Syria - Raqqa-Ràfiqa: the Abbasid city

This city of the high Abbasid period built at the confluence of the Euphrates and its tributary the Balikh northeastern Syria (in the region called the Jeziré), inheriting the site of a Seleucid city (Nicephorion) occupied by the Romans (Callinicum) and then by the Byzantines (Léontopolis) had, for the Caliphs of Baghdad a double meaning: first strategic because it put them at the gates of Damascus then symbolic since it dedicated their victory on the Umayyads of Damascus as well as their supremacy over the vast Islamic Empire. In 772 AD Caliph Al-Mansur ordered the construction of a new city Al-Ràfiqa next to the ancient al-Raqqa, modeled on Baghdad but instead of being entirely circular, he gave it the form of a horseshoe to account for the river flowing in front of her on the south side. Rafiqa was a living example of what was the first center of Baghdad built by the same Caliph Al Mansur ten years earlier and today totally disappeared. A quarter of a century after the founding of Rafiqa, the powerful Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rachid decided in 796 to transfer his capital there. He then began major work especially in the northern area of ​​the twin cities Raqqa and Rafiqa. The work lasted more than thirteen years and endowed the city with palaces and houses of which little remains. In 1258 Raqqa and Rafiqa unified were devastated by the Mongols at the same time as Baghdad. The little that remains of the unified Abbasid city of the Euphrates is, however, sufficiently important and expressive to testify to the splendor of the city to its great moments of glory