Baghdad

Baghdad, the Jewel of Mesopotamia, has always been a city of paradox—a center of enlightenment and conquest, of innovation and destruction. Rising from the banks of the Tigris in 762 CE, it was the heart of the Abbasid Caliphate, a city of scholars, poets, and theologians, where the great minds of the Islamic Golden Age gathered in the fabled House of Wisdom. Yet, it was also a city that knew devastation: from the Mongol onslaught of 1258, which left its streets awash in blood and ink, to the countless invasions, sieges, and uprisings that shaped its destiny.

The centuries passed, and Baghdad remained a prize fought over by empires—Ottomans, Persians, and eventually the great powers of the 20th century.

But the Baghdad of 2040 is something else entirely.

The Ottoman Years: A City of Faith, Trade, and Forgotten Secrets (16th–20th Century)

By the 16th century, Baghdad had become a contested jewel between the Ottomans and the Safavids of Persia, caught in the endless struggle for dominance over Mesopotamia. When the Ottomans seized permanent control in 1638, they brought with them the rigid structures of imperial rule, alongside the great mosques, caravanserais, and administrative centers that would define Baghdad for centuries.

It was a city that saw both reverence and silence, where faith and mysticism thrived, yet whispers of the past lingered beneath the surface. Baghdad’s streets were filled with merchants from across the Islamic world, scholars from Persia, Arabia, and Anatolia, and traders bringing silks and spices from the East.

Yet, in the quiet corners of the city, in the forgotten ruins and unmarked graves, there were stories best left untold—stories of those who defied the natural order, of things buried deep for a reason.

As the Ottoman grip weakened in the 19th century, Baghdad became an afterthought in a crumbling empire, left to its own intrigues, as European powers cast their eyes toward the riches of Mesopotamia.

The British Mandate and the Birth of Iraq (1920–1958)

The 20th century was unkind to Baghdad. When the Ottoman Empire fell after World War I, the British took control, shaping Iraq’s borders from the remnants of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and southern Ottoman provinces. The city became the capital of a fragile new kingdom, propped up by colonial influence and oil wealth.

By the mid-20th century, Baghdad was a city in flux—a place where British administrators and local elites clashed with a growing nationalist movement. The 1958 coup overthrew the monarchy, ushering in a republic, but instability followed.

The ancient heart of the city remained, with its mosques, bazaars, and remnants of past empires, but Baghdad was no longer just a city of history—it was now a city of political struggle.

Ba’athist Baghdad and the Rise of Saddam Hussein (1968–1990)

With the rise of the Ba’ath Party in 1968, and the eventual dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, Baghdad became a city of both grandeur and oppression. On the surface, Hussein presented himself as a modern Nebuchadnezzar, pouring wealth into massive construction projects, grand palaces, and a revival of Mesopotamian heritage—but beneath this veneer was a regime of paranoia, purges, and brutal repression.

The Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) drained the country. The conflict turned Baghdad into a city of ration lines and funeral processions, yet it remained a power center, a city Hussein would fight to protect at all costs.

In this era, as Iraq’s ambitions clashed with geopolitical realities, the city saw both a resurgence of interest in its past and a tightening grip on any knowledge that might challenge the state’s control.

The Gulf War and the Fracturing of Iraq (1990–1991)

The 1990s were the beginning of the end for Baghdad as it had existed for over a thousand years. The Gulf War (1990–1991) saw American bombs rain down on the city, shattering its infrastructure and crippling its once-thriving economy. The war ended with Iraq’s humiliating defeat, followed by a decade of crippling sanctions, which turned Baghdad into a place of desperation and black markets.

For the first time in centuries, the city’s foundations were shaken not by invaders from the East or West, but by the ghosts of its own forgotten past. Amid the devastation, there were discoveries—artifacts and ruins unearthed by war and desperation. Some of them were immediately lost again, vanishing into private collections or buried under new layers of conflict.

Whatever had been exposed, it was too late to matter. Greater destruction was on the horizon.

The Mideast Meltdown and the End of Baghdad (1994)

By the time of the Mideast Meltdown in 1994, Baghdad was already a wounded city. What came next was annihilation.

As the Middle East descended into nuclear war, Iraq found itself caught in the inferno. Tactical nuclear strikes obliterated Baghdad, turning its historic districts, its grand mosques, its modern government buildings, and even the ruins of ancient Babylon into nothing but radioactive dust.

The great city ceased to exist.

The survivors fled—those who could. The Tigris turned black with poison, and the once-proud capital became a graveyard. The ruins were left to scavengers and death cults, to mutants and radiation storms.

Whatever secrets Baghdad had held—whatever lay beneath its streets, whatever mysteries were hidden in its libraries and tombs—were either lost forever or stolen away in the chaos.

Baghdad in 2040: The Ghost City

By 2040, Baghdad is no more.

The radioactive wasteland that was once the capital of Iraq is now known as the Ghûl Ruins—named after the feral scavengers that prowl its shattered remains. The annual radioactive sandstorms that plague Syria and Iran originate from this graveyard, sweeping the last remnants of the city into the winds.

Yet, in the deep places beneath the ruined earth, the past is still alive.

The last remnants of Baghdad’s history lie in the hands of collectors, occultists, and those who remember what was lost.

But some believe Baghdad is not entirely dead.

There are whispers of a hidden enclave, deep beneath the irradiated ruins—perhaps descendants of those who lived there before the end, or something far older, waiting beneath the sand.

Baghdad, the Jewel of Mesopotamia, has fallen. But history is never truly buried.