tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21703780588047753502024-02-20T09:20:08.609-08:00The Great Mosque of Samarra, by LaurenLaurenWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05065514746328677780noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2170378058804775350.post-16231637041863635552013-05-08T22:26:00.000-07:002013-05-08T22:26:17.333-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Located in Samarra, Iraq, the Great Mosque of Samarra used
to be the largest mosque of the Islamic world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With its unique and well known minaret, it attracts a lot of attention
and is a popular site for tourists to visit. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Great Mosque of Samarra was built by <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Al-Mutawakkil
in 848-852 AD.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has an Islamic Abbasid
style and was built out of brick and clay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the mid-ninth century, Al-Mutawakkil ordered the Great Mosque of
Samarra to be built in order to celebrate his becoming of the Abbasid
caliphate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The mosque is 240 meters in length and 160 meters in
width.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has baked brick walls which are
10 meters tall and are held by 44 towers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It contains sixteen gates to enter through, and over each entrance are a
couple of arched windows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The outer
walls have a total of twenty-nine windows: twenty-four on the southern side,
one on every aisle in the inner sanctuary, and one with the mihrab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mosque’s roof was held by 216 piers in
the sanctuary, 27 piers in the riwaq to the north, 88 piers on each side, and 2
marble columns around the mihrab which were in the southern wall of the
mosque.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each pier was reconstructed into
octagonal white marble columns, but only one of those column’s base is still
standing today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Great Mosque of
Samarra is also surrounded by an outer enclosure called a ziyada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ziyada surrounds the mosque on all sides
except the south side, which is the qibla side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This ziyada is inside an even bigger one which surrounds every side of
the mosque, however the south side is thinner than the others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole area that the mosque and ziyadas
take up is a total of 17 hectares (170,000m).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One<span class="style41"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;"> of the most magnificent
minarets in Iraq is the Al-Malwiya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also
known as the snail shell minaret, the Al-Malwiya is one of the oldest and most
significant minarets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s located 27.25
meters from the middle of the north face of the Great Mosque of Samarra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Standing 52 meters tall, and perched on a
double-decked square base, it has an exterior spiral ramp starting on the side
nearest to the mosque.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The spiral travels
up the minaret five times counterclockwise to the peak of the minaret, where a
circular room with a 6 meter radius lies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is said that the caliph al-Mutawakkil rode up to the top of this
minaret on a white Egyptian donkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although after more than a thousand years of standing, this mosque was
eventually destroyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even though
most of it is in shambles, the minaret still rises to this day.</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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LaurenWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05065514746328677780noreply@blogger.com0