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The Abbasid City of Peace
The Abbasid City of Peace

In 750, after years of civil war, the Abbasids, who claimed descent from from Addas, an uncle of Muhammad, overthrew the Umayyad caliphs. The new rulers moved the capitol from Damascus to a site in Iraq near the old Sasanian captiol of Ctesiphon. There the caliph al-Mansur established a new capitol, Baghdad, which he called Madina al-salam, the City of Peace. The city was laid out in 762 at a time astrologers determined as favorable. It was round in plan, about a mile and a half in diameter. The shape signified that the new capitol was the center of the universe. At the city's center was the caliph's palace, oriented to the four compass points. For almost 300 years Baghdad was the hub of Arab power and of brilliant Islamic culture. The Addasid caliphs were renowned throughout the world and even established diplomatic relations with Charlemagne at Aachen in Germany. The Abbasids lavished their wealth on art, literature, and science and were responsible, for the translation of numerous Greek texts that otherwise would have been lost. Many of these works were introduced to the medieval West though their Arabic version.

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Muhammad http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Muhammad

The Umayyad Caliphate http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Lecture:The_Umayyad_Caliphate

Arabic http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Arabic