The City of Peace

Perfectly situated between East and West, Baghdad became one of the Silk Road's leading centres of trade, science and cultural exchange

- Hareth Al Bustani

By 750, the Umayyad dynasty had expanded the Muslim Caliphate to its greatest limits – ruling over a realm twice the size of the Roman Empire at its peak, stretching from Spain to China. However, that year, the Umayyads were overthrown and slaughtered by the Abbasid dynasty who, rather than ruling from Damascus, decided to establish their very own capital. In 762, the Abbasid caliph picked a plot near the old Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon for a remarkably ambitious new city, a beating heart for the Islamic Golden Age to come.

Named Madinat Al Salam, or ‘The City of Peace’, it was a perfectly circular metropolis, overlooking the Tigris river. Four gates were set within its mighty walls, like spokes on a wheel: the southeastern Basra Gate opened up to the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean; the southwestern Kufah Gate to Medina and Mecca; the northwestern Damascus Gate to Syria and the Mediterranean; and the northeastern Khurasan Gate to Persia, Central Asia and beyond. Later dubbed ‘Baghdad’, the city was perfectly situated at a crucial intersection of the Silk Road – weaving together a tapestry of interlocking routes towards East Asia, Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. Meanwhile, sat along the Tigris, it also occupied prime real estate on the Maritime Silk Road, soon becoming one of the world’s busiest trade hubs.