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| The Hanging Gardens of
Babylon, built about 600 BC, were a mountain like series of
planted terraces. |
Iraq is the
cradle of civilization. It is how we came to be what we are. Mesopotamia was the
center of the universe and was the oldest civilization anywhere on this planet.
Iraq is an Arabic word
and has been a geographical term for the general area throughout the Islamic
traditions.
The
land of Iraq is important historically, because it is the land where the first
law, the Hamurabi code, was enacted in Babylon thousands of years ago, its where
writing was first discovered 5000 years ago at Uruk, and where the seventh
wonder of the world, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, is situated. It is
important culturally because Iraq was the center of the Islamic Empire (Khilafat),
and Arab civilization for hundred of years. Iraq is where science and culture
prospered, where Arabic language has its two distinguished schools, Kufa and
Basra, and where one of the oldest universities in the world was built, Al
Mustansiriyya University in Baghdad.
It
is also important religiously, as it has the oldest established church in the
world, The Church of the East, founded by St Thomas, one of Christ's 12
disciples. In addition, it has numerous Islamic holy sites such as Karbala,
Najaf, and Baghdad. The holy city of Najaf is the study center of theology
for the world's 150 million Muslims who follow the Shia tradition.
It
is where the two great rivers,
the Tigris and Euphrates meet and gave birth to the concept of agriculture. The
earliest evidence of animal and plant domestication has been found in and around
northern Iraq, dating more than 10,000 years ago.
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Five
thousand years ago, territory now in southern Iraq was the home of the Sumerian
civilization, which contributed such breakthroughs as the wheel and the plow.
The
land of Iraq has been conquered by Alexander the Great, ravaged by the Mongols
and dominated by Britain.
If
you follow
that history to the present, you find Iraq at the epicenter of world
attention, this time as the likely target of an attack by the greatest fire
power that has ever been accumulated in the history of humankind.
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"It is an
ironic twist of fate to stand on the remains of a city in southern Iraq where
the civilized world began and realize it could all end right there as
well," cautions historian Bradley Parker.
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Will the
civilized world of today build the way for enlightenment for the entire world or
will it barrel down a path of self-interest empire building?
In a
rapidly shrinking global village, humanity's only hope for the future is to use
our intellect to develop cooperation in
our neighborhoods and around the globe.
