Baghdad

“ From the above and from the qualitative level of the sublime morals warehoused in Baghdad and the capability of being insightful on certain, familiar conditions, we can expound how the sun had not shone on the people of Baghdad and others during the reign of the State run by the Ottomans in the name of Islam when Baghdad faded and how now light shines on the foreheads of many sons of the Islamic community and all Arab sons, people of the sword, pen, banner and great principles when the rays of light are beamed from Baghdad, the city of great history and glory. ”

“ A curious and very entertaining work lies before me, or, to be more accurate, ramparts me, for it is in four ponderous volumes, capable, each, even in less powerful hands than those of the Great Lexicographer, of felling a bookseller. At these volumes I have been sipping, beelike, at odd times for some years, and I now propose to yield some of the honey—the season having become timely, since the great majority of the heroes of its thousands of pages hail from Baghdad; and Baghdad, after all its wonderful and intact Oriental past, is to-day under Britain's thumb. ”

“ In all this Baghdad expresses the genius of the Nation and People under the protection of the message of the faithful nationalism and immortal humanity. Thence Baghdad has emitted radiance that conveys the morals and illuminates the way with beams reaching all parts of the world under the care and protection of the Most Compassionate. The sword has become a flagpole for the pen, the latter a guide to the morals of construction and faith, a solid base for the former and a streaming banner to enlighten many dark spots of humanity with its great concepts. ”

“ It is the city whose inhabitants have always been the first to unfurl the banners of knowledge, and to raise the standard of science; indeed, their subtlety in all branches of learning, their gentle manners and amiable disposition, noble bearing, acuteness, wit, penetration and talent are deservedly praised.' Baghdad, at the beginning of the ninth century of the Christian era, was the centre of all that was grand and brilliant in the Muhammadan world. ”

“ By the will of God, glory be to Him, Baghdad shall remain, just as it has always been, inaccessible to the enemies and guarded by pride and by heedful might, true to humane principles. Its gates shall never be open except to the peoples seeking good relations and friendship and to the good faithful, God willing. ”

“ Baghdad, with its long vaulted bazars rich with the produce and merchandise of every clime, its mixed population of Turks, Arabs, Persians, Indians, and men of all Eastern nations, its palm groves and gardens, its painted palaces and unsightly hovels, its present misery and its former magnificence, have been so frequently described, that I will not detain the reader with any minute account of this celebrated city. ”

“ Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasides, was founded by their second Khalif, Al-Mansur, in A.D. 760, finished in four years, and raised to a high degree of splendour by Harun-ar-Rashid. Originally it was considered only as a great strategic point, and its garrisons were to keep the surrounding country in subjection. Eventually it became the centre of learning and civilization, and an Arab author wrote of it as follows: 'Baghdad is certainly the capital of the world, and the mine of every excellence. ”

“ Kindly, generous and charitable to excess and at the same time a firm, just and far-sighted administrator, he was passionately beloved by the people of Baghdad, whose miseries he spared no pains to alleviate and whose general prosperity may, in no small degree, be attributed to the untiring courage and self-sacrifice with which he was always ready to shield them, to the utmost of his power, from the ferocity and rapacity of his royal master. ”

“ When the Mamelukes came before him, he cast over each and every of them a mantle of green brocade and bade them mount similar horses of one and the same fashion and enter Baghdad and ask after their lord Al-Abbas. So they rode into the city and passed through the market-streets and there remained in Baghdad nor old man nor boy but came forth to gaze on them and divert himself with the sight of their beauty and loveliness and the seemliness of their semblance and the goodliness of their garments and horses, for all were even as moons. ”

“ A long ride of ten hours through this scene of solitude and desolation brought us to the tents of the Pasha of Baghdad, pitched on the western bank of the Euphrates, below the village of Musseiyib, and on the inlet of the Hindiyah canal. A string of boats had been placed across the river to connect the camp of the governor with Baghdad. As we approached we heard a loud hum of human voices; but the whole encampment was concealed by dense clouds of dust. ”

“ The Gulf, the Karun, the oil-wells—they are yours. Take them. But Baghdad is ours: if not to-day, then to-morrow. And if you will exercise that logical process of which your British mind appears to be not altogether destitute, you can hardly help seeing that this part of your famous [Pg 355] neutral zone, if not the whole of it, falls into the sphere of Baghdad. You know, too, that we do things more thoroughly than you. Therefore I must very respectfully but very firmly ask you, at your very earliest convenience, to leave Dizful. ”

“ And they answered, “We are the servants of the merchant Ali ibn Hassan of Cairo, who has sent us to fetch you to him at Baghdad.” Quoth I, “Is it far or near, hence to Baghdad?” “Near,” answered they; “there lies but the darkness of the night between us and the city.” Then they mounted us in the litter, and on the morrow, we found ourselves with thee, without having suffered any hurt. ‘Who gave you these clothes?’ asked he, and she said, ‘The chief of the caravan opened one of the chests on the mules and taking out the clothes, clad me and the children each in a suit ”

“ The central portion of Baghdad between the eastern and western portions of the Old World, and the wise and enlightened policy of its rulers, which welcomed to its schools, without reference to country or creed, the wise and learned men of every nation, drew to it as to a centre the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of both the rising and the setting sun. ”

“ Our 'rest' came, by a refinement of cruelty, not immediately before dawn, but between 2.30 and 4.30 a.m. We were then on bleak uplands, swept by arctic winds. In Baghdad winter is a time of frost; and we were far north of Baghdad. No men lay down; very few even stood still. The majority used the two hours of 'rest' in running to and fro, and it was with immense thankfulness that we took up our trudge once more.
This time there was no question of surprise. Morning found us on a vast plain, set with yellow-berried jujube-bushes and low scrub. ”

“ A.—Al-Islam. A splendid and glorious life was that of Baghdad in the days of the mighty Caliph, [310] when the Capital had towered to the zenith of grandeur and was already trembling and tottering to the fall. The centre of human civilization, which was then confined to Greece and Arabia, and the metropolis of an Empire exceeding in extent the widest limits of Rome, it was essentially a city of pleasure, a Paris of the ixth century. ”

“ As diplomatic efforts continue, we must never lose sight of the basic facts about the regime of Baghdad.
We know from recent history that Saddam Hussein is a reckless dictator who has twice invaded his neighbors without provocation -- wars that led to death and suffering on a massive scale. We know from human rights groups that dissidents in Iraq are tortured, imprisoned and sometimes just disappear; their hands, feet and tongues are cut off; their eyes are gouged out; and female relatives are raped in their presence. ”

“ The city has been used as a brick-quarry for centuries, Baghdad and various other towns being built almost entirely from this material; and it is a rather melancholy reflection that, when the Germans have finished their work, it is most probable that every brick they have uncovered will follow the others in the course of a few years. No matter how deep they bury them, they will be dug up, for good burnt building material commands its price in a city like Baghdad. One must get what consolation one can from the fact that at least good and accurate plans of the whole will be available. ”

“ Then the two Kings returned to Baghdad, with their captives, and Rumzan bade them decorate the city which they did for three days, at the end of which they brought out the old woman Shawahi, highs Zat al- Dawahi, with a peaked red turband of palm-leaves on her head, diademed with asses' dung and preceded by a herald proclaiming aloud, "This is the reward of those who presume to lay hands on Kings and the sons of Kings!" Then they crucified her on one of the gates of Baghdad; and, when her companions saw what befel her, all embraced in a body the faith of Al-Islam. ”

“ The chief of the police laughed, till he showed his jaw-teeth, and said, ‘O man of little wit, thrice have I seen in a dream one who said to me, “There is in Baghdad a house of such a fashion and situate so-and-so, in the garden whereof is a fountain and thereunder a great sum of money buried. ”

“ The white ass of Baghdad is much esteemed in the East. Some are of considerable size, and, when fancifully dyed with henna, their tails and ears bright red, and their bodies spotted, like an heraldic talbot, with the same color, they bear the chief priests and the men of the law, as they appear to have done from the earliest times. ”

“ Baghdad has the only caravan route from Central Persia, and as the Tigris is fully navigable from Basra, Baghdad is almost a seaport, an important point when one considers that goods come cheaper by water than by rail. ”

“ I am so sorry the sentries disturb you, but I feel responsible for your safety, and should you by any chance fall out of that window—it is not so very far from the ground, you see—you might get into bad hands. I assure you that Baghdad is full of wicked men. ”

“ When the news reached El Aziz, he rejoiced with an exceeding joy in the coming of his son and straightway took horse, he and all his army, what while the trumpets sounded and the musicians played, that the earth quaked and Baghdad also trembled, and it was a notable day. When Mariyeh beheld all this, she repented with the uttermost of repentance of that which she had wroughten against El Abbas his due and the fires still raged in her vitals. Meanwhile, the troops [58] sallied forth of Baghdad and went out to meet those of El Abbas, who had halted in a meadow called the Green Island. ”

“ Then they seated him in the place of honour and setting on meat they ate well and drink they drank hard and made merry till the morning, when Ahmad said to Ali, “Beware thou walk not about the streets of Baghdad, but sit thee still in this barrack.” Asked Ali, “Why so? Have I come hither to be shut up? No, I came to look about me and divert myself.” Replied Ahmad, “O my son, think not that Baghdad be like Cairo. Baghdad is the seat of the Caliphate; sharpers abound therein and rogueries spring therefrom as worts spring out of earth.” ”

“ I am a merchant, who have been nigh a score of years absent from my native land, travelling in far countries; and I have a patent of exemption from Damascus, which the late Viceroy King Sherkan wrote me, for that I had made him gift of a slave-girl. Now I was returning to Irak, having with me a hundred loads of rarities of Ind; but, as I drew near Baghdad, the seat of your sovereignty and the abiding-place of your peace and your justice, there came out upon me Bedouins and Kurds banded together from all parts, who slew my men and robbed me of all my goods. ”

“ I found streets through which beggars and British officers, camels and Ford cars jostled each other, often in vain attempts to get on. You can imagine the state of things on a busy morning. By day there is so much more rubbish and dirt to take the romance away from the picturesque, but at night, especially by moonlight, the quaint streets of old Baghdad do give an element of mystery and adventure that the Arabian Nights and the stage lead us to expect. ”

“ There is no reason why Baghdad and other centres should not turn out just as good men in the professions and in commerce as the European countries.
"People were studying Plato in Baghdad in the eighth century.
"Turkey is the only nation which has not been a source of profit to the Arab, and that is because the Turk only looks for conquest. The intellectual marriage of the Arab with the Turk is the only union the Arab has made which has been sterile. ”

“ Then the merchants mounted their mules and rode forward with the caravan, wondering at the [number of] mules laden with chests, whilst their harems followed them, with Ali's harem, marvelling at the richness of the apparel of his wife and children and saying to each other, 'Verily, the King of Baghdad hath no such raiment, no, nor any other of the kings or merchants or notables.' So they entered Baghdad in great state and rode on till they came to Ali's house, where they alighted and brought the mules and their burdens into the midst of the courtyard. ”

“ The conquest of Baghdad by the Mughals is a most remarkable period, not only in the literature, but also in the history, of the Arabs. It marks the final extinction of the Abbaside dynasty, from whom the ancient power and glory had vanished to such a degree that the authority of the Khalifs may almost literally be said to have been confined to the city only. Halaku Khan, the brother of the grand Khan Kubilai, and grandson of Jenghiz Khan, took and sacked Baghdad, keeping the Khalif imprisoned for some time, but slaying him at last, with his sons and several thousand Abbasides. ”