page_title: Nahrawan Canal
section_title: Outline
hierarchical_section_title: Nahrawan Canal / Outline
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Iraq and Khuzestan, with inserts on the vicinities of Baghdad and Samarra, during the Abbasid period (8th-13th centuries)
context_page_description: The Nahrawan Canal was a major irrigation system of the Sassanid and early Islamic periods in central Iraq, along the eastern banks of the Tigris and the lower course of the Diyala River. Created in the 6th century, it reached its peak under the Abbasid Caliphate, when it served the main water supply for the Abbasid capital of Baghdad, while the regions irrigated by it served as the city's main breadbasket. Its destruction and progressive abandonment from the mid-10th century onwards mirror the Abbasid Caliphate's decline.
context_section_description: In medieval times, the main canal was divided into three sections, described in detail by the 13th-century geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, in his Mu'jam al-Buldan. The initial feeder canal drawing water from the Tigris at Dur al-Arabaya near Samarra and carrying it to the Diyala at Ba'quba was called al-katul al-Kisrawi ("the Cut of Khosrau"). During its course, it was joined by three smaller canals taken from the Tigris, the Yahudi ("of the Jews"), the al-Ma'muni, named after Caliph al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833), and the largest of the three, the Abu 'l-Jund ("arch warrior"), built under Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809).
  Some 20 km south of the inflow of the Abu 'l-Jund stood the town of Salwa or Bab Salwa (Basalwa), and a little further on the town of Ba'quba, the capital of the Upper Nahrawan district, some 50 km north-northeast of Baghdad. From there, the main canal, now known as the Tamarra, turned south to the towns of Bajisra (originally Bayt al-Jisr, "bridge-house") and finally Jisr al-Nahrawan, from where it was known as the Nahrawan proper. From Bajisra a canal, the Nahr al-Khalis, connected the main canal with the Tigris at Baradan and supplied the eastern suburbs of Baghdad with water, while another, the Nahr Bin, connected Jisr al-Nahrawan with Kalwadha south of Baghdad. Just south of Jisr al-Nahrawan there was another canal, the Diyala canal—the present course of the namesake river—which joined the Tigris some 5 km south of Baghdad. Jisr al-Nahrawan itself was a wealthy place, as there the Khurasan Road connecting Baghdad with Central Asia crossed the canal. Surviving descriptions record that it was extended on both sides of the canal, each with its own mosques, markets and hostels for travellers and pilgrims. It was abandoned by the 14th century, as the road to Khurasan was diverted north, through Ba'quba.
  Below Jisr al-Nahrawan came a large Sassanid-era weir (Shadhurwan), followed by the towns of Jisr Buran/Puran (named after Ma'mun's wife), Yarzatiya, 'Abarta, another weir, and the city of Iskaf Bani Junayd, divided by the canal in upper and lower towns. From Iskaf, the canal went on for another 100 km amidst a heavily cultivated landscape to rejoin the Tigris at Madharaya, near modern Kut.
caption: Map of Abbasid-era Iraq, with the Nahrawan Canal marked out
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