The cradle of civilization
No doubt that Sumer was the earliest civilization and one of the greatest civilizations in the history of mankind. The intellectual products are still living presenting a very interessting subject for reasearch.
Writing about Sumer, why?
1.The impressing achievements of this civilization. The itellectual products i religion, philosophy, litterature and mathmetics must be acknoweldeged. Younger generations must know about Sumer and an inspiring example of civilization.
2.The Sumerian were congored may times military. Their enimies destroy their cities many times. But Sumer revive and Sumerian build newer more properious cities igniting envy and greediness in their enimies' hearts. It ended that the Sumerian enimies who conquroered Sumer, adopted Sumerian culture. As a Shia, I find a connection between Sumerian civilization and Shiism. The Shia enimies massacred, tortured, jailed, exiled and deprived the Shia during the last 1400 years. The Shiism lived and become stronger. Gahndi was wise to discover this and put it into his famous word: “I learnd from Al-Hussein how to achieve victory while being oppressed.” This is a lesson to be learned.
3. Least important is because I was born in Al-Nasserya. A city were the old Sumerian city of Ur existed. The people of the Southern Iraq still have many Sumerian traits. Despite the destruction of their cities they gave birth to thousands of itelectuals.
History begins at Sumer
The story of Sumer
Between the Tigers and Euphrates, the sun shone on the first human civilization, Sumer. The Sumerians cultivated land and traded with their neighbors. There small reed boats travelled as far as the India to the east and may be South America to the west. Their scientists worked in Medicine, Astronomy, Mathematics, Chemistry and Physics. Their poets, writers and priests produced a huge library telling us about the life in Sumer at that time. Kevin Railly while telling the history of civilization compares the Sumerian and the Egyptian civilizations pointing out that the Tigers and Euphrates flood could not be expected and when it occurs it endure unlimited damage while the Nile flooding was predictable and the damage is more to the south. Therefore the Sumerian needed more complicated mathematical calculations for predicting the flooding time and had to develop complex mechanisms to control the damage of the flood.
The Sumerian civilization was an intellectual one. If we read the poets, stories and legends of Sumer we will undoubtedly be impressed by their intellectual production however, the gold founded in Egyptian art made it more famous in the world as everyone can see gold but few only those who can see the wisdom.
The Bible, however, made Sumer well known to the entire world. A Sumerian man was chosen by God to be the father of all the three major monolithic religions. The prophet Abraham, who was born in Ur, stood boldly against the worship of sculptures that used to represent different Gods. Abraham was ready to sacrifice his for his principles. This became deeply implanted in Sumerian culture, transmitted through generations and it is what we see in Iraqi Shi’a. Was the Sumerian Shi’a or let me formulate it in another way: Are the Shi’a descendent of Sumerians? I believe so.
Just have a look at the areas where the Sumerian lived and their civilization flourished. They are Shi’a populated now. Thus, the Southern Iraq, the Ahwaz areas in Iran and Bahrain are all strongholds of Shi’a. Religion played an essential role in the Sumerians life so it is in the Shi’as life. Passion for science, culture and art is another common point. Being massacred by cold blood warriors who have no appreciation for religion, science or culture seems to be, unfortunately, a common destiny. However, survival and revival of Sumer is the same survival and revival of the Shi’a faith despite the tyranny. At the end, are the Shi’a descendent of Sumerians?
