Lesson video

Hello, this is Mr. Cooper, tuning in for your second lesson of four in this particular inquiry, looking at how Baghdad was connected to the wider world.

So I hope you enjoyed the first lesson and we're now going to be continuing the story with this lesson.

And so what I would like you to do, same as ever, piece of paper or your book, whatever you're using, date of whatever day it is that you're doing this lesson on and then the title, Baghdad and the Silk Road.

Underline both.

Tidy books, tidy mind, and hide your phone, hide your phone, give it to your parent or your carer.

Just keep it away.

You don't need it.

Not right now, at least.

So do that and when you've done that, restart the video and we will do the lesson together.

So if you could just make sure that you've gotten the title Baghdad and the Silk Road written down in your books or your notes, the second lesson of our four lesson inquiry, make sure you've spelled Baghdad correctly.

B-A-G-H-D-A-D, and then I will tell you the story of a worm.

So here are some worms, specifically silkworms. Now you might be wondering what on earth this has to do with Baghdad and the Muslim world.

Well, quite a lot.

So these are silkworms and out of these worms comes this, silk.

Now, in the ancient world, and actually still to this day, silk is one of the most valuable materials that you can find.

And it comes out of silkworms. Bit gross, but you know, that is what it is.

Now with silk, this is how this is what you then do to it.

You make clothes out of it and here we have some finished silk.

Now this is actually Indian silk but what we see especially happening in the mediaeval, so the period of time that we're talking about, there's huge demand for this silk in Europe.

Now, the problem is silkworms did not, and do not really live in Europe.

And therefore people who wanted this material had to buy it from China or India.

And to do that, people had to carry it, transport it, huge distances, huge distances, and this made silk very expensive.

And therefore the people that bought and sold this material became very wealthy.

Here is an image of Chinese women making silk.

Now this was in the 12th century.

So a few centuries after the foundation of the city of Baghdad, but this was a huge, huge business, huge business in China.

And it was Chinese silk, Indian silk that was transported right the way across the world, over deserts, over mountains, through forests, all the way to Europe.

And this is the kind of thing that we see, the silk was then used.

So this was a silk, the detail that you can see, this is made from silk and it was made in the Byzantine Empire.

So this is a European creation using silk 'cause it was in such high demand.

Now, why am I telling you about silk? Well, this is the roots that people buying and selling silk and other luxury goods like spices or amber, gemstones, all of these very, very expensive goods.

This is the route, roughly the route, that these people travelled on.

So in the far left hand side, we can see the British Isles, Europe, way on the east we have China.

And then we have this link, the pink line, the route taken by people carrying these very expensive luxury goods.

And you'll see, hopefully that this route was right through the Muslim empire, the caliphate, and guess what a caliph named al-Mansur decided to do.

He decided to build a new city right in the middle of this trade route, the Silk Road.

And he named the city Baghdad.

The city was founded in 750 AD and it became one of the most powerful, one of the wealthiest cities in the world at that time.

And it did so, in large part, thanks to the wealth created by the trade of luxury goods like silk.

If you wanted to buy silk in Europe, it is very likely that your silk would have gone through the markets of Baghdad.

So what I'd like you to do now is simply fill in the gaps, using the words in the box below.

You've done this task for me a few times already.

So very simple.

See if you can work out which word goes which, which word goes where, and when you've done that, simply restart the video and I will give you the answers.

So here we go, in Europe there was huge demand for silk made in China.

The silk was transported by merchants across Asia, through the Middle East to Europe.

It was very expensive because it was so hard to get hold of.

The people who bought and sold it became very rich.

The route that the merchants took became known as the Silk Road.

So make sure you've got the correct words in the correct places, especially the first one.

So the demand for silk was in Europe and it was made in China.

And this created the huge demand that some people took advantage of.

And some people became very rich as a consequence of.

So, Baghdad, I've zoomed in to where the city of Baghdad is today.

Now, first of all, so we need to remember the map that I just showed you.

First of all, Baghdad was on the Silk Road.

So it was a major part.

It was a location that if you were trading back and forth across the world, then going through Baghdad, it was a good location.

Now, not only that, but Baghdad, there was some other good reasons why Baghdad was built where it was built.

The blue lines, they are roughly the routes taken by very, very important rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and these two rivers, they kept this part of the world very fertile.

Fertile means that things grew very quickly and very well.

So Baghdad, between these two rivers, which meant that people could travel up and down the rivers as well as get water in this otherwise quite dry part of the world.

And also you can still see actually the darker area, farmland.

So Baghdad, on the Silk Road, near two major rivers, surrounded by farmland.

And what this meant was that Baghdad was perfectly situated.

It was a really good location for a new city.

Sorry, yes, in the green circle is where we see farmland.

So this was what fed the city.

Now, 750 AD, the caliph, the leader of the caliphate decides to build a new city and he decides to make it a round city.

So it was from scratch.

So that meant that he could do what he liked and because he was so rich, because he was so powerful, he decided to make it a round city and in the centre of the city, so there were huge walls, four gates, each one leading to a major road, a major part of the Silk Road.

In the centre was the caliph's huge palace and a huge mosque, the place where Muslims worship, and surrounding the palace there were, surrounding the walls at the round city, there were huge many, many palaces, this part of the caliphate became hugely rich, hugely powerful.

And the city became a real centre of the Muslim world.

Not just the Muslim world, in fact, much, much broader than that.

Unfortunately, not much survives from this time and the walls of the round city have gone, but there were enough enough accounts, enough descriptions of the city for historians to be able to recreate what it looked like.

And this is one of the things that would have been very, very common all over the city.

You would have seen something called a bazaar.

A bazaar is a marketplace, and this was a common sight.

It still is a common sight in many parts of the world but this is a modern bazaar but Baghdad to became rich and powerful because of the trade, the Silk Road and the trade that happened along the Silk Road.

And it was silk, it was spices.

It was all sorts of very luxury goods that made people very rich and very powerful.

So pause here.

Very quick task, which of the following was not a reason why Baghdad was located where it was? So I've just described several reasons why Baghdad was chosen, that location was chosen for this new city.

Which one was not a reason? And of course the answer is, it was easy to defend.

It wasn't easy to defend.

And that's actually something that we'll be looking at in the fourth lesson.

It was not, the city was not built because it was easy to defend.

And one of the reasons for this is that when it was founded, yes, there was some fighting over who should be in charge, but generally the Muslim world was actually very peaceful.

Much more peaceful than it later was.

And this meant that the big concern that the caliph had was not to be able to protect himself, but where was going to make him, where was the most, the easiest to get to? So what you're going to do now, you're going to pause the video very shortly.

You're going to go to the next part of the lesson by clicking on next and the bottom right hand corner of the slide.

You're going to read through the slides and then you're going to find these five questions at the end of the slides.

And then you're going to answer these in full sentences.

Full sentences, very, very important.

So pause now, read the slides and then answer the questions and when you've done that, simply restart the video and then we will get going with the answers.

So first question, what expensive material was made in China and bought in the Roman Empire? The acceptable answer, silk, the good answer, the expensive material made in China that was popular in the Roman Empire was silk.

The difference is one is a full sentence and the other isn't.

I know it might seem annoying to go on about this stuff, but really does matter hugely that you get this full sentence down in your books or your notes.

Two, who was al-Mansur.

Acceptable answer, a caliph.

The good answer al-Mansur was a caliph who founded the Abassid Caliphate and decided to build a new city called Baghdad.

So al-Mansur lowercase A caliph who was kind of the Muslim version of a king or an emperor, he founded the Abbasid Caliphate.

So Abbas was the name of the family that he came from.

And he decided to build a new city called Baghdad, moving the capital city from Damascus in Syria, which we talked about in the last lesson to a new location, Baghdad.

Three, why was the location of Baghdad a good place for a new city? Acceptable answer, it was on the Silk Road.

The good answer, the location of Baghdad was a good place for a new city because it was by two important rivers, next to farming land and in the middle of the Silk Road.

So three very good reasons why Baghdad was located where it was.

Four, what was the shape of Baghdad and what was in the centre? The acceptable answer, a circle, a mosque.

That actually doesn't make any sense so this is why we need to have a full sentence to really explain fully what we're talking about.

So the shape of Baghdad was circle and in the centre was a large mosque and the caliph's palace.

Why were there so many palaces in Baghdad? The acceptable answer, it was a rich city.

Good answer, there were lots of palaces in Baghdad because the city became very rich and powerful thanks to its location on the Silk Road.

So the palaces were a sign of what the wealth of Baghdad.

And this is what made it such a powerful, beautiful place.

It became a centre, thanks to the wealth of the traders who made their money buying and selling things like silk.

So we're now going to be answering, we're going to ask this question, bringing together what we've looked at in the lesson so far.

What made mediaeval Baghdad so wealthy? Different parts of this question, and we're going to be writing it together.

So do not worry, this kind of task is something that we get better as we practise.

Historians, what do we do? Well, we read and we write.

Two things that we practise during these lessons.

So don't panic.

Eight sentences on the screen.

What I want you to do is read through each of these sentences and decide whether the sentence is going to help you answer a question about what made Baghdad so wealthy.

So read each sentence and then have a think, is this information, is this sentence going to help me write about why Baghdad was so wealthy.

The first one we'll do together.

So the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire fought for centuries.

Very interesting.

It's true, but not really about why Baghdad became so wealthy.

So we won't write this one down.

So what I want you to do now for the remaining seven is to read through each sentence and think very carefully, is this going to help me write down, explain why Baghdad became so wealthy? So pause now and have a go.

So here we go.

These are the sentences that I think would be useful sentences to include in an answer what made Baghdad so wealthy.

So first one, Baghdad was built on the main part of the Silk Road.

Of course, this is the major reason why Baghdad became so wealthy.

It was on the Silk Road.

Four, Baghdad was the capital city of the Abbasid caliphate.

So of course, if it's a capital city, the most important city, it's going to be an important place to be and likely that lots of money is going to be heading in that direction.

Five, the Abbasid Caliphate stretched from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to India in the east.

I think that would definitely make sense, actually, important when you're answering this question.

Baghdad, the capital city of a huge, huge, huge caliphate, stretching all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to India in the east.

Seven, there was huge demand for silk in Europe.

Absolutely.

I think this is a useful thing to be including in any answer about Baghdad being wealthy.

And lastly, Baghdad was located between two major rivers and was surrounded by farmland.

I also think these would be useful things to be including in any answer about Baghdad and why it was so wealthy.

It was located not only on the Silk Road, but also between two very big rivers and also lots of farmland.

So make sure you've got those five sentences written down and then we will come to the last part of the lesson where we write it all together.

So we've hopefully done this a few times before.

All we're going to do is turn what we've looked at in the lesson so far into a nice paragraph of no more than five or six sentences.

Now, what we need to do when we start writing is always clearly answer the question.

So the first sentence, Mediaeval Baghdad became wealthy because of its location.

So clearly answering the question, what made Baghdad so wealthy? Reusing the words in the question, and we give a clear reason.

Then we explain why, what do we mean? What about is location? And I've put some sentence starters on the screen.

This is because, this meant that, that is why.

Now these are all sentences that will kind of focus your mind, bringing together the different bits of knowledge that you've learnt in the lesson today.

And to be able to answer and to explain why the location of Baghdad was so important.

But you also might then have another reason that we can think of this difference to its location being important.

So another reason Mediaeval Baghdad became so wealthy was because, for example, it was the capital city of the Abassid Caliphate.

And then if we say that, we also need to then explain why that mattered.

This is because this meant that, that is why.

Now, so have a go at that.

I don't want to spend more than five or 10 minutes on this.

Simply practising our writing to use this really interesting stuff that we've learned in the lesson so far.

And having done that, if you could restart the video and then that will bring us to the end of the lesson.

So if you'd like to please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

This is not compulsory.

It is just if you'd like to.

I would love to see the work that you're producing.

So if you can, please do.

So this brings us to the end of lesson two of our four lesson inquiry on how Baghdad was connected to the wider world.

Have you found interesting? I certainly did, but then I'm a history teacher, so it would be weird if I didn't.

So same as ever, quiz and then you're free to go.

So the quiz won't take you long, just five questions just to make sure we've got these important bits of information lodged in our brain, and then we can use them, well, whenever, which is great.

So have a great day wherever you are, and I'll see you for lesson three.