Hillah

Al-Hillah, on the Euphrates south of Baghdad and beside the ruins of Babylon, was founded in 1012 by Ali ibn Mazyad of the Shia Banu Mazyad dynasty, becoming their walled capital under Sadaqa I after 1086.

Abbasid forces took the city in 1163, ending Mazyadid rule, yet it remained a centre of Shia learning and birthplace of the theologian Allamah al-Hilli. After the Mongol conquest of 1258 it passed from the Ilkhanate to the Baghdad Jalayirids, whose last rulers retreated to Hillah before the Qara Qoyunlu took it in 1431.