In 876, Ibrahim erected a new palace-city, called Raqqada ("the Somnolent"), just a few kilometres southwest of Kairouan. It replaced the nearby palace-city of al-Abbasiya used by previous Aghlabid emirs. Raqqada was built on a grandiose scale; according to al-Bakri, its walls were ten kilometers long and encompassed a land area as large as Kairouan itself. Its skyline was marked by a great tower, called the "Abu al-Feth" ("Father of Victory"). It had multiple palaces and barracks, influenced primarily by Umayyad designs, with vast gardens, pools and hydraulic systems. The city was divided into two roughly equal-sized districts, one dedicated to the emir alone, the other a densely packed quarter for his noble retinue, which also contained the facilities for regular urban life – a congregational mosque, "souks", public baths, etc. The separation emphasized the royal majesty of the Aghlabid Emir and his independence from the aristocracy. According to al-Bakri, the Fatimid leader, Abdullah al Mahdi, upon entering the conquered city in 909, was astonished at the Aghlabid constructions, and singled out the waterworks of Tunis and the palaces of Raqqada as two things in the Maghreb that had no parallel back in the East.