Mosque Name: Heraqlah
Country: Syria
City: Heraqlah
Year of construction (AH): 190
Year of construction (CE): 806
GPS: 35.95673 38.93308
Gibson Classification: Between
Rebuilt facing Mecca: Never
For a Link to the Qibla Tool Click Here
Description:
This strange structure has four corner towers, a circular wall, and a small circular moat. This site is located in north-east Syria, 8 km west of the city of Raqqa near the Euphrates. On historical grounds this monument is reliably dated to the early ninth century, probably between 806 and 808 CE. The monument is almost entirely built out of stone with the exception of the vaults and paving of the central structure, which are baked brick. The outer wall is supported by square buttresses at regular intervals and has gates in the middle of the four walls. The entrances to the central building each leads into a long vaulted hall. To the left of each entrance is a long ramp which gives access to the top of the monument. Although there are structures in the centre of the building, archaeologists have wondered if these are rooms as they have no doors or other means of access. Instead. they believe that the centre of the structure would have been filled in with earth to provide a monumental platform and that the structures must have fulfilled some symbolic or functional purpose.
The whole complex has been described as a victory monument to the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid to commemorate his victory over the Byzantines at Herakleon. The size, date and geometric design is comparable with other Abbasid projects such as the octagon at Qadissiya and the Round City of Baghdad.
Whatever it’s function, the Heraqlah monument is oriented towards the Between Qibla.
Further reading:
F.Sarre and E.Herzfeld, Archäologische Reise im Euphrat und Tigris, Gebeit I, Berlin 1911, 161–3. K.Touer, ‘*Heraqlah: a unique victory monument of Harun al-Rashid*’, World Archaeology 14(3) : 1973.
Heraqlah's Qibla direction faces the Between position.
The structure's plan.
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