Main articles: Pumbeditha and Pumbedita Academy The Medieval Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela in 1164 visited 'el-Anbar which is Pumbeditha in Nehardea' and said it had 3,000 Jews living there. The town at this site in Jewish sources was known as Nehardea and was the primary center of Babylonian Jewry until its destruction by the Palmyran ruler Odenathus in 259.

Subsequent shifts in the Euphrates River channel have caused it to follow the course of the ancient Pallacottas canal. Anbar was located at the confluence of the Euphrates River with the King's Canal, today the Saqlawiyah Canal, known in early Islamic times as the Nahr Isa and in ancient times as the Nahr Malka. There are extensive ruins 2 km (1 mi) north of Fallujah which are identified with the town of Anbar. It was known as Firuz Shapur or Perisapora during the Sassanian Era. The word anbar is Persian and means 'warehouse'. The region of Fallujah lies near the ancient Sassanid Persian town of Anbar, in the Sassanid province of Asōristān. Classical authors cited the name as 'Pallacottas'. The current name of the city is thought to come from its Syriac name, Pallgutha, which is derived from the word division or 'canal regulator' since it was the location where the water of the Euphrates River divided into a canal. There is evidence that the area surrounding Fallujah was inhabited in Babylonian times. The region has been inhabited for many millennia. On 26 June 2016 the city was declared fully liberated by the Iraqi army. On, Iraqi forces announced the beginning of their attempt to retake Fallujah from IS. In January 2014, the city was captured by the Islamic State and suffered major population loss. These battles left much of the city heavily damaged. The city became a major center of resistance against the Iraqi government during the Iraqi insurgency and the city was the scene of fierce fighting during the First and Second Battles of Fallujah.

Within Iraq, it is known as the 'city of mosques' for the more than 200 mosques found in the city and the surrounding villages. The city grew from a small town in 1947 to having a population of 275,128 inhabitants in 2011. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jewish academies for many centuries. Fallujah ( Arabic: ٱلْفَلُّوجَة, romanized: al-Fallūjah, Iraqi pronunciation: ) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 mi) west of Baghdad on the Euphrates.

Phantom fury satellite photo fallujah