Al-Khaṭīb pronounced the ḥadith defective through all of its transmission lines (1). He also narrated it via ʿAmmār ibn Sayf, from al-Thawrī, from Abū ʿUbaydah Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl, from Anas ibn Mālik, yet that chain too is unsound. Likewise he cited it through ʿUmar ibn Yaḥyā, from Sufyān, from Qays ibn Muslim, from Ribʿī, from Ḥudhayfah, raised to the Prophet with similar wording, but it is not authentic. The report is also related—through various channels—from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, Ibn Masʿūd, Thawbān, and Ibn ʿAbbās; in some versions the Sufyānī is mentioned, and that he will lay the city waste.

None of the isnāds of these aḥādīth is sound. Al-Khaṭīb recorded them all with their chains and wordings, yet each of them is objectionable. The least problematic among them is the report from Kaʿb al-Aḥbār. Earlier scriptures state that the one who would build the city would be called Miqlās and Dhū ’l-Dawāniq. Al-Manṣūr was indeed nicknamed Miqlās in his youth, and when he came to power he was dubbed Dhū ’l-Dawāniq because of his stinginess.

Section: The Merits and Faults of Baghdad and What Has Been Reported on the Matter by the Imams

Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Ṣadafī said:
Al-Shāfiʿī asked me, “Have you ever seen Baghdad?”
I replied, “No.”
He said, “Then you have not seen the world.”

Al-Shāfiʿī also said, “I never entered any town without counting it a journey—except Baghdad. The moment I entered it, I regarded it as a homeland (2).”

Someone remarked, “The world is a desert, while Baghdad is its metropolis.”

Ibn ʿUlayyah said, “I have not seen anyone more intelligent in the pursuit of ḥadith than the people of Baghdad, nor anyone more composed than they.”

Ibn Mujāhid said, “I saw Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ in a dream and asked, ‘What has Allah done with you?’ He replied, ‘Leave that aside; whoever remained in Baghdad upon the sunnah and the mainstream community and died there is transported from one garden of Paradise to another (3).’”

Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh said, “Islam is in Baghdad, and the city is a hunter that captures men. Whoever has not seen it has not seen the world.”

Abū Muʿāwiyah said, “Baghdad is the abode of this world and the hereafter.”

Others said, “Among the beauties of Islam are Friday in Baghdad, the Friday prayer in Baghdad, the tarāwīḥ prayer in Mecca, and ʿĪd day in Ṭarsūs.”

Al-Khaṭīb (4) said, “Whoever attends Friday in Madīnat al-Salām finds that Allah magnifies in his heart the standing of Islam, for our teachers used to say: ‘Friday in Baghdad is like ʿĪd in any other land.’”