Samarra, on the east bank of the Tigris, northwest of Baghdad, was famous as the capital of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mo’tassim who planned and built it in A.D. 836. Although extensively developed by Al-Mo’tassim’s successors, the city was finally abandoned in A.D. 892 by the caliph Al-Mo’tamid, the eighth and the last to rule there.
The most important remains from the time of the Caliphs include the Palace (Beit Al-Khalifa) and the spiral-shaped 173 ft. high Malwiyah Minaret built by Al-Mutawakil (A.D. 847-861). Its design is based on the ziggurat, a staged tower in which each storey is smaller than the one below it. The tottering walls in the back ground once enclosed the rectangular courtyard of what is believed to have been the largest mosque in the world.
IRAQ: WELCOME GENERATION-CHOICEMAKER
Man is earth's Choicemaker. He is by nature and nature's
God a creature of Choice - and of Criteria. His unique and
definitive characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the
natural foundation of his environments, institutions, and
respectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is oriented
to a Freedom whose roots are in the natural Order of the
universe.
an American Choicemaker