Hisn Maslama (Madinat al-Far)

Hisn Maslama is an excavated early Islamic town in the Balikh valley, known today as Madinat al-Far. It began in the early 8th century as the estate centre of the Umayyad general Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, became a walled market town under the Abbasids, and emptied after the 880s. Its core is a square wall 330 by 330 metres. To the south lies a walled, trapezoid-shaped annex with sides close to 1000 metres. The present state of the site and any visiting arrangement could not be confirmed.

Where it is and can you go?

The site lies in the north of Raqqa province, near the point where the Balikh River meets the Wadi Hamar. The sources describe its position differently and no two independent sources agree on a point, so this page has no map. Khirbet Madinat al-Far, a village with the same name near Maskanah in Aleppo province, is a different place.

The administration of the region changed in January 2026. No dated source from the last 12 months was found on the state of the site, illegal digging or unexploded ordnance. This page describes what the site is; it is not a suggestion to visit. Anyone thinking of going should first ask the Raqqa Antiquities Department.

Who founded it

Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik was a son of the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik and an army commander; he died in 738. The Umayyads were the first Islamic dynasty, ruling from Damascus. Maslama held large estates in Diyar Mudar, the land between the Balikh and the Euphrates, and probably settled here when he retired from campaigning in 732. He gave the town of Bajadda, just to the south, to one of his men, Usayd al-Sulami. The Abbasid poet al-Husni al-Maslami, a descendant of Maslama, took his name from this town.

What the coins tell us

Stefan Heidemann’s study of the coins separates two phases. Not a single coin survives from Maslama’s lifetime; the earliest date from the 740s. Heidemann reads this as the sign of a self-sufficient estate that had no need for a market.

Under the Abbasids, the dynasty that replaced the Umayyads and ruled from Baghdad, a market town with a money economy grew up, and the coin sequence runs without a break into the 9th century. Excavators found 9 early Abbasid copper coins here, struck in Harran by Abbas ibn Muhammad, against 2 in Raqqa and only 1 at Resafa. The latest find from the site is a fragment of a counterfeit Nusaybin dirham dated 886-887.

What is inside the wall

The square core in the north is surrounded by a wall with projecting half-round towers. According to Heidemann the towers had no defensive role; they were a symbol of a small town’s civic pride. The same tower type appears at Tall Mahra and at Kharab Sayyar (al-Jarud).

Streets crossing at right angles and courtyard houses were uncovered inside the wall. The central building sits on top of an Umayyad structure. In the southern annex the excavators found a small bathhouse, a cemetery with a religious building attached to it, and a decorated building dated to the reign of Harun al-Rashid.

What not to miss

The water system. The town took its water from the Balikh through a canal and stored it in large cisterns. The geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi describes the cistern as 200 by 200 cubits, 20 cubits deep and roofed with stone vaults: once a year it was filled by a separate canal that left the Balikh 5 miles upstream. The description shows how a town kept going in the middle of the steppe.

Why it was abandoned

From the late 9th century the region was shaken again and again. First came the wars between the Abbasids and the Tulunids in the 880s, then the Qarmatians. The Hamdanids took Raqqa in 942, and the Banu Numayr tribe moved in. The Abbasid scholar al-Sarakhsi saw the town in 884-885 and left a short description. After that the settlement shrank and was deserted.

Who excavated it

The excavation was a joint mission of the Damascus branch of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums. The work, directed by Claus-Peter Haase, ran from 1987 to 1995; Arabic Wikipedia gives 1986 as the starting year. The measurements on this page come from Heidemann’s publication.