The History of Baghdad (600 A.D. to 1800 A.D.)

The second-largest city, after Cairo in the Arab World, and after Tehran in southwest Asia; the largest city and capital of Iraq – Baghdad, is a city situated on the Tigris River.

Stemmed from mid 8th century to pre-Islamic times, Baghdad has been known as the heart of the Dar al-Salam, the Muslim world. As for the history of its name is concerned, there have been various rival propositions to its being specific. For instance the compound of Bag (meaning God) and dad (meaning given), translated as ‘God-given’ or may also be connoted as ‘God’s gift’, a Middle Persian name, was agreed upon by many.Another compound was also proposed to be accepted, which was from Bagh (meaning garden) and dad (meaning given), translated as ‘the Given Garden’, which is also a Middle Persian name.

However, both in Aramaic and Persian, it has different meanings. Its name in the pre-Islamic and the ancestry is uncertain; nonetheless it is associated to former decisions which did not have any governmental or commercial power, turning it into an almost new foundation in the Abbasid’s time. Mansur, the Caliph, termed the city Medina al-Salam, the city of peace.In his times, this was used as the official name. Footing of Baghdad The largest city within Iraq, and located near the Tigris and Euphrates River, it was in 764 CE when Mansur, the Caliph, brought Baghdad into being.

The Caliph was certain of the fact that Baghdad was an absolute and ideal city to be the capital of the Islamic realm during the rule of the Abbasids. He was very fond of the city, and adored it a lot. He has been cited saying: “This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward. ” (Gastron, pp. 3)Baghdad’s revolution and transformation into the capital city included all essential circumstances and state of affairs for the protection and enhancement of a political, economic, and commercial capital, largely due to its domination and power over the strategic and industrial routes, which the location luckily provided it.

An additional reason for Baghdad to provide such an exceptional location was attributable to the profusion of water and its nourishing climate. It was under the rule of the caliph, Harun-al-Rashid that Baghdad came into its zenith.Baghdad overshadowed the Persian Empire’s capital, Ctesiphon, which was situated around 20 miles to the southeast. Since 637 A. D. it had been under Muslim control and rapidly turned into an abandoned place shortly after the foundation of Baghdad.

Baghdad in the making In the very starting years, Baghdad was known as a thoughtful prompt of a turn of phase in the Koran, when it refers to paradise. (Gastron, pp. 13) It was in the mid of 18th century when Mansur, the Caliph, drew together engineers, examiners, reviewers, and art constructionists from all over the world to assemble and put together plans and strategies for the city.A huge number of construction workers turned up to review the plans and soon the construction was started. The planned structure of the city itself consisted of two large semi circles with diameter of about 12 miles. During the process a canal was also built for the purpose of bringing water to the work locations for both drinking by the workers and the bricks manufacturing.

In addition to this, marble was used in the whole of Baghdad for the purpose of making the buildings and marble raised surfaces led down to the river’s perimeter.The villas, gardens, parks, and beautiful walkways developed within Baghdad, gave the city a neat, well-designed, and refined finishing touch. Baghdad also became known as the Round City due to its circular design with about 2 km of diameter. The initial and primary design displays a circle of residential and commercial constructions adjacent to the interiors of the city walls.

However, the ultimate formation added another circle, within the first one. This rounded pattern of the city was a straightforward expression of the Persian Sasanian cultural city design. The mosque rests in the very heart of Baghdad.The Golden Gate Palace laid in the central square, in the middle of Baghdad. The Palace was the abode for the Caliph as well as for his family. In the innermost part of the Palace, there was a 160 feet high green dome, resting on which was a horseman gripping a lamp.

It was supposed that the horseman had some potential magical powers that might influence those who visited the Caliph. Encompassing the palace was an open walkway, a waterside building, where just the Caliph himself could come while horse-riding. In addition to this, there were some mansions as well as officers’ residences adjacent to the palace.The front part of the palace was used by the commander of the guards for living, while the governor of the Palace lived in the last part of it. It was after the demise of Amin, the caliph, in 813 A.

D. that the palace building could not be used by the caliph and his family for living for any further times. A heart of Learning (800 A. D. to 900 A. D.

) Baghdad turned into the centre of learning, business, and trade, just beyond a generation after it was founded. As a devotion to the translation of Syrian, Greek and Middle Persian works, the House of Wisdom was established.Besides being the capital of the Caliphate, Baghdad had also turned into the cultural capital of the entire Islamic world. It developed into a centre of influence and dominance in the world, where the Arab and Persian traditions and civilizations blended to produce a glow of the scientific, literary and philosophical splendor. From throughout the Abbasid domain, at that time, scholars travelled to Baghdad, enabling the insertion of the Indian and Greek science into the Arabic and Islamic sphere.

Soon after it was formed up until the 930s, Baghdad was plausibly the largest city in the world.It was, however by the 930s that it was secured by Cordoba. It has been put forward by various estimates, that by its peak, Baghdad had over a million residents. (Rosenberg, n. p. ) During this time period, much of the One Thousand and One Nights narratives and fictions were rested in Baghdad.

The communities like Arameans, Greeks, and Persians constituted to a portion of Baghdad’s population and steadily adapted the Arabic language. It was not later than the 8th century that the remarkable Islamic Golden Age was established with the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate.It was then, in 750 A. D. that the Abbasids overthrew Umayyads and the capital of Caliphate was transferred from Damascus to Baghdad, in this manner moving the centre of the empire from Syria to Iraq.

It was the Abbasids who sided with the cause and basis of knowledge and made the Muslim world an unparalleled, unchallenged intellectual hub for science, medicine, philosophy and overall learning. They were the ones who established the House of Wisdom, where the entire world’s knowledge was drawn together and translated by both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars.The great invention of paper was made during this very period. The Arabs acquired the paper making art from the Chinese prisoners taken at the Battle of Talas, and in 793 A.

D. the first paper industry was built in Baghdad. (The History of Paper, n. p.

) Moving from 1000 A. D. to 1600 A. D. The population of Baghdad was around 300,000 to 500,000 by the 10th century. The dramatic growth that Baghdad had picked up in its early times after foundation gradually decelerated because of the problems within the Caliphate.

During the periods of 808 A. D. to 819 A. D. and 836 A.

D. to 892 A. D. he capital was relocated to Samarra.

Furthermore, through 945 A. D. to 1055 A. D. the Iranian Buwayhids held the political domination, while from 1055 A.

D. onwards to 1135 A. D. the Seljuk Turks took it. These, along with the forfeiture of the easternmost and western provinces, were all the troubles that Baghdad had to face. Nonetheless, the city continued to stay as one of the cultural, business and trading centre’s of the Islamic world.

But this was until 1258 A. D. when the Mongols, under the reign of Hulagu Khan, destroyed the city, thereby plundering their cultural and commercial hubs.The Mongols destroyed big segments of the city and killed most of Baghdad’s citizens. The Abbasid Caliph Al-Musta’sim was also one of them. The city’s irrigation system which was formed by the canals and embankments was also abolished.

As a result, the Abbasid Caliphate was brought to end due to the sack of Baghdad. It was indeed a very serious blow on the Islamic Empire and its civilization. The Ottoman Empire in Baghdad (1600 A. D. to 1900 A. D.

) The Ottoman Empire commencing in the 1300 A. D. expanded from Anatolia and the Caucasus across North Africa and into Syria, Arabia, and Iraq.Its size and range went up against that of the distinguished Abbasid Empire, and joined many different and contrasting parts of the Islamic world. (Sardar, n.

p. ) This Ottoman Empire led by the Ottoman Turks, conquered Baghdad in 1534 A. D. Baghdad sank into a phase of decline, to some extent on the account of the hostility among its rulers and Persia.

The largest city in the Middle East, indeed Baghdad had been for a time. The city saw a comparative restoration by the later 18th century under the reign of Mamluk. The Islamic Golden Age also came to its final end with the time of Ottoman Empire rising from the ashes.