ABSTRACT
The name MukKasrim had been given to the parcel of land here on the Tigris bank long before Baghdad was founded, for during the first century of the Hijrah, when the Moslems had recently conquered Mesopotamia, an Arab of that name settled here on a fief granted to him by the Caliph Omar. In the northern part of the MukKasrim Quarter, on the bank of the Musa Canal, and probably near the Khurasan Gate, stood the Palace of the Caliph Mutasim, along the southern side of which passed the Long Street. Between the MukKasrim Gate and the Great Pitched Gate, the thoroughfare which, as said, bifurcated from the Great Road, was bordered by the booths of the Hay Market, and at the Great Pitched Gate there turned off the road known as the Shari Sad-al-Waif, which led towards the Ansar Bridge.
