Origins The city is located on the left bank of the Middle
Euphrates, at the junction with the
Nahr Isa canal, the first of the navigable canals that link the Euphrates to the
River Tigris to the east. The origins of the city are unknown, but ancient, perhaps dating to the
Babylonian era and even earlier: the local
artificial mound of Tell Aswad dates to .
Sasanian period The town was originally known as
Misiche (
Greek: ),
Mesiche (), or
Massice ( mšyk; mšyk). As a major crossing point of the Euphrates, and occupying the northernmost point of the complex irrigation network of the
Sawad, the town was of considerable strategic significance. As the western gate to central Mesopotamia, it was fortified by the
Sasanian ruler
Shapur I () to shield his capital,
Ctesiphon, from the
Roman Empire. After his decisive victory over the
Roman emperor Gordian III at the
Battle of Misiche in 244, Shapur renamed the town to
Peroz-Shapur (
Pērōz-Šāpūr or
Pērōz-Šābuhr, from , meaning "victorious Shapur"; in ; in ). It became known as
Pirisapora or
Bersabora () to the Greeks and Romans. The city was fortified by a double wall, possibly through the use of Roman prisoner labour; it was
sacked and burned after an agreement with its garrison in March 363 by the Roman emperor
Julian during
his invasion of the Sasanian Empire. It was rebuilt by
Shapur II. By 420, it is attested as a bishopric, both for the
Church of the East and for the
Syriac Orthodox Church. The town's garrison was Persian, but it also contained sizeable Arab and Jewish populations. Anbar was adjacent or identical to the
Babylonian Jewish center of
Nehardea (), and lies a short distance from the present-day town of
Fallujah, formerly the Babylonian Jewish center of
Pumbedita ().
Islamic period The city fell to the
Rashidun Caliphate in July 633, after a fiercely fought siege. When
Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) passed through the city, he was warmly welcomed by ninety thousand Jews who then lived there, and he "received them with great friendliness." The Arabs retained the name (
Fīrūz Shābūr) for the surrounding district, but the town itself became known as
Anbar (
Middle Persian word for "granary" or "storehouse") from the granaries in its citadel, a name that had appeared already during the 6th century. According to
Baladhuri, the third mosque to be built in Iraq was erected in the city by
Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas. Ibn Abi Waqqas initially considered Anbar as a candidate for the location of one of the first Muslim garrison towns, but the fever and fleas endemic in the area persuaded him otherwise. According to medieval Arabic sources, most of the inhabitants of the town migrated north to found the city of
Hdatta south of
Mosul. The famous governor
al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf cleared the canals of the city.
Abu'l-Abbas as-Saffah (), the founder of the
Abbasid Caliphate, made it his capital in 752, constructing a new town half a
farsakh () to the north for his
Khurasani troops. There he died and was buried at the palace he had built. His successor,
al-Mansur (), remained in the city until the founding of
Baghdad in 762. The Abbasids also dug the great
Nahr Isa canal to the south of the city, which carried water and commerce east to Baghdad. The Nahr al-Saqlawiyya or Nahr al-Qarma canal, which branches off from the Euphrates to the west of the city, is sometimes erroneously held to be the Nahr Isa, but it is more likely that it is to be identified with the pre-Islamic Nahr al-Rufayl. It continued to be a place of much importance throughout the Abbasid period. Caliph
Harun al-Rashid () stayed at the town in 799 and in 803. The town's prosperity was founded on agricultural activities, but also on trade between Iraq and Syria. The town was still prosperous in the early 9th century, but the
decline of Abbasid authority during the later 9th century exposed it to
Bedouin attacks in 882 and 899. In 927, the
Qarmatians under
Abu Tahir al-Jannabi sacked the city during
their invasion of Iraq, and the devastation was compounded by another Bedouin attack two years later. The town's decline accelerated after that: while the early 10th-century geographer
Istakhri still calls the town modest but populous, with the ruins of the buildings of as-Saffah still visible,
Ibn Hawqal and
al-Maqdisi, who wrote a generation later, attest to its decline, and the diminution of its population. The town was sacked again in 1262 by the
Mongols under
Kerboka. The
Ilkhanids retained Anbar as an administrative centre, a role it retained until the first half of the 14th century; the Ilkhanid minister
Shams al-Din Juvayni had a canal dug from the city to
Najaf, and the city was surrounded by a wall of sun-dried bricks. == Ecclesiastical history ==