al-Khawarnaq

al-Khawarnaq: an ancient Persian palace at al-Hira. al-Baladhuri reports that al-Nu'man ibn al-Mundhir built it for Bahram Gur ibn Yazdajird, who had been in al-Nu'man's care. ¹

al-Baladhuri reports that al-Khawarnaq was granted as a fief to Ibrahim ibn Salama, one of the missionaries in Khurasan, who was the grandfather of Abd al-Rahman ibn Ishaq the judge in the City of Peace in the time of al-Ma'mun and al-Mu'tasim. Ibrahim built the dome of al-Khawarnaq in the caliphate of Abu al-Abbas; there had not been one before that. ¹

In the well-known account reported by Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari, the builder Sinimmar completed it for al-Nu'man in twenty years. When he said that if he wished he could make it turn with the sun, he was ordered to be thrown from the top of its battlements, and he became a proverb for the evil of a reward. ²