Baghdad was a provincial center of the Ottoman Empire with a population of about 1.5 million

1853: Passenger landing in circular boats
 (guffa) on the Tigris river in Baghdad

At this time, Baghdad was a provincial center of the Ottoman Empire, with a population of about 60,000. Little there was to bespeak its renowned history as the city built, between ad 762 and 766, by the ‘Abbásid Caliph al-Mansúr, and called by him Madinatu's-Salám - the City of Peace. Al-Mansùr had made his city the capital of a vast empire stretching from Egypt to the confines of China. Subsequent caliphs enlarged and beautified it, until by the tenth century it was some 82 kilometres in length and 74 kilometres in width, filled with the finest palaces, most magnificent mosques, and most extensive bazars of that age. Its population at that time is estimated to have been some 1.5 million. From this time on there was a general decline in Baghdád’s fortunes, until two successive sackings by the Mongols in 1258 and 1401 put a complete end to its former glory. In 1534, the Ottoman Sultán, Sulaymán the Magnificent, took Baghdad and, in the next century, it was ruled alternately by Ottomans and Safavids, until in 1638 it settled into its role as an Ottoman provincial centre until the First World War. 

- Hasan Balyuzi (‘Bahá’u’lláh King of Glory’)

Mirzá Yahyá, Bahá’u’lláh’s younger half-brother, arrived in Baghdad in disguise and under an assumed name about two months later

Baha’u’llah consented to this and rented a house there. His younger half-brother, Azal [Mirzá Yahyá], who with the death of other leading Babis was now increasingly being regarded as the leader of the Babi community, had escaped from Nur after the failed uprising there and arrived in Baghdad in disguise and under an assumed name about two months after Baha’u’llah. Since he was not under any royal edict of exile, Baha’u’llah tried to persuade him to return to Iran and rally the Babi community there, but he declined to go. 

- Moojan Momen (‘Bahá’u’lláh, A Short Biography’)

After a month Bahá’u’lláh came back to Baghdad and settled in a rental house in the old quarter

Mirzá Ibráhim Khán of Tabriz, - the Consul-General of Persia from 1846 until his death in December 1858 - calling to pay his respects, suggested that because of the fanaticism of the populace and the pilgrims it might be more convenient for Bahá’u’lláh to return to Baghdad and live in the old quarter, which was close to Kázimayn. Bahá’u’lláh agreed and a search was made for a suitable house. About a month later, He and His family came back to Baghdád and settled in the house of Háji ‘Ali Madad, which had been rented for Him. 

- Hasan Balyuzi (‘Bahá’u’lláh King of Glory’)

Bahá’u’lláh then proceeded to Kázimayn about three miles north of Baghdád

From there He proceeded, a few days after, to Kázimayn, about three miles north of the city, a town inhabited chiefly by Persians, and where the two Kázims, the seventh and the ninth Imáms, are buried. 

- Shoghi Effendi (‘God Passes By’)