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. 
1853: Passenger landing in circular boats
(guffa) on the Tigris river in Baghdad
- Hasan Balyuzi (‘Bahá’u’lláh King of Glory’)
