Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

Abu Jafar Al-Mansur
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A mass levy of forced labour was used the labour was paid a habbus (two pence) and the ustadh (overseer or mason) a qirat of silver daily. The initial cost was about 18,000,000 dinars. About a hundred thousand architects and artisans were employed. The new capital was in the centre of the Abbasid possessions. It had its strategic importance, surrounded on three sides by Kufa, Wasit and Basrah the three cities of turbulence easy to keep under vigilance with military barracks on the eastern shore having easy access to the Persian Gulf, Arabia, Syria, Armenia and the East. Military cantonments were constructed opposite to Karkh on the west and separate quarters were fixed for the Yamanis, Mudars and Khurasani contingents on which Mansur depended for his military power and to which his dynasty, in the absence of a strong ruler, ultimately succumbed the sites around the city were given to kinsmen, clients and officers as fiefs and the city was named Dar al-Salam (House or city of peace).
A few years later a palace was built in 151/769 on the left side of the Tigris under the name of al-Rusafah for Mahdi who was nominated as heir apparent in 147/765 deposing Isa who had been nominated by his predecessor. Baghdad was founded actually as a military base but it grew into a big city later against the original plan of Mansur on the east bank of the Tigris. The Abbasid rulers went on adding to the construction of the city till in the fourth century of Hijrah, it became the greatest city at the time having 17,000 baths more than 17,000 mosques and 10,000 roads and lanes. Baghdad therefore fell heir to the glory of Ctesiphon, Babylon, Ninevah and Ur and opened ideas from the east foreign influence particularly Persian began to be felt in every walk of life and in governmental institutions. Mansur himself gave the lead by opening a bureau of translation where Greeks and Persian works were translated into Arabic. Mansur strengthened the defences of Kufa and Basrah and built another citadel close to al-Raqqa on the upper reaches of the Euphrates under the name of al-Rafiqah garrisoned mainly with the Khurasanis.
A complete change came in the court etiquette. The Umayyads caliphs represented the Arab sheikhs while the Abbasid caliphs, the Persian monarchs. Rank and dignity ceased to be hereditary and depended on the whims and fancies of the caliph. The actual work of administration was left in the hands of the wazir, the

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Political and Cultural History of Islam

caliph, however remained the sole arbiter of the life and death of the
subjects.