| Between 859 and 861, al-Mutawakkil relocated the Abbasid caliphate temporarily from Samarra to a new settlement that he named Ja'fariya, a site just up the river to the north. The Mosque of Abu Dulaf became the new main congregational mosque not unlike the Great Mosque in Samarra. The walls of the mosque barely remain. While this mosque does not point directly at Mecca, its orientation is closer to Mecca than any other. |