The
City of Arabian Nights
By Dr. Syed Amir
Bethesda, MD
Before the American invasion
of 2003, the last time the Iraqi capital, Baghdad,
was occupied by foreign armies was in 1917, when
General Stanley Maude, commander-in-chief of the
triumphant British army, proclaimed in the name
of King George V, Emperor of India, “I am
charged with absolute and supreme control of all
regions in which British troops operate, but our
armies do not come into your cities and lands
as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators.”
Eight months later, Maude died of cholera, having
caught it from drinking a glass of unpasteurized
milk. However, in an eerie coincidence, his words
were echoed in 2003 before the American invasion
of Iraq, by Vice President Cheney when he declared,
“I really do believe that we will be greeted
as liberators.” Neither Maude nor Cheney
could foresee the trouble his country was about
to be plunged into.
While Iraq as a whole has been ravaged and destabilized,
Baghdad has suffered the worst carnage of the
war. This storied city of Arabian nights, with
an estimated pre-invasion population of seven
million, has become a place of desolation, with
thousands dying in sectarian violence, car bombings,
mindless shootings and American military operations.
American as well as Iraqi military and civilian
command centers are confined to a highly fortified,
protected sector, the so-called Green Zone. The
city’s infrastructure has been badly damaged
and thousand of its residents have fled to neighboring
Jordan or Syria, and even Sweden in search of
a sanctuary. The world-renowned Iraqi National
Museum has been pillaged and ransacked. Much of
the story of the war and its aftermath has been
told to the outside world by some intrepid journalists.
For several years, Anthony Shadid, the foreign
correspondent of the Washington Post and an Arab-American,
has been covering the war, and his dispatches
have powerfully portrayed the dismal living conditions
of the city. His highly acclaimed book “Night
Draws Near; Iraq’s People in the Shadow
of American’s War”, published
in 2005, is based on his first-hand observations
of the sufferings of ordinary Iraqi people. The
book won the Pulitzer Prize, the highest American
literary prize in journalism, and promptly climbed
to the best-seller list.
In a recent feature article, Shadid described
the destruction of the legendary Mutanabbi Street
in Baghdad by a suicide bomber. The district is
named after the tenth-century Arab poet, Ahamd
ibn-al-Husayn al-Mutanabbi, regarded as the greatest
poet of classical Arabic. The street was once
famous for its numerous bookshops, stationary
stores, and elegant cafés where poets and
writers met, as well as the Ottoman architectural
style of its buildings. The celebrated Shahbander
Café located here was renowned for its
old-world charm, especially the numerous antique
water pipes (huqqa) all lined up in neat rows
that it showcased.
Shadid narrated how in its hey days, Mutanabbi
Street, bustling with business in books and literature,
offered the living testament to the old Arab adage
“Cairo writes, Beirut publishes and Baghdad
reads.” The decade-long UN sanctions and
the communal strife that came in the wake of the
Anglo-American invasion took its toll, smothering
the flourishing business of Mutanabbi Street.
The previously well-stocked bookshops lost much
of their luster, and in recent times have been
reduced to selling prosaic religious literature,
obsolete magazines and out-of-date publications.
As if that degradation was not bad enough, in
early March, a suicide bomber, driven by hate,
blew himself up along with 26 innocent people
in Mutanabbi Street, causing severe damage to
its structures.
Perhaps, no other city, except Delhi, has undergone
the cruel cycles of magnificence and desolation,
as has Baghdad during its existence spanning some
1200 years. Generations of children around the
world have grown up hearing the tales of Ali Baba
and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor, and
Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, in which Baghdad,
the magic city of the Caliphs, served as the backdrop.
The city was founded in 762 by the second Abbasid
Caliph, Jaffer Al-Mansur. It is said that Mansur
personally selected the site, supervised construction
of the city and named it Madinat as-Salaam,
the City of Peace. It was originally built around
a circle, with the grand mosque and the royal
palace at the center. Baghdad prospered, and by
the tenth century its population had swollen to
million people. Its golden age came during the
reigns of Harun al-Rashid (786-809 AD) and his
son, al-Mamun (813- 833 AD).
Meanwhile, the metropolis had acquired so much
culture, wealth and prosperity that it became
the most important city, with the possible exception
of Cordoba in Muslim Spain, in the world. It took
pride in its 100 bookstores and its magnificent
library. Caliph al-Mamun founded the House of
Wisdom in 830 AD, what would be described today
as a Think Tank, where scholars and philosophers
came from around the world and translated manuscripts
on eclectic topics, such as medicine, philosophy
and mathematics. The eminent astronomer and mathematician,
Al-Khwarizmi, conducted research on planets and
stars, completed his astronomical tables, while
his contributions to algebra vastly enriched this
branch of mathematics. The science of algorithms
took its name after him.
Baghdad’s golden age, unfortunately, did
not last even a century, as by the year 910 AD
the power and authority of the Abbasid Caliphs,
much like the latter-day Mogul emperors in India,
had greatly diminished and their rule barely extended
beyond the city limits. The Spanish Muslim traveler,
Ibn-Jubayr, who visited Baghdad in 1184 AD in
the reign of one of the last Abbasid Caliphs,
Al-Nasir, was disappointed to find the city in
a severely debilitated state. In his travelogue,
he lamented that most traces of the former glory
of this majestic city had gone, leaving behind
only a famous name; he mourned that the city had
no enduring beauty that would attract the eye.
Whatever little vestige of its former grandeur
existed when the city was visited by Ibn-Jubayr
was soon to disappear, as Baghdad fell prey to
Mongolian hordes. In 1258 AD, a huge army led
by Hulegu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, set
out to invade Baghdad. The Caliph, Al-Mustasim
Billah, although nominally recognized as religious
head by the Muslim world, had no real power to
resist a vast army. He was neither a distinguished
warrior nor an astute statesman. As negotiations
for a peaceful settlement broke down, the city
capitulated. It was, however, unprepared for what
was to follow. Baghdad was ransacked, the Caliph
and his family brutally murdered and the residents
slaughtered indiscriminately. Estimates of dead
vary from two hundred thousand to a million. The
plunder and rape continued for a period of seven
days, while fires burnt, consuming the city, for
forty days. The famous libraries of Baghdad that
had housed thousand of priceless books on every
branch of knowledge were ransacked and their collections
destroyed. It is said that the Tigris one day
ran red with the blood of martyrs; the next day
it turned black with the ink of scholars.
Baghdad never recovered fully from the catastrophic
invasion. The famed Muslim traveler, Ibn-Batuta
who passed this way in June 1327 AD, some 69 years
after the Mongolian rampage, found it was still
struggling to stand on its feet. He noted that
the mosque of the Caliph that had been burned
down by Hulegu’s troops had been rebuilt,
and was offering advance religious education.
The city having lost much of its previous status
now served as the winter residence of the Mongol
ruler of Baghdad, Ilkhan Abu Sa’id, whose
father had converted to Islam. Ibn-Batuta, nevertheless,
was impressed by the pomp and pageantry that was
put on display whenever the great Ilkhan traveled
out of the city.
The city named Madinat as-Salaam by its founder
was not destined to remain peaceful for long.
As the 15th century arrived, another misfortune
was awaiting. On July 1401, Baghdad was besieged
by Tamerlane who had come to punish his old adversary,
Sultan Ahmad, the ruler of Baghdad. Even though
the city surrendered without much resistance,
it did not satisfy Tamerlane. A general massacre
was ordered, and all dwellings were razed; only
mosques and hospitals were spared. Then, the victory
was celebrated in the customary ghoulish fashion.
Towers were built of human skulls severed from
the dead. Afterwards, it is said that Tamerlane
went to offer his prayers at the tomb of Imam
Abu Hanifa and sought his blessings. He had by
this time gained much experience in conducting
massacres, having practiced them in Delhi in December
1398 AD, and then in Aleppo (October 1400 AD),
and Damascus (March 1401 AD).
It has been suggested that the location of Baghdad,
while helping to make it the capital of the Abbasid
Caliphate and promoting the spectacular advances
in knowledge and learning, also made it vulnerable
to foreign invasions. The city is located on the
main thoroughfares of Middle East, unprotected
by any natural barriers, such as lofty mountains
or heavy forests. Over the centuries, however,
the nature of the foreign invasions has changed.
Unlike the invaders of the Middle Ages, the recent
aggressors have taken a long time to depart. The
British who occupied Iraq in 1917 took nearly
15 years to leave. Americans who came looking
for non-existent weapons of mass destruction have
already been there for four years, and are in
no hurry to depart.
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