Baghdad


 * Capital of Iraq and of the Abbasid Caliphate
 * Leaders live in the fortified Green Zone
 * Home of Saddam Hussein
 * Famous leaders included:
 * Harun al-Rashid
 * Sent the elephant Abul-Abbas to Charlemagne
 * Set up House of Wisdom
 * Al-Ma'mun
 * Translated Greek literature in the House of Wisdom
 * Believed Mu'tazilah stuff
 * Ahmad Ibn Hanbal was imprisoned for opposing it
 * Mongols sacked it in 1258 under Hulagu Khan
 * Ended golden age
 * Established as capital after Marwan II lost the Battle of Zab
 * The "Round City"
 * Rise of the Turkish ghulam slave class led this city to be briefly supplanted by Samarra under al-Mu'tasim
 * Tahir ibn Husayn  laid siege for a year after the Battle of Tayy in the Fourth Fitna
 * Al-Tabari, a Persian sage, got into repeated feuds with its religious establishment
 * Christian residents here were spared by a Nestorian Kerait princess named Dokuz Khatun