The Baghdad That Was: Using Primary Sources to Teach World History
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Social Education 73(1), pp 15–22 ©2009 National Council for the Social Studies The Baghdad That Was: Using Primary Sources to Teach World History Joan Brodsky Schur That primary source documents have the power to bring the past alive is no Central Asia and the Silk Roads while news to social studies teachers. What is new in the last 10 years is the number of the Kufah Gate, with access to the south- digitized documents available online that teachers can download and use in their west, led to Medina and Mecca. Situated classrooms. Because of the leadership of organizations like the National Archives and between important overland trade routes the Library of Congress, and the ease with which even local historical associations that linked the city to both the Indian and universities throughout the United States can digitize their collections, most of Ocean and the Mediterranean, Baghdad these resources relate to American history. Documents for teaching world history, quickly became a major world metropolis which for the main part have been translated from another language into English, at a time when London and Paris were are also available—though it may take more persistence to find them. Encouraging in their infancy. It was the Caliphs who teachers to utilize this ever-increasing treasure trove of resources was the goal of encouraged scholars—including Muslims, Syd Golston when she organized the NCSS conference session “It’s the Real Thing: Jews, and Christians—to translate ancient Primary Source Activities for World History” for which I prepared the following Greek texts into Arabic, and to build the lesson plan.1 upon what the Greeks discovered with new scientific and technological advances My purpose was to find documents empathy about Baghdad’s current status of their own. Thus Baghdad and its famed on the web that would bring to life some and what it means to many people around library, the Bayt al Hikmah, became a aspect of Muslim history. After surveying the world today, especially Muslims. center of learning. the field of digitized Arabic-to-English The city was founded in 762 CE by We cannot see that city now—unlike documents, I narrowed my focus to pri- Caliph al-Mansur. With the end of other great historic cities such as mary sources about Baghdad for two Ummyad rule centered in Damascus, al- Constantinople or Rome—little physical compelling reasons: first is the important Mansur was seeking a new capital for what evidence of Baghdad’s glory remains. Its role Baghdad played in world history;2 would become the Abbasid dynasty. He geographical setting explains some of the second has been the inescapable pres- traveled along the Tigris River where he reasons why. The alluvial plain in which ence of war-torn images of Baghdad on found a small town well situated between the metropolis is situated did not have our TV screens. With encouraging signs the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. His plans quarries for building with stone, but was about a renewed future of this capital city, for an expanded city included fortify- perfect for producing mud bricks, which I considered ways that primary source ing it within circular walls. Four gates were either baked in the sun or fired. This documents could help students imagine functioned like spokes in the wheel of the is a convenient building material, but Baghdad at its height—as a great hub of city’s walls. To the southeast lay the Basra not one that endures the centuries. In civilization under the Abbasid Empire Gate that led to the Persian Gulf and the addition, the alluvial plain provided no (749 CE to 1258 CE). By learning about Indian Ocean. The Damascus Gate to the natural defenses, leaving the city prey Baghdad’s role in history, my students northwest opened the city’s doors to Syria to attacks over the centuries. After its would become better informed about the and the Mediterranean. The Khurasan sacking by the Mongols in 1258 CE, past. They would also gain insight and Gate to the northeast led to Persia, Timur, also known as Tamerlane, fur- J ANUARY /FEBRUARY 2009 15 ther destroyed Baghdad in 1393 CE such that little architecture of its golden age survives. Fortunately, accounts by travel- ers and medieval Muslim historians have survived, making it easier for students to imagine the incredible florescence of material and intellectual culture that existed there. If we lack the physical remains of a first-class city, do historians have suf- ficient evidence to classify Baghdad as Norman MacDonald/Saudi Aramco World/PADIA a major metropolis in world history? In the following activity, students consult a variety of primary source documents to evaluate the evidence presented. The lesson can be implemented as part of a world history course to teach about Era 4, Standard 2: Causes and consequences of the rise of Islamic civilization in the 7th-10th centuries and Era 5, Standard 1: The maturing of an interregional system of communication, trade, and cultural In the city once famed for the globe-spanning inventory of the “House of Wisdom,” there exchange in an era of Chinese economic were few libraries left when Ibn Battuta visited. He noted that large sections of the city were “in ruins.” Yet he recorded that “there still remain of [Baghdad] 13 quarters, each power and Islamic Expansion (National 3 quarter like a city in itself with two or three bath-houses, and in eight of them there are Standards for History in the Schools). congregational mosques.” Since civilizations can be judged by the cities they produce, the lesson can Activities for Further Investigation be used to compare Baghdad to other important urban capitals over time. As Beyond implementing the jigsaw activity described, consider asking your stu- the ongoing history of Baghdad unfolds dents to engage in some of the following activities. before our eyes, the lesson also makes a 1. Update Baghdad’s history since World War I, using primary sources. It is important valuable supplement to contemporary for students to understand that Baghdad remained an important and thriving city studies about the Middle East. into the twentieth century. While inherently worthwhile, read- ing primary source documents can 2. Compare Baghdad in the year 1000 C.E. to a European city in terms of its size, present a challenge for some students. amenities, wealth and scholarship. Then teach about the origins of the European Renaissance and its sources in both the Muslim and Greco-Roman past. If you anticipate that some class mem- bers would have difficulty reading the 3. Role-play a meeting of scholars at the Bayt al-Hikmah, the House of Wisdom. Ask documents, I would suggest the following: students to investigate some of Baghdad’s important scientists and the advances they read aloud each document and record it made in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine during the Abbasid Caliphate. There is a very good lesson online for such a role-play, written by Lisa Marie Buoncuore, as a podcast. Use several of your more available through the University of Michigan website, www.umich.edu/~iinet/worl- advanced students as readers, or do it dreach/assets/pdf/neh-units/Buoncuore.pdf yourself. Other students can then listen to the podcast of their document as they 4. Compare Haroun Al Rashid’s patronage of the arts and learning to that of another read along. This will help them to make widely admired ruler in Europe, Asia, or Africa during what we call the Middle Ages or Renaissance. What traits do these rulers share in common? How do their personal sense of its meaning with greater ease. qualities affect the realms they rule? Directions for Using Primary 5. Enhance the lesson through interdisciplinary studies with an English teacher. Do Source Documents in a Jigsaw not forget that Shahrazad, the narrator of the tales in the Thousand and One Nights, is the fictional queen of Baghdad. The young adult novel Shadow Spinner by Susan Activity Fletcher weaves its own story based on the Thousand and One Nights. In their wonder- Tell the class that they are going to study ful novel Seven Daughters and Seven Sons, Cohen and Lovejoy retell an Iraqi folktale five handouts containing primary source about a young Baghdadi woman who joins the caravan trade dressed as a man. documents about Baghdad in order to continued on page 22 S OCIAL EDUCATION 16 Handout A Yakut: Baghdad under the Abbasids, c. 1000 CE The city of Baghdad formed two vast semi-circles on the right and the city were at once vast in size and remarkably beautiful. There left banks of the Tigris, twelve miles in diameter. The numerous were also in Baghdad numerous colleges of learning, hospitals, suburbs, covered with parks, gardens, villas and beautiful prom- infirmaries for both sexes, and lunatic asylums. enades, and plentifully supplied with rich bazaars, and finely built mosques and baths, stretched for a considerable distance From: William Stearns Davis, ed., Readings in Ancient on both sides of the river. In the days of its prosperity the popula- History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. tion of Baghdad and its suburbs amounted to over two millions! (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the The palace of the Caliph stood in the midst of a vast park several West, pp. 365-367. Scanned in and modernized by Dr. Jerome hours in circumference.… The palace grounds were laid out with S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton.This gardens, and adorned with exquisite taste with plants, flowers, text is part of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook located at and trees, reservoirs and fountains, surrounded by sculptured the Fordham University center for Medieval Studies, www.