Baghdad, in Arabic بَغْدَاد, in Kurdish بەغداد, is the capital of Iraq and is, after Cairo, the second-largest city of the Arab world and fourth largest in the Middle East with a city population of 8.1 million.
Located along the Tigris, near the ruins of the ancient Akkadian city of Babylon and the ancient Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon, Baghdad was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Caliphate's most notable major development project.
Within a short time, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual centre of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as hosting a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Center of Learning.
Baghdad was the largest city in the world for much of the Abbasid era during the Islamic Golden Age, peaking at a population of more than a million.
The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires.
More information: Remember Baghdad
With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state, formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia in 1932, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant centre of Arab culture, with a population variously estimated at 6 or over 7 million. Compared to its large population, it has a small area at just 673 square kilometres.
The city has faced severe infrastructural damage, due to the Iraq War that lasted from 2003 until 2011,
and the subsequent insurgency and later the renewed war that lasted
from 2013 until 2017, resulting in a substantial loss of cultural
heritage and historical artefacts. During this period, Baghdad
had one of the highest rates of terrorist attacks in the world, however
terrorist attacks have been rare since the territorial defeat of ISIL in
Iraq in late 2017.
The name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, and its origin is disputed. The site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name which would come to be used for the Abbasid metropolis.
Arab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad's name, generally looked for its roots in Middle Persian. They suggested various meanings, the most common of which was bestowed by God.
More information: BBC
Modern scholars generally tend to favour this etymology, which views the word as a compound of bagh, god and dād, given. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Indic bhag and Slavic bog, god, A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt (Mehrdad in New Persian), known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning Given by Mithra (dāt is the more archaic form of dād, related to Sanskrit dāt, Latin dat and English donor).
There are a number of other locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan, Baghshan in Iran, and Baghdati in Georgia, which likely share the same etymological origins.
A few authors have suggested older origins for the name, in particular the name Bagdadu or Hudadu that existed in Old Babylonian, spelled with a sign that can represent both bag and hu, and the Babylonian Talmudic name of a place called Baghdatha. Some scholars suggested Aramaic derivations.
When the Abbasid caliph, Al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace.
This was the official name on coins, weights, and other official usage,
although the common people continued to use the old name. By the 11th
century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis.
After the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital from which they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, and on 30 July 762 the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city. It was built under the supervision of the Barmakids.
Mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids.
The Muslim historian al-Tabari reported an ancient prediction by Christian monks that a lord named Miklas would one day build a spectacular city around the area of Baghdad. When Mansur heard the story, he became very joyful, for legend has it, he was called Miklas as a child. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying: This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward.
The city's growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors: it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, and it had an abundance of water in a dry climate. Water exists on both the north and south ends of the city, allowing all households to have a plentiful supply, which was very uncommon during this time. The city of Baghdad soon became so large that it had to be divided into three judicial districts: Madinat al-Mansur (the Round City), al-Sharqiyya (Karkh) and Askar al-Mahdi (on the West Bank).
Baghdad eclipsed Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians, which was located some 30 km to the southeast. Today, all that remains of Ctesiphon is the shrine town of Salman Pak, just to the south of Greater Baghdad. Ctesiphon itself had replaced and absorbed Seleucia, the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, which had earlier replaced the city of Babylon.
According to the traveller Ibn Battuta, Baghdad was one of the largest cities, not including the damage it has received. The residents are mostly Hanbal.
More information: The Guardian I & II
Baghdad is also home to the grave of Abu Hanifa where there is a cell and a mosque above it. The Sultan of Baghdad, Abu Said Bahadur Khan, was a Tatar king who embraced Islam.
In its early years, the city was known as a deliberate reminder of an expression in the Qur'an, when it refers to Paradise. It took four years to build (764–768). Mansur assembled engineers, surveyors, and art constructionists from around the world to come together and draw up plans for the city.
Over 100,000 construction workers came to survey the plans; many were distributed salaries to start the building of the city. July was chosen as the starting time because two astrologers, Naubakht Ahvazi and Mashallah, believed that the city should be built under the sign of the lion, Leo. Leo is associated with fire and symbolizes productivity, pride, and expansion.
The bricks used to make the city were 460 mm on all four sides. Abu Hanifah was the counter of the bricks, and he developed a canal, which brought water to the work site for both human consumption and the manufacture of the bricks. Marble was also used to make buildings throughout the city, and marble steps led down to the river's edge.
The basic framework of the city consists of two large semicircles about 19 km in diameter. The city was designed as a circle about 2 km in diameter, leading it to be known as the Round City. The original design shows a single ring of residential and commercial structures along the inside of the city walls, but the final construction added another ring inside the first.
More information: The New York Times
Within the city there were many parks, gardens, villas, and promenades. There was a large sanitation department, many fountains and public baths, and unlike contemporary European cities at the time, streets were frequently washed free of debris and rubbish.
In fact, by the time of Harun al-Rashid, Baghdad had a few thousand hammams. These baths increased public hygiene and served as a way for the religious to perform ablutions as prescribed by Islam. Moreover, entry fees were usually so low that almost everyone could afford them.
In the centre of the city lay the mosque, as well as headquarters for guards. The purpose or use of the remaining space in the centre is unknown.
The circular design of the city was a direct reflection of the traditional Persian Sasanian urban design.
The Sasanian city of Gur in Fars, built 500 years before Baghdad, is nearly identical in its general circular design, radiating avenues, and the government buildings and temples at the centre of the city. This style of urban planning contrasted with Ancient Greek and Roman urban planning, in which cities are designed as squares or rectangles with streets intersecting each other at right angles.
Baghdad was a busy city during the day and had many attractions at night. There were cabarets and taverns, halls for backgammon and chess, live plays, concerts, and acrobats. On street corners, storytellers engaged crowds with tales such as those later told in Arabian Nights.
More information: UNESCO
I miss aspects of being in the Arab world -the language-
and there is a tranquillity in these cities with great rivers.
Whether it's Cairo or Baghdad, you sit there, and you think,
'This river has flown here for thousands of years.'
There are magical moments in these places.
Zaha Hadid
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