ABSTRACT

When Sultan Murad IV and his army reached Baghdad toward the end of 1638 ,

the old city built by Mansur on the r ight bank of the Tigris had all b u t

disappeared. A bridge of boats led to the left bank, where a stout citadel a n d

numerous mosques occupied a small part of a vast open space surrounded by six

miles of crenulated walls that once sheltered a million and a h alf but now bare ly

twenty thousand souls. Impossible to defend against heavy guns, Baghdad

surrendered to the sultan on the twenty-fifth of December 1638 .