Samarra was once the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, the empire that ruled the Islamic world from Baghdad. In the ninth century the caliph al-Mu'tasim moved his court and army about a hundred kilometres up the Tigris to a new site, and for around half a century the city grew into an enormous sprawl of palaces, mosques, barracks and gardens stretching along the river for tens of kilometres. When the capital returned to Baghdad in the 890s, Samarra was abandoned, which is why so much of its plan survives as ruins and mounds rather than being built over by later cities.
The northern zone, called al-Mutawakkiliyya after the caliph al-Mutawakkil, who built a new quarter here, contains some of the grandest remains. The Great Mosque, with its spiral minaret, the Malwiya, rises about fifty metres above the plain and was among the largest mosques in the world at the time, and the surrounding enclosure walls still mark out an immense courtyard. Al-Quwayr, a palace site in the same area, is part of this great field of ruins and gives a sense of how the caliphs built on a scale that matched their ambitions.
Practical matters need care here. Samarra is a large city of around a hundred and fifty thousand and has fuel, shops and food, but Iraq's security situation, the condition of the roads and the rules for foreign visitors can change quickly, and travel by motorbike is unusual. Anyone thinking of visiting should check current government advice and local conditions, and should not assume access to archaeological sites.
The landscape is stark and beautiful in its own way. The Tigris cuts a wide, silt-brown line through a country of dust, date palms, and low hills, and the summers are fierce, with temperatures that can pass forty-five degrees. Spring is the kinder season, when the plain turns briefly green, and the air is clear.
The spiral minaret has a ramp winding up the outside, a shape so unusual that it has become the symbol of the city.