Chapter IX: Diyârbekr to Konia (3)

[95] From its relation to similar buildings (for instance at Ḥadîthah on the Euphrates and at Dûr on the Tigris) in places which probably flourished until the time of the Mongol invasion, _i.e._ towards the end of the thirteenth century, I should, however, place the tomb of Sitt Zobeideh earlier than 1200.

[96] See de Beylié: _Prome et Samara_, p. 34.

[97] Mr. Le Strange gives good reasons for believing that Mustanṣir did not found the mosque to which this minaret belongs, but that it is no other than the Jâmi’ el Ḳaṣr, built by the Khalif el Muktafî (A.D. 902) as a Friday Mosque adjoining the palace of his father Mu’taḍid. The palace was known as the Ḳaṣr et Tâj, the Palace of the Crown: _Baghdâd_, p. 269.

[98] These are exactly copied in the domes over the carrefours in the bazaars, which are certainly much later in date.

[99] I have been able to give an illustration of this system from Khân Khernîna; the chambers at Baghdâd were so dark that photography was almost impossible.

[100] Some admirable photographs of it are given by De Beylié, _op. cit._, p. 33 _et seq._

[101] A good photograph has been given by Viollet: _Le Palais de Al-Moutasim, Mémoires présentés à l’Acad. des Inscrip. et Belles-Lettres_, Vol. XII. Part II. Viollet believes it to have come from a church. See too Herzfeld: “Die Genesis der islamischen Kunst,” in _Der Islâm_, Vol. I. Part I.

[102] De Beylié, _op. cit._, p. 30. He gives several illustrations.

[103] Kiepert calls it Khân eṭ Ṭarniyeh.

[104] Sitace cannot be placed with certainty. Ritter (Vol. X. p. 21) conjectures that the bridge must have lain about four hours above Baghdâd. After the battle of Cunaxa, a field of which the site is not determined, the Greeks pursued the Persians to a village on a mound where they passed the night. Here they learnt that Cyrus was dead. Next day they joined Ariæus and marched in one day to some unnamed Babylonian villages. They then marched through fertile country for a space of time not specified, probably a day, to well-supplied villages, where they stayed twenty-three days. In three days from these villages they reached the Median Wall, under the guidance of Tissaphernes, who must have led them by a tortuous course across Mesopotamia, and in two days more they came to Sitace, which was a populous city lying on an island formed by the Tigris and a canal. Sitace is perhaps Pliny’s Sittace (Bk. VI. ch. xxxi.), though his confused statement would seem to place it on the left bank of the Tigris. Ptolemy mentions a place called Scaphe, which Müller is inclined to connect with the Sablis of the Tab. Peut., but it appears to have been some distance to the east of the Tigris (_Ptolemy_, ed. Müller, p. 1006). The placing of Sitace depends upon the position of Opis, which is not satisfactorily determined.

[105] There was an earlier Dujeil which started from the Euphrates a little below Hît, crossed Mesopotamia and joined the Tigris above Baghdâd, but by the tenth century its eastern end had silted up. The later Dujeil was a loop canal from the Tigris; it left the river opposite Ḳâdisîyah and rejoined it at ’Ukbarâ. These complicated questions may easily be understood by referring to the first map in Mr. Le Strange’s _Baghdâd_.

[106] The term is the equivalent of the northern Chiflik. The latter is a Turkish word signifying merely farm, but it designates especially a farm belonging to the Sultan.

[107] ’Ukbarâ was a well-known place in the days of the Khalifate. Muḳaddasî (ed. de Goeje, p. 122.) It lay on the east bank of the Tigris, _i.e._ on the east bank of the old channel. Le Strange, _Lands of the Eastern Caliphate_, p. 50.

[108] Kiepert marks Wâneh to the south of ’Ukbarâ, whereas I should place it a little to the north. We rode to Sumeikhah in about an hour from the Imâm Muḥammad ’Alî, which would have been impossible from Kiepert’s Wâneh, or for that matter from his ’Ukbarâ. I am relying, however, for the names upon the not too certain testimony of Ḳâsim. Both ’Ukbarâ and Wâneh are mentioned by Muḳaddasî, but he gives no indication of their relative position. He provides us with no more information about Wâneh than its name (ed. de Goeje, pp. 54 and 115), which he spells Aiwanâ. The customary mediæval spelling is Awânâ, and other authorities place the town on the west bank of the old Tigris bed, while ’Ukbarâ lay opposite to it on the east bank (Streck: _Die alte Landschaft Babylonien_, p. 227). This would correspond fairly well with my itinerary. I rode from ’Ukbarâ in a north-westerly direction and reached Wâneh in forty-five minutes.

[109] _Journal of the Geog. Soc._, Vol. XI. p. 124.

[110] _Anabasis_, Bk. II. ch. iv. 25.

[111] Bk. I. 189.

[112] Bk. XVI. ch. i. 9.

[113] Bk. VI. ch. xxxi. Though I believe that the ruins on the east bank seen by Ross and the extensive ruin field on what is now the west bank of the Tigris must represent Opis, the locating of the city is complicated by the fact that Xenophon took four days to reach Opis from Sitace. Now if Sitace is anywhere near Baghdâd it is strange that the Greeks should have marched four days and got no further than a town situated immediately to the north of the ’Aḍêm. The Physcus, which Xenophon crossed by a bridge of boats before coming to Opis, may be the ’Aḍêm, but some have supposed it to be the great Ḳâṭûl-Nahrawân, a loop canal on the east bank of the Tigris. I do not know, however, that there is any record of a canal here before the Sassanian period (Le Strange: _Lands of the Eastern Caliphate_, p. 57). Chesney tried to solve the difficulty of Xenophon’s march by placing Opis higher up the river at Ḳadsîyeh, but that would leave the great ruin field lower down unidentified, and would, besides, leave too long a time for the march from Opis to the Great Zâb, which occupied the Greeks eleven days. For the site of the Babylonian Opis, see King: _Sumer and Akkad_, p. 11.

[114] It is probably one of the districts which were ruined by the Mongol invasion.

[115] _i.e._ “raids and so forth”; the second word is merely a repetition of the first with the initial letter _r_ changed to _m_. This convenient form is very common in Turkish.

[116] This Ḳâdisîyah must not be confounded with the battlefield near Ḥirah where Khâlid ibn u’l Walîd overthrew the Sassanians.

[117] Sarre thinks it was empty, and holds that the town was never finished or inhabited. He would therefore place here Ḳâṭûl, the site first fixed upon for his capital by the Khalif Mu’taṣim when he left Baghdâd. Finding Sâmarrâ to be better placed, he abandoned Ḳâṭûl before the work there was completed: _Ya’ḳûbî_, ed. de Goeje, p. 256. Sarre: _Reise in Mesop. Zeitsch. der Gesell. fûr Erdkunde zu Berlin_, 1909, No. 7, p. 437. Schwartz, however, suggests that Ḳâṭûl may have lain to the north of Sâmarrâ: _Die Abbâsiden-Residenz Sâmarrâ_, p. 5. Ross thought that Ḳâdisîyah was Sassanian, but I am persuaded that he was in error. (A Journey from Baghdâd to Opis, _Journal of the Geog. Soc._, Vol. XI. p. 127.) Jones gives a plan: _Memoirs_, p. 8.

[118] The Malwîyeh can scarcely be any other than the minaret described by Balâdhurî among Mutawakkil’s buildings: _Futûḥ ul Buldân_, p. 306, Cairo edition of 1901. The ruins of Sâmarrâ have not yet received the detailed study which they deserve, but Professor Sarre and Dr. Herzfeld are about to begin an exhaustive examination of the site. Sketch plans have been published by De Beylié (_Prome et Samarra_), and at about the same time Herzfeld brought out a small monograph entitled Sâmarrâ. I had this monograph with me, and finding the plans to be incorrect and the drawings inexact (for example, the ornament drawn in fig. 5 gives little idea of the original), I measured and photographed all the ruins over again. Meantime Viollet has published a short account of his journey in Mesopotamia, in which he has given plans of the ruins of Sâmarrâ: _Le Palais de Al Moutasim, etc., Mémoires of the Acad. des Inscrip. et Belles-Lettres_, Vol. XII.