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Muqdadiyah city between the pile of the past and palm thickets
 

Mohammad Ibrahim Mohammad
Iraqi writer

The city of Muqdadiyah is a district of Diyala province in Iraq, for it is located to the east of Baquba city, at a distance of (42km) away from it, and crossed by the river of Muqdadiyah. It was called (Shahraban) which become a region in 1950, the area of Muqdadiyah district center is (542 km2) and belong to it two regions, namely, Abi Saida and Al Wjehiyya, whereas its main sectors inside the city are: (Al Ramadiyya/Al Tjajeer/ Al Hadahdih/Al Qalaa/ Al Karrad/ Al Hashemiyya/ Al Hai-al-Asri/Al Mahatta and Al Jazera). There are cultivable lands in this city where wheat, barley, maize, cotton, vegetables, and onions are grown and the presence of a large number of orchards as it is renowned for the best kinds of pomegranate and palm trees so far.  

It was cited in the book of archeological sites in Iraq, issued by the Directorate of Antiquities (1970), that Muqdadiyah has (63) archeological sites the history of which date back between the ages of serfdom and pre-Islam.

It is until the ages of Arab-Islam, that the excavation for antiquities had started there in 1935, they are recorded in the Iraqi Facts Journal, and perhaps the most conspicuous site of all these sites and hillocks are (Tal-al- Muqdadiyah, Tal Imam Abbas, Zandan site, Tal-Umm-Jaber, Tal-Abu-Zeinab, Tal-al-Thahab, Tal-Imam-Baqer, Umm Emran cemetery, and Tal-Assayed-Sultan Ali… etc.), and there is an important archeological hillock in the south city top known as Al Yahudiyya , whose artifacts proved that it dated back in some stages to Akkadian era (400 B.C), discovered on 30/5/1938.

Historian Jamal Baban recounts in his book "origins of Iraqi cities and sites names", from the historical point of view, that Shahraban imputed to (Shahr Bano) the daughter of Bazdamur who married to Imam Hussein (may Allah be pleased with him) and bore his son Imam Zain Al Abdeen (may Allah be pleased with him), but in fact the town had been there in the Sassanic era, and it seemed that its name, in his view, was (Shahr Aban) imputed to the king (Aban), angel of livelihood, after whose name the second month of the year was labeled due to abundance of fruits and early annual precipitation therein. Thereafter the city was named (Muqdadiyah) imputed to the commander (Muqdad Bin Aswad Al Candy) one of the prophet Mohammad (pbuh) companions who reached it after the Arab-Islamic conquest of this area.

However, Shahraban name was quoted in each of the Lexicon of Countries (Yaqut Al Hamawi), and Al Mustawfi who pointed out that the city is very old in origin and dates back in some parts thereof to the Akkadian era, presumably the town of (Surabano) to which Sennacheerib had referred to on his military campaigns route from the center and south of Iraq.

It is noteworthy that in the First World War of the twentieth century, the British army had occupied the city of (Shahraban) wherein violent battles took place against the Ottoman army which was destroyed and subsequently retreated thru Al Fatha and Al Jarant area in Jabal Makhool, which is still standing up to date as commemoration of this battle symbolized by the presence of  both commanders' graves, the British (Campbell) and the Ottoman (Javidik) lying dead one opposite the other on the Hamrin hillocks separated by Diyala river in the Mansoriyat-al- Jabal in the area.

Source: Al Mashreq newspaper