The Founding of Baghdad
by
Ahmad ibn Abu Ya’qub ibn Ja’far ibn Wahb Ibn Wadih Yaqubi (died ca. 897 CE)

“I mention Baghdad first of all because it is the heart of Iraq, and, with no equal on earth either in the Orient or the Occident, it is the most extensive city in area, in importance, in prosperity, in abundance of water, and in healthful climate. It is inhabited by the most diverse individuals, both city people and country folk; people emigrate to it from all countries, both near and far; and everywhere there are men who have preferred their own neighborhoods there, their trade and commercial centers; that is why there is gathered together here what does not exist in any other city in the world. It stretches out on the two banks of those two large rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and watches commercial products and staples flow to it on land and on water. For it is with great ease that each commercial object is transported endlessly from East and West, from Moslem and non-Moslem religions. Indeed merchandise is brought from India, Sind, China, Tibet, the land of the Turks, Khazars, and the Abyssinians- from everywhere in short- to such a degree that it is found in great profusion in Baghdad than in its country of origin. It is procured so easily and surely that one would think that all the goods on earth are sent there, all the treasures of the world gathered there, and all the blessings of the universe concentrated there…

“It’s name is famous and its reputation is universally known. Iraq is indeed the center of the world. For, according to the unanimous opinion of the astronomers exposed in the writing of ancient sages, it is located in the fourth climate, the median climate, where the temperature equals itself by epochs and by seasons, It is extremely hot during summer days, the cold is intense during winter days and a moderate temperature is enjoyed in autumn and in spring; the change from autumn to winter and from spring to summer takes place without violent contrasts. Thus the passing of the seasons brings repeated and regular variations of them temperature. Not only is the climate regular but the terrain is excellent, the water is sweet, the trees flourish, the fruit is of perfect quality, the harvests and magnificent, good things abound, and the water supply is almost at ground level. As a result of this normal temperature, of the quality of the soil, of the freshness of the water, the inhabitants are of a happy disposition, their countenances are bright, and their intelligence is of an open nature. The people also excel thought their knowledge, their understanding, their good education, their perspicacity, their distinction, their commercial, industrial, and business sense, their ingenuousness in all controversy, their competence in all trades, and their ability in all industry. No one is better educated then their scholars, better informed than their authorities in tradition, more solid in their syntax than their grammarians, more supple than their singers, more certain than their readers of the Koran, more expert than their physicians, more capable than their calligraphers, clearer than their logicians, more zealous than their ascetics, better jurists than their magistrates, more eloquent then their preachers, more artistic than their poets, or more voluptuous than their gay blades.”

[Translated in Gaston Wiet, Baghdad. Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), pp. 8-10; for a further excerpt from this text, click here.]