Al-Rahba

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Al-Rahba (/ALA-LC: al-Raḥba, sometimes spelled Raḥabah), also known as Qal'at al-Rahba , which translates as the "Citadel of al-Rahba", is a medieval Arab fortress on the west bank of the Euphrates River, adjacent to the city of Mayadin in Syria. Situated atop a mound with an elevation of 244 meters (801 ft), al-Rahba oversees the Syrian Desert steppe. It has been described as "a fortress within a fortress"; it consists of an inner keep measuring 60 by 30 meters (197 ft × 98 ft), protected by an enclosure measuring 270 by 95 meters (886 ft × 312 ft). Al-Rahba is largely in ruins today as a result of wind erosion. The original site, which was known as "Rahbat Malik ibn Tawk" after its Abbasid namesake and founder, was located along the Euphrates. It was viewed by Muslim armies, caravans and travelers as the key to Syria from Iraq and sometimes vice versa. Bedouin tribes often took control of it and used it as a launching point for invasions of northern Syria. Because of its strategic location, al-Rahba was frequently fought over by Muslim powers, including local lords, the Hamdanids, the Uqaylids, the Mirdasids and the Seljuks, among others. Rahbat Malik ibn Tawk was destroyed in an earthquake in 1157. A few years later, the current fortress was built close to the desert edge by the Zengid–Ayyubid lord Shirkuh. The latter's descendants held al-Rahba as a hereditary fief granted by Saladin until 1264. One of them, Shirkuh II, oversaw a third major reconstruction in 1207. Through the early Mamluk era (late 13th–14th centuries), the fortress was continuously restored and strengthened as a result of frequent sieges by the Ilkhanid Mongols of Iraq. Al-Rahba was the most important Mamluk fortress along the Euphrates, an administrative center and the terminal stop on the sultanate's postal route. It fell into disuse during Ottoman rule (1517–1918) and from then until the early 20th century, the fortress primarily served as a shelter for local shepherds and their flocks. Excavations were carried out at the site between 1976 and 1981. Throughout Islamic history, al-Rahba was considered, in the words of the 14th-century traveler Ibn Batuta, "the end of Iraq and the beginning of al-Sham [Syria]". The fortress is located about 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) southwest of the Euphrates River, 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) southwest of the modern Syrian city of Mayadin, and 42 kilometers (26 mi) southeast of Dayr az-Zawr, capital of the Dayr az-Zawr Governorate, of which al-Rahba is part. According to the 13th-century geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, the site's name, al-raḥba, translates from Arabic as the "flat part of a wadi, where the water collects"; al-Rahba's original location was on the western bank of the Euphrates. The current fortress is situated on an artificial mound detached from the plateau of the Syrian Desert to its west. Its elevation is 244 meters (801 ft) above sea level. According to historian Thierry Bianquis, "Hardly anything definite is known about the history of the town [al-Rahba] before the Muslim era." Medieval Talmudic and Syriac writers (such as Michael the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus) identified it with the Biblical town of Rehobot han-Nahar ("Rehobot by the river [Euphrates]"). Some medieval Muslim historians, among them al-Tabari, have written that it was a place called "Furda" or "Furdat Nu'm", named after a monastery that supposedly existed in its vicinity called "Dayr Nu'm". However, the 9th-century Persian historian al-Baladhuri asserts that there was "no trace that ar-Rahba ... was an old city", and that it was first founded by the Abbasid general Malik ibn Tawk during the reign of Caliph al-Ma'mun (813–833 CE). As such, the fortress town was often referred to as "Rahbat Malik ibn Tawk" by Muslim historians. According to

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