Nineteenth-century antiquarians’ fascination with The Thousand and One Nights and its 9th-century protagonist, Harun al‑Rashid, provoked interest in the Syrian city of Raqqa, where this Abbasid caliph once resided, and in the ceramics unearthed there. These prized objects date to the Ayyubid period, however, not Harun’s time. Recent study confirms that Raqqa was an important ceramics center, especially in the first part of the twelfth century, but other centers produced so‑called Raqqa ware as well.
