ABSTRACT
In the earlier accounts Rusafah is described as standing on the eastern Tigris bank, opposite and as it were balancing the City of Mansur on the western side, which last it equalled in area. Yakubi enumerates in great detail the various fiefs which Mahdi had granted to his nobles in the space round the Palace of Rusafah, and these fiefs covered the lands to the north-east and south, which afterwards are occupied by the quarters of Shammasiyah and MukKasrim. This quarter of Abu Hanifah Ibn Kukasr describes as occupying in his day the uppermost part of Rusafah, far outside the city limits, as these had then come to be by the building of the new wall round the suburbs of the palaces. Probably excavations made in the tract of land to the south of the present village of Muazzam might bring to light the foundations of the old Rusafah Mosque; also, possibly, traces of the palace of Mahdi.
