Monasteries in the City of Samarra

Abstract

The city of Samarra is one of the major cities of Iraq that Yaqout al-Hamwi described in the dictionary of countries by saying (it became the greatest country of God) and Al-Qazwini told about it in the monuments of the country (a great city located on the outskirts of the east of the Tigris between Baghdad and Tikrit) built by the Abbasid Caliph Al -Mu'tasim in God in 221 AH/ 835 M, and it is originally a monastery for the Christians, who bought it for 5,000 dinars, and took it as a capital for its succession, and reached its prosperity and its glory is the days of the caliph Al -Mutawakkil, 247 AH / 861 AD / 892. However, after 58 years, it was left as the capital of the Abbasids when the Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mutamid Allah, abandoned it in the year 279 AH / 892 AD, and took Baghdad, the old capital, as his headquarters, which maintained its position as the capital of the Arab Islamic state until the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate at the hands of the Mongols in the year 656 AH / 1258 AD.Al-Mu'tasim and the caliphs and princes who came after him built palaces, houses, mosques, and other things in Samarra. Samarra was famous for its Great Mosque, distinguished by its high, twisted minaret. It also contained the shrine of the two imams, Ali al-Hadi 254 AH/868 AD and Hasan al-Askari 260 AH/873 AD.