| In 762 AD the new rulers, called the Abbasid caliphs, founded a new capital city on the river Tigris. |
| For the next 1,300 years, a succession of Arab, Mameluke, and Ottoman caliphs, beys, and sultans ruled the country. |
| The first four caliphs succeeded by acclamation, in accordance with tribal custom. |
| Under the Abbasid caliphs who made it their capital in AD 762, it was a walled centre of culture and learning. |
| There had been a cult of gastronomy at the court of the Sasanian Empire and the caliphs of Baghdad gratefully adopted it. |
| The first of these Caliphs was al-Aziz, who was the first of the Fatimid caliphs to begin his reign in Egypt. |
