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For much of its extraordinary life, Baghdad, known for centuries as the City of Peace, enjoyed both cultural and commercial preeminence. For five centuries it was the seat of the Abbasid Empire, a marvel of glittering palaces, exquisite parks, magnificent mosques, and Islamic colleges. It was a city boasting the most accomplished astronomers, mathematicians, doctors, musicians, and poetsit was here, in the time of the caliphs, that the great Arabic classic One Thousand and One Nights was set. With its teeming markets watered by the Tigris, Baghdad was a thriving trading emporium, attracting merchants from Central Asia to the Atlantic its economy was the envy of West and East alike. Yet Baghdads inhabitants have also seen many terrible hardships, from epidemics and famines to invasions and devastating floods.