Managing Prosperity
‘They built towns and cities where special attention was given to communications and transport routes.’
With an expanding population and an awareness of how valuable was good urban planning, the Abbasids built a number of towns and cities where special attention was given to communications and transport routes. While the Aghlabid rulers of Ifriqiya built Raqqada – a town some 8 km from Kairouan – to house their palaces, parks and gardens; further east in Abbasid Syria, new housing developments were developed in Kharab Sayyar – a fortified town on the main route between al-Raqqa and Mosul in Iraq.

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Kharab Sayyar

Hegira 2nd–4th century / AD second half 8th–mid-11th century
Abbasid
Raqqa region, Syria
The public bathhouse (hammam) was essential to the good health and wellbeing of the inhabitants of Kharab Sayyar, which also had two large cisterns that supplied the fortified town with water.