ABSTRACT
The region of Mesopotamia* within which the modern state of Iraq was established has been ruled by many successive empires from the earliest recorded periods of history. It was ruled in turn by the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Persians and the Greeks. In 247 BC it fell once more into Persian hands and remained under their control until its conquest by the Arabs in AD 636. Within a little over a century Iraq had become the centre of Arab civilisation, and its newly created capital, Baghdad, became and remained the seat of the Abbasid Caliphs until the final disintegration of the Abbasid Empire in 1258.
