History
The Balikh river forms the heart of a rich cultural region. On both banks are numerous settlement mounds dating back in some cases to at least the Late Neolithic, the 6th millennium BCE. In the Bronze Age (3rd millennium BCE) ancient Tuttul (close to present-day ar-Raqqah at the delta of the Balikh) and Tell Chuera in the north (in the Wadi Hamad close to the Balikh) were important cities. Over the millennia the region saw ongoing interaction between nomadic tribes and settled populations. One sometimes got the upper hand over the other.
In classical Antiquity the region was called Osrhoene with the capital at Edessa/Callirrhoe (ar-Ruha'.) Ar-Ruha' and another prominent ancient town of the Balikh valley, Harran (Roman Carrhae), figure in the Muslim and Jewish traditions respectively in the stories of Abraham and other Hebrew patriarchs (and matriarchs.) After the Islamic conquest in the 7th c. CE the region was known by the name of an Arab tribe Diyar Mudar, the land of the Mudar. In 762 the Caliph al-Mansur built a garrison city at the junction of the Euphrates, Ar-Rafiqa, which merged with the Hellenistic city Kallinikos into the urban agglomeration Ar-Raqqah.
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