and the dobayt and the mawāliyā. None of this befell them except because of some of their own sins—“Your Lord is never unjust to His servants” (Fussilat 41:46).

To quit Baghdad in these days—because of the many palpable and moral abominations found there, the widespread use of hashish, and to move instead to the lands of al-Shām, whose people Allah has taken under His special care—is the better, more perfect, and more beautiful course.

Imām Aḥmad related that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“The Hour will not be established until the best of Iraq’s people migrate to al-Shām and the worst of al-Shām’s people migrate to Iraq.” (1)

What has been transmitted about the city of Baghdad and the reports connected to it:

The name has four pronunciations: Baghdād; Baghdādh—with the second dāl left unpointed; Baghdān—with a final nūn; and, with an initial mīm, Maghdān. It is a foreign word. Some say it is a compound of “bagh” and “dād”: bagh meaning “garden” and dād a man’s name. Others say bagh is the name of an idol; still others say it is a demon, while dād means the idol’s gift. For this reason ʿAbd-Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, al-Aṣmaʿī, and others disliked calling it Baghdad, saying instead “the City of Peace,” which is also what its founder Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr named it, because the Tigris was known as Wādī al-Salām. Some people call it al-Zawrāʾ, another of its epithets.

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (2) narrated through the chain of ʿAmmār ibn Sayf—who is accused [of fabrication]—who said: I heard ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal relate from Sufyān al-Thawrī, from Abū ʿUthmān, from Jarīr ibn ʿAbd Allāh that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“A city will be built between the Tigris, the Dijayl, Qutrubulla, and the Sura. The treasures of the earth will be gathered into it, and its rulers will be tyrants. It will disappear from the face of the earth faster than an iron peg driven into soft soil.”

Al-Khaṭīb added: It was also narrated from ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal by Sayf, the nephew of Sufyān al-Thawrī and the brother of ʿAmmār ibn Yūsuf.

I say: Both men are weak and accused, charged with lying. Muḥammad ibn Jābir al-Yamāmī (3) is weak, and Abū Shihāb al-Ḥannāṭ is weak.

Al-Khaṭīb transmitted the report from Sufyān al-Thawrī through ʿĀṣim by several chains and listed them all. He also produced it through the isnād of Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, from Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr, from ʿAmmār ibn Sayf, from al-Thawrī, from ʿĀṣim, from Abū ʿUthmān, from Jarīr, from the Prophet ﷺ.

Aḥmad and Yaḥyā said: “This ḥadīth has no basis.” Aḥmad added: “No trustworthy person has ever narrated it.”