ABSTRACT
'Surra-man-ra'a says Mas'udi, 'is the last of the great cities founded in Islam.' Seven in all, till the time of Mas'udi, these were according to him: Basra, founded in 17/638-9; Kufa, founded in 17/638-9; Fustat, founded in 20/640-1; Ramla and Wasit, founded in 13-14/634-6; Baghdad, founded in 145/762-3; and Surra-man-ra'a, founded in 221/834-5. The policy of Mu'tasim was a great departure from the spirit of Islam and from the traditions of the Islamic empire. Although in the Islamic cities that were founded before Samarra', the tribal and regional settlements of the armies were the patterns that prevailed, there were no restrictions so marked as the imposition of coexistence linked with a ban on intermixture and intermarriage. Under the Umayyads a somewhat different line of development can be seen in the founding of Islamic cities.
