world

Iraq, which gave the world Saddam Hussein, is also the birthplace of writing, the plow and the first great code of law. It's also the birthplace of Abraham, father of the Jews and the Arabs.

In earlier epochs, the territory now called Iraq was the center of the greatest powers of the day. At other times it was conquered by Alexander the Great, ravaged by the Mongols and dominated by empires based in Persia, Turkey and Britain.

Follow that history to the present, and you find Iraq at the epicenter of world attention, this time as the likely target of an attack by the greatest power of the early 21st century. Trace the history back about 12,000 years and you find two great rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates - meeting at the cradle of Western civilization.

The Fertile Crescent between those rivers provided the ample water, rich land and favorable climate that made possible major breakthroughs in early human history. Of the many names by which the territory has been known, the most common is Mesopotamia, a Greek term that means the land between the rivers. Agriculture may have started there. The earliest evidence of animal and plant domestication has been found in and around northern Iraq, from more than 10,000 years ago.

Five thousand years ago, territory now in southern Iraq was the home of the Sumerian civilization, which contributed such breakthroughs as the wheel, the plow and writing.

Other ancient civilizations were based in Iraqi territory, such as the Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian empires. Babylon was about 50 miles south of where Baghdad now stands. Hammurabi, the famous Babylonian king who ruled in the late 18th century B.C., promulgated the most highly developed legal code that survives from early history. It was, for example, the first known legal code that took into account whether a crime had been committed deliberately or accidentally.

Nebuchadnezzar, a later Babylonian king and builder of the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, attacked Jerusalem to put down a rebellion, destroyed the temple King Solomon had built there (587 B.C.), and dragged much of the Jewish population back to Babylon, (the episode known as the Babylonian Captivity), where a number of Bible stories are set. For example Daniel, of lion's den fame, got his start as a soothsayer by interpreting Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, according to the Bible.

Many Bible stories - starting with Adam and Eve - are set in and around Mesopotamia, either literally or according to tradition. The Bible says that the patriarch Abraham came from Ur, a great city of ancient Mesopotamia. The story of the Tower of Babel is set in Babylonia. And Nineveh, the metropolis to which God sent Jonah to warn the people to change their wicked ways, was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, near the northern Iraq city of Mosul.

But after the Nebuchadnezzar period, Mesopotamia's centuries as a center of empires were mostly over, and the territory instead became one over which other great empires fought. Cyrus the Great, creator of the ancient Persian Empire, conquered Mesopotamia in the mid-6th century B.C.

Alexander the Great took it from the Persians during his brief but action-packed life, made his capital in Babylon, and died there of a sudden illness in 323 B.C. Mesopotamia fell back under Persian domination in the next several centuries. The Iraqi population, mostly Persian-speaking Christians during that period, became mostly Arab-speaking Muslims after Islamic warriors took control of the territory in the 7th century A.D., just after the death of the Prophet Mohammed. Iraq has been a mostly Arab-Muslim nation ever since. Iraq is an Arabic word that appears in the Qu'ran and has been a geographical term for the general area throughout the Muslim era.

The territory also played an important role in the schism between Sunnism and Shiism, the two major Muslim sects, which arose in the 650s between backers of two rivals claiming to be the fourth caliph, the title taken by Mohammed's successors. Shiites evolved from those who backed the claim of Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law, Imam Ali. Ali had his base in Basra, and the first big battle in the intra-Muslim war, known as the Battle of the Camel, was fought on Iraqi territory.

1001 Arabian Nights

Baghdad, the capital of modern Iraq, was a small village until 762, when the rulers of the Abbasid Caliphate built their capital there. It soon became the center of the Muslim world and one of the world's greatest cities.

The early 9th century was a golden age for Muslim culture, and Baghdad was its center. The tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights, featuring Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sinbad the Sailor, are set in this period's thriving Baghdad. The classic texts of ancient Greece are alive today because Iraq-based scholars translated them into Arabic during this flowering of arts, science and medicine.

Saladin, the 12th-century Muslim leader of legendary chivalry who defeated the Crusaders, was a Kurd, born in Tikrit - very near where Saddam Hussein was born.

Baghdad remained an important Islamic capital for centuries until the next campaign of conquest swept through the region. Hulagu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, led a Mongol army that utterly destroyed Baghdad in 1258. Hulagu made a pyramid of the skulls of Baghdad's scholars, religious leaders and poets, and destroyed Iraq's highly developed canal system.

This incident provided the background for a recent tirade by Saddam. On Jan. 17, pledging to repel any U.S. invasion, Saddam warned that "the people of Baghdad have resolved to compel the Mongols of this age to commit suicide on its walls." Referring to President Bush as "the Hulagu of this age," he called on Iraqis to "tell him in a clear, loud voice, `Oh, evil, cease your evil doings against the mother of civilization.' "

In 1401, another Mongol warrior, Tamerlane, sacked Baghdad, massacred thousands of Iraqis and devastated hundreds of towns.