“Samarra’, la capitale priva di mura del califfo ‘abbaside al-Mu‘tasim (836-842)”

In 836 the ‘Abbasid caliph al-Mu‘tasim founded north of Baghdad the new capital Samarra, placed on the east bank of the Tigris. Its ruins cover an area of about 57 square kilometers. During its nearly sixty years as capital, Samarra was never surrounded by walls. At the time of al-Mu‘tasim about 20-25,000 men, mainly Turks from Central Asia, constituted the army. They were headquartered in wide cantonments, of hundreds of acres each. It is thus the army that constituted the defensive walls of Samarra.