The Abbasid Caliphate: Baghdad at the Height of the Islamic Golden Age, 750-900 | Calm Bedtime History

The Tigris River winds through the flat plain of Mesopotamia, its waters brown with summer silt. On the eastern bank, workmen from every province of the new Abbasid empire are tracing circles in the dust with rope and peg. Caliph al-Mansur has chosen this spot, where Persian engineers and Arab surveyors converge, to build a capital that will eclipse every city on earth. Within five years, the walls of Madinat as-Salam—the City of Peace—will rise from nothing.