Palace and Mosque at Ukhaidir: A Study in Early Mohammadan Architecture

by Gertrude Lowthian Bell

2. The position of the Qaṣr of Muqâtil, so far as somewhat vague indications allow it to be determined, would not accord ill with the site of Ukhaiḍir.

There is, however, another way of accounting for the silence of early records, namely, by supposing that Ukhaiḍir was not in existence at that period. In this matter we can be guided only by such deductions as can be made from the plan, structure, and decorations of the palace.

The plan of Ukhaiḍir is in many respects more closely related to that of the palace of Khusrau at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn than to the plan of Balkuwârâ. The latter palace is a further development of the scheme which is represented in a less complete form by the two other buildings. That this further development necessarily implies the lapse of any long period of time, or indeed of any appreciable period of time, between the erection of Ukhaiḍir and the erection of Balkuwârâ, I am not prepared to assert; it might be taken to denote no more than that in the one case the architects were called upon to construct a remote hunting palace in the desert, while in the other they were laying out a princely dwelling in the capital of the empire. A similar explanation might be given to account for the difference between the beautiful and varied stucco work of Balkuwârâ, wherein the influence of Hellenistic Syria and Coptic Egypt is apparent, and the limited range of the decorations of Ukhaiḍir, confined as they are to motives which had been borrowed by the Sasanians partly from Mesopotamian Hellenism, and partly from the Assyro-Babylonian tradition. But I cannot regard such reasoning as wholly convincing. The difference both in decoration and in structure between Ukhaiḍir and the buildings at Sâmarrâ are such as to place the foundation of the one considerably earlier than the foundation of the others.

As regards structure one of the most significant indications of date is the curve of the arches. Ukhaiḍir belongs to the time of transition from the round or ovoid to the pointed arch. This transition must have been accomplished in Mesopotamia during the course of the eighth century. While the Sasanian vault is invariably round or elliptical (I attach no importance to the fortuitous appearance of the pointed vault in the substructure at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn), the Sasanian arch is, so far as my knowledge goes, invariably round. The arches of Sarvistân are specifically stated to be round,[436] the arches of Firûzâbâd are also round, though where the arch is set back upon the jambs a tendency to give a curve to the angle lends to them the appearance of a horse-shoe.[437] All the arches of the Ctesiphon façade are round, and at Qaṣr-i-Shîrîn the builders knew no other form. It has been contended that the pointed arch is found in the upper gallery on the interior of the east wall at Ctesiphon, but Dr. Herzfeld has shown satisfactorily that the curve assumed by those arches was dictated by their peculiar construction.[438] The pointed arch, like the pointed vault, may have been used sporadically in the pre-Mohammadan era (it is found in the church of Qaṣr ibn Wardân, which must have been built about the year A.D. 564[439]); it was latent in Sasanian architecture; but it was not until the eighth century that it passed into familiar use. In the Umayyad buildings on the western side of the desert, it appears side by side with the round arch, and at Hammân al-Ṣarakh, Ṭûbah and Mshattâ it assumes exactly the same shape in which we have it at Ukhaiḍir, a slightly stilted, pointed ovoid which bears the hall-mark of its descent from the Sasanian elliptical vault. Similarly at Ukhaiḍir it has not yet ousted all other forms; there are examples in the palace of the true ovoid arch and even of the round arch. The builders of Sâmarrâ went a step further. Their arches have shaken off all connexion with the Sasanian ellipse and have taken on the curve which was to become typical from that time forward of the Mohammadan pointed arch.[440] Of the same character are the arches of the Baghdâd gate at Raqqah, which cannot be earlier than the reign of Manṣûr and may with greater probability be assigned to Hârûn al-Rashîd.[441] It would therefore appear to be certain from the evidence which we possess that in the first half of the ninth century, and possibly as early as the close of the eighth century, the pointed arch had come into systematic use in Mesopotamia, to the exclusion of all other forms, and if that be the case, Ukhaiḍir must belong to an earlier period, more closely approximating, as I would suggest, to the period which witnessed the same transition stage on the Syrian side of the desert, a stage which falls there into the first half of the eighth century.

From the details of arch construction little help is to be derived. The double ring of brick voussoirs, the inner horizontal, the outer vertical, is common to Ctesiphon and to Sâmarrâ, as well as to the Syrian ḥîrahs of the intervening age. The system of arch-building over temporary or permanent centerings has been shown by Dr. Reuther to be practised to the present day, but so far as I am aware, arches set back from the jambs, such as those which were built over temporary centerings in the Sasanian palaces and in Ukhaiḍir, are not present in monumental buildings at a later date. There is no recorded example of this construction at Sâmarrâ.

Neither do the horse-shoe arches of the central court afford any conclusive evidence as to date. In all probability the horse-shoe arch was used in Mesopotamia long before Ukhaiḍir was built, and it is used to this day. It appears at Tâq-i-Girrâ, a monument of which the date is not determined, though the classical workmanship of its mouldings indicates a period early in the Christian era;[442] it is found in a Hellenistic vault at Chiusi,[443] and it is common in the churches of Syria. To the north of Mesopotamia there is an early example of its use in the basilica at Mayâfârqîn.[444] As for the methods of vaulting employed at Ukhaiḍir they exhibit no features which are not present in the Umayyad buildings on the Syrian side of the desert, but in some respects, for example in the use of the groin and of the fluted dome, they are in advance of Sasanian construction.

I have already called attention to the points of similarity between Ukhaiḍir and Kharâneh. They have a certain weight in the chronological problem although they do not afford decisive evidence as to identity of date. With identical requirements details of structure are apt to remain the same over long periods of time. The loophole windows at Abû Hurairah and at Raqqah,[445] in buildings which must be placed in the middle of the twelfth century, differ little, if at all, from those of Ukhaiḍir and Kharâneh. Nor is the coincidence in the latter two monuments of a decorated chamber to the right of the audience room in itself a determining factor. The same scheme may have existed in Mohammadan palaces later in date than Kharâneh, but unfortunately the later palaces have not been preserved or are not yet adequately explored. Possibly the excavations at Sâmarrâ may throw further light on the subject.

There is, however, another matter which must be taken into account. The palace of Ukhaiḍir could not have satisfied the needs of any but a very primitive society. It contains no bath, that indispensable requisite of existence in hot climates, nor any sanitary arrangements whatsoever. Moreover the seclusion of the ḥaram courts is very imperfect, a fact which points to a primitive stage of Islâm. It is true that the ḥaram courts are separated from each other and from the central court of honour, but they are overlooked by the windows of the two upper stories of the northern block, which must have belonged to the public part of the palace. Doorways open from the first floor on to a roof which is continuous with the roof of the ḥiram lîwâns, and even if low walls divided the roof spaces, the guests or guards who were lodged in the upper story had an uninterrupted view into all the courts below. When I first visited Ukhaiḍir I found it inhabited by some Arabs from Djôf. The wives and families of the shaikhs had taken possession of the rooms on the first floor, where none of my servants were allowed to penetrate. They dwelt there because, if they had occupied the lower courts, their movements could have been observed from above.

All these observations point to, or can be reconciled with, a date in the eighth century for the building of the palace, but whether it belongs to the late Umayyad or to the early Abbâsid period cannot be decided from internal evidence. The sister buildings on the western side of the desert are Umayyad, but on the other hand Ya’qûbi, writing towards the close of the ninth century, mentions the fact that the castles of the Abbâsid khalifs were situated on or near the road to Mekkah. ‘He who wishes to travel from Kûfah to the Ḥidjâz goes out along the southern road by stations which are built and halting-places which are kept in repair, among which are the castles of the Hâshimid khalifs. The first station is Qâdisiyyeh.’[446] The Arabic word which I have translated ‘castles’ is quṣûr; it is the word which is applied to-day to the mud-walled palm gardens of the Baḥr Nedjef. Whether in this passage it should be taken to denote palm gardens or ḥîrahs situated along the Ḥadjdj road I do not know, but it is significant that, with the exception of Ukhaiḍir, no trace of any such ḥîrahs has remained to our day. Ukhaiḍir is not upon the road that runs from Kûfah to the Ḥidjâz, but neither is it more than two days’ journey removed from it. That the khalif Hârûn al-Rashîd carried his hunting expeditions into the region near Kûfah seems probable from the fact that it was on one of these occasions that he is said to have found the grave of the khalif ‘Ali at the spot which is now occupied by the city of Nedjef.[447] The story of the finding of the grave bears every sign of having been a legend invented by the Shî’ahs, but it lends additional colour to the supposition that the early Abbâsids frequented the eastern deserts in pursuit of game, and therefore that they may have possessed palaces outside Kûfah to which they were accustomed to resort. Manṣûr, the second of the line, founded Baghdâd in A.D. 762, and removed the offices of government thither from Hâshimiyyeh near Kûfah in 763. His predecessor Ṣaffâh had lived at Hâshimiyyeh near Anbâr: it was he who had transferred the capital from Damascus to ‘Irâq. Previous to 750, when the last Umayyad khalif, Marwân II, was deposed and slain, the eastern provinces of the empire were governed by powerful viceroys, and if Ukhaiḍir is to be regarded as pre-Abbâsid it is to one of these that it must be attributed. Men like Ziyâd ibn Abîhi or Ḥadjdjâdj, who controlled the riches of ‘Irâq and Persia, were scarcely second in wealth and power to the khalifs themselves. Ziyâd’s personal austerity is attested by historians who had no desire to depict the character of Mu’âwiyah’s vicegerent in a favourable light, but his architectural activity is shown not only by the number of mosques which he founded or rebuilt, but also by the erection of palaces at Baṣrah.[448] He died in A.D. 673 after holding his high office under ‘Ali and Mu’âwiyah for a period of nearly fifteen years. Ḥadjdjâdj was governor of ‘Irâq from A.D. 695 to 713. In the khalifate of Ḥishâm, Khâlid ibn ‘Abdallâh ruled over ‘Irâq for thirteen years (724-737), and Yûsuf ibn ‘Umar, who succeeded to the post, held it for seven years. Any of these men might have built and occupied palaces in the wilderness, imitating the practice of their Umayyad masters, and also of their Nu’mânid predecessors in the very region in which the Umayyad viceroys wielded in their turn an authority far greater than that to which the Arab princes of Ḥîrah could lay claim. But the existence of a miḥrâb in the mosque fixes a date before which it is unlikely that Ukhaiḍir could have been built. According to Mohammadan writers, the first miḥrâb was that which was constructed in the mosque of Medînah between A.D. 709 and 711, and if that be so Ukhaiḍir cannot be placed earlier than the last years of Ḥadjdjâdj. I take the years 709-711 as the earliest possible date and the khalifate of Hârûn al-Rashîd as the latest possible date, and with due regard to the probable age of the Syrian palaces on the one hand, and to the architectural features of Ukhaiḍir as compared with those of Raqqah and Sâmarrâ on the other, I conclude that Ukhaiḍir must have been built towards the middle of the eighth century.

This leads me back once more to the Qaṣr of Muqâtil, which, though it was in existence during the pre-Mohammadan and Umayyad periods, was destroyed and rebuilt by ‘Îsâ ibn ‘Ali; and without insisting upon the identity of the two, I submit that the suggestion that they may be identical is not groundless. The well in the Wâdi al-Ubaiḍ is the only spot in the region immediately south of the lake of Abû Dibs at which fresh water can be obtained, and for that reason it was probably always frequented. That no advantage should have been taken of it at a time when Ḥîrah and Kûfah were rich and important centres of population is difficult to suppose. But whatever habitation was in existence on the Wâdi al-Ubaiḍ during the Days of Ignorance, it cannot have been the same as the palace of Ukhaiḍir, which is indisputably of Mohammadan origin. The Qaṣr al-Muqâtil was, however, rebuilt in the early part of the Abbâsid era; and that is a date (and as I have attempted to show, it is the latest date) which is consistent with the architecture of Ukhaiḍir.