Baghdad, an imperial foundation (762-836 ce)

fran^oise micheau

After the Visigoth armies captured Rome in 410, three cities dominated the Old World: Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire founded by Constantine in 330; Xian, the distant capital of the Tang dynasty (618-907); and Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphs.

The history of Baghdad is divided into three phases: first, the prestigious capital of the Abbasid Caliphs from the time of its foundation in 762 by alMansur up to its conquest by Mongol armies in 1258; then, for centuries, a simple provincial metropolis; and finally, since 1921, the capital of Iraq, whose dramatic present assails us with images of devastation. Here we are interested only in the beginning of the first of these periods that starts with the date of the foundation of the city and closes with the death of the Caliph alMa'mιan in 833 and the foundation of a new capital in 836 at Samarra'.

Why a new capital?

The Abbasid Caliphs took power in the aftermath of an important insurrec­tion that overthrew the former Umayyad dynasty over the years 746-50. These Caliphs were at the head of a vast empire created during the Islamic conquests after Muhammad's death in 632. Under the last Umayyad Caliphs, the series of conquests ceased, and the empire was stabilized within its borders, which stretched from the Indus to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Sahara to the Caucasus (Map 19.i).

Map 19.i Map of the Islamic Empire in 750 ce (from G. Chalinad and J.-P. Rageau, Atlas historique du monde mediterraneen [Paris: Payot, 1995], P- 23).

overthrow of the Umayyads. Among them, the following emerge as the most important: the end of the conquests, which resulted in a substantial reduction in spoils; the difficulties of administering a vast empire; the inability to integrate the different populations, in particular the non-Arabs newly converted to Islam; and the dispute over Umayyad legitimacy since the Umayyads had no family ties with Muhammad. The Umayyad Caliphs had their capital in Damascus in Syria, but they did not live there perman­ently. Rather, they tended to exercise their power increasingly in the several residences that they built in the regions of the steppe and the Euphrates; the most important of them was Rusafa. Thereby, they initiated a shift toward the Mesopotamian regions.

The uprising against the Umayyad Caliphs, in which the Abbasids took power, is commonly referred to as “the Abbasid Revolution.” It started in Khurasan in eastern Iran, with the help of the soldiers of Khfa and other cities of Iraq. Interestingly, it is in the city of Khfa that al-Saffah was proclaimed Caliph in 749. The legitimacy of this dynasty derives from the Hashimid clan, which was Muhammad's clan: Hashim was the great­grandfather of Muhammad and the grandfather of al'Abbas, with whom al-Saffah was in direct line of descendance. It would have been out of the question that al-Saffah, and then his successor al-Mansur, should settle in Damascus or in any other Umayyad city, since the Abbasids not only overthrew the Umayyads, who had suffered a military defeat, but they also quickly killed all the members of the Umayyad family during a banquet. They did everything they could to ensure that the Umayyad period would be regarded as a period of usurpation, injustice, and impiety.

A new capital, thus, for a new dynasty was called for, but where? From 750 to 762, al-Saffah and al-Mansur seemed to hesitate. Al-Saffah, who first settled in Khfa, where the insurgent army proclaimed him Caliph, swiftly built a new palace on the banks of the Euphrates, near the old Persian city of Anbar. This palace was called Hashimiyya to refer to the common ancestor Hashim. It was in this palace that the first Abbasid Caliph died in 754. His brother al-Mansur, shortly after succeeding to the throne, built another residence, also called Hashimiyya, further in the south and near Khfa (Map 19.2).

There are several reasons that explain why the Abbasids chose to reside in Mesopotamia: the fruitful area of the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris; the communication facilities along the two rivers; the central position between Iran, Syria, and Egypt, just when the western regions of the empire (Maghreb and al-Andalus) started to free themselves from the Caliphs' direct

Map 19.2 Map of Lower Iraq. The hatched area corresponds to the swamp zone.

control; openness to Iranian and Iraqi people who had supported the insurgency and who would play a major role in the new empire.

In 757, al-Mansur looked for a new site that would not be in the Euphrates Valley, but rather in the valley of the Tigris, and decided on the site of Baghdad. There are geographical reasons that can explain the choice for this place. It is at this exact place that the course of the Tigris is very close to that of the Euphrates, which allows the irrigation of the entire area on the basis of a system of canals bringing water from the Euphrates. Also, the new site had slight hillocks where houses could be sheltered from the periodic flooding of the Tigris.

A city known only through the texts

It is important to point out that no material remains from the time of the origin of Baghdad. The fragility of the buildings made out of unfired bricks, the recurring floods, the frequent fires, the destructions caused by wars and invasions (HUlagU's in 1258 and Tamerlane's in 1401), and the rapid decline of the city after the fall of the Abbasids in 1258 erased all traces of caliphal buildings.¹ From the fifteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Baghdad was only a small town, limited to the caliphal quarter, which was built in the late ninth century and located in the south on the eastern shore, and to a small area on the western shore.

It follows that our knowledge of Abbasid Baghdad is based solely on written sources. For the first period we have no contemporary written sources, but there are systematic descriptions that belong to the following century. In particular, there is a work written by an Abbasid secretary named Ya'qubi in 891: the Kitab al-buldan or “Book of Countries,”^{[364] [365]} which gives a long account of the foundation of Baghdad by alMansur. Although we shall often refer to Ya'qubi’s work, it is important to note that Ya'qubi, like other writers who provided information on the Abbasid capital,^[366] wrote at the time of the social and cultural splendor of the Caliphate. His perspective is therefore influenced by the Islamic and imperial ideology that makes him consider Baghdad as a “city-world.” Baghdad was an imperial foundation, as is reflected in the Arabic sources and in the Arab and Islamic imagination. It is therefore essential not to follow the letter of the written texts, but rather to interpret these texts in the light of their historical context.

It can be difficult to figure out the architecture of the Abbasid capital on the basis of the descriptions made by the Arabic authors. The scholarly plans of Abbasid Baghdad are reconstructions based on the data provided by

Map 19.3 Early Baghdad by Le Strange (from H.

ancient Arabic sources. The pioneering work of reconstruction was that of Le Strange. Relying on Ya^fqubι and Ibn Sarabiyiun, he established plans by period and by quarter, which he candidly presented as hypotheses: “my plans of medieval Baghdad are, to a certain extent, tentative”;^[367] nevertheless, they have often been cited. However, in the aftermath of field work in 1908, Massignon criticized many of the places proposed by Le Strange.^[368] Since the 1950s, significant research has been conducted by Iraqi scholars, including Siusa, Jawad, and Duri, who corrected Le Strange's work in many aspects.^[369] It follows that the plan drawn up by Le Strange for the city founded by al-Mansur (Map 19.3) should be revised in many ways: Le Strange overesti­mated the dimensions of the Round City and also minimized the size of the large districts; he did not know that the course of the Tigris runs differently

Map 19.4 Early Baghdad (762-836 ce) (copyright F. Micheau - H. Renel CNRS-Univ. Paris ι). today; he drew a circular track for the canals as if they were running around the city. My map (Map 19.4) is based on new research, but more work that compares the written sources with hydrological and topographic data might result in modifications.

Foundation account

As with other foundation accounts, Ya^fqfibι does not justify the choice of the site by reasons of geopolitical, strategic, or economic advantages, but rather because of its destiny. As he recounted, al-Mansbr stopped in a place whose name he asked for. “Baghdad” was the reply. At that time, Baghdad was only a small town that possessed Nestorian Christian monasteries and a weekly market known as the Tuesday Market. Nonetheless, the Caliph exclaimed:

By God, this is the city that according to my father Muhammad ibn ‘Ali I shall found, where I shall live and where my descendants will reign.

The historian al-Tabari (d. 934) related that a prophecy was found in the ancient books of the Christian monks, foretelling of a great city to be built between the Sarat Canal and the Tigris, by a man bearing the name of Miqlas. The Caliph al-MansUr, hearing this prophecy, remembered that his nurse once called him by this name.^[371]

The account of Baghdad's foundation is typically one of the foundation of an imperial city. It depicted a ruler accomplishing the divine plan by choosing a site already designated by God. In that respect, one should note that, according to some Arabic writers, the name of Baghdad would derive from the two ancient Persian words Bagh “God” and Dadh “founded.” Hence, Baghdad would mean “Founded by God.”^[372]

Once the site was chosen, Ya'quιbl wrote that the Caliph brought in engineers, architects, and skilful surveyors whom he asked to trace out the plan of the capital, as well as all kinds of workers, such as masons, carpenters, or blacksmiths. There is no doubt that the construction of the city required a large number of architects, artisans, and laborers. The text claims that these workers were summoned by the Caliph. They came from all parts of the empire and were paid. Their number - obviously symbolic - was 100,000. The new capital was born from the skill of the Caliph in rallying all the forces of the empire.

According to several accounts, Baghdad emerged as the heir of past empires. Reported by both al-Tabari (d. 923) and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 1071), al-Mansιur is said to have ordered the demolition of the Palace of Chosroes in Ctesiphon in order to use its materials. Ctesiphon was the prestigious capital of the empire of the Sassanians, this great Persian dynasty in power since 224 Ce, which was conquered by the Arabs in the seventh century. However, this demolition was soon stopped because it became too expensive.^[373] This account should be regarded above all as symbolic. Since the Sassanian dynasty was defeated by the Arabs, its capital destroyed, and its vestiges erased, the new Abbasid capital could appropriate the material and cultural wealth of the conquered civilization. Thus the glory of the great Chosroes reflected on al-Mansιur.

According to another tradition also reported by al-Tabari, al-MansUr ordered five iron gates to be carried from Wasit. This city was established in southern Iraq, south of present-day Kut al-Amara in the early eighth century, by the governor al-Hajjaj, who took these gates from an old city in lower Mesopotamia called Zandaraward, which was already a ruin and whose foundation was attributed to Solomon. Four out of the five gates closed the four gateways of the main wall of the Round City, and the fifth was the gate of the Palace of Mansiur.¹¹ The meaning of this legend is clear: the Abbasids did not only gather the heritage of the Sassanians, but they also established themselves as the successors of the kings of the Bible by taking their symbols of power, namely the city gates of Solomon.

Casting the horoscope to ensure that the new foundation was under the best auspices is also part of the topoi of the foundation accounts. Ya'qubl said that the plans were made during the month of Rabl' I (141 bce/July-August 758 ce), when the foundations were built at the very moment chosen by Nawbakht and Masha’allah. The former was a Persian astrologer, while the latter was a Jewish scientist who became very famous in the Arabic and Latin Middle Ages. Fortunately, the horoscope of the founding of Baghdad was preserved in a book written by al-Birunι in the eleventh century. My colleague Jean-Patrice Boudet carried out an analysis of this horoscope.^{[374] [375]} Accordingly, the astronomical positions of the chart actually corresponded exactly to July 30, 762 ce at 2 p.m. The conjunction of the stars was not exceptionally favorable, but it was still suitable to authorize the inaugural ceremony.

The Round City: a palatial city

The palatial city founded by al-Mansιur has often been called the “Round City” because of its circular form. Ya'qιubi affirms that it was the only round city known in the whole world. Although there were Mesopotamian oval constructions as possible antecedents,^[376] this affirmation makes the Caliphate construction an exceptional one, unique in the world. The symbolism of a circular architecture with the Great Mosque and the Caliph's palace placed at the center is extremely strong. It refers to the Persian geographical tradition that considers that the earth is circular with Mesopotamia at the center. Thus Ya'qubi starts his Book of Countries with the following words: “If I start with Iraq, it is simply because it is the center of this world, the core of the earth. I mention, in the first place, Baghdad, because it is the heart of Iraq, the most important city, with no equivalent in the East or West of the earth.”^[377] Also in the other civilizations, especially Chinese and Aztec, we find this same conception of a political city where the ruler lives, reflecting the cosmos, the pivot of the world by its central position. This concentric plan corresponds to the fundamental anthropological structure that Philippe Descola has called “analogism” and which can be found in a number of human societies before the modern era.^[378]

The Round City was situated close to the right bank of the river Tigris, but its exact location remains uncertain since archaeological evidence is lacking, and the course of the river has changed over the centuries. The dimensions of the city, given in cubits by Arab geographers, have given rise to very different estimates that vary from 1,650 to 2,900 meters for its diameter, depending on the measurement of the ancient Arabic cubit and the purpose of the texts. As to the reconstruction of the plan, historians mostly agree on its general arrangement but remain divided over a number of more specific points, since written descriptions are often difficult to interpret.

The city was surrounded by double walls, with a deep ditch outside. The wall was topped by merlons and flanked by numerous towers. In the wall were four equidistant gateways: the southwest was the Kbfa Gate; the southeast was Basra Gate; the Khurasan Gate extended to the northeast; and the Syrian Gate to the northwest. These four gateways faced the main provinces dominated by the Abbasid power. Each of the four gateways

Baghdad, an imperial foundation (762-836 ce) included a vaulted gate hall closed by iron doors;^[379] a long thoroughfare with arcades; and the inner gate was also closed by iron doors with a large vaulted chamber overlooking the whole city. A third innermost wall sur­rounded the central area, at the center of which stood the palace of the Caliph and the Great Mosque. As a traditionalist of the ninth century pointed out,^[380] the Caliph is placed at the center of the Round City, in the other words, at the center of the world, in equal distance from all countries and all peoples. Here we find the principle of isonomia formulated by the Greeks, according to which power must be located at the center of the civic space in order to maintain balance between all the elements composing the city.^[381]

This palace is called the Palace of the Golden Gate or the Palace of the Green Dome, because it was crowned by a great, green dome - 35 meters above the ground and visible from all quarters of Baghdad. This dome was surmounted by a figure of a horseman, said to have been endowed with a magic power of pointing its lance in the direction from which the enemies of the Caliph were about to appear. There were also other buildings standing nearby: the Great Mosque, the guardhouse, the palaces of the younger children of the Caliph, the houses of his servants, and the principal public offices (Land Tax, Privy Seal, Army, etc.). Most houses in the palatial complex were located between the outer wall and the inner wall. They were distributed along streets and lanes, which linked the vaulted passage ways of the four gates without directly leading either outwards or inwards. These houses were totally under the control of the Caliph, and Ya'qubi clearly says that their inhabitants were officers (probably including their soldiers), immediate followers, and other trustworthy persons likely to be called before the Caliph. In other words, alMansur settled in the Round City all the elements of the state that were important to him, and these elements were separated from the public areas of the city by a fortification.

In 763 the buildings of Baghdad were sufficiently advanced to enable al- Mansiur to settle with his administration in this Round City, which was finished by the year 766. This Round City was an enormous palace complex combining the residence of the Caliph with the administrative agencies of the government. As Lassner writes, it was “the Caliph's personal domain,

comprising the area, his residence, and the governmental machinery.”^[382] This monumental complex, with its moat, walls, and fortified gates, must, when seen from the outside, have aroused fear and respect. The sovereign lived far from his people, entrenched behind the walls of a fortress that was accessible only through its imposing gates. His prestige was based on remoteness, inaccessibility, and invisibility. This “empty centre,” to quote the famous phrase of Roland Barthes,^[383] was the space of sovereignty. It can be found in many Asian imperial cities, starting with Beijing's famous Forbidden City.

The city on the western side

The inhabitants of the new capital did not live in the Round City, with the exception of persons close to the Caliph. The texts clearly and thoroughly describe the entire city of alMansur with the various quarters constructed around the Round City and the activities that took place in them. In that respect, it is interesting to note that, from the nineteenth century until today, those who have written about the foundation of Baghdad have been fascinated by this Round City, and they have restricted the dwelling districts to “suburbs,”^[384] or even totally ignored these districts.

Al-Manshr and his architects planned four major sectors around the Round City. Each of these areas was entrusted to a chief of the sector who was charged with determining the public space that should be reserved for shops and markets in each quarter. Avenues had a width of around 50 meters, streets a width of around 8 meters, as well as some passages. Mosques were built for the people of each sector, and finally, spacious locations were allotted for construction.

Furthermore, al-Mansfar made land concessions. The process was not new since it had been used at the founding of the first cities by the Arab conquerors, at Basra and Kiufa, which were established in 638 in lower Iraq, and Fustat founded in 642 in Egypt. In these cities the grants of lands were allotted to the tribal leaders who had led troops in the conquest. The description by Ya'qubi shows that there was planned urbanism also in Baghdad: constructions were devoted to nobles, the members of the Caliph's military and civil entourage, who were charged to build their their own homes as well as the homes of their relatives, apartment houses, and also a mosque, a market, other service buildings, sometimes a garden. The quarters established in this way were named after the members of the Caliph's military and civilian entourage who were allocated an area in which to build. This is why Ya'qubi devotes several pages to a list of these people. Although a detailed study of these names, amounting to hundreds, remains to be done, a first analysis, made by the Iraqi historian S. al-Ali, shows that the different quarters were populated by both civilians and military, Arab and Persian for the most part.^[385] The majority of the Baghdad population comprised voluntary non-indigenous Arab and Persian migrants, and spon­taneous immigration from the neighboring villages and rural zones was less significant. In the course of the following centuries, voluntary and forced migrations of scholars, officials, and tradesmen, bought or captured soldiers, slaves of various origins - black, Slav, Turkish, Berber — assured the cosmopolitan and multi-confessional character of a population for which the estimates of historians range from some hundreds of thousands to nearly 2 million people.

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The vast quarter of al-Karkh with its important market unfolded in the south. It was crossed by two large navigable canals drawn from the Euphra­tes: the Nahr 'Isa and the Sarat. Ya'qubi has affirmed that this densely inhabited quarter extended over a length of 2 farsakhs (about 10 km), with a width of approximately ι farsakh. The importance of this area is attested by a sad anecdote reported by the historian al-Tabari: 7,000 houses there were destroyed in a flood in 883. In the north another important area was the Harbiyya Quarter, named after a certain Harb, a native of Balkh in northern Afghanistan, who had become the chief of the Baghdad police.

The city had no wall, because there was no need for defense. But the numerous vaulted gateways, akin to triumphal arches, were built on the main highroads departing from the four gates of the Round City. Opposite to the Kfifa Gate, the highroad crossed the Sarat Canal on a bridge made of kiln-burnt bricks that was called the Old Bridge. Shortly after crossing this bridge the way bifurcated: to the left, the great Kufa highroad leading south through the Bab al-Karkh - this road was the Pilgrim Way leading to the holy places of Mecca and Medina; to the right, the road, turning westward, was the first portion of the highroad to the town of Anbar on the Euphrates, through the Bab Muhawwal (named after a town located some kilometers southwest, whose exact location is unknown). Opposite the Basra Gate, the road crossed the Sarat Canal on another stone bridge, called the New Bridge, and went through the Harrani Archway to the south; it led in the direction of the Tigris and crossed over the Lower Bridge^[386] in front of the Shq al-Thalatha (or Tuesday Market). The Syrian Gate led out to the three principal highroads traversing the northern quarters of West Baghdad: on the right the road to the Upper Bridge passed through the Harbiyya Quarter diagonally; on the left the highroad went out by the Anbar Gate to join the road coming from the Kufa Gate at an undetermined point beyond Muhaw- wal town; it fronted the Syrian Gate into the Harbiyya Quarter and joined the Harb Gate, beyond which began the cemeteries afterwards known as the Kazimayn. Finally, opposite the Khurasan Gate, a road crossing the Tigris on the this gate there were three main roads: the northern road leading towards Samarra' and Mosul through the Bab al-Shammasiyya; a road going in the direction of Iran through the Bab Khurasan is mentioned by Ya'qubi and formed the chief market of eastern Baghdad, where all kinds of goods and manufactured articles were gathered together; and the third road, named the Great Road, leading to the Lower Bridge and the Gate of Tuesday Market (Bab Sbq al-Thalatha). This description demonstrates that the city of Baghdad, from its foundation by alMansur, had spread far beyond the Round City. Numerous quarters had grown up along these highroads, and many markets were installed along them.

Growth of the eastern side

The city founded by alMansur was transformed quickly as the result of the displacement and multiplication of the Caliph's places of residence. Al- Manshr himself built a new palace, outside the Khurasan Gate, on the Tigris bank. This palace was called the Palace of al-Khuld, signifying the Palace of Eternity, for its gardens were regarded as competing with those of Paradise. Al-Mansiur moved there in 775, although the Palace of the Golden Gate remained his official residence.

After that al-MansUr built another palace on the eastern shore for his son named al-Mahdi and nearby also a mosque. This palace was completed in 776. Although not as important as the Round City, it was surrounded by a wall and a moat. Chroniclers report that in 768 al-Mansιur and his entourage went out from the Round City to the eastern Tigris bank, in order to receive al-Mahdi, who was arriving victoriously from Khurasan. All around the palace, grants of lands were given by al-Mahdi to his followers according to the same system as the one adopted at the west bank. Ya'quιbi again gives us the names of the beneficiaries. Thus developed the large quarter called Rusafa. With the neighboring districts of al-Shammasiyya and Mukharrim, the city on the east side of the Tigris quickly became as important as the city on the west side.

The Dar al-Rιum, or the Christian Quarter of Baghdad, was situated in the neighborhood of the Shammasiyya quarter, with the great monastery called Dayr al-Rιum where the Nestorian patriarch had his residence. During the Abbasid period, the Christians appear to have enjoyed complete tolerance in Baghdad under the government of the Caliphs, for besides this great mon­astery, they possessed many other churches and lesser monasteries in different quarters of the city.

Al-Mahdi mostly lived in his own palace, but sometimes also in the Palace of al-Khuld. Hariun al-Rashid, his son and successor, preferred the Palace of al-Khuld because of its gardens and its easy access. However, he did not like living in Baghdad. He therefore left for Rafiqa/Raqqa in the upper valley of the Euphrates, where he founded a vast city whose large foundations have recently been revealed by German excavations. He lived there until the end of his reign. After his death in 809, his two sons tore each other apart during a civil war lasting several years. On the one side there was alAmin, the eldest son, who lived in Baghdad and whom Ha∏un had named the first in succession; on the other side there was al-Ma'mιun, the younger son, whom Hariun had made the governor of the rich province of Khurasan and the second in succession to the Caliphate. When al-Amin appointed his own son as crown prince, al-Ma'mιun, now deprived of the succession, rebelled against his brother. After several years of conflict, he sent a powerful army to attack Baghdad and proved victorious. In 813 al-Amin was killed and al- Mamun took over his position as Caliph. The fighting had resulted in widespread destruction throughout the city, and in the end the quarter of Harbiyya was no more than a field of ruins. Al-Amin had retired to the Palace of the Golden Gate, which also had been bombarded and had suffered considerable damage. Even though the ruined areas were recon­structed, the Round City never fully recovered from this disaster. Further­more, it soon was absorbed by new constructions. And no Caliph ever returned there. In 893 an important part of the Palace of the Golden Gate was pulled down in order to enlarge the neighboring mosque, and the green dome that still stood intact collapsed in a great storm in 941.

In this way the Round City of alMansur disappeared forever from the urban landscape. Only the mosque survived until the late Middle Ages, but it was later abandoned. Travelers in the nineteenth century could see only fields and orchards in this area, which was once the Round City. In fact the city of Baghdad had both retracted and moved.

AlMa'mιan, when he arrived in Baghdad after the victory of his army, settled in the magnificent palace that the waz^r Ja'far the Barmecide had built for himself on the eastern Tigris bank below the Mukharrim Quarter and that carried the name Qasr Ja'fari. The Caliph al-Mu'tasim, who suc­ceeded alMa’mian in 833, decided to recruit Turks from Central Asia. But these Turkish mercenaries, freshly arrived in Baghdad, aroused hostility and caused riots in the city. Also al-Mu'tasim decided to leave the capital and founded a new city in 836 at Samarra', 125 kilometers to the north.

Since there are no remains of the Abbasid Baghdad, special attention should be given to Samarra, which provides a large field of ruins over more than 58 square kilometers, with visible remnants of palaces, mosques, and other constructions. The archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld conducted major investigations there in the early twentieth century.^[387] Additionally, the entire site of Samarra' was recently examined by Alastair Northedge, mainly on the basis of aerial photos and textual data.^[388] The topography of Samarra', the remains of the palace, and the fragments of decoration (including stuccoes, frescoes, and ceramics) give an insight into the splendor of the early Abbasid Baghdad. For example, the cantonment of al-Karkh in Samarra' should be very close to the first quarters of Baghdad. Al-Mu'tasim, when he settled in Samarra' in 836, allocated a vast area of more than 500 hectares to Ahnas al- Turki, where a mosque, his residence, and quarters for Turkish soldiers were built. Al-Harbiyya Quarter in Baghdad was most likely similar.

With the death of alMa'mun in 833 and the foundation of Samarra' in 836, the formative period of Baghdad came to an end. When the Abbasid Caliphs, following the revolts among their military troops, returned to Baghdad in the late ninth century, they settled once more on the east bank, but mainly to the south. First they took up residence in the palace of Qasr Jafar 1. However, they quickly built other palaces, such as the Qasr Firdaws and the Qasr al-Taj, further south on the east bank of the Tigris. These prestigious constructions were not the only ones. Inside the caliphal enclos­ure were numerous palaces, luxurious gardens, polo grounds, and race­courses. It is this district palace that was surrounded by a wall in 1095 on al-Mustazhir's orders. In the tenth century, the opposition between the two sides of the Tigris became highly marked: on the east bank lay the palaces, the sumptuous residences of great courtiers, high government employees, and emirs, while on the west bank there seems to have been a more popular and animated scene, with a large Shi'ite population. The chief quarter of modern Baghdad lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris, around the later palaces of the caliphs.

Conclusion

Until the tenth century in Baghdad there was not a fixed seat of caliphal power that was occupied by successive sovereigns. The continuity of the Abbasid dynasty was not expressed by the occupation of a single place, but rather by the ability of each family member to have his own residence demonstrating his personal power. Less than a symbol of power and continuity of the Abbasid dynasty, the palace was a manifestation of the power of each sovereign living there in isolation surrounded by his guards. In other words, Baghdad persisted for several centuries, a city with multiple nuclei.

Although the foundation of Baghdad obeyed a purely political logic, the prosperity of the city can be explained by its economic wealth, the import­ance of its elites, and its cultural vitality. The Caliph was far from being the sole architect of the urban fabric, as is proven by the growth of the city in the ninth century when the Caliphs resided in Samarra'. Baghdad got its resources above all from its rich hinterland - the black soil of Sawad - which provided the agricultural products necessary for consumption, raw mater­ials, and income derived from crafts, export, and taxes. According to Ya'qubi, al-Mansιar, when discovering the site of Baghdad, predicted: “This city will be the most prosperous in the world” because from all regions of the empire, there would be people and goods, ships and caravans streaming toward the area. This prediction, though obviously apocryphal, reflects the power and prosperity of the Abbasid capital. The main routes connecting Central Asia (the famous Silk Road) with the Indian Ocean, the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean coast converged on Baghdad. According to the ancient and medieval perception, the power of a city was related not to its role as a place of important production, but to its function as a center that attracted the wealth of the empire.

Baghdad not only displayed material prosperity, but also cultural wealth. Scientists and scholars flocked from everywhere, attracted by the material and intellectual conditions offered by the patronage of the Caliphs and the notables; students, who were drawn to the lessons of the greatest masters and came to Baghdad from far away, chose to settle there; translators, mostly Christians, collected and transmitted Greek knowledge. In essence, Baghdad was a unique place in the history of Arabic culture where the melting pot of peoples led to the emergence of new forms of thought and art.

This prestigious city gradually declined as the Caliphs' power was reduced by emirs and the sultans, and as political troubles and popular revolts multiplied. Even though new constructions were still enriching the urban landscape in the Seljuq period (1055-1194), and even though economic activity carried on, especially in the very active Karkh Quarter, in 1193 the traveler Ibn Jubayr describes a largely devastated city. From the late tenth century onwards, Cairo, another imperial creation that was founded in 969 by the Fatimids, who were rival Shi'ite caliphs aiming to overthrow the hated Sunni dynasty, would compete with Baghdad and finally eclipse it. The invasions of HialagiJ in 1258, and of Tamerlane in 1401 were fatal blows to the city. Baghdad became a small country town, and it stayed so until the twentieth century. It remains nonetheless the symbol of the splendor of Islamic civilization, and it belongs as such to the realms of the collective imagination.

FURTHER READINGS

Arabica 9 (1962), special issue published on the occasion of the 1,200th anniversary of the foundation of Baghdad.

Archibald Cameron Creswell Keppel, Early Muslim Architecture, New York: Hacker Art Books, 1979.

Ghalib al-Hakkak, “Essai Tinterpetation des textes relatifs a la ville ronde de Bagdad,” Revue des Etudes Islamiques 51 (1983), 149-60.

Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society, 2nd-4th/8th-ioth Centuries, London-New York: Routledge, 1998.

Al-Mawrid 8, 1979, special issue on Baghdad (in Arabic).

Frangoise Micheau, “Bagdad in the Abbasid Era: A Cosmopolitan and Multi-Confessional Capital,” S. K. Jayyusi, R. Holod, A. Petruccioli, and A. Raymond (eds.), The City in the Islamic World, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2008, pp. 221-45.