Al-Mu'tasim founds Samarra, the new Abbasid capital
To house his new regiments of Turkish and other soldiers, many of them bought as slaves, whose clashes with the people of Baghdad had turned violent, the caliph al-Mu'tasim left Baghdad and in 836 moved into a new capital on the Tigris, 125 km to the north. Samarra, officially Surra Man Ra'a, ‘he who sees it is delighted’, grew into a vast city of palaces and cantonments and remained the seat of the caliphs until 892, while its guard soon came to make and unmake caliphs.
- Date
- 836year known
- Place
- Samarratoday: Samarra, Saladin Governorate, Iraq · Middle East and Egypt
- Participants
- Al-Mu'tasim, Al-Mutawakkil, Abbasid Caliphate
- Threads
- Middle East and Egypt (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- Surra Man Ra'a; Abbasid Samarra; Great Mosque of Samarra; Malwiya; Anarchy at Samarra; Сурра-ман-раа; Большая мечеть Самарры; Мальвия; Анархия в Самарре
Al-Mu'tasim (833–842) had begun to build up his own corps while still a prince, around 814–815, first from slaves bought in Baghdad and then from Turks brought from Central Asia; at his accession it probably numbered three to four thousand men. Together with Iranian regiments from Farghana and Ushrusana and others, these troops, newcomers with no ties to the old elites, were deeply unpopular in Baghdad, and about 835 the caliph resolved to leave the city. After searching for a site, he bought land on the east bank of the Tigris near the head of the Nahrawan canal, including a Christian monastery, and by 836 had moved into the new city. The foundation let him settle his army apart from the Baghdadis, reward his followers with land and proclaim a new regime — in Hugh Kennedy’s words, ‘a sort of gigantic property speculation’ from which both the government and its followers expected to profit.
Samarra spread for dozens of kilometres along the Tigris, with palace complexes such as the caliph’s Dar al-Khilafa, cantonments for the regiments, broad avenues, racecourses and a walled hunting reserve. Al-Mutawakkil (847–861) added the Great Mosque (848–851), then the largest mosque in the world, with its spiral minaret, the Malwiya, and a new palace city, al-Mutawakkiliyya; according to al-Ya'qubi, building then ran unbroken for 42 km. In December 861 Turkish officers murdered al-Mutawakkil, and during the following decade, the ‘Anarchy at Samarra’, four caliphs in succession became puppets of rival military factions, most of them dying violently, while the provinces slipped from central control.
Al-Mu'tamid (870–892) was the last caliph to build at Samarra; after his death al-Mu'tadid returned the court to Baghdad in 892, and without the caliphs’ money the city, poorly supplied with water, was largely abandoned. Because most of it was never built over, the plan of the Abbasid city survives: its ruins cover about 58 km², more than 6,000 buildings have been registered, and its streets and houses can still be traced from the air. In 2007 the site was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
Connections
Related events
- Founding of Baghdad: al-Mansur’s Round Citybetween 30 July and 2 August 762 – between 766 and 767 · Middle East and Egyptfor 56 years the caliphs ruled from Samarra rather than from al-Mansur’s Baghdad
- Fourth Fitna: al-Amin against al-Ma'mun and the siege of BaghdadJanuary 811 – September 813 · Middle East and Egyptthe civil war broke the old Baghdad army, and the Turkish corps of al-Ma'mun’s brother, the future al-Mu'tasim, took its place
- Georgios of Makuria’s embassy to the caliph and the revision of the baqt835 – between 836 and 837 · Africathe embassy came to al-Mu'tasim in the years when he moved his court from Baghdad to Samarra
- Sack of Amorium1 August – between 12 August and 24 September 838 · Balkans and AnatoliaForty-two captives from Amorium, held for years, were executed at Samarra in 845
- Ahmad ibn Tulun rules Egypt: al-Qata'i and the Mosque of Ibn Tulun15 September 868 – 10 May 884 · Middle East and EgyptIbn Tulun was trained at Samarra, and his al-Qata'i and its mosque were modelled on the Abbasid capital
- Zanj RebellionSeptember 869 – August 883 · Middle East and Egyptthe ‘Anarchy at Samarra’ (861–870) had paralysed the central government when the revolt broke out
Same participants
- The mihna: the Abbasid inquisition over the createdness of the Qur’an833 – between 848 and 852 · Middle East and Egyptvia Al-Mutawakkil
Adjacent events in the thread
- Al-Khwarizmi writes the book of al-jabrc. 820 · Middle East and Egypt
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Aghlabid conquest of SicilyJune 827 – 1 August 902
Eastern Europe
- Construction of Sarkelbetween 833 and 841
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
- The Khazar rulers adopt Judaismbetween 740 and 861
Balkans and Anatolia
- Byzantine Iconoclasmbetween 726 and 730 – 11 March 843
Africa
- Georgios of Makuria’s embassy to the caliph and the revision of the baqt835 – between 836 and 837
- Ifriqiya under the Aghlabids800 – March 909
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
Central and Northern Asia
South Asia
- The tripartite struggle for Kannaujbetween 783 and 790 – between 915 and 918
- Mihira Bhoja and the Pratihara empire of Kannaujc. 836 – c. 885
East Asia
- Jang Bogo’s Cheonghae garrison and the trade of the Yellow Seabetween 18 May and 15 June 828 – between December 841 and April 846
North America
- Pueblo I: villages of surface rooms on the Colorado Plateauc. 750 – c. 900
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
- Tiwanaku culture at its height by Lake Titicacac. 600 – c. 1000
- Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlandsc. 800 – c. 950
- Rise of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatánc. 800 – between 900 and 1000
- Cacaxtla and Xochicalco: the Epiclassic cities of central Mexicoc. 650 – c. 900
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Abbasid Samarra
- Wikipedia (English): Samarra
- Wikipedia (English): Great Mosque of Samarra
- Wikipedia (English): Anarchy at Samarra
- Wikipedia (Russian): Самарра
- Northedge A. The Historical Topography of Samarra. — London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2005. — (Samarra Studies I).
- Gordon M. S. The Breaking of a Thousand Swords: A History of the Turkish Military of Samarra (A.H. 200–275/815–889 C.E.). — Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.