مدن ملاذ خلفاء بن ام ةٌ ف بلاد الشام)

Abstract

the year (679 A.D / 60 A.H) some Omayyad caliphs began tofound new cities for themselves which were kept separate fromthe masses of people of the desert of Alsham instead of thecity of Damascus , such cities were built by an Omayyad caliphfor himself and his family , surrounded by his followers and hisrelatives .The situation of those cities was chosen carefully , they weresurrounded by the desert and provided with an atmosphere ofprosperity and privacy , when they were first built they weresmall in size and usually came to an end with the death of theirfounders and the change of the political situations in them ,they , however , remained by themselves one of the significantfactors for lessening the importance of the capital Damascusfor some time .It is possible to specify the reasons that helped inestablishing those cities , the excessive wealth and luxury , theinflux of money into the state center , all that helped theOmayyad caliphs to setup those cities , the cities wereregarded as a means for keeping away from people for thepurpose gaining more prestige for the caliphate , avoiding thedomestic and foreign dangers , and escaping from themaladies and diseases which were at times spreadingthroughout Damascus .Some of those cities were as old as the Byzantine state itself, their buildings were sometimes modified and some of thedamaged ones were rehabilitated , some other buildings wereestablished on the foundations of the old cities like the cities ofHawareen and Rasafat Hisham and Harran in the Syriandesert , one city was modernized , It was the city of AlRamla inthe desert of Palestine .All of those cities were situated on the routes of local andforeign trade , they were characterized by the lack of water .The common name in modern history books of those havencities is the name ((Royal cities)) , This name has beendiscarded in this research since the Islamic Arab state is notdescribed as ((Royal)) despit

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