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April 20, 2003
Eden or not, Iraq key in three faiths
By DONNA CALLEA | News-Journal Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH — In the beginning, according to the Bible and the Quran, God created mankind.
Just when, where and how that creation took place has been endlessly debated and interpreted.
But some maps of the ancient world do pinpoint the location of the Garden of Eden.
It's in Iraq.
Viewed in light of current events, that war-torn and troubled part of the world may seem a far cry from Eden.
But historically and religiously, its roots go very deep, according to local Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars.
Although Iraq does not play a role in the Easter story – which commemorates the resurrection of Jesus and is celebrated today by many Christians – nor the story of Passover – the eight-day Jewish holiday that began at sunset Wednesday and marks the biblical exodus from slavery in Egypt – it is the setting of some of humankind's earliest meditations on faith.
"People from the beginning of civilization settled in that area," notes Dixon Sutherland, a professor of religion at Stetson University. The Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now Iraq has been called the "cradle of civilization." And it was there that the concept of "one God" was formed, according to the Baptist theologian.
Which is not to say that the land, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia and Babylonia, is necessarily holy.
But Sutherland, Rabbi Gary Perras of Temple Israel and Imam Radwan Kouatli, religious leader of the Islamic Center of Daytona Beach, agree it has played a significant role in their religions.
"The Jewish people have very deep roots in Iraq," says Perras. The Talmud, the ancient collection of Jewish civil and religious law, was compiled there after the Diaspora (the expulsion of the Jews from Israel in the 6th century B.C.). And until 1948 (when Jews were exiled from Iraq) there was a large and thriving Jewish community in Iraq. It may have been there, according to the rabbi, that the concept of the synagogue developed.
Going back even further, Abraham, the Old Testament patriarch, was born in the ancient city of Ur, in what's now southern Iraq.
He fathered Isaac, who fathered Jacob, who was renamed Israel by God and promised a nation.
Jesus is said to have descended from that line.
Meanwhile, Abraham's other son, Ishmael, also was promised a nation in the Bible. He's considered the progenitor of the Arab peoples.
"From the branch of Ishmael," according to Kouatli, the prophet Muhammad, Islam's central figure, descended.
Muhammad went to Iraq more than 1,400 years ago, after migrating from Mecca to Medina. At the time, the land was controlled by the pagan empire of Persia, which is what neighboring Iran was called back then.
However, in Kouatli's view, there's "no place that could be classified sacred" in modern-day Iraq.
The imam is a Sunni Muslim, and the Islamic shrines in the cities of Najaf and Karbala are holy only to Shiite Muslims. Najaf is the burial place of Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali Ibn Abu Talib, who's a revered Shiite saint.
Karbala is the burial place of Ali's son, Imam Hussein, who was killed in a battle with Muslim Sunni in 680.
The truth is, peace and tranquility have never been hallmarks of the land where monotheism was born.
"The whole history of civilization in that part of the world has been instability," says Sutherland.
Some fundamentalist Christians, according to the Baptist professor, hold the "apocalyptic view" that the current war in Iraq was prophesied in the Bible as an event leading up to "the end of the world and the return of Christ."
But in his view, it's "very dangerous" for human beings to think they can "help God out" by mixing politics and religion and looking for justification for war in biblical prophecies.
"Whenever we tie religion to a place and find it holy enough to die for, we misunderstand the core of faith itself," he says. "Faiths don't depend on geography for survival."
In Genesis it says: "A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers." Two of those biblical rivers still flow in a land that today bears little resemblance to most people's idea of paradise.
The Quran is less specific about the garden's location.
But it does include a verse about creation.
"O Mankind!" it says, in part: "We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other)..."
"It reminds us that all human beings have a common father and mother," says Kouatli. "As clergy, we should preach the message of peace and the message of tolerance."
Iraq Across Biblical History
Iraq isn't mentioned in the Bible or in accounts of ancient history. That's because it's only been called Iraq since 1921. But the primeval roots of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers – known as Mesopotamia – run deep.
In 4000 B.C., the Sumerians built what some believe was the world's first civilization in the fertile crescent between the rivers, and came up with the notion of trade, the written word, and the first code of laws.
The concept of monotheism – the belief in one God – also is said to have begun here, and the land remains the setting for some of man's earliest journeys of faith. They include:
1. GARDEN OF EDEN: Some say the story of Adam and Eve was set near present day Qurna (or al-Qarna), in Southern Iraq. There's a gnarled old tree there referred to as "Adam's tree."
2. ABRAHAM'S BIRTHPLACE: According to the Book of Genesis, the Hebrew patriarch, who's also considered an Islamic prophet, was born in Ur, probably sometime before 2000 B.C.
3. BABYLON: South of modern Baghdad, Babylon is referred to in the Bible as the capital of an empire hostile to the Hebrews, and a place often associated with idolatry and corruption. Some say that the foundation of an excavated ziggurat, or pyramid-like structure, there was the biblical Tower of Babel.
4. JONAH'S MISTAKE: In the Old Testament, God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh, known for its wickedness, and "cry against it." Jonah didn't want to go, and tried to sail away. But he got swallowed by a "great fish." There's a whalebone displayed in Nineveh's Islamic shrine to Jonah, who's also considered a Muslim prophet.
5. MISSING SAVIOR: A Great Mosque was built in the ancient Islamic city of Samarra in 852. Shiite Muslims believe that the mystical "Twelfth Imam" disappeared in Samarra as a child, and will come back to save the world.
6. NOAH'S FLOOD: Kufa is an ancient Islamic capital, and tradition has it that Noah's flood (about 3000 B.C.), began there. Other cultures also have similar legends of a catastrophic primeval flood. Najaf is the city where Ali Ibn Abu Talib, the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, is buried.
7. MOST SACRED SHRINES: Karbala is the site of some of the shrines that are most sacred to Shiite Muslims, including the tomb of the grandson of the prophet Muhammad.