Al-Mada’in (cities) in the Persian language (Ctesiphon), which is a group of seven cities, the Arabs translated the name, so they called them Al-Mada’in instead of Ctesiphon. The seven cities are Al-Atiqa – Isfapur – Wah Ardasher – Hanbosafor – Darz Nidan – Wahe Jundikhusra – Sabat, and they are 30 km away from the center of the capital, Baghdad.
Among its most prominent landmarks is the towering Taq Khosrau, which is part of a large palace (the White Palace), in the center of which is Khosrau’s iwan, the Khosrau’s Throne Hall. A shard during the reign of Khosrau I, known as Sherwan (the immortal soul), and after the military campaign against the Byzantines 540 AD, was built. On its walls, the Battle of Antioch that took place between the Persians and the Romans was drawn. This tack is considered one of the greatest and highest tacks built in the world. Its height is about 32 meters from the surface of the earth, and the distance between its right and left walls is 25.5 meters. The depth of the iwan is about 48 meters and the thickness of its walls from the bottom is seven meters.
In 1888, a third of the building was destroyed by a torrent, and a reconstruction process took place in the eighties of the twentieth century, but it was not completed, and construction work stopped in 1991 during the Gulf War.
