ABSTRACT

Every trace of the palaces has now almost completely disappeared, but the city wall built in the fifth century to enclose the new suburbs still exists, and this, as will be shown later, is virtually identical with the present wall of Eastern Baghdad. East Baghdad consisted of the three northern quarters which lay on the river bank, for the most part outside the limit of the later wall, and above the subsequent site of the palaces, in the region where the village of Muazzam now stands. These three northern quarters are called Rusafah, Shammasiyah, and MukKasrim. Khatib wrote in the middle of the fifth century, and in the second half of the century great changes took place in East Baghdad. These changes resulted in the building of the city of Baghdad as we now see it, for the three older northern quarters of Rusafah, Shammasiyah, and MukKasrim with their city wall.