Mosque construction:
The round city included a police station, Friday mosque and the Caliph’s residence in its innermost zone. The mosque was built in hypostyle
form, i.e., columns were used to support the roofs. Hypostyle mosques
were commonly built in the Abbasid era. The mosque had a large interior
courtyard. In Samarra mosques were constructed with huge minarets.
This feature has become one of the identities of Abbasid era mosques.
Scholars attribute the change in construction of mosques from simple
ones to grand mosques to the increasing separation of state and religion.
The palace represented the Caliph’s power whereas the mosque became
an institution for gatherings of religious scholars.
It must be noted that most mosques believed to have been built in this
era cannot be dated accurately due to later renovations (Blair, 2011).