Baghdad - Where 1001 Nights were collected, written and augmented.
Baghdad – Under siege and captured by
the Mongols on 10 February 1258, who destroy and kill hundreds of thousands.
Much later - Very recently - Another distant superpower unleashes destruction and killing. Counting its own dead, but not the inhabitants – Tearing down a tyrant, and leaving a chaos - Calling it… democratization.
Now what? The Iraqis have rebuilt before, and have huge natural resources underground. The 1001 nights has stories of love and passion told by women and men of wisdom. I think their spirit, the spirit of life, the spirit of creativity is stronger. Hopefully that will lead the cradle of civilization into a new golden age.
Much later - Very recently - Another distant superpower unleashes destruction and killing. Counting its own dead, but not the inhabitants – Tearing down a tyrant, and leaving a chaos - Calling it… democratization.
Now what? The Iraqis have rebuilt before, and have huge natural resources underground. The 1001 nights has stories of love and passion told by women and men of wisdom. I think their spirit, the spirit of life, the spirit of creativity is stronger. Hopefully that will lead the cradle of civilization into a new golden age.
Hulagu's army on the siege of Baghdad. |
Baghdad was a Persian village before al-Mansur made it the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate in 762 CE. On the bank of Tigris a city with three concentric walls, “the Round City” was built as a government complex. Four main roads led out to the vast empire. Close to the Euphrates and the fertile lands of Mesopotamia it prospered and grew to have 500.000 inhabitants in the 9th century, maybe the most populous city in the world at the time. Ships with goods from all over Asia were in the harbor, Greek works were translated, hospitals and an observatory founded, poets and artisans streamed in. In 1001 nights Queen Scheherazade is to be executed by King Shahryar so she will not be infidel. Her sister Dunyazad comes to tell her one last story, and Scheherazade tell it to the king, but does not end it. The execution is postponed, and she continues the same way for 1001 nights, inventing the so-called cliffhanger storytelling. Dunyazad marries the King’s brother Shah Zaman.
Queen Scheherazade the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights. |
Dunyazad, her sister who starts the storytelling. |
Centuries of decline
Slowly over the centuries it became
weaker because of internal conflicts, neglect of irrigation systems and failure
of crops. Nomadic peoples from Central Asia, the Buyid 945-1055, the Turkic
Seljuq 1055-1152 invade. They are the real rulers of Baghdad but leave the
Abbasid to rule formally. But even though the region is conquered, there is
little destruction, and soon the newcomers adopt Islam and are absorbed into
the more advanced society.
The Mongols
In 1206 Genghis Khan gather the Mongol
tribes for the first time, and start conquering huge parts of Asia and Europe.
The Mongols try to take Baghdad in 1245, but are repelled. Repeated floods
weaken the city and when Genghis Khan’s grandson, Hulagu, lay siege to Baghdad
in 1258 they take it. The Mongols massacre hundreds of thousands and kill the Abbasid Caliph. The carefully
manufactured irrigation system is destroyed with the agricultural and economic
foundations of the city. Even though an Abbasid is symbolically made Caliph in
Cairo, it is in effect the end of the Abbasid Caliphate which has ruled much of
what we today call the Middle East since 750. But the Mongols leave most of the
other cities intact and soon convert to Islam. Traditional historians have seen
1258 as one of the great turning points in Islamic history. But some modern
historians like the Norwegian Knut Vikør view the shift as smaller because there was a lot of
continuation, and relatively little disruption apart from Baghdad. How ever one
looks at it, Baghdad becomes a provincial capital of other empires, and it is not until the end of the 19th
Century before the city start to prosper once more.
Hulagu (left) imprisons Caliph Al-Musta'sim among his treasures to starve him to death. Medieval |
I am open to your comments and proposals.
Warmly
Bjarte Bjørsvik
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