(First §) Sumer and Samarra / IN THE NINTH CENTURY AD, the ʿAbbasid Caliph al-Muʿtasim, the son of Harun al-Rashid, came to an area located between Babylon and Assyria to build himself a new capital that was far removed from Baghdad, whose people had started complaining about the behaviour of his Turkish soldiers. This area had flourished and prospered in pre-Islamic times, partly as a result of the development of artificial irrigation projects.