
A masterpiece of Golden Age Abbasid Islamic architecture on the east bank of the Tigris River, commissioned by Caliph Al-Mutawakkil between 848 and 851 CE. Once the largest mosque in the medieval world, it features a 239-by-156-meter baked-brick enclosure reinforced by 44 semi-circular bastion towers and the 52-meter spiral Malwiya Minaret rising on a 33-by-33-meter square base with a five-turn counter-clockwise ramp.
Photo: Izzedine, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons