Rusafa

This Rusafa (classical Sergiopolis, later Rusafat Hisham), in the steppe of northern Syria, was a late-antique fortified pilgrimage town that the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724-743) made his principal residence, building palaces there. The traditionist Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 742) was closely tied to Hisham's court at Rusafa, though he died on his estate at Shaghb near the Hejaz-Palestine border. [NOTE: distinct from the Rusafa quarter of Baghdad.]