A geography of the Islamic world that opens with a long description of Baghdad and Samarra by a writer whose family had served the Abbasids: the founding of the Round City, its walls, gates and streets, the court at its centre, and the markets of al-Karkh.
Al-Ya‘qubi begins his survey of the lands of Islam with Baghdad, which he calls the navel of the earth. He explains why al-Mansur chose the site (on the Tigris, near the Euphrates by the canals, in reach of the produce of Iraq and of the ships of the Gulf) and describes the city he built: the double wall and the moat, the four gates facing Khurasan, Basra, Kufa and Syria, the arcades along the gate streets, the residential quarters granted to the caliph’s commanders and clients with streets named after them, and the great court at the centre with the palace and the mosque.
He then follows the city’s growth beyond the walls: the move of the markets to al-Karkh, where each trade was given its own street, the suburbs across the river, and the canals that watered them. His second great description is of Samarra, the capital of the caliphs from 836 to 892, with its long avenues and its allotments to the army.
The book, part by part
I Baghdad
The site, the round plan, walls, gates and arcades; the quarters and their streets; the central court; al-Karkh and its markets.
Rules: The centre kept empty for palace and mosque · Markets outside the walls, each trade in its own street
II Samarra
The new capital on the Tigris: avenues, allotments, palaces and the Great Mosque.