Everyone is here, the young, the old, the regulars and the newbies. Baghdad never looked this good - Baghdad Street, that is,

in the heart of Singapore's old Arab quarter. Called Kampong Glam, the district was once the commercial center for Arab traders and is the heart of Muslim culture in the country.

At first glance, the streets of this small district may not look anything like the bazaars of the Middle East but remnants of early Arab influence remain.

Baghdad isn't the only city namechecked here. Street names connect the neighborhood to its distant past: Muscat, Arab and Kandahar, to name a few.

Kandahar Street is a far cry from Afghanistan's battered second city: Beautifully carved latticed panels lie against the barred windows of the street's colonial shophouses, in-dividualized by vibrant shades of green, cream and peach.

I hear only the faint sound of a group of men sitting at a plastic table outside a coffee shop, watching me marvel at the architecture.

It's utterly quiet and hard to imagine that the Arabs who once roamed this street were some of the wealthiest people in Singapore. By the early 1900s, the wealth of Singapore's Arabs derived from extensive land ownership across the island, the most famous being Mohammad Alsagoff whose bungalow became Raffles Hotel.

It is a point often overlooked in Singapore's landscape - the Arabs of yesteryear contributed a great deal to building the city.

After all, Arabs have been trading in Southeast Asia since the ninth century. Even Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, Singapore's founding father, rewarded Arab achievements there by allotting them their own district when mapping the city.

The necessary indulgence of the wealthy is to spend and, for colonial Singapore, Arab Street was the shopping district. Today, it is fabric heaven. In a four-block radius, shophouses are filled with batik, silk, beads and other clothing supplies. My eyes become so fatigued from looking at fabric shop after fabric shop that I become giddy with excitement on encountering a few basketware outlets.

After perusing the Arab Street shophouses, a pungent mixture of scents leads me to a cosmetics counter in a department store. Standing against a wooden counter neatly aligned with glass bottles of yellowish liquids is a perfumer who has spotted my curiosity.

"Come in, come in,'' he calls. "I can match any perfume - Poison, Chanel No5, baby powder.''

Baby powder? Not a scent you would expect in such glamorous company. The perfumer fuses oils and hands me a perfume paper to sniff. The smell reminds me of a freshly cleaned baby's bottom. He administers more doses of popular scents but my overworked nose can't distinguish them.

As I swat the perfume-saturated air away from my nose, a Malay man enters the store with a "Walakum salam.'' The perfumer responds with "As-salam walakum.'' The polite, religious in-troductions remind me of the Arab community's prevalent contribution to Southeast Asia - Islam. Singapore was once a major Islamic center for the region's Muslims who stopped in the metropolis for hajj supplies before journeying to Mecca. Stores of prayer carpets, crocheted caps and other Muslim goods surround Muscat Street's Sultan Mosque - Kampong Glam's golden-domed lifeline for the island's many Muslims.

Alongside the export of Islam were the spices that brought Arabs to Southeast Asia - not to mention the British, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the French. Though the spice trade lasted for thousands of years, little of it can be seen in Kampong Glam today.

I'm lucky, then, to stumble upon Mim's Supplies, a small herbal store on the corner of Arab Street. One bottle in particular catches my eye - cajuput oil, a key ingredient in Tiger Balm. Made from the gelam trees that once grew in the area, cajuput oil is the local answer to aspirin and is used for ailments ranging from headaches to arthritis.

After a day of hunting for goods on Arab Street, I sink into a leather chair, massage my aching feet against a Persian carpet and listen to the beats of Arabic music at Ambrosia Cafe, one of Baghdad Street's newest Middle Eastern establishments. My waiter looks vastly different to the Malays wandering around Kampong Glam and perhaps has Arab blood in him. Numbering only 10,000 in Singapore, Arabs have long intermarried with Malays and Indians in Singapore.