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Article: Time trip.(Baghdad, Iraq)
- Article from:
- Current Events, a Weekly Reader publication
- Article date:
- April 25, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Weekly Reader Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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* Today, Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's capital, brings to mind images of war and destruction. But that wasn't always so. Long ago, Baghdad was one of the wonders of the world, a great city at which all marveled.
* Almost two thousand years ago, Baghdad was a city of the Arabian Nights. The story of Sinbad the sailor starts out: "There lived in the city of Baghdad, during the reign of the commander of the faithful, Harun al-Rashid...." Harun al-Rashid (who ruled from A.D. 786 to 809) was a caliph, one of the successors to the prophet Muhammad, who ruled a Muslim empire that stretched from Africa to present-day Iran. The Abbasid dynasty lasted from A.D. 750 to 1258, ...