Lower Mesopotamia is a historical region of Mesopotamia. It is located in the alluvial plain of Iraq from the Hamrin Mountains to the Faw Peninsula near the Persian Gulf.
In the Middle Ages it was also known as the Sawad and al-Jazira al-sflia ("Lower Jazira"), which strictly speaking designated only the southern alluvial plain, and Arab Iraq, as opposed to Persian Iraq, the Jibal. Lower Mesopotamia was home to Sumer and Babylonia.
The prehistory of Mesopotamia is the period between the Paleolithic and the emergence of writing in the area of the Fertile Crescent around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, as well as surrounding areas such as the Zagros foothills, southeastern Anatolia, and northwestern Syria.
In general, Paleolithic Mesopotamia is poorly documented, with the situation worsening in southern Mesopotamia for periods prior to the 4th millennium BC. Geological conditions meant that most of the remains were buried under a thick layer of alluvium or submerged beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf. The Middle Paleolithic witnessed the emergence of a population of hunter-gatherers who lived in the caves of the Zagros and, seasonally, in numerous open-air sites. They were producers of a lithic industry of the Mousterian type, and their funerary remains, found in the cave of Shanidar, indicate the existence of solidarity and the practice of healing between the members of a group. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Zagros was probably occupied by modern man. The Shanidar cave contains only tools made of bone or antler, typical of a local Aurignacian called "Baradostian" by specialists.
The Ubaid period (c. 5500–3700 BC) is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall, Leonard Woolley in 1922–1923, and later by Pinhas Delougaz in 1937. Excavations continue into the present day.
In Southern Mesopotamia, this period marks the earliest known human settlements on the alluvial plain, although it is likely earlier periods exist that are obscured under the alluvium. In the south it has a very long duration between about 5500 and 3800 BC when it is replaced by the Uruk period.
The Tower of Babel is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis (chapter 11) meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures.
According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language migrates to Shinar (Lower Mesopotamia), where they agree to build a great city with a tower that would reach the sky. Yahweh, observing these efforts and remarking on humanity's power in unity, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other and scatters them around the world, leaving the city unfinished.
A targum (Imperial Aramaic: תרגום, interpretation, translation, version; plural: targumim) was an originally spoken translation of the Hebrew Bible (also called the Hebrew: תַּנַ״ךְ, romanized: Tana"kh) that a professional translator (מְתוּרגְמָן mǝṯurgǝmān) would give in the common language of the listeners when that was not Biblical Hebrew. This had become necessary near the end of the first century BCE, as the common language was Aramaic, while Hebrew was used for little more than schooling and worship. The translator frequently expanded his translation with paraphrases, explanations and examples, so it became a kind of sermon.
Writing down the targum was initially prohibited; nevertheless, some targumitic writings appeared as early as the middle of the first century. They were not recognized as authoritative by the religious leaders. Some subsequent Jewish traditions, beginning with the Jews of Lower Mesopotamia, accepted the written targumim as authoritative translations of the Hebrew scriptures into Aramaic. Today, the common meaning of targum is a written Aramaic translation of the Bible. Only Yemenite Jews continue to use the targumim liturgically.
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (Aramaic: ארמית Ārāmît) was the form of Middle Aramaic employed by writers in Lower Mesopotamia between the fourth and eleventh centuries. It is most commonly identified with the language of the Babylonian Talmud (which was completed in the seventh century), the Targum Onqelos, and of post-Talmudic (Gaonic) literature, which are the most important cultural products of Babylonian Jews. The most important epigraphic sources for the dialect are the hundreds of inscriptions on incantation bowls.
The ghulāt (Arabic: غُلَاة, lit. 'exaggerators, extremists') were a branch of early Shi'a Islam. The term mainly refers to a wide variety of extinct Shi'i sects active in 8th- and 9th-century Kufa in Lower Mesopotamia, and who, despite their sometimes significant differences, shared several common ideas. These common ideas included the attribution of a divine nature to the Imams, metempsychosis (the belief that souls can migrate between different human and non-human bodies), a particular gnostic creation myth involving pre-existent 'shadows' (azilla) whose fall from grace produced the material world, and an emphasis on secrecy and dissociation from outsiders. They were named ghulat by other Shi'i and Sunni Muslims for their purportedly "exaggerated" veneration of Muhammad (c. 570–632) and his family, most notably Ali (c. 600–661) and his descendants, the Imams.
The ideas of the ghulat have at times been compared to those of the late antique gnostics, but the extent of this similarity has also been questioned. Some ghulat ideas, such as the notion of the occultation (ghayba) and return (raj'a) of the Imam, have been influential in the development of Twelver Shi'ism. Later Isma'ili Shi'i authors such as Ja'far ibn Mansur al-Yaman (died c. 957) and Abu Ya'qub al-Sijistani (died after 971) also adapted ghulat ideas to reformulate their own doctrines. The only ghulat sect still in existence today are the Alawites, historically known as Nusayris after their founder Ibn Nusayr (died after 868).
The history of the Arabs is recorded to have begun in the mid-9th century BCE, corresponding with the earliest known attestation of Old Arabic. Tradition in the Abrahamic religions holds that Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael, who was the son of the Hebrew patriarch Abraham and his Egyptian concubine Hagar. The Syrian Desert, which includes an extension of the Arabian Peninsula, is the home of the first attested "Arab" groups, as well as other defined Arab groups that spread in the land and existed for millennia.
Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) during the early Muslim conquests, the word "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic or settled Arab tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. Today, "Arab" refers to a variety of large numbers of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to Arab migrations and the concurrent spread of the Arabic language throughout the region, namely the Levant and the Maghreb, following the rise of Islam in the 7th century. During this period, they forged the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). These Arab dynasties ruled some of the largest land empires in history, reaching southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and Sudan in the south. In 1517, the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which went on to rule much of the Arab world until World War I, after which it was defeated and dissolved and its territories partitioned, forming the modern Arab states. Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland while respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states.
King of Sumer and Akkad (Sumerian: 𒈗𒆠𒂗𒄀𒆠𒌵 lugal-ki-en-gi-ki-uri, Akkadian: šar māt Šumeri u Akkadi) was a royal title in Ancient Mesopotamia combining the titles of "King of Akkad", the ruling title held by the monarchs of the Akkadian Empire (2334–2154 BC) with the title of "King of Sumer". The title simultaneously laid a claim on the legacy and glory of the ancient empire that had been founded by Sargon of Akkad (r. 2334–2279 BC) and expressed a claim to rule the entirety of lower Mesopotamia (composed of the regions of Sumer in the south and Akkad in the north). Despite both of the titles "King of Sumer" and "King of Akkad" having been used by the Akkadian kings, the title was not introduced in its combined form until the reign of the Neo-Sumerian king Ur-Nammu (c. 2112–2095 BC), who created it in an effort to unify the southern and northern parts of lower Mesopotamia under his rule. The older Akkadian kings themselves might have been against linking Sumer and Akkad in such a way.
In later centuries of Mesopotamian history, when the major kingdoms were Assyria and Babylon, the title was mostly used by monarchs of Babylon since they ruled lower Mesopotamia. For Assyrian kings, the title became a formal assertion of authority over the city of Babylon and its surroundings; only those Assyrian rulers who actually controlled Babylon used the title and when Assyria permanently lost control of Babylon to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the rulers of that empire began using it instead. The final king to claim to be the King of Sumer and Akkad was Cyrus the Great (r. c. 559–530 BC) of the Achaemenid Empire, who assumed several traditional Mesopotamian titles after his conquest of Babylon in 539 BC.
The Battle of Siffin (Arabic: مَعْرَكَة صِفِّينَ, romanized: Maʿraka Ṣiffīn) was fought in 657 CE (37 AH) between the Iraqi Arab forces of the fourth Rashidun caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib and the Syrian Arab forces of the rebelling long-time governor of the Levant, Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan. The battle is named after its location Siffin on the banks of the Euphrates river. The fighting stopped after the Syrians called for arbitration when Ali's forces had gained the upper hand, to which Ali reluctantly agreed under pressure from some of his troops. The arbitration process ended inconclusively in 658 though it strengthened the Syrians' support for Mu'awiya and his political position while weakening the authority of Ali and causing dissension among the Iraqis. The battle was part of the First Fitna and is considered a major step towards the establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate.