Al-Anbār

Al-Anbar was a town on the Euphrates west of Baghdad, where river and land routes led toward Syria. Known in Sasanian times as Peroz Shapur, it became an important administrative and military centre under early Islamic rule. The first Abbasid caliph made his seat nearby and built a palace and a settlement for his Khurasani troops.

Raids and the decline of central authority reduced the town's population, but agriculture and trade continued. Mongol forces plundered al-Anbar in 1262; nevertheless, under the Ilkhanids it remained the centre of a district. The minister Shams al-Din Juvayni had a canal dug from the vicinity toward Najaf. In the first half of the fourteenth century al-Anbar still had administrative importance, its sun-dried brick walls enclosing a town whose history reached back well before Baghdad's foundation.