'The lands of the Eastern Caliphate Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem conquest to the time of Timur' [‎99] (132/586)

VI]
JAZIRAH.
99
palace which Yakut reports to have been built by a certain
As-Satiriin of squared stones, and there were many of its
chambers whose ceilings and doors were likewise of stone slabs.
Originally, he says, there had been sixty great towers, with nine
turrets between each tower and its neighbour, while a palace
stood over against each tower outside the walls 1 .
The high road from Mosul to Nasibin went up the right bank
of the Tigris, and at Balad (corresponding with the place now
known as Eski, or Old, Mosul), seven leagues from Mosul, the
road bifurcated, the branch to the left hand going to Sinjar by way
of Tall A'far. Yakut writes that Balad, where there was an Alid
shrine, occupied the site of the old Persian town of Shahrabadh,
and that the name of Balad was often written Balat. Ibn Hawkal
in the 4th (10th) century refers to Balad as a considerable city, and
Mukaddasi tells us of its houses built of stone, well mortared, its
good markets, and its Friday Mosque standing in the centre of
the town. The neighbourhood produced sugar-cane and was very
fertile. On the solitary hill of Tall A'far, one stage to the west,
stood a castle, dominating a large suburb through which ran a
stream. The castle was strongly fortified, Yakut says, and the
date palm grew in the surrounding district, which was known under
the name of Al-Mahlabiyah, from the Mahlab perfume, or preserve,
of cherry-stones chiefly made here.
The right-hand road at the bifurcation beyond Balad led to
the town of Ba'aynatha which Mukaddasi describes as lying in the
midst of twenty-five fertile districts, the richest and pleasantest of
all Mesopotamia, as he adds; and this Ba'aynatha must not be
confounded with ' the great village like a city' of the same name
on the river which joins the Tigris to the north of Jazirah Ibn
'Omar as mentioned on p. 94. Beyond Ba'aynatha on the road
to Nasibin came Barka'id, a place evilly proverbial for the thieving
ways of its people, practised against all strangers and their
caravans. In the 3rd (9th) century it was a town of considerable
size, with three gates, more than two hundred shops, and many
1 The name of the town is written Sinjar, with the last long; the name of
the Sultan is generally written Sanjar, with both vowels short. I. S. 12, 18.
1st. 73, 74. I. H. 139, 148, 150. Muk. 140, 141. Yak. i. 464, 921; ii. 2 8i ;
iii. 109, 158; iv. 962. Mst. 166, 219. I. B. ii. 141. Kaz. ii. 263.