The Great Mosque of Samarra is located in Samarra city, in Iraq, about
120 km north of Baghdad, on the banks of river Tigris. It was built in
the 9th century, commissioned by the Abbasid caliph Al-Mutawakkil, who
moved to Samarra to escape conflict with the local population in Baghdad
and remained there for the next 56 years – a period during which he
built many palaces including the largest mosque in all of Islam. The
Great Mosque was spread over an area of 17 hectares; the building itself
covered 38,000 square meters. It remained the largest mosque in the
world for the next 400 years before it was destroyed by the armies of
the Mongol ruler Hulagu Khan during the invasion of Iraq in the year
1278. The outer walls and the imposing 52-meters minaret is all that
remains of this once Great Mosque.
