History of Baghdad - A Center of Learning (8th To 9th C.)

A Center of Learning (8th To 9th C.)

The city of Baghdad became the focal point of the Islamic Golden Age for a myriad of reasons. Founder, caliph al-Mansur of the Abbasid caliphate, chose the city’s location because of its critical link in trade routes, mild climate, topography (critical for fortification), and proximity to water. All of these factors made the city a breeding ground of culture and knowledge. Baghdad is set right on the Khurasan Road, which was an established meeting place for caravan routes from all cardinal directions. During the construction of the city, gates were placed at the entrances of the major roads into the city, in order to funnel traffic into the city. The Kufah Gate was on a major road that pilgrims took to Mecca, and the Anbar gate linked the bridges over the canals and Euphrates River to the city. These were a substantial help at bringing people into the city, and around these entrances markets sprang up for travellers to trade at. The link in trade routes provided a flood of goods into the city, which allowed numerous markets to spring up drawing people from all of the Middle East to Baghdad to trade. The markets that developed in Baghdad were some of the most sophisticated as well because of the government’s supervision of their products as well as trade amongst each other. Because of the sophisticated trading market, an advanced banking system developed as well, allowing further settlement from outsiders. Baghdad’s location between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as well, created a trade link to further destinations such as China, India and Armenia, drawing even more people, literature, and knowledge to the city from exotic and distant lands. The mild climate and topography made it easy to settle as well for travellers coming to the city to trade. As Baghdad became a trading hub in the Islamic Empire, cultures collided, sharing knowledge, books, language, and faiths, ultimately creating a "cosmopolitan city" that developed into a learning center for the world.

As more and more people began to settle in the city, numerous schools began to spring up including the Hanafi and Hanbali schools of law. Law being a critical study for the Muslim people, because of the understanding of justice on Earth as applied to God. The Hanafi is currently the largest school of legal thought in the Muslim world, and it was a major draw for scholars to the city of Baghdad. Another important school in Baghdad that began was the Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), which focused on translating texts from various languages into Arabic. This practice began out of a need to supply educated texts from around the world to a growing educated public market. In particular the Arabic translation of Grecian texts became a substantial market that was quite progressive because its primary impetus from the caliphate was to establish a new ideology with a political and scientific base. This translation helped to foster the transition between a primarily oral society, to one centered on a written language. Baghdad’s location also made it ideal for paper production, which lowered the cost of creating books, making them more prevalent and accessible to more people. As more and more texts began to be produced as well, a new market for book vendors opened up, and numerous libraries and bookstores sprang up in the city. As the public and private sectors of the community became more educated, cultural narrative and secular writing began. In the city, a demand for secular literature, designed for entertainment, developed, which shaped the culture of the city’s population, as well as the Abbasid Empire as a whole, with Baghdad being their crowning achievement and reason for the Golden Age of Islam. At this time, Baghdad was revered as the "center of the world" because of its scholarship. Michael Cooperson says that “Baghdadi scholars were so numerous and so eminent that reference to them could continue to support the ‘center of the world’ thesis…". The influx of trade and commerce brought these scholars to the city, and made it the cosmopolitan breeding ground of knowledge that it became. Al-Mansur’s foundation and construction of the city as well, was done by only the best and brightest scholars, further fostering the notion of a highly intellectual city population to support the Golden Age. At the height of the golden age in Baghdad, it was estimated that there were over one and half million people living in the city.

Al-Mansur’s foundation of the city was ultimately based on its potential position as a military arsenal, and its ability to house and support many troops. Large numbers of troops were what originally gave the city such a dense population, but as the army continued to need supplies more and more people flooded to the city for jobs, thus being another reason Baghdad became a center of commerce. Baghdad also being named the new capital of the Abbasid caliphate drew numerous people in for the prestige and name alone. Al-Mansur designated a governor of Baghdad and sent with him a number of elites who gave the city a higher status and poise, drawing more and more scholars to study in such a well-educated and cosmopolitan city. Baghdad grew and developed in a variety of facets, and because of this is arguably became th largest city in the world during that time.