volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

114 The Malwtyah.
" Malwiyah,"^ hj^, because of the spiral paths to the
top on the outside of it. FeUx Jones ascertained its
height to be 163 feet.' Some modern travellers hold
the view that the " Malwtyah " is a Babylonian ziggurat,^
or temple-tower, but it is more probably the
minaret of the mosque built by Mu'tasim.
The site of SS,marra is so convenient and the climate
so good, and before the destruction of the ancient system
of canals its fertility was so great, that there must always
have been a town there. Babylonian bricks have been
found on the foreshore, but they may, of course, have
been brought there from Babylon. There was a city
there in Julian's time, and it seems to have been a place
of importance when the Arabs conquered Mesopotamia.
It was the 'Abbasid capital during the reigns of seven
Khalifahs, i.e., from 836 to 892, and each of them spent
large sums in building vast and beautiful palaces at
Samarra itself and on the western bank of the Tigris
just opposite. Long after the return of the 'Abbasid
Court to Baghdad it preserved much of its importance,
and the splendour of its great mosque attracted many
to the town. In the fourteenth century the town was a
mere mass of ruins, as Abu '1-Fida (p. 300) and Ibn
Batutah (ii, 132) testify. Later it was occupied by
Shi'ites, and the bulk of the population to-day are
members of this sect. The tombs of the Im^ms are
maintained by the offerings of the pilgirhns, who are
also called upon to pay for the upkeep of the walls.*
' A rock at Nahawand, with a winding path about it, is also called
" Malwiyah." See Yakut, iv, p. 638.
^ Rich says it is about 200 feet high.
' " At Samarra . . . stands the only ziggurat, or Babylonian
temple-tower, that has not been ruined in the lapse of centuries.
By some fortunate freak of fate, the great pyramid, with its spiral
ascent to the summit, was preserved when worship ceased in the
temple below. It went on as a Zoroastrian fire-temple, and subsequently
as minaret to the great mosque which Harun-1-Rashid built
at its foot." Wigram, Cradle of Mankind, p. 348.
* Accounts of Samarra by the Arab geographers will be found in
Istakhri, pp. 78-86 ; Ibn Hawkal, pp. 156, 157 ; Mukiaddasi, pp. 114,