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"Baghdad is a huge camp, man," says my interpreter, Yousif al-Timimi. "America didn't bring democracy. It brought walls." One morning I take a water taxi out onto the Tigris River with a boatman ...

The houses were decorated with textiles on the walls, screens and pottery ... Caliph Al-Mansur ordered the building of Baghdad between AD762 and AD767. There were around 1 million people living ...

Walls in homes and mosques were decorated with ... Doors and windows were often designed as arches. The River Tigris in Baghdad was used for trade, travel and irrigation (watering crops).