BaghdadPrayer Times in Baghdad

Baghdad was founded in 762 CE by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur as the round-walled City of Peace (Madinat al-Salam) and within decades became the largest and richest city of the medieval world, the political and intellectual capital of the Abbasid caliphate. Under Harun al-Rashid and al-Ma'mun the city housed the Bayt al-Hikma, a translation movement that rendered Greek, Persian, and Indian works into Arabic and seeded the development of Islamic philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. Today Baghdad's medieval skyline survives in fragments — the Mustansiriya Madrasa, founded in 1233 as one of the earliest universities in the Islamic world, and the Abbasid Palace remain — alongside major modern mosques such as the Abu Hanifa Mosque in Adhamiya, which honors the founder of the Hanafi school, and the Kadhimiya shrine venerated by Twelver Shia Muslims. Baghdad's mixed Sunni-Shia population continues to give the city a layered religious life despite decades of strain.