Wasit
Encyclopedia
Wasit is a place in Wasit Governorate, south east of Kut
Kut
Al-Kūt is a city in eastern Iraq, on the left bank of the Tigris River, about 160 kilometres south east of Baghdad. the estimated population is about 374,000 people...

 in eastern Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

.

History

During Ottoman times, it was the head city of the sanjak
Sanjak
Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...

 of Wasit.

To quote UNESCO:

Wasit is an Islamic city built in the last quarter of the first Hijri century (the 7th century L.C) by Al-Hajaj bin Yousif AL-Thaqafi, as an administrative centre for Iraq. As an ancient city its circumference is 16 KM., It was. Abandoned in the tenth Hijri century after the change in the River (Tigris) bed. Its remains stood sound and sate due to its distant site away from constructive and agricultural influence. Most of its buildings are of bricks. Investigations took place there between 1936-1942, then in 1985. ItslargemosquewasClearedoutwith four stages from the seventh hijri, to the first hijri century with some parts of its emarate house which is next to the mosque at the qibli side. A building knewn as the minarate was cleared out, including a tomb and a school date back to the seventh hijri century, a residence district was also cleared out in the late thirties. Preservations tock place on some parts of the minaret due to walls been worn out, but no real maintenanance was carried out.


World Heritage Status

This site was added to the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 World Heritage Tentative List on September 7th, 2000 in the Cultural category.
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