Constructing Hydraulic Infrastructure in the ʿAbbāsid and Ṭūlūnid Capitals: Water Conduits in Baghdad, Samarra and Cairo between the Eighth and Ninth Centuries

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ABSTRACT Large cities have always required access to water – a requirement that has been met in different ways over time and place. During the early Islamic period, a variety of sources of evidence survive attesting to the construction of substantial pieces of infrastructure that carried water into cities. These were often expensive undertakings requiring significant investment of financial and labour resources, while their intended use often seems to have prioritised the needs of elites rather than of the general populace. Through textual and material sources of evidence, this article examines three main case studies in the cities of Baghdad, Samarra and al-Qaṭāʾiʿ (pre-modern Cairo) to explore how, why and for whom these water conduits were built, as well as questions relating to their maintenance and longer-term use.