record that in 1210 AD, the ruler of Mosul, Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, fell terminally ill and traveled with Badr al-Din Lu'lu' to bathe in the spring of the Monastery of Saint Zina on the advice of his physicians, though his illness was terminal and he died on his return journey.

The main church housing Mor Zina's tomb was situated on a hill known as Tell al-Sabt or Tell Hammam al-Alil. The monastery operated for approximately six hundred years before active historical references ceased after the thirteenth century. By the eighteenth century, writers located the remaining ruins at the site of the Sultan's residence in Hammam al-Alil, reporting that while only small fragments of the building survived, local residents from Mosul continued to frequent the site for recreation and balneotherapeutic bathing. By the late nineteenth century, the site was marked by a conical stone mound, and subsequent excavations at its base revealed the structural foundations of the original ancient church, verifying the long-standing local tradition surrounding the shrine. The annual feast of Mar Zina continues to be observed on November 22nd in the liturgical calendars of nearby communities, including Bakhdida.