Posted at Oct 12/2007 09:15AM:
Elisa Foster: Amsar (s. misr) are technically termed "garrison towns" intended to house (and thereby separate) Muslim soliders from the local indigenous population. However their purpose, especially in later centuries, seems to have expanded from this original purpose. Amsar were often located in dry and uncultivated areas unsuitable for agricultural production such as present day Basra and Kufa. Although Islamic scholars such as Ibn Khaldun criticized the garrisons for their seemingly parasitic dependence upon other cities for food and water supplies, etc., others have argued that these towns were intentionally set apart as to not disrupt the agricultural production and livelihood of the pre-existing population. Within the amsar themselves there was presumed to have been a sort of tribal organization of resembling the khitta. While amsar exist in several regions of the Middle East, including present day Iraq, Egypt and North Africa, they are conspicously absent in Syria.

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Posted at Oct 15/2007 03:10PM:
Ian: Part of the debate about the amsar has been whether they were planned or unplanned settlements. this has been drawn into the debates about the ordered/disordered nature of early Islamic cities. This has lead someone like Whitcomb to suggest that there may have been an ordered aspect to some of the amsar, even followign the kind of orthogonal planning of certain classical cities with thier neat grids.

Somthing to consider is whether these were settlements that constituted part of a larger colonial program of the early Islamic period.