Ancient Mesopotamian History
Iraq: area: 438,446sq.km .Population: 18 000 000. Capital: Bagdad
5 000 000 . About 80%Arabic speaking , 15%Kurds 2%Turks . Average annual
rate of population increases 1,6% Currency: Iraqi dinar= 1,000 fils. Economy:
crude petroleum( in 1000 tonnes): 46,819, naturalgas 17000tj Industries:
naptha 460 000 tonnes, jet fuel, woven cotton fabrics, sugar, canned fruit
and vegetables. It's the land of ancient Mespotamia. At one time Mesopotamia
( the land between the rivers ), which encompassed much of the present-day
Iraq, formed the center not only of the Middle east but also of the civilized
world. The pepole of the Tigris and the Euphrates basin, the ancient Sumerians,
using the fertile land and the abundant water supply of the area, developed
sophisticated irrigation systems and created what was probably the first
cereal agriculture as well as the earliest writting, cuneiform. After them
came the Babylonians, they devised the most complete legal system of the
period, the code of Hammurabi. Located at the crossroads in the heart of
the ancient Middle East. They also created the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
one of the seven Wonders of the ancient world. After them , the warlike
Assyrians took the control of the area. Sumer is the ancient name for southern
Mesopotamia. Historians are divided on when the sumerians arrived in the
area, but they agree that the population of sumer was a mixture of linguistic
and ethnic groups that included the earlier inhabitants of the region.The
sumerians were highly innovative people who responded creatively to the
challenges of the changeable Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The Sumerians
were the first people known to have devised a scheme of written representation
as a means of communication. Cuneiform - a way of arranging impression stamped
on clay by the wedge-like section of chopped-off reed. Another important
Sumerian legacy was the recording of literature. The most famous Sumerian
epic and the one that has survived in the most nearly complete form is the
epic of Gilgamesh. The story of Gilgamesh, who actually was king of the
city of Uruk in approximately 2700 B.C., is a moving story of the ruler's
deep sorrow at the death of his friend and of his consequent search for
immorality. Other central themes of the story are a devastating flood and
the tenuous nature of man's existance. Sadam with complex abstraction and
emotional expression, the epic of Gilgamesh reflects the intellectual sophistications
of the sumerians. After them came the Babylonians.During the time of sixth
ruler, King Hammurabi (1792-1750B.C.), Babylonian rule encompassed a huge
area covering most of the Tigris-Euphrates river valley from Sumer and the
Arabic Gulf ( Persian Gulf). Hammurabi devised an elaborate administrative
structure. His greatest achievement, however, was the issuance of a law
code designed " to cause justice to prevail in the country, to destroy
the wicked and evilness.
More information coming soon
THE ARAB CONQUEST AND THE COMING OF ISLAM:
In 634, an army of 18 000 arab muslams, under the leadership
of Khalied ibin al Walied, reached the perimeter of the Eurphrates dealta
.Although the occupying persian force was vastly superior in techniques
and numbres, its soldiers were exhausted from their unremitting campaigns
against the Byzantines. The sassanid troops fought ineffectually, lacking
sufficient reinforcement to do more. The first battle of the muslams
campaign became known as the battle of the Chains because Persian soldiers
were reputedly chained together so that they could not flee. Muslams
offered the inhabitants of Iraq an ultimatum:" Accept the faith and you
are safe; otherwise pay tribute. If you refuse to do either, you have only yourself
to blame. A people is already upon you, loving death as you love life.".
Most of the Iraqi tribes were Christian at the time of the Islamic
conquest. They decided to pay the "jizaya", the tax required of non-muslams
living in Muslam-ruled areas, and not further disturbed. The persian
rallied briefly under their hero, Rustam, and attacked the muslams at Al-Hirah,
west of the Euphrates. There, they were soundly defeated by the Muslams.
The next year, in 635, the Muslams defeated the Persians at the Battle of Buwayb.
Finally, in May 636 at Al-Qadisiyah, a village south of Bagdad on the
Euphrates, Rustam was killed. The persians, who outnumbered the Muslams
six to one, were decisively beaten. From Al Qadisiyah the Muslams pushed
on to the Sassanid capital at Ctesiphon( Madain ). The second caliph
Umar(634-44) ordered the founding of two garrisoned cities to protect the
newly conquered territory: Kufah, named as the capital of Iraq..and later
the capital of Imam Ali, and the founding of Basra, which was also to be a port.
The Muslams cotinued the Sassanid office of divan( Arabic form diwan )
. Esssentially an institution to control income and expenditure through
ercord keeping and the centralization of administration, the divan would be used henceforth
throughout the lands of the Islamic conquest. Arabic erplaced Pesian
as the offical language and it slowly filtered into common language usage.
Iraqis intermarried with Arabs and converted to Islam .
THE ABBASID CALIPHATE,750-1258
In 750, Abd al Abbas was established in Bagdad as the first
caliph of the Abbasid dynasty. The Abbasids, whose line was called
" the blessed dynasty" by it supporters, persented themselves to the
people as divine-right rulers who would initiate a new era of iustice and
prosperity. Their political plicies were, however, remarkably similar to those
of the Umayyads. During the reign of its first seven caliphs, Bagdad
became a center of power in the world, where Arab and Persian cultures
mingled to produce a blaze of philosophical, scientific, and literary
glory. This era is remembered throughout the Arab world, and by the Iraqis
in particular, as the pinnacle of the Islamic past. It was the second
Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754-75 ), who decided to build a new capital,
surrounded by round walls, near the site of the Sassanid village of
Bagdad. Within fifty years the population outgrew the city walls as people
thronged to the capital to become part of the Abbasids' enormous bureaucracy or
to engage in trade. Bagdad became a vast emporium of trade linking Asia
and the Mediterrian. By the reign of Mansur's grandson, Harun ar Rashid ( 786-806 )
, Bagdad was second in size only to Constantinople. Bagdad was able to
feed its enormous population and to export large quantities of grain because
the political administration had realized the importance of contolling the
flows of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers. The Abbasids reconstructed the city's
canals, dikes, and reservoirs, and drained the swamps around Bagdad, freeing
the city of malaria. Harun ar Rashid, the caliph of the Arabian nights, actively
supported intellectual pursuits, but the grat flowering of Arabic culture that
is credited to the Abbasids reached its apogee during the reign of his son, Al-Mamun ( 813-33 ).
After the death of Harun ar Rashid, his son, Amin and Al-Mamun, quarreled over the succession to the caliphate.
Their dispute soon erupted into civil war. Amin was backed by the Iraqis, while
Al Mamun had the support of the Iranians. Al Mamun also had the support of the
garrison at Khorasan and thus was able to take Bagdad in 813. The Iranians had
hoped that Al Mamun would make his capital in their own country, possibly at Merv. Al Mamun,
however, eventually realized that the Iraqi would never countenance the loss of prestige and economic power if they no longer had the capital. More coming soon