Wikipedia's first sentence called it “city's largest place of worship for sunni muslims”. Today it says “sunni mosque located in baghdad”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2015 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since.Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now.Red text: written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot.1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2015
Umm al-Ma'arik ("Mother of All Battles") mosque, it was designed to commemorate Saddam Hussein 's 'victory' in the 1991 Gulf War and was intended to serve as a personal tribute to Saddam himself.1 It is located in the Sunni-populated al-Adel area of western Baghdad. Costing $7.5 million to build, the mosque's cornerstone was laid on Saddam's 61st birthday on 28 April 1998. It was formally completed on 28 April 2001 in time for the ten-year anniversary of the Gulf War.2 Although never confirmed by his regime or himself during his lifetime, there has been speculation that it was intended to have been Saddam's final resting place. Many architectural features of the mosque and the surrounding complex allude to either Saddam or the war (or both). It has four minarets on its perimeter, each resembling a Kalashnikov rifle barrel and standing 43 metres (141 ft) high, marking the 43 days of the Gulf War. Around the dome are another four minarets, each in the shape of a Scud missile on its launchpad standing 37 metres (121 ft) high. The dome is set in the middle of a lake in the shape of the Arab world , in which was set a 7.5 metres (25 ft) wide mosaic representation of Saddam's thumbprint with an inset magnified version of his initials, made from gold. The mosque was formerly used to display a Qur'an written in Saddam's blood . The 28 fountains of the lake, the four inner minarets and the 37 m height of each minaret together represent the date of Saddam's birth - 28 April 1937. The building is constructed from white limestone with blue mosaic decorations, and red, white and black Iraqi flags are painted on the peaks of the inner minarets. Following the fall of Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq , the mosque was taken over by a Sunni group called the Association of Muslim Scholars . It became a recruiting site and propaganda centre for the early Iraqi insurgency . The association became a de facto Al Qaeda ally; its leader Harith Suleiman al-Dhari, who operated out of the mosque, is said to have played a key role in mobilizing insurgents during the 2004 fighting in Fallujah , west of Baghdad. In 2007, the association was expelled by the Sunni Endowment , a quasi-governmental agency responsible for Sunni mosques in Iraq, which took control of Umm al-Qura. On 28 August 2011, the mosque was attacked by a suicide bomber during prayers, killing at least 28 people and injuring 30 more. An Iraqi member of parliament was among the dead. The Guardian , 10 April 2004. The Guardian , 17 May 2002. TIME , 27 June 2004 "Baghdad mosque attack: Suicide bomber kills at least 28" .3
This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 651282778.
The opening as it stood in 2020 16 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
The Umm al-Qura Mosque ("Mother of All Cities") is a mosque located in Baghdad , Iraq .It is the city's largest place of worship for Sunni Muslims . Originally called the Umm al-Ma'arik ("Mother of All Battles") mosque, it was designed to commemorate Saddam Hussein 's victory in the 1991 Gulf War and was intended to serve as a personal tribute to Saddam himself. It is located in the Sunni-populated al-Adel area of western Baghdad. Costing US$ 7.5 million to build, the mosque's cornerstone was laid on Saddam's 61st birthday on 28 April 1998. It was formally completed on 28 April 2001 in time for the ten-year anniversary of the Gulf War. Although never confirmed by his regime or himself during his lifetime, there has been speculation that it was intended to have been Saddam's final resting place. The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq .Insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 950641753.
The opening as it stood on October 6, 2023 3 passages from the previous snapshot no longer appear
Large mosque in Baghdad, Iraq The Umm al-Qura Mosque ( ; "Mother of All Cities"), also known as Umm al-Ma'arik Mosque ("Mother of All Battles"), is a mosque located in Baghdad , Iraq .It was the city's largest place of worship for Sunni Muslims , but it has also become the location of a Shi'a hawza and a place of refuge for many fleeing the terrorists' depredations in the Anbar Province .It was designed to commemorate former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 's self-proclaimed victory in the Gulf War (1990–1991) and was intended to serve as a personal tribute to Saddam himself. It is located in the Sunni-populated al-Adel area of western Baghdad. Although never confirmed by the regime or himself during his lifetime, there has been speculation that it was intended to have been Saddam's final resting place. The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1178250031.
The opening as it stood in 2025
Large mosque in Baghdad, Iraq The Umm al-Qura Mosque ( Arabic : جامع أم القرى , lit. ' Mother of All Cities ' ), also known as the Umm al-Ma'arik Mosque ( lit. ' Mother of All Battles ' ), is a Sunni mosque located in Baghdad , Iraq . It was the city's largest place of worship for Sunnis , but it has also become the location of a Shi'a hawza and a place of refuge for many fleeing the terrorists' depredations in the Anbar Province . It was designed to commemorate former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 's self-proclaimed victory in the Gulf War (1990–1991) and was intended to serve as a personal tribute to Saddam himself. It is located in the Sunni-populated al-Adel area of western Baghdad. Although never confirmed by the regime or himself during his lifetime, there has been speculation that it was intended to have been Saddam's final resting place. The colonial present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq .
Red text was written in or rewritten since the previous snapshot. Their copy is revision 1297962246. This is our newest snapshot; the live article may have moved again since.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “city's largest place of worship for sunni muslims”. Today it says “sunni mosque located in baghdad”. Read the current article and compare.
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2020
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Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.
What Wikipedia says this is
Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2015, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.
Then
city's largest place of worship for sunni muslims
Now
sunni mosque located in baghdad
Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.