According to the ninth-century Arab geographer and historian Yaqubi, author of The Book of Countries, its trade-friendly position on the Tigris close to the Euphrates gave it the potential to be “the crossroads of the universe”. This was a retrospective endorsement. By the time Yaqubi was writing, Baghdad, City of Peace, had already become the centre of the world, capital of the pre-eminent Dar al-Islam, home to pioneering scientists, astronomers, poets, mathematicians, musicians, historians, legalists and philosophers.
