Past, Present and Future of the Cradle of Civilization (1)

 The Cradle of Civilization is in the region of Mesopotamia that is the area between the two rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and includes Iraq, Northern Jordan, parts of eastern Syria, (Lebanon), Kuwait, southeastern Turkey and western Iran.
These countries are well known as the countries between the two rivers.

They are also the countries in which the first societies known had emerged and developed, and from where the basic three religions were sourced.
Later it developed to include the Near and Middle East lands, which included the Nile Valley in Egypt, the Indus Valley in India and the Yellow River Valley in China.

Great Dynasties established, ruled and either vanished or developed into further civilizations; Samarra, Halaf, Ubaid, Uruk, Akkadia, Ur, Assyria, Babylonia, Hittite, Achamenida, Parsia and many others.

The earliest language was the Sumerian, then the Semetic then the Akkadian then the Aramaic.

Mesopotamians were first to develop industrial tools and materials to improve their social lives, facilitate their trading methods and strengthen their military force.

They invented metal tools, glass making tools, textile making machines, weaving tools.
They built dams, water storage tanks and irrigation systems.
They used copper, bronze iron and gold to make their military armors.
They invented the sexagesimal numeral system, which is the source of 60 minutes/hour and 24 hours/day, 7days/week, 30 days/months, 12 months/year calendar, created the 360 degree circle and mastered in map making.

Mesopotamian people worshiped many Gods through their history, and told legendary tales about those Gods in a mythical way, the echoes of which are still banging till now.

Because of the different religions and powers, Mesopotamia became a battle field where different civilizations and their relevant empires clash, to conquer.

Under the Persian Achemenid Empire, Cyrus the Great became the pre-eminent power of the world. However lately conquered and fell to Alexander the Great of Macedonia. He invaded Persia and managed to overthrew King Darius III and conquered the entirety of the Persian Empire.

He then proceeded to take Syria and most of the Levant coast. He captured Tyre after a long siege. Then he moved to Egypt and many towns were quickly capitulated on his route except Gaza which fell after a long siege similar to the one of Tyre.

In Egypt he considered himself a liberator and was pronounced as the "Master of the Universe", and founded the city of Alexandria which was named after him.

He then marched back into Northern Iraq and defeated Darius once more at the Battle of Gaugamela and captured Babylon. Darius fled to Media then Parthia and Alexander set off in pursuit and just got Darius after his kinsman Bessus stabbed him.

A strange incident then happened there.
Alexander claimed that while Darius was dying he named Alexander as his successor to the Achaemenid Throne, and he considered himself the legitimate successor to Darius.
He declared war against Bessus to avenge Darius death, and followed him to Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.

Alexander the Great had a complete change in attitude and was rapidly transforming into an "Asian Manner" person. He changed a lot of his habits and traditions to new ones from the Asian roots.
He married a Persian woman. He appointed Persian rulers.
The Persians and Indians started to see him as a new prophet rather than an invader.
He was proclaimed as King of Asia. But he preferred to take the Persian title "King of Kings".

This made his military generals conspire against him. They refused to follow his orders and invade further the Indian sub-continent. Then he died mysteriously in Babylon.

After his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart that resulted in the formation of a number of states ruled bu his surviving generals and formed the Arsacid Dynasty. However the wars with Rome and the Nomads, and the fighting among the Parthian nobility had weakened the Arsacids and the empire broke and vanquished by the Persian Sassanids, and Parthia folded into a newly formed province Khorasan.

In the 7th Century AD, the Sassanid Empire was conquered by the Muslim Armies under the famous Arab military leader Khalid Ibn Al Waleed. Consequently Mesopotamia was reunited under the Arabs, but governed by two provinces: Northern Mosul and Southern Baghdad. Later under the Abbasid Dynasty, Baghdad became the capital of the Arab Empire until the sack of Baghdad 1258 by the Mongolian leader Hulagu Khan who left Baghdad with 1 million person dead, and the city was totally burnt including the House of Wisdom and all its libraries. He used the invaluable books to make a passage across the Tigris River.
This year marked the end of the Islamic Golden Age.

Later the Ottoman Turks took over Baghdad and Mesopotamia was ruled as three separate territories: Mosul, Baghdad and Basra which is a territory included Kuwait.

At the end of WWI, Mesopotamia was occupied by the British Army who under the authority of the British Mandate of Mesopotamia, set up the government of Syria and Iraq under one Hashemite ruler.

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, in 1920, the nation-state of Iraq was formed with its present days borders. Kuwait was a British protectorate, granted its independence from Britain in 1961.

In  early 1990s, Saddam Husein the ex-president of Iraq invaded Kuwait to claim it back to its Basra territory, which triggered the West to launch a war with coalition forces against Iraq to liberate Kuwait.

Do you recognize any similarity between the past and present days?

Today we see further attempts to divide the region again into demographic lands. to reshuffle history at present, and prepare it for a certain future.

What is this plan?

I will try to answer this question in the coming blogs.

Sami Cherkaoui

samicherkaouiarabicblog.blogspot.com