BAGHDAD, THE GREAT CITY THAT WAS FOUNDED IN 762

Today, The Grandma has gone to the library to search more information about Baghdad, one of the most beautiful cities of the world, the capital of Iraq and an ancient city that was founded on a day like today in 762.

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

IBN BATTUTA, THE ART OF TRAVELLING THE OLD WORLD

Ibn Battuta (24 February 1304-1368/1369) was a Muslim Berber-Moroccan scholar, jurist and explorer who widely travelled the Old World, largely in the lands of Dar al-Islam, travelling more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totaling around 117,000 km, surpassing Zheng He with about 50,000 km and Marco Polo with 24,000 km.

Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the Old World, including Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling, but commonly known as The Rihla.

All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels, which records that he was of Berber descent, born into a family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, known as qadis in the Muslim tradition, Morocco, on 24 February 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. His family belonged to a Berber tribe known as the Lawata. As a young man, he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madh'hab (Islamic jurisprudence school), the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. Maliki Muslims requested Ibn Battuta serve as their religious judge as he was from an area where it was practised.

Europeans are sometimes puzzled by Arabic/Islamic naming conventions, which mostly don't include a given, middle, or family name. Instead they tend to have a potentially lengthy series of epithetic, aspirational, and/or patronymic names.

In this case, Ibn Battuta simply means son of Battuta...but this may have just been a nickname, because battuta means duckling. His most common full name is given as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta, which simply means Father of Abdullah, Praiseworthy son of Battuta. But many authoritative texts will go on longer, adding more of his acquired name sequence. In his travelogue, the Rihla, he gives his full name as Shams al-Din Abu’Abdallah Muhammad ibn’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Lawati al-Tanji ibn Battuta.

More information: History

In June 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would ordinarily take sixteen months. He was eager to learn more about far-away lands and craved adventure. No one knew that he would not return to Morocco again for twenty-four years. Little did he know that this journey would be perhaps the most epic adventure in history.

On 17 November 1326, following a month spent in Mecca, Ibn Battuta joined a large caravan of pilgrims returning to Iraq across the Arabian Peninsula. The group headed north to Medina and then, travelling at night, turned northeast across the Najd plateau to Najaf, on a journey that lasted about two weeks. In Najaf, he visited the mausoleum of Ali, the Fourth Caliph.

Ibn Battuta remained in Mecca for some time, the Rihla suggests about three years, from September 1327 until autumn 1330. Problems with chronology, however, lead commentators to suggest that he may have left after the 1328 hajj.

 
From Aden, Ibn Battuta embarked on a ship heading for Zeila on the coast of Somalia. He then moved on to Cape Guardafui further down the Somalia seaboard, spending about a week in each location. 

 

Later he would visit Mogadishu, the then pre-eminent city of the Land of the Berbers (بلد البربر Balad al-Barbar, the medieval Arabic term for the Horn of Africa).

Ibn Battuta continued by ship south to the Swahili Coast, a region then known in Arabic as the Bilad al-Zanj, with an overnight stop at the island town of Mombasa. Although relatively small at the time, Mombasa would become important in the following century. After a journey along the coast, Ibn Battuta next arrived in the island town of Kilwa in present-day Tanzania, which had become an important transit centre of the gold trade. He described the city as one of the finest and most beautifully built towns; all the buildings are of wood, and the houses are roofed with dīs reeds.

After his third pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Battuta decided to seek employment with the Muslim Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq. In the autumn of 1330 or 1332, he set off for the Seljuk controlled territory of Anatolia with the intention of taking an overland route to India. He crossed the Red Sea and the Eastern Desert to reach the Nile valley and then headed north to Cairo. From there he crossed the Sinai Peninsula to Palestine and then travelled north again through some of the towns that he had visited in 1326. From the Syrian port of Latakia, a Genoese ship took him and his companions to Alanya on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey.

More information: UC Berkeley

From Sinope he took a sea route to the Crimean Peninsula, arriving in the Golden Horde realm. He went to the port town of Azov, where he met with the emir of the Khan, then to the large and rich city of Majar. He left Majar to meet with Uzbeg Khan's travelling court (Orda), which was at the time near Beshtau mountain. From there he made a journey to Bolghar, which became the northernmost point he reached, and noted its unusually short nights in summer by the standards of the subtropics. Then he returned to the Khan's court and with it moved to Astrakhan.

In 1345, Ibn Battuta travelled on to Samudra Pasai Sultanate in present-day Aceh, Northern Sumatra, where he notes in his travel log that the ruler of Samudra Pasai was a pious Muslim named Sultan Al-Malik Al-Zahir Jamal-ad-Din, who performed his religious duties with utmost zeal and often waged campaigns against animists in the region. The island of Sumatra, according to Ibn Battuta, was rich in camphor, areca nut, cloves, and tin.

In the year 1345 Ibn Battuta arrived at Quanzhou in China's Fujian province, then under the rule of the Mongols. One of the first things he noted was that Muslims referred to the city as Zaitun, but Ibn Battuta could not find any olives anywhere. He mentioned local artists and their mastery in making portraits of newly arrived foreigners; these were for security purposes. Ibn Battuta praised the craftsmen and their silk and porcelain; as well as fruits such as plums and watermelons and the advantages of paper money.

After returning to Quanzhou in 1346, Ibn Battuta began his journey back to Morocco.

In Kozhikode, he once again considered throwing himself at the mercy of Muhammad bin Tughluq in Delhi, but thought better of it and decided to carry on to Mecca.

On his way to Basra he passed through the Strait of Hormuz, where he learned that Abu Sa'id, last ruler of the Ilkhanate Dynasty had died in Persia. Abu Sa'id's territories had subsequently collapsed due to a fierce civil war between the Persians and Mongols.

In 1348, Ibn Battuta arrived in Damascus with the intention of retracing the route of his first hajj. He then learned that his father had died 15 years earlier and death became the dominant theme for the next year or so. The Black Death had struck, and he stopped in Homs as the plague spread through Syria, Palestine, and Arabia. He heard of terrible death tolls in Gaza, but returned to Damascus that July where the death toll had reached 2,400 victims each day. When he stopped in Gaza he found it was depopulated, and in Egypt he stayed at Abu Sir. Reportedly deaths in Cairo have reached levels of 1,100 each day. He made hajj to Mecca then he decided to return to Morocco, nearly a quarter of a century after leaving home. On the way he made one last detour to Sardinia, then in 1349, returned to Tangier by way of Fez, only to discover that his mother had also died a few months before.

More information: Khan Academy

After a few days in Tangier, Ibn Battuta set out for a trip to the Muslim-controlled territory of al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula. King Alfonso XI of Castile and León had threatened to attack Gibraltar, so in 1350, Ibn Battuta joined a group of Muslims leaving Tangier with the intention of defending the port. By the time he arrived, the Black Death had killed Alfonso and the threat of invasion had receded, so he turned the trip into a sight-seeing tour, travelling through Valencia and ending up in Granada.

After his departure from al-Andalus he decided to travel through Morocco. On his return home, he stopped for a while in Marrakech, which was almost a ghost town following the recent plague and the transfer of the capital to Fez.

In the autumn of 1351, Ibn Battuta left Fez and made his way to the town of Sijilmasa on the northern edge of the Sahara in present-day Morocco. There he bought a number of camels and stayed for four months. He set out again with a caravan in February 1352 and after 25 days arrived at the dry salt lake bed of Taghaza with its salt mines.

After a ten-day stay in Taghaza, the caravan set out for the oasis of Tasarahla, probably Bir al-Ksaib where it stopped for three days in preparation for the last and most difficult leg of the journey across the vast desert. From Tasarahla, a Masufa scout was sent ahead to the oasis town of Oualata, where he arranged for water to be transported a distance of four days travel where it would meet the thirsty caravan. Oualata was the southern terminus of the trans-Saharan trade route and had recently become part of the Mali Empire. Altogether, the caravan took two months to cross the 1,600 km of desert from Sijilmasa.

From there, Ibn Battuta travelled southwest along a river he believed to be the Nile, it was actually the river Niger, until he reached the capital of the Mali Empire. There he met Mansa Suleyman, king since 1341.

Ibn Battuta's itinerary gives scholars a glimpse as to when Islam first began to spread into the heart of west Africa.

More information: ThoughCo

Traveling -it offers you a hundred roads to adventure,
and gives your heart wings!

Ibn Battuta