Since 2013 and the rise of Daesh, the destruction of heritage has become a central concern amidst the conflicts and mass humanitarian atrocities in Iraq and Syria. To date, international attention and scholarship has predominantly concentrated on the destruction of tangible archaeological sites. Drawing on participant observation and oral histories produced with minority communities in Iraq and Syria, as well as refugees in Jordan, this paper explores the impacts and implications of heritage destruction and displacement on intangible cultural and religious practices. As such, it undertakes to document and understand the spatial and social legacy of the multiple layers of rupture and alienation resulting from the targeting of culture as an act of war. Placing voices of interlocutors at the centre of analysis, it highlights the importance of memory, nostalgia and intangible heritage in attempting to stave off what Gaston Gordillo has referred to as ‘oblivion’ (2014: 207). Through a focus on physical and existential displacements, it posits heritage as a future oriented strategy that enhances theorisations of reflective and restorative nostalgia (Boym 2001) and discusses the possibilities of equipping youth for the challenges of the 21st century through preserving and engaging heritage. In this way, this paper emphasises how heritage practices, objects and places are formed through activities in the present that work to cultivate narratives that situate identities and establish belonging. Consequently, it highlights potentialities of heritage in building and resourcing different kinds of futures.