The most outstanding landmark of Samara is the great (al- Jami’) mosque and its eminent minaret “al-Malwiya” which has a unique form of building. This mosque was built by al-Mu'tasim when he moved to Samarra at a time when it could no longer take in the large numbers of people, al-Mutawakel built another great mosque in (234 BC-849 AD) and enlarged its area to become the biggest mosque in the world. Its area was 38,000 square meters. It was designed to hold eighty thousand worshipers. Its brick walls surround a rectangular area about 240 meter in length, 158 meters in width and 10 meters in height. It has 23 doors, five of which are in the northern corner and eight in the eastern and western corners with two doors open in the niche wall.

The spiral Malwiya Minaret is about 25 meters far from the mosque's northern wall. It lies exactly on its middle axis. It stands on a quadrangular basis of 32 meters for each side. Above it there is a spiral building with stairs of 2,3 meters in width and starts from the middle of the eastern side of the basis and turns anti-clock-wise completing by this five rounds that end in a small cylindrical room of a 6-meter radius. Its is decorated with 8 arcs from the outside. Each arc is erected on two small brick posts. One of these posts forms a door where the ascent ends and leads to a small ladder that ends on the top of the minaret.

April 1, 05: The Ancient Minaret which was being used by US forces has been damaged click here