The erection of the "Tower of Babel" - a grandiose structure in Samarra

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Samarra is a city in the central part of Iraq, 120 km north-west of Baghdad, lying on the eastern bank of the river. Tiger.

Founded in 836 by the Caliph al-Mutasim from the Abbasid dynasty (the son of the legendary Harun ar-Rashid); According to legend, he also belongs to the authorship of the name (from Arabic surra man ra'a, “whoever sees, will rejoice”). In fact, settlements on the site of S. existed long before the official foundation of the city. One of them, Surmarrati, mentioned in the inscription on the stela of Sennacherib (690 BC), was apparently located in the al-Khuvaysh area, opposite modern S. Late antique sources indicate the existence of a settlement in the vicinity of S. the name Souma. According to the testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus, in 364 (the retreat of the Roman army after the death of Emperor Julian) on the site of the city there was a fort Sumere. The modern name most likely goes back to the Aramaic Sumra (a village in the vicinity of S.; the toponym is recorded in the Chronicle of Michael of Syria).

According to Arab sources, in the years 834-835. Caliph al-Mutasim was forced to withdraw the military units of the Central Asian Turks from Baghdad (because of their conflicts with the local population) and start looking for a place for a new capital. The Caliph's path ran north; during one of the halts, al-Mutasim discovered a Christian monastery not far from his camp. The garden of the monastery, which was especially liked by the Caliph, became the site of the foundation of the palace known as Dar-al-Khilafa (836); later the monastery entered the complex of palace buildings as a treasury.

Under the sons of al-Mutasim - al-Wasik (842-847) and al-Mutawakkil (847-861) - S. not only retained the status of the capital of the Caliphate, but also became an arena of intensive urban development. Over the course of 20 years, 20 palaces were erected in and around the city, several parks and fenced-in hunting grounds were laid out; in addition, racing tracks / arenas were built. According to the plan of al-Mutawakkil, the city was supposed to surpass in splendor all the former capitals of the Caliphate. For example, in 861 the caliph gave orders to cut down and deliver to S. a cypress, planted by Zarathustra in honor of the conversion of King Gishtasp; the ancient wood was to be used to make beams for the next caliph palace (by the time the precious trunk of al-Mutawakkil was delivered).

Clickable 1500 px, Excavation of the palace of the caliphs in Samarra, on the background mosque Mutawakkila and her minaret Malvia (shell).

One of the few well-preserved monuments of urban planning activities of al-Mutawakkil (848-852). This imposing building is approx. 38,000 sq. m accommodated up to 80,000 worshipers and was the largest mosque of the Muslim ecumene. At the northern wall of the mosque, at the level of its middle, rises the pseudo-seven-tiered minaret al-Malwiyya (literally "twisted") - a cyclopean structure, which is a cone placed on a square base (the now absent wooden pavilion installed on the upper platform was the eighth tier). The visibility of the tiered structure is created by an external spiral staircase leading upward from the base, the width of which (2.3 m) allowed the caliph to ride to the top on horseback. The height of the minaret from the base to the upper platform is 53 m.

In 859, al-Mutawakkil founded a new city 15 km north of S., to which he gave his name (al-Mutawakkiliyya). Among the first, a building was erected, which the architects gave almost complete resemblance to the great cathedral mosque in S. This mosque, Abu Dulaf, is slightly inferior to its prototype in size (29,000 sq. M.); it also has a minaret (34 m) at the level of the middle of the northern wall (the external spiral staircase of the minaret of Abu Dulaf is steeper than that of al-Malwiyya, it forms six pseudo-tiers). The reasons that prompted al-Mutawakkil to start building the city (in fact, S.'s replica) are not known. It is believed that the completion of the work should have been a signal for the transfer of the capital to a new location. With the death of the Caliph in 861, construction work was stopped.

For 56 years, during which S. was the capital, the Caliph throne was occupied by eight people. The eighth caliph, al-Mutamed (son of al-Mutawakkil), returned to Baghdad in 884, and with his death (892) the capital was officially moved to its original place. By 894, the city was severely depopulated; Caliph al-Muktafi, who visited S. in 903, found al-Mutasim's palace badly destroyed and his planned return of the capital did not take place.

In 848 al-Mutawakkil summoned to S. the tenth imam of the Shiites, Ali al-Hadi ("leading the right way"), who was then living in Medina (b. 827), and settled him on the territory of the former military camp of al-Mutasim (hence the nickname al-Askari, ie "camp dweller" or "prisoner of the camp", which then passed on to his son, the eleventh imam). Subsequently, Ali al-Hadi bought a house near the old mosque of al-Mutasim, where he lived under public supervision until his violent death. Shiite tradition ascribes to the tenth imam knowledge of many languages (Persian, Slavic, Indian, Nabatean), sacred sciences (alchemy), the ability to foresee the future and perform miracles; he penned a treatise on free will.

In 868, Ali al-Hadi died and was buried in the courtyard of his house; the imamate passed to his middle son Hasan (p. 845). According to legend, the eleventh imam Hasan al-Askari was married to Narjis-Khatun, who came from the family of the emperors of Byzantium and who counted among her ancestors the Apostle Peter. The child from this marriage, the twelfth imam of the Shiites (counting from Ali b. Abi Talib), should, according to the well-known prophecy of Muhammad, appear as the expected (al-muntazar) Mahdi (mahdi - "led the right way") and Kaim (al- qa'im, “risen with a sword”, also “raising the dead”, ie “resurrector”). Arguing with fate, Caliph al-Mutamed increased his supervision over Imam Hasan and made several attempts to kill him in order to prevent the emergence of a legitimate claimant to the Caliphate. Shiites, in turn, tried to protect the imam and his family from contact with outsiders; however, in 874, Hasan al-Askari died (believed to have been from poisoning) and was buried next to his father. The tafsir attributed to him was published in Iran in the last century.

Mosque al-Askari in Samarra.

The Abbasids and their supporters celebrated the victory until it became clear that Imam Hasan still managed to leave an heir. The boy named Muhammad was born in 868; the fact of his birth was kept secret from everyone except the very closest circle. The mysterious child was seen for the last time going down to the basement in the yard of the parent's house a year before the death of his father. According to one of the versions spread among the Shiites at that time, he was hidden by his father in Medina. From 874 to 941, Imam Muhammad b. Hasan led the Shiite community through four intermediaries (safara; plural), successively replacing each other; this period was called the "little concealment" (ghaybat al-sughra). In 941, a few days before his death, the fourth safir reported that the imam had announced to him the beginning of the “great concealment” (ghaybat al-kupa), the duration of which was determined by God himself, in connection with which the institution of mediation was abolished, and what- or contact with the community becomes impossible.

According to the Shi'a creed, the "great cover-up" will last until the End of Time; the return of Mahdi will take place at a moment when evil and injustice will prevail in the world, people will almost completely lose the idea of the sacred, and everything that connects a person with God will be close to disappearance. Some legends say that the appearance of the Mahdi will take place at the time of the planetary triumph of the Antichrist (al-dajjal). The final battle between the Mahdi warriors, including Imam Hussein and Hazrat Isa (i.e. Jesus of the Christian tradition), and the opposing demonized humanity, who recognized the authority of the Antichrist over themselves, takes on the clear outlines of a war of Light and Darkness, Good and Evil (lit. Reason, aql, and Ignorance, jahl), and the Imam himself is endowed with the qualities of an eschatological Savior.

Clickable 1600 px Great Walls mosques Mutawakkila.

The architectural complex mashhad al-Askariin (literally "the place of confession of faith of the inhabitants of the camp", that is, the imams Ali al-Hadi and Hasan al-Askari) consists of two buildings: a mausoleum-mosque, crowned with a golden dome, to which two minarets are attached, and a sanctuary erected over the entrance to the sardab (basement where the last imam disappeared in 873), known as maqam ghaybat ("place of hiding"); this second building is also crowned with a dome, but it is not made with gold, but with blue glaze. In the mausoleum, in addition to the imams, rest Hakima-Khatun, Ali al-Hadi's sister, who preserved the circumstances of the birth and disappearance of Mahdi for posterity, and Narjis-Khatun. The first structures over the graves of imams, erected in 944-45. under Hamdanid Nasir ad-Daula, they were rebuilt many times, incl. Arslan al-Basasiri under the Buyids (1053-54) and the caliph Nasir li-Din-ilah (1209-1210). The construction of the golden dome over the mausoleum of the tenth and eleventh imams was started by the Shah of Iran Nasr al-Din (1868-1869) and completed under his successor Muzaffar al-Din (1905).

Clickable 1600 px, Mosque al-Askari in Samarra

Inaret al-Malwiyya, which has become a kind of symbol of S. as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, is remarkable not so much for its architectural uniqueness as for the symbolic connotations associated with it. A strong base, comparable in size to the height of the minaret (a square with a side of 33 m), gives the building a similarity to a pyramid, and the tiered structure is unambiguously associated with the ziggurat described by Herodotus, i.e. with the "House of the founding of heaven and earth", the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11: 4). The presence of an external staircase connecting the base and the top of the minaret is especially indicative; in ziggurats, this architectural element was endowed with an important sacred function - the path of the descent of the deity from heaven to earth. Jewish and Christian exegetes saw in the erection of the Tower of Babel the motive of fighting against God. In medieval midrash, parallels are drawn between its construction and the rebellion of the "sons of God" Gen 6: 2 (2 En 7), which forced God to destroy the fallen creature with a Flood, and the idolatrous king Nimrod, who began construction, is likened to the fallen angel Shemkhazai. In Muslim exegesis, especially in the Persian tafsirs, Nimrod is not just a tyrant and idolater opposed by the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham), but a fierce foe of God; having failed in the construction of the tower, he tries to fly up to heaven, and in response to an offer to repent, challenges God to battle and dies. In the light of the clarifications made, giving the appearance of a ziggurat to the minaret of the capital's cathedral mosque cannot be perceived otherwise than the self-identification of the Muslim Caliph with the God-fighting king.

The minaret of al-Malwiyya, from which no calls to prayer have been heard for a long time, and the giant rectangle of a large mosque lying at its foot, empty and abandoned, are a truly apocalyptic sight, forcing one to think about the contrast between the now uninhabited S. caliphs and S. imams - always the crowded courtyard of the al-Askariyn Mosque, crowned with a gleaming golden dome, and surrounding residential areas.

If Mecca is a symbol of the beginning of the sacred history of Muslims (the black stone of the Kaaba is an angel who accompanied Adam after his expulsion from Paradise, and the Kaaba itself is a temple rebuilt after the flood by Abraham and Ismail), S. is a proclamation of its accomplishment. The new Babylon of the Abbasids, conceived as one of the wonders of the world - a city-palace that in a little over ten years has spread blooming gardens on terraces and raised into the sky the bulk of minarets-ziggurats - became a warning about the transience and illusion that marked the triumph of secular power over spiritual dominion …Blinded by their own pride, the caliphs erected their Tower of Babel, unable to foresee its coming desolation; they exterminated imams from the house of Ali with satanic cunning, not knowing that their disappearance from the human plane of Existence is only the promise of the Great Return. The S. Caliphs is a dead city, a symbol of worldly insignificance before the sacred, perishable before the eternal, a monument to the fight against God and recklessness. S. Imams continues to live, reminding us of Divine justice (one of the tenets of Shiite Islam), that the night, no matter how long it is, will inevitably be replaced by dawn.

But the most outstanding architectural jewel that glorified not only Samarra, but also Iraq as a whole, was the Great Mosque - a gigantic building that easily housed about 80,000 Muslims who regularly flooded the square of the holy place for performing prayers.

Today, little is left of this majestic building, but once it shook the imagination with its gigantic size and monumentality. Just imagine a huge courtyard, an imposing prayer hall and a tall minaret behind an impregnable wall with semicircular towers and sixteen entrances - all on an area of 38,000 square meters.

The wall and other buildings of the ancient architectural ensemble are decorated with glass mosaics in ultramarine colors, delicate carvings and skillful stucco moldings. It took almost 4 years to create the Great Mosque - the complex was built from 847 to 852, and at the time of the completion of the construction of the grandiose complex, it was the largest and most outstanding building among all Islamic structures.

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The wall of the mosque and the Malvia minaret, famous all over the world for its height and intricate shape, have survived to this day.

The width of the stairs is 2, 3 m - this distance easily allowed al-Mutawakkil to get to the highest turn of the ramp riding on a sacred white Egyptian donkey. From there, from the top, a marvelous panorama opens up to the outskirts of the city and the valley of the Tigris River. The name of the minaret means "twisted shell", which implies a spiral staircase that winds along the walls of the minaret.

Depending on the time of day and under the influence of lighting, the walls of the mosque and the minaret are transformed, acquiring either straw, amber, brick, or golden-pink hue. An architectural object of rare beauty is under the protection of UNESCO and is included in the register of World Heritage Sites.

Alas, the unique building, miraculously preserved to our era, had to be badly damaged already in the current century. In April 2005, Iraqi insurgents attempting to eliminate an American observation post installed at the top of the minaret orchestrated an explosion that partially destroyed the top of the tower.