Dayro d'Mor Zakka 

Dayro Mor Zakka

This monastery was near the city of Callinicus (al-Raqqa, Syria) and it is surrounded by the Balikh river and was established in the fifth century . It was once a great and famous monastery; and the teaching did not start there, however, until the beginning of the sixth century and it remained until the tenth century. John of Talla became a monk there in 508. From this monastery graduated Patriarch John IV and twenty bishops, but it declined after 954. The Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid visited it one day, liked it and bestowed favors on its monks.