The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754-75), decides to build a new capital, surrounded by round walls, near the site of the Sassanid village of Baghdad.

Within fifty years the population outgrows the city walls as people throng to the capital to become part of the Abbasids' enormous bureaucracy or to engage in trade.

Baghdad becomes a vast emporium of trade linking Asia and the Mediterranean.

Baghdad during the reign of its first seven caliphs becomes a center of power where Arab and Iranian cultures mingle to produce a blaze of philosophical, scientific, and literary glory.

This era is remembered throughout the Arab world, and by Iraqis in particular, as the pinnacle of the Islamic past.