In pictures, Al-Ukhaidir Fort in Karbala is a historical witness that tells the story of an ancient civilization

Since it was discovered by the Italian traveler Pietro Della Valle in 1626, the fortress of Al-Ukhaidir in Karbala province, southwest of the capital, Baghdad, continues to raise many questions, as well as amazement, explanations and conclusions, all of which are related to the question: Who built this palace, fortress, or castle that is located in the desert ? Why?

Was Fort Al-Ukhaidir one of the palaces of the ruling families? Or was it a fortress inhabited by the people? Or was it a castle where the ruler, his commanders and soldiers were sheltering from the invasions and raids that their cities were exposed to at the time? Read also 166 years after its sinking in the Qurna region, where did the ancient treasures of Mosul and Babylon disappear?More than 400 sites that contain secrets of history … hidden under the soil of Anbar Fasting in Iraq is ancient and prehistoric, but in different forms

Questions that made researchers and archaeologists write about the many books that are still continuous, as the pens record what has come up in new things, and as if this building is subject to conflicts, differences and political differences, and more than that, its shape and method of construction are not clear for any period of time, era or era that goes back.

Desert and construction astonishment

About 50 km from the city of Karbala, and 152 km to the southwest of the capital, Baghdad, and before reaching the junction of two roads, one of which takes the traveler to the city of Ramadi and the second to the Saudi border, there is a tall monument to an archaeological building, with nothing surrounding it except the desert, and nothing extends to it except A paved road surrounded by sand, in one direction, was once a road for trade, pilgrimage, and wars as well.

The building is astonishing, as if it was prepared to remain lofty ages and eras in its tight construction, through the strength of its steadfastness against the desert, its storms and its fierce winds, and it remained distinguished by its magnitude and uniqueness by the art of architectural construction and its brilliantly engraved ceilings, and by its giant walls and its impressive height. Despite all this, no one was able to determine who designed it, executed it, planned it and ordered its construction categorically, but the amazing thing is that everyone, from travelers, pilgrims, caravans and travelers looking for the new, is astonished by this building, baffles their eyes and arouses the curiosity of everyone who started searching for its truth and the mystery of its existence .

Discovery and multiplicity of opinions

The archaeological palace or fortress is located to the southwest of the desert of the city of Karbala, which is an area with many historical and archaeological monuments, as well as Lake Razza, which is the eighth lake in the world in terms of area.

It was also mentioned in the Iraq Tourism Guide that Al-Ukhaidir Fort is “one of the most important houses located on the road linking southern Iraq with the upper Euphrates and Syria,” and its ancient location was at the crossroads of trade routes and the caravans passing between the cities of Kufa, Basra, Mosul, Damascus and the Levant.

The researcher in history, Hassan Al-Wazni says, “The Italian traveler Pietro Della Valle was the first to discover it by chance in the modern era while on his way to the Levant.” We stop until before midday at the water near a great, ancient building built of bricks. It is completely square in shape, with 13 round towers on each side from the outside. Some of its sections are built on arched arches. “

He continues by mentioning what the traveler said: “Inside the building there are many halls and rooms with many outlets and a small courtyard, and I do not know whether it was a courtyard, or was it knotted and its parts fell, or was it a palace, a structure or a castle? But I tend to think that it was a palace.” Many travelers, as well as the French orientalist Massignon, visited him in 1908, and he documented his visit in an accurate description of the palace.

Al-Wazzani laments what the English Orientalist Gretrodebel did in 1914 to develop a comprehensive and accurate plan for all the details of the palace. Contradicted it in its lineage to the Umayyad era.

Nomenclature and build time

The other strange thing about this fort is that no one mentions why it was called al-Akhaidir, and researchers, travelers and historians differed about the origin of the name, as it was not mentioned in the travels of Arab historians and geographers throughout the Islamic Middle Ages, as well as in the books of Arab history, but it remained in circulation on the tongues of Arabs, Bedouins and shepherds. Passing by near him, and this is why there are many names, derivations and analyzes according to time and vision.

The Iraqi researcher and religious scholar Mahmoud Shukri Al-Alusi mentioned that the name of Al-Ukhaidir “is distorted from the word (Akider), which was built by one of the princes of the Kinda tribe and who converted to Islam in early Islam.” Sherif Youssef states in his book “History of Architecture in Different Ages” that “the chronological history of Al-Ukhaidir is still pending because the building is missing from all the writings that date it. Therefore, historians differed in determining the time of its construction.”

The British researcher and archaeologist Miss Bell – who worked in Iraq as an advisor to the British High Commissioner Percy Cox in the 1920s – was the first to conceive of the mosque’s presence in the palace in 1909, which made her claim that it was “the Dumat al-Jandal that was built in the time of the Umayyads.” As for the scientist Louis Mosel, one of the orientalists of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and one of the famous European travelers who visited the Arabian Peninsula in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he most likely built the palace in the year 277 AH / 890 CE, and attributed it to “the governor of Kufa, Ismail bin Yusuf al-Akhaidir, where the Qarmatians made it. The eastern Arabs are their base in the north. “

The researcher Al-Wazzani argues that despite the difference, “the fortress was built by Iraqi, Arab and Islamic hands that derived its design from the ancient Iraqi Akkadian heritage.”

Researcher Nemat Ismail Allam confirms in her book “Arts of the Middle East and the Ancient World” that the civil architecture movement “was very active in the first Abbasid era, as the caliphs took care to construct palaces for them in the cities they established, and the Al-Ukhaidir Palace was built west of Karbala.” Palaces with the durability of their architecture and the amenities provided with them, such as bathrooms and fountains, and some of them were decorated with frescoes and covered with stucco decorations, and among these decorations I found tiles, ”which means that the palace is of Abbasid construction according to the architectural and engineering styles.

Abbasid era

The palace was built with stone and plaster, and some parts of it with bricks and plaster, as well as pieces of stones mixed with “mortar”, which helped its survival. Archaeological investigations in the palace revealed the presence of antiquities such as pottery and ceramics dating back to the Islamic era, and coins were found dating back to the Abbasid era. Advertising

The researcher Al-Wazzani offers a set of conclusions, including that “the palace combined the architectural elements that were known in the infrastructure structures in Iran and Iraq during the Sasanian rule, and it also resembles the style of the Sasanian palaces that were found in Mada’in.”

Al-Wazzani believes that “the palace has been built since ancient times, but the ruler Issa bin Musa, who was ruler of Kufa during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur, used it as a summer palace for hunting and picnicking.” The land trade route between Iraq and the Levant and to the western Arabian Peninsula, where it is located between the caravan route.

He believes that the palace “went through many urban developments, and this indicates that normal life continued in this palace and the surrounding area for several continuous centuries, until the drought occurred in the area and people deserted it.”