Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 204, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1919 — BAGDAD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BAGDAD

PEOPLE are apt to be disappointed in Bagdad, but this is not unnatural unless one Hears clearly in mind that what one sees today is a comparatively modern TurcoArs hi an town and not the city of romance of Arabian Nights entertainments that one has probably imagined. That old Bagdad, or rather Dar-es-Salam as it was originally called, was built in the year 763 A. D. by Al Mansur, the second Abbasid caliph, out of the ruins of the city of Ctesiphon. It saw its palmiest days in the time of Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, the fifth of the Abbasid line, who flourished from 786 to 800 A. D. The city soon after this came to its end. The caliphate was for political reasons moved to Samarrah in 836 and when it was brought back again to Bagdad in 892, a new city was built on the opposite, i. e., left, bank of the Tigris, a mile or two downstream from the old site. Of Dar-es-Salam nothing now remains but a few indistinct mounds, says a writer in the Times of India Illustrated Weekly. It cannot even be said that the new capital of which we have just spoken is the Bagdad that we know today. The site has remained the same, but of the city there is now nothing above ground that can be identified as being nearly as old as 892. Bagdad has suffered more often and more severely from destruction and decay than European or Indian cities, even taking into account such incidents as the great fire of London or the sequence of events that has produced the seven capitals at Delhi, or the cheery habit of the old Roman emperors of pulling j down the buildings of their predecessors in order to build finer ones for themselves. Twice has Bagdad been sacked: in 1258 by the Mongols under Hulaku Khan and again in 1400 by Tamerlane. It has been besieged many times and flooded still more often. Such a life would be bound to tell on the constitution even of a well-built city and Bagdad was not that. It was built with inferior building material I and as often as not with inferior skill, j and its sufferings have entirely changed it during the course of time. Few Old Buildings Remain. How thoroughly bad the construction of some buildings has been —more parI tlcularly in modern times —may be judged from the fact that two large minarets belonging to one of the mosques of the city, which were built within the memory of the inhabitants of Bagdad, have already lost their top stories. But this, of course, is an extreme example. On the other hand there is the Khan Aurtmah, & large brick vaulted building in the center of the city, which is, in its way, as wonderful a piece of construction as one can see anywhere. It was built in 1359 and is still in use and in excellent preservation. The Marjaniyah mosque, close by, and having as part of its endowments the income derived from the Khan Aurtmah. is another fine old building. It was built two years before the Khan and is of considerable architectural merit. A few fragments of an earlier date are to be fopnd in different parts of the city. Some portions of the old fortification of mustashir, for example, and the eleventh century minarets of Suqal-Ghazl and of the Qamariyah mosque and, at any rate, some of the walls of the old Mustansariyah college (eleventh century) may be mentioned. But there are no other old buildings as complete as’ the khan and the mosque. Beautiful—From a Distance. Apart from these few examples of an earlier period, the. Bagdad we know today is of the seventeenth ok eighteenth ancj succeeding centuries, which In terms of architecture is comparatively modern. Judged in this light Bagdad is not disappointing. It is, particularly for a Mesopotamian town, uuits a delightful place. From the dis-

tance It presents a most attractive picture. From miles away in the desert one can see the green mass of Bagdad floating in the atmosphere and as one approaches nearer along the dreary, dusty track, its colored domes and gilded minarets can be distinguished showing above the palms and trees. As one enters the town most of this is lost to sight and one finds oneself in a* narrow winding street. The walls on either side are usually very bare. Every now and then one passes a door, sometimes plain, sometimes quite ornate with jolly brass door knockers. Above, from the first floor are projecting oriel windows, these, too, varying from plain brick and timber to carved wood of great richness —with pierced screens, often of very beautiful design. But be they plain or fancy, they cast a pleasant shadow on the road beneath and incidentally block out from view except for a glimpse here and there, the domes or minarets which were so noticeable from outside the city walls. Out of the maze of these narrow streets one would never emerge had it not been for the kindness of the Turk, who very thoughtfully cut a broad road right through the center of the town in commemoration of the fall of Kut. Now, in our day, we use it for the main stream of traffic. But the most charming feature of Bagdad is the river front and this alone is sufficient to compel one’s admiration for the city. Basra in comparison is all mud and shipping. Amara is pretentious with a row of buildings of uniform design facing on a promenade, which reminds one too much of a terrace on the “front” of a small seaside resort. Kut is picturesque too, but designed on a scale befitting its size and importance, and with its mosques and public buildings, the palms and the trees and more especially the numbers of delightful riverside houses, with their verandas and balconies and their exquisite little gardens overhanging the river, 3 Bagdad has a character and a charm all Its own.

AI Maidan, a New Street Through Center of Bagdad.