My Iraqi History

Brief History... Modern-day Iraq (the Arabic word for “cliff’) contains the ancient land of Mesopotamia, or “the land between the rivers”. The rivers are the Tigris and the Euphrates, which originate in the mountains of Turkey and flow southward through Syria into Iraq. Between these two rivers lies a fertile plain where, as far as the known, the 1st human civilization flourished. By the year 4000 BC, the Sumerians had established cities and government institutions, the earliest known on the planet. Writing, mathematics and science also began in Sumer. The Akkadians conquered Sumer in 2334 BC, but a mere 200 years later, the Sumerians regained control of the region. From then on, a series of people invaded and conquered this fertile land. The Babylonians gained control in 1900 BC and ruled for 300 years, during which king Hammurabi developed his famous law code. The Assyrians followed the Babylonians, then the Chaldeans took over in the 7th century BC. Perhaps the best remembered Chaldean leader was Nebuchadnezzar II, who reigned from 605 to 562 BC from the capital city of Babylon, and build one of the seven wonders of the world, the Hanging gardens. The Persian invaded in 550 BC, then Alexander the Great conquered the Persians and claimed Mesopotamia for the Greeks in 331 BC. The Greeks introduced metropolitan cities and scientific rationalism and improved irrigation methods, trade and commerce. In 126 BC, the Persian took command and ruled for about 300 years. The Romans occupied the land briefly two different times: once from AD 98 – 117, and again from AD 193 – 211. the next conquerors were the Iranian Sasanids, who took charge in AD 227, and then Islamic troops, who entered the country in AD 636. The Arab tribes from the Arabian Peninsula, arrived to Iraq to teach Iraqis about Islam. The Iraqi Arab tribes (Christians and others), embraced the new religion en masse and converted to Islam. They then joined the new forces and fought against the Persians. By AD 650, Iraq was an Islamic state. The golden age of Iraq occurred during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphate, from AD 750 to 1258. in 762, Baghdad became the capital and center of political power, science and culture in the Middle East and Europe. By the time of the Mongol invasion of the Middle East, the Abbasid empire had fragmented into many small realms which showed allegiance to Baghdad in name only, which resulted in the “Fall of Baghdad” in 1258. History reports that the river of Tigris’s color turned black from the ink of all the books thrown and burned from libraries by the Mongols. Yet, most of the Mongols who stayed in their newly conquered state, converted to Islam as well. The Ottoman Turks eventually added Iraq to their empire in the 16th century. It remained that way until World War I, when Britain invaded it in 1917 – 18. Twelve years later, in October 1932, Iraq was recognized as an independent monarchy. taken from: WORLDMARK - Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life

Abbasid Palace in Baghdad

In 750AD, Abo al Abbas was established in Baghdad as the first caliph of the Abbasid dynasty, which became an important commercial, cultural, and a famous center of learning in the Middle Ages, and was regarded in the tenth century, the intellectual center of the world. As capital of the caliphate, Baghdad was also to become the cultural capital of the Islamic world. Baghdad became a center of power in the world, where Arab and Persian cultures mingled to produce a blaze of philosophical, scientific, and literary glory.

The Fertile Crescent Civilization developed slowly in different parts of the world. People began to settle in areas with abundant natural resources. A section of the Middle East is called the Fertile Crescent. The Fertile Crescent is a rich food-growing area in a part of the world where most of the land is too dry for farming. The Fertile Crescent begins on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and curves around like a quarter moon to the Persian Gulf. Some of the best farmland of the Fertile Crescent is in a narrow strip of land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The Greeks later called this region Mesopotamia, which means "between the rivers." Many different civilizations developed in this small region. First came the Sumerians, who were replaced in turn by the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Today this land is known as Iraq. Resource: http://www.mrdowling.com/603mesopotamia.html
SOME of the Civilizations of Iraq...
Babylon	Hammurabi Hammurabi was the king of the city-state of Babylon. About 1800BC, Hammurabi conquered the nearby city-states and created the kingdom of Babylonia. He recorded a system of laws called the Code of Hammurabi. The 282 laws were engraved in stone and placed in a public location for everyone to see. Hammurabi required that people be responsible for their actions. Some of Hammurabi's laws were based on the principle "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." This means that whoever commits an injury should be punished in the same manner as that injury. If someone put out another person's eye, their eye would be put out in return. Hammurabi's Code may seem cruel today, but it was an early attempt at law. Laws are rules that are known to people. (Take a look at the 282 laws of Hammurabi) Resource: http://www.mrdowling.com/603mesopotamia.html
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC) is credited for building the legendary Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It is said that the Gardens were built by Nebuchadnezzar to please his wife or concubine, Amyitis, who had been "brought up in Media and had a passion for mountain surroundings". He did this because his wife had lived in the mountains and she was homesick on the flat plains of Babylon. He planted a large amount of brightly colored tropical plants on the roof of the palace. The gardens were completed around 600 BC. The Hanging Gardens were built on top of stone arches 23 meters above ground and watered from the Euphrates by a complicated mechanical system. It was Nebuchadnezzar II who restored Mesopotamia to its former Babylonian glory and made Babylon the most famous city of the ancient world. The Hanging Gardens on the east bank of the River Euphrates, about 50-km south of Baghdad, Iraq, "Has plants cultivated above ground level, and the roots of the trees are embedded in an upper terrace rather than in the earth. The whole mass is supported on stone columns... Streams of water emerging from elevated sources flow down sloping channels... These waters irrigate the whole garden saturating the roots of plants and keeping the whole area moist. Hence the grass is permanently green and the leaves of trees grow firmly attached to supple branches... This is a work of art of royal luxury and its most striking feature is that the labor of cultivation is suspended above the heads of the spectators." Resource: http://home.achilles.net/~sal/iraq_history.html Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Sumerian Civilization It is only natural for us to look back at our past and try to gain extra strength from our ancestors' achievements and creations. The Sumerian Civilization started in the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent, the area between Baghdad and the Gulf, at around 9,000 B.C. thus before the Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilizations. "HISTORY STARTS IN SUMER" - Samuel Noah Cramer, famous archeologist. The Sumerian Miracle was the civilization that started history, way before the Egyptian miracle and the Greek miracle. In fact, the two latter civilizations were enriched by the Sumerian civilization and it's achievements. The first form of writing was invented in Mesopotamia by the Sumerians around 3,500 B.C., thus, the Sumerian language was the first written language. Therefore, history started at around 3,500 B.C. with the invention of written Sumerian. Although spoken Sumerian faded around 3,000 B.C. written Sumerian remained in use up till 1,000 A.D. Due to the archeological nature of Mesopotamia, most of the Sumerian civilization was built and documented using clay, that was often dried in the sun. Thus, and due to the undurability of clay, many details of the civilization were lost throughout the years. However, the relatively few clay sheets that survived tell a great story about a great civilization. Clay sheets with mathematical problems and solutions, names and descriptions of different trees and plants and names and properties of different metals and stones were found and are witnesses to the Sumerian advances in different fields of science. Also, the first form of a judicial system was introduced by the Sumerians where a huge number of clay sheets detailing individual laws that governed the Sumerian population survived the years and are available for us now to study. If the interest was to find "who invented" something or "where/when was the first time" something was used, then the Sumerian civilization is a satisfactory answer to many of these questions. For example: · The Ceramists' Wheel. · The wheel and cart. · The Sail Boat. · The first Bridge. · The first Dome. · The first Temple. · The first Musical System. · The Harp. · Law courts. · Writing. · Schools. · Parliament. · Myths. · The 60 degrees (60'') system, still used nowadays in measuring time and angles. and many other were all invented in Sumer, which is now known as Iraq. Sumeria was composed of several city-states, or nations the size of cities. Walls around each city-state protected the citizens from outside invaders. Farmland was usually outside the city walls, and people would seek protection from the walls of the city when under attack. The Sumerians were polytheistic, which means they believed in many gods. They worshiped their gods at huge temples they called ziggurats. Each ziggurat was dedicated to a specific god, whom the Sumerians believed ruled over their city. Often when a rival city attacked, the invaders would force the conquered people to accept their gods. Most people in the Western Hemisphere today are monotheists, which means they believe in only one god. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are all monotheistic faiths. [Inspired by the book Sumer and Akad, Dr. Wadee3 Bushour, Damascus 1981] Resource: http://www.mrdowling.com/603mesopotamia.html
	Ancient Sumerians record keepers marked pictographic symbols in soft pieces of clay with a pointed reed. The clay tablets were then baked to make them hard. We call the Sumerian's writing system cuneiform. Cuneiform means wedged shaped, because the marks in the clay were wedges.
	Sumerian's God's Ziggurat
Assyrian Empire	The Assyrians The Assyrians lived upstream on the Tigris River from the Babylonians. The people of the region did not know how to read, but about 1350BC, they managed to conquer all of Mesopotamia a build an empire that reached as far as Egypt. The Assyrians developed powerful armies with iron weapons. They dammed the rivers leading into Babylon. This deprived the Babylonians of water. The Assyrians also used chariots, which allowed them to move quickly, and battering rams, heavy logs carried by many men to break down city walls. In time, the Assyrians were conquered by the Medes and the Persians, two powerful civilizations east of Mesopotamia in land we now call Iran.