29
area and would be easier to defend (no weak corner
points). The defensive nature of the city is further
emphasized by the bent entrances and the double
wall. Unfortunately nothing remains of al-Mansur’s
city with the possible exception of a mihrab in the
Iraq museum. The round city was built on the west
bank of the Tigris and shortly afterwards a
complementary settlement
was founded on the east
bank known as Mu
asker al-Mahdi. In 773 al-Mansur
moved the markets outside to a place called al-Karkh.
From 836 to 892 the capital was transferred to
Samarra because of troubles with the caliph’s Turkish
troops in Baghdad. When Caliph al-Mu
tamid
moved back to Baghdad he settled on the east bank
of the Tigris which has remained the centre of the
city to the present day.
The Buwaihids built a number of important
buildings, such as the Bimaristan al-Aduli (hospital)
and the Dar al-Alim (house of science) but the Seljuk
conquest found the city in a ruinous condition
because of the conflict
between the Buwaihid amirs
and their soldiers. In 1056 Tughril Beg separated his
residence from the rest of the city by a broad wall.
Although few buildings of the Seljuk period survive,
an idea of the appearance of the city in the thirteenth
century (before the Mongol invasion) can be gained
by looking at the illustrations of al-Wasiti to the
Maqamat of al-Harriri (MS Arabe 5874).
During the period of the later Abbasid caliphate
(twelfth to thirteenth century) a massive defensive
wall was built around east Baghdad which for
centuries marked the boundary of the city. The walls
had four gates of which only one survives,
the Bab
al-Wastani. The gate stood in the centre of a moat
and was connected to the city wall and the outside
by two brick bridges. The arch of the main entrance
is decorated with geometric interlace and is flanked
by two lions in relief. Other buildings which survive
from this period are the Zummurud Khatun Tomb,
the Mustansiriya Madrassa, the building known as
the Abbasid palace and two minarets. The
Zummurud Khatun Tomb built in 1209 consists of a
conical muqarnas dome built on an octagonal base.
The sides of the base are decorated with decorative
brickwork set over a series of blind niches. Until the
eighteenth century a ribat
and madrassa built at the
Reconstruction of plan of eighth-century Round City of al-Mansur (Baghdad) (after Creswell)
Baghdad (Madinat al-Salam)
30
request of Zummurud Khatun (mother of the Abbasid
caliph al-Nasir) were located near the tomb. The
Mustansiriya Madrassa was built between 1227 and
1233 and is the most famous surviving building in
Baghdad. It . was built by the caliph al-Mustansir and
contained four Sunni law schools (i.e. Sha
fi, Hanafi,
Maliki and Hanbali). The madrassa is a rectangular
courtyard building with four large iwans, one for each
law school. The courtyards and iwans are faced with
ornate hazarbaf brickwork and carved interlace. The
building now known as the Abbasid palace was
probably originally the madrassa of al-Sharabiyya built
by Sharif al-Din Iqbal in 1230. The building is situated
within a rectangular enclosure of 430
square metres
and is dominated by a vaulted hall over 9 m high. The
brickwork decoration of the building is identical to that
of the Zummurud Khatun Tomb. The surviving pre-
Mongol minarets belong to the Jami
al-Khaffin and
the
Ami Qumuriyya Mosque; both structures comprise
a cylindrical shaft resting on a square base with
muqarnas corbelling supporting the balcony.
The most important remains of the Ilkhanid period
are Khan Mirjan and the Mirjaniya Madrassa. The khan
was built in 1359 to support the madrassa which was
completed in 1357. The madrassa is mostly destroyed
apart from the gateway
which is a monumental portal
with carved brickwork similar to that of the Abbasid
palace. Khan Mirjan is a remarkable building built
around a central covered courtyard. The roof of the
courtyard is made of giant transverse vaults which in
turn are spanned by barrel vaults. This system made it
possible to cover a huge interior space as well as
providing light to the interior (through windows set
between the transverse vaults).
Many buildings survive from the Ottoman period,
the most significant being the shrine of al-Kadhimiyya
which houses the tombs of the imams Musa al-
Kadhim and Muhammad Jawad.
The shrine has been
successively rebuilt and much of the structure belongs
to the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The shrines
stand in the middle of a large courtyard lined with
two storeys of arcades. The tombs are covered by tall
golden domes and flanked by four minarets, a porch
runs around three sides of the tomb structure and
there is a mosque on the south side.
The traditional houses of Baghdad are built of
brick around small central courtyards. Many houses
had projecting wooden balconies often with carved
wooden screens.
Most of the houses had wind-
catchers (mulqaf) which would keep the houses cool
during the oppressive summer heat.
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