The building of Madînat al-Salâm, the Caliph al-Mansûr's palace-city at Baghdad, was a unique event. Unlike previous and later Arab capitale, its splendor and perfection caught the imagination of the médiéval Muslim world. Various persons have been named as designer, and numerous reasons and models given for the unusual circular design. The most detailed and comprehensive of recent treatments is that of Jacob Lassner, who has in two very stimulating books greatly improved our understanding of the city's design and function. Lassner argues that al-Mansûr himself designed Madînat al-Salâm partly on the model of what he claims are similarly-planned cities in Iraq, and that the shape was chosen for purely practical considérations, such as the caliph Js desire to save money and his desire for personal security. 1 Furthermore, he argues against the view that the building of Baghdad was in effect a visible manifestation of the'Abbâsid assumption of Iranian rulership tradition, and he rejects the claims of Charles Wendell and others that the palace-city had symbolic cosmological significance. 2 Lassner is in fact arguing generally against cross-cultural fertilization in the early'Abbâsid realm, and for an Arabo-centric or Islamo-centric interprétation of early médiéval Middle Eastern history.

1. Lassner is right to question the supposed astral symbolism of the palace-city, simply because there are no explicit statements in the sources Connecting the caliph with such symbolism. On the contrary, al-Mansûr is made out to be a stingy, severe Arab ruler. But there are so many highly suspicious un-Islamic things connected with the City of Abu Ca'far that one is nevertheless unavoidably faced with questions of cosmological symbolism.