Jarjaraya

Map showing Jarjaraya in relation to other contemporary sites in the region

Jarjarāyā was a city of medieval Iraq, surrounded by a meander of the Tigris. Capital of the district of Lower Nahrawan, it was inhabited by Persian nobles, according to Ya'qubi.[1] This has been taken to assume that Jarjaraya was founded in the Sasanian period, if not earlier.[2] By the time of Yaqut al-Hamawi in the early 1200s, however, the town was in ruins.[3] Archaeological evidence suggests that the site was abandoned by the end of the Abbasid period.[4]

Several medieval viziers had origins here, as indicated in their nisbas. Two Abbasid viziers, Al-Abbas ibn al-Hasan al-Jarjara'i and Ahmad ibn al-Khasib al-Jarjara'i, were from Jarjaraya,[5] as was the eleventh-century Fatimid vizier Abu'l-Qasim al-Jarjara'i, who held the position for 18 years.[6]

  1. ^ Le Strange (1905), p. 37
  2. ^ Adams (1965), p. 178
  3. ^ Le Strange (1905), p. 37
  4. ^ Adams (1965), p. 104
  5. ^ Van Berkel (2013), p. 98
  6. ^ Lev (1987), p. 347