The Basra Dar al-Imara Saga

These reports, from al-Baladhuri's "Futuh al-Buldan", tell the history of the governor's house (Dar al-Imara) in Basra, from its first building until it was placed in the qibla of the mosque in the caliphate of al-Rashid, so that the governors of Basra no longer had a governor's house. ¹

• Utba built the house apart from the mosque, in an open space called al-Dahna', in which were the prison and the diwan.
• Then Abu Musa rebuilt it with mudbrick and clay.
• Ziyad turned it into the qibla of the mosque. ¹

When al-Hajjaj came, he wanted to remove Ziyad's name from it, and he resolved to rebuild it. It was said to him that he only wished to fix Ziyad's name in it, so he demolished it and left it. People built their houses around it of its clay and mudbrick and doors, so Basra had no governor's house. ¹

• In the governorship of Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, Salih ibn Abd al-Rahman ordered it rebuilt, and he rebuilt it in brick and gypsum on its old foundation and raised its height.
• Adi ibn Artat wanted to build upper rooms over it, and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz wrote to him rebuking him, and he refrained.
• Sulayman ibn Ali built, on the walls of the rooms he had raised, a building of clay, then moved to al-Mirbad and settled there.
• When al-Rashid became caliph, the house was included in the qibla of the mosque. ¹

The material transmitted here carries no specific dates, and it needs an additional source for dating.