City walls of al-Rafiqah and Baghdad Gate

According to the English Wikipedia, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur decided in 770–1 to build a new garrison city west of Raqqa against Byzantium; construction began in 772 under the supervision of his son al-Mahdi and continued at least until 774–5. The German Wikipedia dates the wall to 771–775. According to al-Tabari, al-Rafiqah (“the companion”) followed the plan of Baghdad, but it was smaller, more heavily fortified and horseshoe-shaped rather than round.

From 796 Harun al-Rashid resided at Raqqa/al-Rafiqah, which was effectively the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate until 808 (English Wikipedia: 809); according to the German Wikipedia he added an outer wall between 796 and 806. Al-Sarakhsi, visiting in 884–5, found parts of the walls in ruins. After periods of prosperity under the Zengids and Ayyubids the Mongols destroyed the city (UNESCO: 1258). From 1864/1865 an Ottoman garrison post was established in the south-east corner of the Abbasid enclosure; the first settlers built with bricks from the old enclosure.[1][2][3][4]

The main wall was 6.2 metres thick, of mud brick on a stone foundation with a cladding of fired brick. It originally had 132 towers, spaced 25–28 metres apart according to the German Wikipedia and about 35 metres according to UNESCO's description. Its length is given as 4,580 metres (English Wikipedia), 4.5 km (German) or 5 km (UNESCO); it enclosed an area of 1,302 by 1,400 metres whose straight southern side ran parallel to the Euphrates. In front lay a 4.5-metre outer wall and a 15.9-metre moat. The north gate, probably the Harran Gate, is the earliest surviving Abbasid city gate; iron door posts were found there.

The Baghdad Gate stands detached outside the south-eastern bastion. K. A. C. Creswell's date of 772 was refuted in 1978 by John Warren, who argued for the 10th/11th century; Robert Hillenbrand (1985) thinks the second half of the 12th century likely, the English Wikipedia gives the late 11th or 12th century. The 12-by-8-metre building, a central room with flat keel arches, follows Iranian architecture.[1][2][4]

Al-Rafiqah was the largest and most important Abbasid fortification on the Byzantine frontier and the only one to survive. As nothing of Baghdad's Round City remains, the wall is the only surviving comparable example; UNESCO calls it the only known preserved horseshoe-shaped enclosure of the early Abbasid period. The UNESCO Tentative List text sees the line of walls as linking the scattered monuments of Raqqa-Rafiqa, such as the Great Mosque and Qasr al-Banat.[1][2][4]

According to the English Wikipedia (October 2026) about 2,660 metres of the main wall still stand; the outer wall and moat were bulldozed in the 1970s or 1980s. The German Wikipedia gives about three kilometres in the east and north, restored to a height of at least 5 metres, and 74 surviving towers; UNESCO speaks of about two thirds. The south and east sides of the Baghdad Gate are partly preserved. The sources say nothing about damage to the walls in the civil war, including the 2017 battle for Raqqa.[1][2][4]