The History Of Baghdad: The Medieval World's Greatest City

Baghdad is home to 7 million people. This sprawling urban jungle is the second largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. But between the skyscrapers and honking cars you can see remains of this city's magnificent mediaeval past. This once Round City’s walls crumbled long ago. But a thousand years ago brilliant scientists, architects, writers, and merchants of different races and religions made massive contributions to the knowledge of humanity. Back when Paris and London were home to 20,000 people over 1 Million Baghdadi's lived here among canals, libraries, and palm trees.

So what is the history of Baghdad, what’s a House of Wisdom, and what does it all have to do with Mediaeval Robots trying to get people drunk?

This video was researched and written by Deborah Oliveira.

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MERCHANDISE

Sources and Further Reading:

VIDEOS

PODCASTS

BOOKS

The Caliph's Splendor by Benson Bobrick
Baghdad: An Urban History through the Lens of Literature by Iman Al-Attar
The House of Wisdom by Jim al-Khalili
The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan
When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World by Hugh Kennedy

OTHER SOURCES

Maps provided by maptiler/Geolayers

#History #Baghdad #Animation #AncientHistory

[ScorpoYT]

The sacking of Baghdad and the burning of Alexandria are truly one of the most depressing events in history

[william]

It's sad to see Baghdad, Timbuktu and Alexandria have declined as much as they have today. It would've been incredible seeing them in their prime

[aleefbilal]

FunFact: In Baghdad, a scholar would give a lecture, and the students from China to Europe would just come, listen to it take notes and do their research. It was like a university without tuition fee or admission. It was just like modern day YOUTUBE.

[Bitter_Biscuit]

As an Iraqi, I am so happy that you did this video, and I learned few things that I didn't know about my city.
It's sad that we've been through a lot of trouble but we are making steady progress.
Much love <3

[alialla]

as a man who born and still lives in Baghdad I appreciate your work
what an amazing video
I really feel sad about what happened in Iraq I even teared up in the end

thank you

[asmrnaturecat]

there's a saying: a book is written in Egypt, printed in Labenon and read in Iraq
shows that up to this date, iraqi or specifically Baghdadi still carries the tradition of loving knowledge

[ronnychristenjoyer]

You've really improved visually. Living as a scholar during the peak of the Abbasid golden age must have been like living in another world.

[rishikeshwagh]

How different would the world be if the libraries at Alexandria, Baghdad, Takshashila and Nalanda had not been destroyed

[mushfiqurrahman]

when he said "you can still walk on this Mutanabi Street", I don't know why tears suddenly came to eyes. Just felt overwhelmed by the knowledge that a street has been a book sharing place for a thousand years!

[JonPRuff]

Love the new visual you used in this one! Especially the camera going through the 3D structures while keeping the characters with the same 2D look.

[belalabusultan]

Baghdad was a great experience of an urban metropolis before the age of Industry.
million people living there, urban planning of the city-skape, modern hospitals, research facilities, multi-cultural hubs
their transportation system was still under-developed, with horses and carriages, there were no electricity, no electonics, and had an authortrian government, but aside from that, it would feel like a modern city, like New York, or Hong Kong, or London etc...

[hi-sjcu]

Truly "don't cry because it's over smile because it happened" moment

[saulgoodmanKAZAKH]

I had no idea Baghdad had such a rich history. Thanks for spreading the word

[osekkai-san]

Dang, I feel genuine sadness when you said that Mongol took over Baghdad and destroyed the House of Wisdom, and massacred those scholars...

[strategossable]

Absolutely amazing video - the graphics, the script, the choice of historical time period/location... all very impressive.
Thank you!

[himesilva]

Thanks for this, I’ve been wanting to learn more about Arabic history. There’s such a rich and beautiful culture that I unfortunately never learned about in school. I was 3 years old when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq started, and I think a lot of people my age forget that for the majority of history, these places were the peak of civilization.

[Elldorado]

Thank you for this amazing content. It's easy to forget that the modern world has only existed for a couple of centuries, while there are other wonderful achievements in history that we forget about. This is also putting things into perspective when such an amazing place existed and was completely destroyed, that places we think highly of today can be removed from the map in centuries to come.

[Amar]

This is the Baghdad that I know, not the one of war and destruction. Thank you for making this video from an Irish Mesopotamian

[zakkart]

GODDAMN! Really outdone yourself with the 3d representation of the city. Great job!

[mr.husbandoeu]

Hearing the islamic golden age really brings a tear to my eye, and the way the vid is narrated is really vivid that you can actually see the events unfold