Asia

[Visited: December 2021]

After an evening walk in Baghdad the day before, we are on the way out of the city the next day. Traffic is horrible, and it takes a long time to actually leave the Iraqi capital. Once we are on the highway, we make good progress. Checkpoints turn out to be a friendly affair, and even the one at the entrance of Samarra doesn't even take my passport. All along, the sky is a heavy grey, and I fear that the light will disappoint. I spot the famous minaret of the Great Mosque of Samarra from a distance. It is actually one of the two spots I am going to visit in Iraq of which I have seen images before going (the other being the entrance gate of Babylon). After the driver has parked the car, we walk to the entrance. It takes some time to find the ticket vendor, but once he is located, the tickets are quickly bought and we enter the complex. It is exactly at that particular moment that the sun breaks though the layer of clouds making the minaret suddenly look so much better.
While the minaret is the obvious highlight, I am also looking forward to seeing the Great Mosque itself. I am in for a nasty surprise: Hulagu Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan) destroyed the enormous temple in 1278 CE. The walls remain, but when I look inside, I see a vast empty space. In fact, the entire complex is closed for visitors. So I turn around, and look up the Malwiya Minaret, the famous tower which once was attached to the mosque by a bridge. Hulagu Khan apparently realised the uniqueness of the minaret and spared it. While the minaret is circular, the base on which it is built is rectangular. We climb it, take some pictures with my recently published book, and then walk up the stairs. I had imagined them to be narrow, but it actually turns out to be an easy climb to the top. The same way the muezzin had to walk five times a day for his call to prayer.
Once on the top, we stand on the flat roof. We now have unobstructed views in all directions. We see the various districts of Samarra, we see other mosques, we see ancient sights in the distance - our next destination. Right under us, we now get a better picture of the Great Mosque of Samarra, which at its time (it was built in the mid-9th century by caliph Al-Mutawakkil) was the largest mosque in the world. After having photographed in all directions, and soaked in the views from this unique tower, we head down. We now see more people coming our way, and where we were the only ones walking up before, we now see various groups making their way up the staircase of the Snail Shell Minaret. We stand some more time at a distance to enjoy the view of this historic building, and then head back to Baghdad.

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Malwiya minaret > Iraq > Asia

[Visited: December 2021]

Around the World in 80 Clicks

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