The Founding of Madinat al-Salam (Baghdad)

تأسيس مدينة السلام بغداد

Baghdad

In al-Baladhuri: Baghdad was ancient, and al-Mansur garrisoned it, beginning his city in year 145; when news of Muhammad and Ibrahim ibn Abdallah's rising reached him he returned to Kufa, then moved the treasury houses, coffers and diwans from Kufa to Baghdad in 146, naming it Madinat al-Salam; he finished the city wall and all its works, and the old Baghdad wall, in 147. He bought the city's ground from village-owners of Baduraya, Qatrabull, Nahr Buq and Nahr Bin, granted it in iqta' to his family, commanders, troops, companions and secretaries, made the markets' gathering at al-Karkh and ordered the merchants to build shops, obliging them their rents; he built Madinat al-Salam's two mosques and the new pontoon on al-Sarat, and built al-Rusafa for al-Mahdi on the east side — called Askar al-Mahdi from his camping there bound for Rayy — occupied on return in 151; earlier he had ordered Qasr al-Waddah built, named for an Anbar man who financed it, and Qasr al-Mahdi by Bab al-Karkh.