GA_googleFillSlot(contName + "-Overview-Listing-Wiki_CENTRE_300x250"); Iraq lies in the area which roughly corresponds to what the ancient Greeks called Mesopotamia, (“the land between two rivers”), bounded by the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers. Although the climate is hot and dry, the river basins have provided plenty of fertile grounds for ancient civilisations to develop and flourish. Among these civilisations were the Sumerian city-states (at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, around 3,500 BC), the Akkadian empire (which emerged in the northwest, at around 2,500 BC, and conquered the Sumerians), and the Babylonians.
The Sumerians built levees and irrigation canals to control flooding, developed a writing system (called cuneiform), and built schools to educate the upper class. They also built temples and walled cities surrounded by farmland, each becoming a city-state.
In January 2010, Iraqi archaeologists announced that they had discovered an Sumerian settlement which dated back to 2000 BC in the southern province of Dhi Qar in the in the desert near the ancient city of Ur , the biblical birthplace of Abraham. Artefacts found included walls, cornerstones carrying Sumerian writings, sickles and knives. Ur was an important city until its conquest by Alexander the Great.
The Babylonians were from the Amorite tribe. Their king, Hammurabi, led the tribe into Mesopotamia in 1,800 BC, conquered the Akkadians and built the city of Babylon . He improved the irrigation system, and introduced uniform religious, tax and legal systems, among others.
Around 1550 BC, Babylon was destroyed by the Hittites who came from the region of Anatolia and Syria. However, the Babylonians were not totally annihilated, as their descendents returned to the center stage about 900 years later (in 620 BC) and allied with the Medes of Persia to wipe out the Assyrians who had conquered Mesopotamia in around 1350 BC.
After 620 BC, Mesopotamia first fell under the control of King Cyrus of the Achaemenid Empire of Persia in 600 BC, which was wiped out by Alexander the Great in 334 BC. Seleucus (the general who took over Mesopotamia , Persia and the regions in the east after Alexander’s death) and his empire built the city of Seleucia on the Tigris as the capital. However, the Seleucids were driven into extinction by the Romans and the Parthians from Persia by 64 BC.
Islam came to Iraq in 637 AD when the Arab’s invaded the Middle East and established the Umayyad Caliphate based in Damascus, but when the Abbasid Caliphate drove out the Umayyads in 750 AD and established its capital in Baghdad, Iraq became the cultural centre of the Islamic world.
However, in the 13th and 14th centuries, Mesopotamia was invaded twice by the Mongol herds. The first time, it was by the grandson of Genghis Khan, Hulagu, in 1257, who destroyed Baghdad, and the second time by Timur, who claimed to be a descendant of Genghis Khan, in around 1390. The rise of the Ottomans in the 15th century and their capture of Baghdad in 1534 made them the rulers of present-day Iraq and the rest of the region until WW I.
Iraq is really the product of the western powers’ creation under a mandate granted by the League of Nations to the British. As the Iraqis clamoured for independence from foreign domination, a Hashemite king Faisal, whose roots came from Mecca, was crowned king to head a provisional government in 1921. Constant revolts by the local population forced the British to withdraw and grant full independence to Iraq in 1932.
The history of Iraq since then has been a story of chaos, murder and violence. The monarchy was abolished in 1958 following a coup when the king, the prime minister and others were killed. Afterwards, the country was ruled by strongmen; democratic institutions and tradition were not given a chance to develop, and eventually Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979 and continued the tradition of rule by violence.
