Martin Henry"AND TERAH took his son Abram and his grandson Lot... and his daughter-in-law Sarai... and they went out... from Ur of the Chaldeans..." Abraham, as he was later renamed, is perhaps the most famous Iraqi, the father of the three monotheistic world faiths. The city of Ur where he originated as a migrant has been archaeologically well established in what is now southern Iraq.
Long before Abraham left for Canaan another matter of enormous significance in current world history during and after his time, a series of mighty civilisations occupied the Tigris-Euphrates valley, modern Iraqi territory, and into the mountains of what is now north-eastern Turkey. Saddam Hussein, who may be a despot and even psychotic but is no fool, is keenly aware of this long and proud history of civilisations and empires on his territory. It is very doubtful if George W. Bush, who like most Americans may be historically and geographically challenged, but is himself no fool, has any such awareness.
Pulling from comparatively recent history, Saddam has vowed that "the people of Baghdad have resolved to compel the Mongols of this age to commit suicide on its walls."
Thousands of years before the Mongols came knocking on the gates of Baghdad (they actually captured and destroyed the city in 1258 AD rather than committed suicide on its walls) a major urban civilisation emerged in Mesopotamia, the lower reaches of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. Mesopotamia is from the Greek meaning "between the rivers". This Sumerian civilisation built city-states, used irrigation, invented bronze, created fabulous art in clay (having developed the potter's wheel), in copper, bronze and gold, and with precious stones.
And they developed cuneiform writing, the first script known, from which a lot has been learnt about their civilisation. An American organisation called Liberty Fund uses a cuneiform inscription as the design motif for its publications. That inscription, ama-gi in Sumerian is the earliest known written appearance of the word "freedom" and it was found on a clay document written about 2,300 BC in the city-state of Lagash. The irony of these things! Remember Operation Enduring Freedom?
The great era of the Sumerian city-states lasted about 1,500 years, three times as long as post-Columbian American history! Abraham's city of Ur was already old when Abraham lived there around 2000 BC. The city had two-storey houses, and a large tower temple at its centre, all made of bricks. Mesopotamia has no natural stone.
The bricks and the tower-temple are reminiscent of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel: "Let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly". They had brick for stone, and asphalt for mortar. "Let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens." City, skyscraper, World Trade Centre!
Further north in Iraqi territory, and later in time, the mighty civilisations of Babylon and Assyria arose. These are better known because of their intersections with biblical history and the children of Abraham in Canaan.
The warrior-king Hammurabi took Babylon to greatness in a 40-year rule from 1709-1669 BC. The city of Babylon itself came to be a wonder of the ancient world. The Babylonians advanced mathematics and astronomy and from them we have inherited the system of numbers of counting in sixes and tens from which we get our measure of time, 360 degrees, and other measures.
The Babylonians built the first known library and had perhaps the first standing army. Hammurabi created a famous Code of Laws, the oldest surviving. Women enjoyed rights such as inheriting their husband's property, which was unknown in other cultures of the time and contract law for business transactions were highly developed.
The Hebrew prophets, however, railed against Babylon which became, and remains, a symbol of hubristic pomp and pride and vice. Isaiah prophesied, at the height of the second peak of Babylonian civilisation, "and Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldean's pride will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited, nor will it be settled from generation to generation". In 700 BC this pronouncement was about as credible as the same utterance against the United States in 2003 AD! But the city of Babylon did completely disappear until its
rubble was rediscovered by German archaeologists in the
19th century 60 miles south of modern Baghdad.
The city Nineveh, to which the prophet Jonah was sent, was the capital of the Assyrian empire centred in northern Iraqi territory. The Assyrians were a ruthless warrior people, as Saddam Hussein views the modern Iraqis in his fantasies. They were among the first to exploit iron for weaponry and they had swift chariot brigades, the shock forces of the invincible Assyrian army - the equivalent of American (not Iraqi!) air power today.
The Hebrew prophet Nahum prophesied the destruction of Assyria and its capital Nineveh in some of the most dramatic language of the Old Testament; "Behold, I am against you says the Lord of hosts, I will burn your chariots. Woe to the bloody city. It is full of lies and robbery. Its
victim never departs . Horsemen charge with bright sword and
glittering spear . I will show the nations your nakedness . I will cast abominable filth upon you. Your injury is fatal. Everyone who hears the news claps his hand at your fall, for who has not felt your endless cruelty?"
An impending war on Iraqi territory, the home of old and mighty civilisations, approaches with the rhetoric of religious language on both sides, a battle of good against evil, a just war. The God who summoned Abraham out of Chaldean Ur, according to the historical narrative of Scripture, once sent a message to the last great king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, on the eve of the sudden demise of the greatest power of the day: The Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever
He wills.
Martin Henry is a
communication specialist.
