Baghdad

Who holds it

Name

al-Nasir li-Din Allah

Title

The caliph

Since

see lord record

Born

not pinned

Family

not pinned

Confidence

high

The caliph's residence.

Lord in 1200

the caliph al-Nasir in person, through the vizier Nasir ibn Mahdi, the chief of police (shihna, sahib al-shurta) and the market inspector (muhtasib); their names on 1 January 1200 not pinned

Overlord

the caliph al-Nasir in person, through the vizier Nasir ibn Mahdi, the chief of police (shihna, sahib al-shurta) and the market inspector (muhtasib); their names on 1 January 1200 not pinned

How things stand that morning

The caliph's capital and residence; the heir Abu Nasr Muhammad is named after him in the sermon. Ibn al-Jawzi, freed from his Wasit exile in 595 (1199), preaches again.

Wealth

Paper and books, glass, silk and cotton cloth (the striped attabi cloth of the Attabiyya quarter), leather, metalwork; the bridge of boats and the river port; the meeting point of the Khurasan road, the Tigris and Euphrates river traffic and the pilgrim road.

Threats

• sectarian riots between Karkh and the Sunni quarters
• Tigris floods

Council

No commune. The great officers are the caliph's men: the vizier, the chief judge (qadi al-qudat; holder on 1 January 1200 not pinned), the heads (naqib) of the Abbasid family and of the Alids (not pinned), the market inspector. Factions: the Hanbalis (strong on the west bank and among the preachers; Ibn al-Jawzi), the Shafi'is (the Nizamiyya), the Hanafis (the shrine college of Abu Hanifa), the Shi'a of Karkh and Kazimayn, and the Sufi convents (ribat) the caliph patronises.

Communities

Arab, Persian and Turkish Muslims of the four Sunni schools and the Twelver Shi'a; the Church of the East (Nestorian) with its patriarch (catholicos) Yahballaha II (from 1190) and the Jacobites; the Jews with the exilarch and the academy (Benjamin of Tudela, about 1170, reported some 40,000 Jews and 28 synagogues); Sufis of every order.

Fairs and markets

Daily markets in the covered streets of the east side (the Tuesday market, Suq al-Thulatha, gives its name to a quarter) and the Karkh markets on the west bank; the departure and return of the pilgrim caravan (Shawwal and Muharram); the river traffic all year.

Militia

The young men's gangs (ayyarun) and the futuwwa brotherhoods of the quarters, which al-Nasir joined in 578 (1182) and seeks to bind to himself; the caliph's mamluks police the city.

Walls and castle

The east side is walled (the wall of al-Mustazhir, built 488/1095) with four gates (Bab al-Sultan, Bab al-Zafariyya, Bab al-Halba, Bab al-Basaliyya) and a moat; the palace city has its own wall; the west-bank quarters have their own walls and gates. The famous Talisman Gate inscription (618/1221) is later.

Trade and crafts

Paper and books, glass, silk and cotton cloth (the striped attabi cloth of the Attabiyya quarter), leather, metalwork; the bridge of boats and the river port; the meeting point of the Khurasan road, the Tigris and Euphrates river traffic and the pilgrim road.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. 12 Ramadan 597 (16 June 1201)Ibn al-Jawzi dies in Baghdad (natural death).Depends on: natural course Stopped by: none

Places of note

• the Nizamiyya college: the great Shafi'i college, repaired and given a library by al-Nasir in 589 (1193) according to TDV

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Well described by the chroniclers and by travellers of the 1170s and 1180s (Benjamin of Tudela, Ibn Jubayr).

Primary sources for Abbasid Iraq

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201). Read online
• Comfort of Hearts and Sign of Joy: a History of the Seljuks, Muhammad ibn Ali al-Rawandi (Ravandi) (1203 to 1204, dedicated to Kaykhusraw I of Rum). A history of the Great Seljuks from their origins to the death of the last sultan Toghril III in 1194, begun at Hamadan and finished for Kaykhusraw of Rum when the author moved to Anatolia. Read online
• The Life of Sultan Jalal al-Din Mankubirti, Shihab al-Din Muhammad al-Nasawi (about 1241, at Aleppo). A Khwarazmian secretary's life of the last Khwarazmshah. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online
• Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online

1 more in the sources library for Persia and the Eastern Islamic World.