Anbar (town)

Coordinates: 33°22.5′N 43°43′E / 33.3750°N 43.717°E / 33.3750; 43.717
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Anbar
الأنبار
Anbar is located in Iraq
Anbar
Anbar
Anbar's location inside Iraq
Coordinates: 33°22.5′N 43°43′E / 33.3750°N 43.717°E / 33.3750; 43.717[1]
CountryIraq
GovernorateAl Anbar

Anbar (

romanized: Anbar[2]) was an ancient and medieval town in central Iraq. It played a role in the Roman–Persian Wars of the 3rd–4th centuries, and briefly became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate before the founding of Baghdad
in 762. It remained a moderately prosperous town through the 10th century, but quickly declined thereafter. As a local administrative centre, it survived until the 14th century, but was later abandoned.

Its ruins are near modern

Al-Anbar Governorate
.

History

Origins

Assyrian wall relief showing a scribe and a horseman trampling enemies. From Anah, al-Anbar Governorate, Iraq. 9th–7th century BCE. Iraq Museum

The city is located on the left bank of the Middle

River Tigris to the east.[1][3] The origins of the city are unknown, but ancient, perhaps dating to the Babylonian era and even earlier: the local artificial mound of Tell Aswad dates to c. 3000 BC.[1]

Sasanian period

The town was originally known as Misiche (

Ancient Greek: Βηρσαβῶρα) to the Greeks and Romans.[1]

The city was fortified by a double wall, possibly through the use of Roman prisoner labour; it was

Imperial Aramaic
: פומבדיתא).

Islamic period

The city fell to the

Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) passed through the city, he was warmly welcomed by ninety-thousand Jews who then lived there, and he "received them with great friendliness."[6]

The Arabs retained the name (Fīrūz Shābūr) for the surrounding district, but the town itself became known as Anbar (

Baladhuri, the third mosque to be built in Iraq was erected in the city by Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas.[8] Ibn Abi Waqqas initially considered Anbar as a candidate for the location of one of the first Muslim garrison towns, but the fever and fleas endemic in the area persuaded him otherwise.[8]

According to medieval Arabic sources, most of the inhabitants of the town migrated north to found the city of Hdatta south of Mosul.[9] The famous governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf cleared the canals of the city.[8]

Khurasani troops. There he died and was buried at the palace he had built. His successor, al-Mansur (r. 754–775), remained in the city until the founding of Baghdad in 762.[8][10] The Abbasids also dug the great Nahr Isa canal to the south of the city, which carried water and commerce east to Baghdad.[8][11] The Nahr al-Saqlawiyya or Nahr al-Qarma canal, which branches off from the Euphrates to the west of the city, is sometimes erroneously held to be the Nahr Isa, but it is more likely that it is to be identified with the pre-Islamic Nahr al-Rufayl.[8]

It continued to be a place of much importance throughout the Abbasid period.

their invasion of Iraq, and the devastation was compounded by another Bedouin attack two years later.[8] The town's decline accelerated after that: while the early 10th-century geographer Istakhri still calls the town modest but populous, with the ruins of the buildings of as-Saffah still visible, Ibn Hawqal and al-Maqdisi, who wrote a generation later, attest to its decline, and the diminution of its population.[8]

The town was sacked again in 1262 by the

Ilkhanids retained Anbar as an administrative centre, a role it retained until the first half of the 14th century; the Ilkhanid minister Shams al-Din Juvayni had a canal dug from the city to Najaf, and the city was surrounded by a wall of sun-dried bricks.[8]

Ecclesiastical history

Anbar used to host an

Chaldean Patriarchs of Babylon.[13]

  • Narses fl. 540
  • Simeon fl. 553
  • Salibazachi fl. 714
  • Paul fl. 740
  • Theodosius
  • John fl. 885
  • Enos 890
  • Elias fl. 906-920
  • Jaballaha fl. 960
  • Sebarjesus
  • Elias II fl. 987
  • Unnamed bishop fl. 1021
  • Mundar fl. 1028
  • Maris fl. 1075
  • Zacharias fl. 1111

Titular see

Anbar is listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see of the Chaldean Catholic Church,[14] established as titular bishopric in 1980.

It has had the following incumbents:

  • Titular Archbishop
    Bassorah of the Chaldeans
    (Iraq) (1980.10.03 – 1981.11.10)
  • Titular Bishop
    Apostolic Exarch
    in the United States of America (1982.01.11 – 1985.08.03)
  • Titular Bishop Shlemon Warduni (since 2001.01.12), Curial Bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church

Today

It is now entirely deserted, occupied only by mounds of ruins, whose great number indicate the city's former importance.[12] Its ruins are 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) northwest of Fallujah, with a circumference of some 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). The remains include traces of the late medieval wall, a square fortification, and the early Islamic mosque.[8]

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Streck & Duri 1960, p. 484.
  2. ^ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Peruz Shapur — ܐܢܒܐܪ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified December 9, 2016, http://syriaca.org/place/211.
  3. ^ a b c d e Brunner 1975, p. 759.
  4. ^ a b Frye 1983, p. 125.
  5. ^ a b c ODLA, "Peroz-Shapur" (J. Wienand), p. 1159.
  6. OCLC 923562173
    .
  7. ^ Le Strange 1905, pp. 65–66.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Streck & Duri 1960, p. 485.
  9. ISBN 9789004081185
    . Retrieved 12 October 2012.
  10. ^ Le Strange 1905, p. 66.
  11. ^ Le Strange 1905, pp. 66–67.
  12. ^ a b Peters 1911.
  13. OCLC 955922747
    .
  14. ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1
    ), p. 832

General sources
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