Baghdad, the capital of modern iraq, was founded by the first Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, in ad 762. Early in its history the city became the focus of a Bacchic culture (see arab poets), celebrated most eloquently by the poet abu nuwas. Although wine was imbibed in the Caliphal court and some outlying districts of the city (al-Karkh, for example), most wine was consumed where it was produced, in the small monasteries and towns that lay outside the city in various parts of Iraq. Their names are preserved in poetry and other sources (‘Āna, Hīt, Qutrubbul in the vicinity of the city, for example, and Tīzanabādh further south near Kufa).
