For centuries, Mosul has been a center of learning. In the Middle Ages, scholars here pioneered surgical techniques and medical instruments still used by contemporary doctors. The university remains highly regarded for its medical and science graduates.

During Islamic State rule, however, most classes ground to a halt, both because the group forbade the teaching of what it considered sinful or irrelevant subjects, like art and philosophy, and because professors and students were afraid to venture out of their homes.

The campus, like most areas of Mosul, shows scars of conflict. United States coalition airstrikes destroyed four science buildings that the Islamic State had been using as weapons research labs. University administrators say they have no idea how to replace the millions of books from their library, a repository for old manuscripts and research materials, that were burned by the Islamic State, or hundreds of thousands of dollars in science equipment.

Yet staff and students have tackled smaller tasks on their own.

Professor Intisar Abdel Rada, who has taught accounting for 18 years, helped supervise a group of professors and students who raised money to repair ceilings and electrical wiring in her department’s classrooms, and cleaned and painted lecture halls, work that enabled classes to resume last month. “It’s like we were dead but have been resuscitated,” she said while rushing between her lectures.

A few miles away, at Al Khansaa Pediatric and Maternity Hospital, the director, Dr. Jamal Younis, worked throughout the summer with international aid organizations such as Doctors Without Borders to solve critical needs, like installing generators and incubators to keep the city’s only maternity ward and pediatric surgery theaters operational.

He still faces frequent gaps in the daily operating budget — in October an average of four babies were born at Al Khansaa each day — but the staff struggled to maintain stocks like surgical gloves and food for patients.