Great Mosque of Samarra in Iraq

Great Mosque of Samarra is located in the town of Samarra, Iraq, about 120 km north of Baghdad, on the banks of the Tigris. As quoted from Nature Inflate So Guru, the Great Mosque of Samarra was built in the 9th century, on the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutawakkil, who moved to Samarra to escape from conflict with the local population in Baghdad and then stay there for 56 years front - a period in which he built many palaces including the largest mosque in the Islamic world at that time. The Great Mosque is standing on an area of ​​17 hectares; the building itself covers an area of ​​38,000 square meters. This mosque remains the largest mosque in the world and 400 years into the future before it was destroyed by the army of Mongol Hulagu Khan when the invasion of Iraq in 1278. The outer walls and 52-meter tall tower is impressive is all that remains of a mosque that once stood majestic.

The mosque has a rectangular layout covered by baked brick walls 10 meters high and 2.65 meters thick. This mosque has 16 entrances, with 17 pieces hallway that connected with the mosque prayer room and foyer. The mosque porch adorned with pillars pillar triplicate. At the time of Friday prayers, the porch is also used to accommodate the Friday prayer worshipers who can not be accommodated in the mosque.

The design of the prayer hall of the Great Mosque of Samarra decorated with marble to form an octagonal pattern in the corners of the room. While the mihrab, decorated with glass mosaics. Now only a small fraction of the pieces of the mosaic that remains.

In the back of the mihrab, there is a small building. In the reign of the Abbasid dynasty, the building was used as a place to receive visits caliph, as well as a resting place for the imams.

27 meters from the north side of the mosque stood Malwiya tower with a spiral cone 52 meters high. The base of the tower rectangle. While at the top of the tower there is a pavilion which functioned as a muezzin's call to prayer echoes. Entire walls in the room where the muezzin is made of wood material. Narrated, Caliph Al-Mutawakkil had reached the top of the tower with his white donkey.

The spiral shape of the tower reminiscent of the Tower of Babel was built during the Babylonian Empire which once ruled in the region of Mesopotamia.

The tower was partially destroyed in April 2005, when insurgents bombed the tower because US forces have used it as a watchtower. Claims UK, said that the attack was not directed against US forces but was done to incite Sunni-Shiite violence and further destabilize the country.

Posted by Unknown

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