Adonis Diaries

Posts Tagged ‘Euphrates River’

Fundamental and pragmatic discussions Before, during and after the Hafez Assad regime

Posted by: on: April 15, 2021

Syria: Fundamentals of this Land. Part 1

Posted on September 30, 2012

The first part focuses on the fundamental social and geopolitical conditions of Syria and the Syrian people.

The next article will approach pragmatically how the problems in Syria could be resolved, during and after the Assad regime…

1. Syria is Not determined by mountain chains and desert borders.  Syria is its rivers: The Euphrates, Tigre, Al Assay, Litany, and the Jordan rivers.  It is on the shores of these rivers and the Mediterranean Sea that the earliest known urban City-States (dozens of them) conglomerated and traded with one another and the outside world.

2. Syria is also “Arabic”, aside from the half dozen of other “ethnics”. Hundreds of tribes from the Arabian Peninsula settled Syria, many centuries before Islam was disseminated by prophet Muhammad.  These tribes were mostly Christians, the kind of sects labelled “heretics” by the Orthodox Church of Byzantium.  

Many of these tribes were persecuted and they fled to high mountain chains, or retreated temporarily to the desert borders, and fled to the Persian empire (beyond the eastern shores of the Euphrates) in order to sustain their customs and traditions.

3. Those “Arabic/Syrian” tribes converted to Islam, an almost identical religion as theirs, and were the backbone of the “Arabic/Muslim” armies that vanquished Byzantium and swiftly expanded eastward to crush the Iranian Empire and then toward Egypt and northern Africa…

4. The two Islamic Empires of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and the western Morocco/Islamic empire located in Andalusia (Spain) confirmed the Arabic nature of Syria and spread the knowledge of sciences, medicine, cosmology and philosophy for over one thousand years, as the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean Sea basin and in Central Asia…

5. Arabic is not just the latest add-on to the Syrian civilization and identity: Arabic is what gave Syria its lasting and defining identity and sovereignty, and the Arabic language was “modernized”, made legible, and acquired its universal appeal thanks to the educated Syrian people. The current Arabic language is fundamentally Syrian, and its ancestor language is the Aramaic and later called Syriac…

6. Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine, is the hotbed of interactions among the three “monolithic” religions (Judaism, Christian and Islam). Without the presence of these 3 religions in Syria, Syria will be lost as a special entity in the Middle-East, an entity of the convergence of their very similar customs and traditions for thousands of years…

7. Most of the ancient myths, mentioned in the Bibles and archaeological documents, originated from Syria, in this rich land of the earliest urban civilization…

8. Syria is the land where most of the persecuted religious sects, fleeing the oppression of the dominant religions of the periods, settled on the mountain chains and eked out a harsh living, raising goats and occasionally looting nearby urban centers…

These minorities were ever ready to side with revolts against the pseudo central powers in Damascus, Baghdad, and occasionally Aleppo…Time to deal with minorities as essential in the fabric of the Syrian community

9. Almost all “Warrior Empires” originating in Central Asia, northern Iran, and northern Turkey…loosely occupied Syria, appointing military governors in the conquered provinces, just to collect the tax…

The majority of the urban dwellers accommodated with the invaders, traded economically and culturally, and eventually transferred their culture to the warrior empires.  

It is the Syrian people, craftsmen, architects, artisans, and skilled workers who built the temples, palaces, schools, the infrastructure…in the lands of the invaders.  

The archaeological findings in the warrior empires are the jobs of the Syrian people…

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How and why Islam spread that fast in its first century?

Posted by: on: February 8, 2021

Islam was founded on the dozens “Christian-Jewish” “Heretic sects” in the Near East

When the Byzantine Empire was established in Constantinople and adopted Christianity as an official religion, and later founded the “Orthodox Christian” sect as the religion of the empire in the mid of the 5th century, the hundreds of local based “christian sects” in Syria, Palestine and Lebanon were persecuted and had to transfer east of the Euphrates River (Persian Empire), the Arabian Peninsula, and further toward China.

The Prophet Muhammad was a member of one of those “Jewish-Christian” sect in Mecca and Islam was almost a copy/paste of the local Bible they used in Mecca, mainly most of the Jewish mythical stories, their prophets, and their customs.

The message of Jesus, his parables, his miracles…were barely mentioned in the modified/edited/transformed Koran assembled during the third Caliph Uthman bin Affan (From the Quraysh tribe of Mecca and one of Muhammad son-in-laws).

Many parchemins were discarded, buried, displaced or burned and the verses of the Koran were grouped according to length instead of their chronological order.

While the disciples of Jesus were trapped and huddled in Jerusalem after the crucifixion of Christ, St.Paul was touring Syria, Turkey, Greece, all the way to Rome, and founding “Christian” communities. St.Paul was flexible in the matter of circoncision and considered it was Not necessary for the new converts to be circumcised. The basic condition for St.Paul was that they believe that Jesus was resurrected, otherwise, there was no viable basis to be considered Christian.

The disciples in Jerusalem, and headed and guided by Jacob, the elder brother of Jesus and Not even a disciple, dispatched Peter to follow the trails of St.Paul and pressure the Christian communities to be circumcised…

As the Jews in Jerusalem started to revolt against the Roman Empire, the disciples fled in many directions. The first phase was to return to their hometowns in the Tyr region and Upper Galilee and off to Egypt, Turkey, Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopia, and even to current Pakistan (St.Thomas, Peter, Jacob, Bartholomew, Andrew, Marc… )

The disciples founded their own sect communities, with their own Bibles, customs, traditions and daily antics practised by the conservative Jews. The disciple of the community re-edited the message and stories about Jesus and crammed it with the stories of the Jewish mythologies.

For example, the women had their separate quarters, had to wear the veil, and Not participate with the males in the community events. Many of these communities wore the white robes, were vegetarians and never purchased any food from outside the community.

Basically, Bizantium decided to accept only 4 New Testaments and ordered the burning of the local Bibles used by these “heretic sects”. Essentially, bibles that smacked of plainly a copy/paste of the Torah/Jewish Bibles were burned and the sects persecuted out of the empire.

Consequently, when Islam conquered Syria, Iran, Egypt and expanded its territories, those “heretic” Christian sects didn’t find much variations between the Koran and their teachings. They converted to Islam easily, especially they would Not pay Taxes as Muslims (Jezyi), compared to the other “Orthodox” sects.

At the end of the Umayyad dynasty, the Non-Muslims diminished drastically and taxes collected were Not enough to replenish the treasury. Thus, various kinds of taxes were enacted that galvanized Muslims outside of Damascus to rebel.

The rebellious regions were far away from Damascus such as in Iraq, Iran, North Africa and also in northern Syria such as in Aleppo and Turkey.

Military campaigns were too costly to undertake and re-established the central control.

Note 1: We owe it to the Muslim Shia communities in South Lebanon and Jabal Amel to have maintained the “hometown stories” of Jesus, Mary, Peter, Jacob, Omran, Hanneh (Hanna)… where they were born, raised and buried. For example, the story spread by the Vatican of the martyrdom of St.Peter, crucified upside down, is probably a myth.

For example, The “hometown story ” says that in the year 64, Peter fled Rome after Nero escalated his persecution of the Christian, and settled in Babylon by the River Euphrates for a while.

Peter wrote a letter to the community of Karkisia by the Euphrates River.  Peter travelled to Palestine and when the Jewish revolt (66 to 70 AC) started persecuting the Christian, Peter fled to Northern Galilee (Tyr district) in 67, but the Jews followed him to his hometown of Shamaa and killed him by a blow on the head. Peter was 77 year-old, or in the year 67.

The community of his ancestors in Hamoul buried him there by his mother in the town of Shamaa, which is short for Shimon.  

Peter was born around 10 BC and lived in the town of 7amoul or (Hamoun) near the village of Naqoura in South Lebanon.  Peter’s father was Hamoun Bin Ama in the town still known as Hamoul where he is buried.

Simon, Peter…is also known as Shimon Safa in the town of Shama3 (Shamaa) near the city of Tyr. Safa means the lean stone in Arabic, Kifa in Syriac, and Peter in Greek. Thus, the Rock as Jesus is claimed to have named him to build his Church.

Hamoun had two sisters: Hanneh (Hanna) and Elizabeth. Hanneh married Omran and gave birth to Mary. The mother of Peter is the sister of Omran.

Note 2: If there were many “Christian” martyrs in the first decades, it is mainly because the converts were dead convinced that Jesus will resurrect them after their death, the third day of them passing away.

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Is Turkey planning to dry out the regions between Euphrates and Tigris Rivers by 2040?

Posted by: on: September 28, 2020

Is Turkey planning to dry out the regions between Euphrates and Tigris Rivers by 2040?

The Euphrates and the Tigres cross Syria and Iraq for thousands of miles since antiquity.

Turkey decided to build many gigantic dams on the sources of these rivers (400 km from the borders) and claims that it own these rivers. and is the sole country to control the debits of these rivers.

“الصيف الجاف” فيلم تركي أُنتج في العام 1964 ودارت أحداثه بين آغا تنبع المياه من ارضه ومزارعين تمر المياه في أراضيهم (1). زاد طمع الآغا في المياه فادعى ملكيتها وقطع معظمها عن المزارعين، فادى ذلك إلى نشوب صراع بينهما كانت نتيجته مقتل الآغا وأحد المزارعين. هذا الفيلم بدأت أحداثه تتكرر اليوم بين دولة المصدر تركيا التي ينبع نهري دجلة والفرات من ضمن حدودها الحالية وبين سوريا والعراق اللذين يمر النهران في أراضيهما.

ينبع نهري دجلة والفرات من أعالي جبال طوروس (2)، الفاصل الطبيعي بين مجتمعي بلاد ما بين النهرين وبلاد الأناضول، وينحدرا باتجاه سوريا والعراق باعثين الحياة والخصب فيهما ومانعين التصحّر عنهما، ثم يلتقيان في شط العرب كانهما يهنئان بعضهما على بعث الخير والجمال بشعب أجاد استعمالهما خلقا ًوابداعاً وحضارة.

يتكون الفرات بعد أن يلتقي نهري فره صو ومراد صو في حوض ملاطية. يبلغ طول النهر 2330 كلم، يسير منها حوالي 442 كلم حتى يصل الى الحدود السورية الحالية. تقدر طاقة النهر بحوالي 31,7 مليار م3 ينبع 95% منها من جبال طوروس و5% من روافد في سوريا (جدول-1) أهمها نهر الخابور. أما نهر دجلة فمساره أقصر من الفرات ويبلغ 1900 كلم (منها 400 كلم داخل تركيا) لكن طاقته المائية أكبر لكثرة روافده (الزاب الأكبر، الزاب الأصغر، العظيم، ديالة) وتصل الى 49 مليار م3. مصادر مياه دجلة هي 58% من جبال طوروس و12% من جبال زغروس اللذان يقعان تحت السيطرة التركية والايرانية، و30% من روافد في شمال شرق العراق (جدول-1). إذا نظرنا لدجلة والفرات والروافد كمنظومة مائية واحدة فمصادر المياه موزعة بنسبة 72% في تركيا و7,4% في إيران 20.6% في سوريا والعراق.

معدل تدفق المياه موسمي ويختلف من شهر الى شهر. بعد فصل الشتاء تذوب الثلوج من أعالي طوروس وتنحدر مياهها بغزارة الى دجلة والفرات بين شهري أذار وأيار، ومن ثم تشح تدريجياً حتى شهر تشرين الأول قبل البدء بالتصاعد ثانية (3). هذا التدفق الموسمي جعل دول النهر تبني السدود لتخزين المياه واستعمالها للري في موسمي الصيف والخريف الزراعيين ولتوليد الكهرباء.

المشاريع التركية:

فكرة استغلال مياه دجلة والفرات بدأت منذ أيام اتاتورك في العشرينات من القرن الماضي بعد ان رسمت معاهدة لوزان في 1923 الحدود السورية-العراقية مع تركيا وايران على منحدرات جبال طوروس وزغروس بدل أعالي هذه الجبال، كما ترسم الحدود الدولية عادة،  مما أفقد سوريا والعراق السيطرة على دجلة والفرات وروافدهما وأصبحا تحت رحمة تركيا وإلى حد ما ايران. في 1936 نضجت فكرة استغلال النهرين في تركيا بعد تاسيس ادارة الدراسات الكهربائية التي قدمت دراسة سد كيبان الذي نفذ في العام 1974 على الفرات. هذه الدراسة تبعتها دراسات أوسع وأشمل بعد تأسيس “مشروع جنوب شرق الاناضول”(“غاب، GAP” كما يعرف عالمياً) الذي اقترح إنشاء 22 سداً و19 محطة توليد كهرباء لري 1,7 مليون هكتار وتوليد 7500 ميغاوات من الطاقة الكهربائية (4). كلفة المشروع قدرت بـ (31) مليار دولار أميركي، وستحتاج الى حوالي 17 مليار م3 من مياه الفرات و8 مليار م3 من مياه دجلة (5)وستسبب نقصاً حاداً في دول المصب وخاصة العراق.

السدود في حوضي دجلة والفرات

أهم هذه المشاريع التي شملها “غاب” هو سد اتاتورك على الفرات الذي يعتبر خامس اكبر سد في العالم، والذي انتهى العمل فيه في العام 1990، ويروي 872,4 الف هكتار ويولد 2400 ميغاوات من الطاقة في تركيا. المشروع الآخر المهم هو منظومة سدي أليسو وجزرة على دجلة الذي سيخزن 10,4 مليار م3 لتوليد 1200 ميغاوات من الطاقة والذي سيروي 121,000 هكتار من الاراضي الحدودية التركية بكلفة 1,68$ مليار.  بدا العمل بهذا المشروع في العام 2006 لكنه توقف في كانون الاول 2008 بعد اعتراض الجمعيات البيئية والاجتماعية وضغطها على حكوماتها الالمانية والنمساوية والسويسرية التي ألغت في تموز 2009 الضمانات لتمويل المشروع. أهم أسباب الالغاء هو تسبب بحيرة السد بفيضان قرية حسن كاييف الاثرية واجبار 10000 من السكان المحليين على هجرة منازلهم (6). رغم وقف التمويل الخارجي فتركيا أصرت على اكمال المشروع وانتهى العمل بالمشروع وبدأ التخزين في تموز 2019 ووصل الى 5 مليار م3 في نيسان 2020. أمام هذا الواقع أصبحت تركيا مسيطرة على أعظم مصدري مياه للمشرق السوري-العراقي ومؤهلة لبسط نفوذها الاقتصادي والسياسي على المنطقة.

القانون الدولي:

دعا مؤتمر “استعمال المياه الجارية الدولية لغير الملاحة” في 1994 في المادة 5 و6 الى تقسيم المياه المشتركة بالتساوي والمنطق بين دول المصدر والمصب لضمان استمرارية النهر ومصالح الدول المتشاطئة. العوامل التي يجب الأخذ بها بعين الاعتبار لضمان المساوات هي العوامل المناخية والايكولوجية وحاجة البلدان الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والحاجات الانسانية للسكان الذين يعتمدون على الحوض. كذلك دعا المؤتمر في المادة 7 الى عدم قيام أية دولة بأية مشاريع مائية تسبب الاذى بدول النهر الاخرى، وضرورة التشاور معها قبل بناء هذه المشاريع (7). الجمعية العمومية للأمم المتحدة أقرت مسودة توصيات هذا المؤتمر في 1997 بالاجماع ما عدا ثلاث دول من بينها تركيا، ولكن لم تصادق عليها إلا 21 دولة من مجموع 35 دولة يجب أن تصادق عليها لكي تدخل في اطار الاتفاقات الدولية. في 17 آب 2014 وبعد انتظار دام 17 سنة صادقت الدولة الخامسة والثلاثين على الاتفاقية وبذلك أصبحت الاتفاقية قيد العمل والتحكيم والمرجعية القانونية الدولية (17).

 الموقف التركي:

تركيا رفضت هذا القانون الدولي لاتباعها استراتيجية تتلخص بشعار “البترول للعرب والمياه لتركيا”، وباعتبار نهري دجلة والفرات “نهران وطنيان تركيان”. جاء ذلك في عدة تصاريح ومواقف اهمها تصريح لرئيس الوزراء تركت اوزال في العام 1988 حيث قال “ادعاء سوريا والعراق بحقوق في مياه تركيا (يقصد دجلة والفرات) هو شبيه بادعاء تركيا بحقوق في بترول سوريا والعراق. المياه امر سيادي ويحق لنا ان نفعل ما نشاء فيها، فهي ثروة تركية كما هو البترول ثروة عربية ولن نسمح بمشاركتنا ثروتنا المائية ولا نريد مشاركتهم ثروتهم النفطية”(8). هذا الموقف لم يتغير عمليا بعد سيطرة حزب العدالة والتنمية ذي الميول الاسلامية إلاَّ في الشكل. المشاريع المائية سارت وتسير حسب خطة “غاب” المرسومة من العلمانيين ودون اي تنسيق مع دول الجوار، فالرئيس التركي رجب طيب اوردغان دشن مشروع سد اليسو العملاق على نهر دجلة في آب 2006 وأكمل بناؤه بتمويل تركي، وبدأ التخزين في 2019.  المواقف كذلك لم تتغير في الجوهر فعندما كانت العلاقات جيدة مع سوريا رفض وزير الطاقة والموارد الطبيعية التركي، تانر يلديز، في اجتماع مسؤولي البلدان الثلاثة في 3 أيلول 2009 في أنقرة توقيع اتفاق شامل وملزم، ووافق فقط وكجبرة خاطر على زيادة مؤقتة لكمية مياه الفرات المتدفقة الى سوريا إلى 520 م3 في الثانية لمدة شهرين، وادّعى ان تركيا تعطي “اكثر من التزاماتها”.

الجدير بالذكر ان تركيا تاريخيا ًتقاسمت المياه المشتركة مع جيرانها الاخرين فوقعت معاهدات مع روسيا في العام 1927 قسمت فيها استعمال المياه على أربعة أنهر مشتركة بين البلدين (كورو، كورا، اريا، اراس)، ومن ثم وقعت معاهدات اخرى في السبعينات. الشيئ نفسه تكرر مع اليونان في العام 1950 عندما وقع البلدان معاهدة لوزان.

عندما يسال الاتراك عن سبب عدم تكرار هذه المعاهدات مع جيرانهم المسلمين يقولون ان الانهر بين تركيا وروسيا واليونان هي انهر دولية لانها تفصل تركيا عن البلدين الآخرين، بينما دجلة والفرات   نهران “عابران للحدود” ولا يشكلان حدوداً فاصلة!(9)، لذلك فهم يعتبرونهما نهرين تركيين، ويرفضون توقيع أية معاهدة طويلة المدى تلزمهم بنسبة معينة من المياه. هذه البدعة التركية نقضها مؤتمر “استعمال المياه الجارية الدولية لغير الملاحة” التي صدقت على توصياته الامم المتحدة في 2014 وهي توضح انه “لا يوجد اي اختلاف جوهري حول مفهوم الانهار الدولية والانهار العابرة للحدود”.

الموقف الرسمي العراقي والسوري:

لمواجهة هذا الواقع حاولت حكومتا العراق وسوريا وقف العمل في هذه المشاريع المدمرة لشعوبها واقتصادها ولكن دون أية نتيجة مهمة حتى الآن. عراق صدام حسين تفرغ في الثمانينات لحربه العبثية مع إيران التي عمقت خلافه مع سورية حافظ الاسد فاعتمد على تركيا اقتصاديا لتصدير النفط عبر المتوسط، ولم يكن في موقع يستطيع فيه مجابهة اي من المشاريع التركية. وما كادت تنتهي حرب إيران، حتى شنَّ حرباً عبثية أخرى على الكويت في التسعينات ادت الى اضعاف جيشه وفرض عقوبات قاسية همشت العراق كبلد، ومن ثم جاء الغزو الاميركي (2003) وتبعته الانقسامات المذهبية والعرقية التي شلت العراق كلياً وسمحت لتركيا بالاستمرار بمشاريعها دون اي مقاومة عراقية تذكر.

سوريا من جهتها حاولت منفردة مواجهة المارد التركي في الشمال المتحالف مع العدو الاسرائيلي في الجنوب. في العام 1987 وقع البلدان “بروتوكولاً امنياً” حصلت سوريا بموجبه على وعد تركي بضخ 500م3\الثانية من الفرات في مقابل الأمن على الحدود بين البلدين. هذا الوعد لم يكن كل ما تريده سوريا التي سعت الى اتفاق ملزم ومع ذلك فالرئيس التركي، سليمان ديميريل، حاول التهرب من “الوعد” بقوله إنَّ “القرار التركي باعطاء سوريا 500 م3 كان عشوائيا”. هذا الاتفاق خاضع للمزاج التركي ففي 1990 قطعت تركيا مياه الفرات عن دول المصب لمدة شهر لتعبئة بحيرة أتاتورك، فزادت سوريا دعمها لحزب العمال الكردستاني الذي حاول تخريب بعض السدود وتاخير العمل في بعض المشاريع.  هذه الاستراتيجية السورية لم تنجح على المدى البعيد وأًجْبرت سوريا على ترحيل عبدالله اوجلان، زعيم حزب العمال، لتفادي حرب غير متوازنة مع تركيا في العام 1998. سوريا ايضا حصلت على بعض الدعم العربي عبر الجامعة العربية في التسعينات لكن دون اي تاثير يذكر على المشاريع التركية.

بعد تسلم الرئيس بشار الاسد الحكم في سوريا وغزو اميركا للعراق في العام 2003، وجدت سوريا نفسها مطوقة من كل الجهات ومهددة بعدوى التقسيم الطائفي والعرقي السائد في العراق، فبدأت بتمتين العلاقات السورية التركية ووقعت في العام 2004 اتفاقاً للتبادل التجاري الحر، وتبعها تاسيس مجلس استراتيجي والغاء تاشيرات الدخول بين البلدين حتى تخطى التبادل التجاري بين البلدين الملياري دولار في 2009، ولكن كل هذا لم يجدي نفعا في اجبار تركيا على توقيع اتفاق مائي ملزم. بعد 2011 تدهورت العلاقات وانقطعت الاتصالات بسبب الدعم التركي للميليشات المسلحة  في سوريا ووصلت الى حد المواجهة العسكرية المباشرة لكن المحدودة في ادلب العام الماضي. العراق من جهته طور علاقته الاقتصادية مع تركيا أيضا بإبرام معاهدة التبادل التجاري البالغة 16 مليار دولار في 2019 ويسعى البلدان الى ايصال التبادل التجاري الى 20 مليار في الاعوام القادمة!، وجل ما حصل عليه العراق عندما لوح بإلغاء هذه المعاهدة، حسب السيد حسن الصفار معاون مدير المعهد الوطني في إدارة الموارد المائية في وزارة الموارد المائية، هو ادراج جملة في وثيقة المعاهدة تقول ” إن للعراق حقوقا في مياه نهري دجلة والفرات”. بموازاة كل ذلك تستمر المشاريع المائية التركية حسب الخطة المرسومة والتي كان آخرها سد أليسو على دجلة، وتُنفد السدود المتبقية من مشروع “غاب” (5-10%) حسب الخطة المرسومة، وتزداد الكوارث الاقتصادية على الشعبين السوري والعراقي عام بعد عام.

النتائج على سوريا والعراق:

حوض الفرات:

نتيجة لخضوع “البروتوكول الأمني” الذي وعدت فيه تركيا الجانب السوري بضخ 500م3\الثانية لسوريا والعراق للمزاج والاعتبارات التركية السياسية والاقتصادية واعتماد مبدأ تامين حاجات تركيا المائية للري والطاقة أولاٍ وإطلاق المياه المتبقية أو الملوثة بعد الاستعمال للدول المتشاطئة ، يعاني حوض الفرات في سوريا والعراق من حالة يمكن وصفها بالموت البطيء الذي يؤدي تدريجياً الى كوارث اجتماعية واقتصادية جمة.  خلال صيف 2008 الجاف وبسبب استخدام مياه السدود لري الأراضي التركية اولاً، هددت المجاعة 300 الف سوري على حوض الفرات بسبب قلة الامطار ونضب مياه الفرات (11)، ففقدوا أراضيهم الزراعية ونزح قسم كبير منهم الى مخيمات بؤس في حلب ودمشق ومدن الساحل. خلال الصيف الماضي بدأت تركيا بخفض كميات المياه القادمة إلى سوريا الى “أقل من ربع الكمية المتفق عليها” أي 125 م3\ثانية حسب إدارة سد تشرين (ثاني أكبر السدود على نهر الفرات في سوريا) وأضافت الإدارة أن ذلك “سينعكس مباشرة على الثروة البيئية والمنتجات الزراعية وبالتالي سيترك أثره بشكل مباشر على اقتصاد المجتمع ويهدد الأمن الغذائي العام للمواطن”. بالإضافة الى ذلك، فقد وجدت مدينة الحسكة نفسها أمام مخاطر العطش في شهر آب الماضي بعدما أقدمت تركيا على إيقاف ضخ المياه من محطة علوك (في ريف مدينة رأس العين التي تحتلها تركيا) لأسباب سياسية وهددت نحو مليون شخص بالعطش (18).

سد أتاتورك

وضع حوض الفرات في العراق ليس بأفضل حال فهو امتداد للوضع في سوريا. خلال الفترة بين 1990 و2008 وبعد التفاهم السوري-العراقي على ان تكون حصة العراق 60% من 500 م3 (أي 300 م3 في الثانية) المتدفقة من الحدود التركية، انخفض تدفق المياه الى العراق بنسبة 50% من 18مليار م3الى 9 مليار م3

يمكن اختصار الاضرار التي تلحق بالعراق بما يلي:

  1.  ان نقصان كل مليار م3 من المياه يؤدي تقريبا الى نقصان 260 ألف دونم ولذلك كادت خسارة 9 مليار م3 من المياه ان تؤدي إلى أن يخسر العراق 2,34 مليون دونم (5850 كلم2) من الأراضي الزراعية بعد تشغيل سد أتاتورك في 1990 لولا تعويض المياه المحجوبة من بحيرة الثرثار المالحة التي قلصت الخسارة الى 1,3 دونم تقريبا (19). الجدير بالذكر ان مخزون الثرثار لم يدم طويلا حسب عضو لجنة الزراعة والمياه والأهوار بالبرلمان علي البديري الذي حذر في تموز الماضي من كارثة مائية في المحافظات الجنوبية وقال بان “مستوى المياه اليوم خاصة في نهر الفرات هو دون النصف من مستواه الحقيقي، كما أن الاعتماد الآن بالدرجة الأساس على مخزون حوض الثرثار وبنسبة تصل إلى 50% من الاستهلاك اليومي للمياه، ما يعنى أن هذا الخزان لن يكفينا لفترة طويلة بحال بقاء الوضع على ما هو عليه”(21).
  2. بسبب قلة التصاريف التي تطلقها تركيا وتقلبها، تردت نوعية المياه الداخلة الى العراق نتيجة الملوحة والمياه الراجعة والسموم اذ بلغت معدلات الملوحة نسبة 1800 ملغ\لتر في 2009 بعد ان كانت بحدود 375 ‏ملغم/ لتر عام 1987 (بينما المعدل الدولي المقبول هو 800 ملغ\لتر). بالإضافة الى الإضرار بالأراضي الزراعية فان ارتفاع ملوحة المياه ادى الى الاضرار بالمشاريع الصناعية ومشاريع تنقية واسالة مياه الشرب. في آب 2015 أطلقت محافظة ذي قار في جنوب العراق تحذيرا من تداعيات تلوث المياه الناجم عن انخفاض مناسيب نهر الفرات، وأشارت إلى ان أكثر من 35 قرية كبيرة في أهوار الناصرية لحقتها الأضرار من انحسار المياه (19).
  3. في 2018 حظرت الحكومة صناعة الأرز والذرة لكثرة استهلاكها للمياه “ولإعطاء الأولوية لمياه الشرب والصناعة والخضروات” مما دفع الكثير من المزارعين الى هجرة أراضيهم.
  4. الضرر الأكبر يصيب 7 محافظات جنوبية ، أي اكثر من 4000 قرية يسكنها أكثر من 5 مليون نسمة. ان شح المياه عن هؤلاء السكان سيضطرهم الى “ترك الزراعة والري والهجرة الى المدن والمراكز الحضرية الاخرى وما ينتج عنه من مشكلات اقتصادية واجتماعية وديموغرافية ونفسية تضع اعباء كثيرة على اقتصاديات البلد”(19) . خلال الصيف الفائت تعرض مربو الجاموس في محافظة ذي قار لخسائر مادية كبيرة خلال نتيجة تعرض قطعانهم للهلاك والأمراض مما اضطرهم إلى النزوح القسري من مناطقهم إلى المحافظات والمناطق المجاورة (19).
  5. تأثر محطات الطاقة الكهربائية في سد القادسية وغيرها نتيجة انخفاض منسوب المياه، حيث مجمل ما تنتجه هذه المحطات لا يشكل اكثر من  40% من مجموع حاجة العراق للطاقة الكهربائية.

حوض دجلة:

المصير الذي ينتظر نهر دجلة في العراق لن يكون افضل من توأمه الفرات أثناء وبعد تخزين سد اليسو ب10,4 مليار م3 لتوليد الطاقة وبعد تشييد سد جزرة ‘القاتل‘ (كما يصفه أهل العراق)، الذي يقع على بعد 45 كلم جنوب سد اليسو و20 كلم شمال الحدود السورية-العراقية، لري اكثر من 121,000 الف هكتار. هذا المصير كادت بوادره تظهر في صيف 2019 بعد ان بدأت تركيا بتخزين المياه في بحيرة سد أليسو في تموز لولا السيول والامطار الغزيرة الغير-اعتيادية التي ملأت الخزانات والسدود العراقية شتاءً وأمنت التخزين الكافي للبلاد للاستفادة منه صيفاً. الصيف الفائت اختلف الامر فقدّر خبير استراتيجيات وسياسات المياه في جامعة دهوك رمضان حمزة إن “مستوى المياه في نهر دجلة كان 600 م3 في الثانية، وبعد بناء تركيا سد إليسو انخفض الى ما بين 300 و320 م3 في الثانية” (22). من الأرجح ان هذا المعدل من التدفق سيستمر الى ان تنتهي تركيا من تعبئة 5 مليار م3 المتبقية من طاقة السد ومن بناء سد الجزرة للعراق في 3-4 سنوات القادمة.

بعد الانتهاء من تعبئة سد أليسو وتشييد وتشغيل سد جزرة في 2024 تقريبا، يتوقع الخبراء ما يلي:

  • حجب مياه النهر المتدفقة من تركيا بمعدل 7-8 مليار م3 سنويا أي 40% من تدفق النهر. الاخطر من كمية المياه المحتجبة هو تقلبها حسب الفصول واحتمال تدفقها بمستوى “التدفق البيئي (60 م3/ ثانية)”  (رسم بياني-1) كحد اقصى او انقطاعها كليا عند الحدود التركية-السورية خلال اشهر الصيف بسبب ري 121 ألف هكتار من الاراضي التركية خلال هذه الأشهر (12).
رسم بياني (1) – تدفق دجلة على الحدود العراقية قبل وبعد سدي أليسو وجزرة (12)
  • في دراسة بعنوان “نهر دجلة: التأثير الهيدرولوجي لسد إليسو على سد الموصل” قام بها مؤخرا “معهد النشر الرقمي المتعدد التخصصات”،MDPI، في باسيل، سويسرا في آذار 2020 (23)، قيّموا فيها أسوا الحالات التي يمكن ان يصل اليها سد الموصل فاستنتجوا التالي:
    1. سينخفض متوسط التدفق السنوي المتوقع إلى حوالي 119 م3/ ثانية أي انه سينخفض الى 22% من متوسط التدفق السنوي للثلاثين سنة الماضية (553 م3/ ثانية) الذي يظهره رسم بيان (1) ادناه. الجدير بالذكر ان معدل التدفق سيكون بمستوى او اقل من “التدفق البيئي (60 م3/ ثانية)” لمدة 5 شهور حسب رسم بيان (1)، وهذا عمليا سيخرج سد الموصل من الخدمة.
    2. سيبلغ معدل التدفق التراكمي للعام بأكمله في حوالي 4.6 مليار متر مكعب أي أكثر بقليل من ما يسمى بـ “المخزون الميت” في سد الموصل وتمثل 42% من طاقة تخزين السد التي تصل الى 11 مليار م3(21).
  • انخفاضٍ كبير في إنتاج الطاقة الكهرومائية، بسبب تـأثر محطتي سـد الموصـل وسد سامراء، اللذان سيتعذر عليهما إمداد المصانع ومحطات ضخ المياه وبقية المؤسسات الأخرى بما تحتاجه مـن طاقـة ضـرورية لتشغيلها.
  • ازدياد نسبة الملوحة في حوالي 600-700 الف هكتار من أجود الأراضي الزراعية وخاصة الشمالية، وزيادة الأراضي الجرداء المتصحرة بـ 3 ملايين دونم (7,500 كلم) (19) في الوسط والجنوب حسب الخبراء، سيتسبب بخروج 25-35% من الأراضي الزراعية من الخدمة.
  • من الناحية الانسانية يقدر الخبراء ان نسبة قد تصل الى 5 ملايين عراقي ستضطر الى الهجرة الى المدن او الدول المجاورة طلبا للرزق بسبب شح مياه الشرب والتصحر.
  • تتفاقم المسألة وتزداد سوءاً من جانب إيران التي تسيطر على 6 ملايين م3 (15%) من المياه المتدفقة للعراق حاليا، حيث تقوم بدورها ببناء السدود وتحويل الانهار الى داخل الاراضي الإيرانية على روافد دجلة في الشمال (الزاب الاصغر، ديالة) وعلى نهري الكارون والكلخ في الجنوب قرب شط العرب.
  • الاحتمال الكبير لانهيار السدود التركية بفعل الزلازل فهناك علاقة سببية مؤكدة علميا بين وقوع الزلازل بسبب السدود العملاقة وبحيراتهاوعلاقة أخرى بين انهيار السدود بسبب الزلازل في المناطق الناشطة زلزاليا، حسب الخبير طلال بن علي محمد مختار، أستاذ علوم الجيوفيزياء في احدى الجامعات السعودية (24) .

نحو استراتيجية الأمن القومي المائي: (أفكار واقتراحات)

لا بد لنا من التساؤل: كيف سمحنا للامور أن تسوء الى هذه الدرجة، فيصبح أمننا المائي مهدداً بهذا الشكل ؟ ويهدد حياة الملايين من شعبنا معه؟ وهل ما يوحي بوقف هذا النزف ومواجهة هذا الخطر الوجودي على امتنا.؟

 قبل عرض الخيارات المتوفرة لا بد من ان نذكر بما نبه له الاستراتيجي الاول في امتنا، عندما حذر في اوائل القرن الماضي من مخاطر عدم سيطرة “الامة السورية” على مصادر ثروتها وحدد حدودها الطبيعية بجبال طوروس وزغروس. انه الزعيم أنطون سعاده صاحب الفكر الفذ الذي اغتالته اعداماً السلطات اللبنانية والسورية في 8 تموز 1949.

 اليوم في 2020، بعد 71 سنة على رحيله، ما زالت افكاره تشكل القاعدة التي يبنى عليها الانقاذ.

لا يمكن لسوريا والعراق مواجهة التهديد التركي بدون صياغة استراتيجية مائية-اقتصادية متكاملة. هذه الاستراتيجية لا تعني فقط تنسيق المواقف قبل اجتماع اللجنة التقنية للمياه بين الدول الثلاث (هذا اذا اجتمعت) او ‘البكاء‘ و‘الصراخ‘ في مواسم الجفاف بل تتعداها الى رسم خطة اقتصادية قانونية بيئية واعلامية شاملة للدفاع عن وجودنا وحقوقنا المائية.

 أهم ما يمكن أن تشمله هذه الخطة ما يلي:

أولا: تمتين الروابط الاقتصادية بين سوريا والعراق ودول المشرق الاخرى عبر زيادة التبادل التجاري والتعاون في مشاريع الطاقة كتطوير خط انابيب النفط بين كركوك وبانياس وطرابلس.

ثانيا: انشاء مجلس اعلى للمياه بين البلدين للاشراف على وضع الخطط وتنفيذها والتفاوض مع تركيا كجسم واحد. هذا المجلس يمكن ان يستعين بكثير من الخبرات السورية والعراقية في الوطن والمهجر وان يشمل عدة لجان تقنية تضع الدراسات القانونية والبيئية والتاريخية والاعلامية التي تدعم القضية.

ثالثا: السعي عبر جامعة الدول العربية لقيام جبهة عربية فعالة للدفاع عن المياه العربية في الهلال الخصيب ووادي النيل، وذلك بربط اي تعاون اقتصادي عربي مع دول المصدر بحل مشكلة المياه. مصر هي الأخرى دولة مصب وهي تواجه نفس مشكلة العراق وسوريا مع دولة المصدر أثيوبيا بالنسبة لسد النهضة لذلك فالتنسيق والتحالف معها يخدم مصالح مصر ودول الهلال الخصيب.

رابعا: السعي بجدية للتوصل الى اتفاق على قسمة المياه والموارد الطبيعية الاخرى داخل العراق. ان معظم روافد دجلة (الزاب الاكبر والزاب الاصغر وديالة) تمر في شمال شرق العراق، وبناء اقليم كردستان السدود العملاقة كسد بخمة الذي يخزن أكثر من 10 مليار م3 من الزاب الأكبر قبل التوصل الى قانون لتوزيع المياه قد يؤدي الى صراع عرقي طويل على الفُتات. قد يكون التوصل الى اتفاق صعب المنال لكثرة التدخلات الخارجية لكن ربما يُكتب له النجاح اذا ادرك الجميع وخاصة الاكراد ان البترول والغاز سينضبان خلال 50 سنة والصراع العرقي اذا حصل سيستنزف الجميع وبدون المياه لن يدوم شيء.

خامسا: البدء بحملة اعلامية كبيرة في دول المشرق لتوعية الشعب على المخاطر المحدقة به في حال موت دجلة والفرات. كذلك يجب التصدي لبعض التفاسير المغرضة للاحاديث النبوية التي تجعل الشعب يعتبر موت الفرات ودجلة ارادة الهية ولا يمكن التصدي لها. من هذه الاحاديث قول أبي هريرة: ” قال رسول الله صلى الله تعالى عليه وسلم: ((لا تقوم الساعة حتى يحسِر الفرات عن جبل من ذهب))”

سادساَ: التعاون مع الجمعيات البيئية والاجتماعية العالمية التي تعارض المشاريع التركية على دجلة. هذه الجمعيات استطاعت ان تضغط على حكوماتها الاوروبية لقطع الدعم المادي عن مشروع اليسو فأوقف الاتحاد الاوروبي التمويل وجُمد العمل فيه منذ في 2008 كما ذكرنا سابقا لذلك يجب ان لا يستهان بقدراتها التجييرية.

سابعاَ: الاستشمار بالطاقة المتجددة كالطاقة الشمسية والهوائية داخليا والابتعاد تدريجيا عن استعمال السدود لتوليد الطاقة واستعمال المياه للري والحاجات الانسانية فقط. توليد الطاقة يتطلب إطلاق مياه السد في مواعيد لا تتناسب بالضرورة مع متطلبات الري وقد يؤدي ذلك الى هدر للمياه. دول الخليح واسرائيل بدأت تستثمر في الطاقة الشمسية الآن، وسوريا والعراق يمكن ان يفعلا الشيئ ذاته فالمساحات الشاسعة والمناخ الحار يجعلان هذه الطاقة بديلاً عملياً للمياه واستثمار مربح على المدى البعيد.

ثامناَ: تحذير ومقاطعة الشركات الهندسية والبنوك الدولية اذا شاركت باي من المشاريع المائية غير المتفق عليها بين الدول المتشاطئة حسب القانون الدولي.

تاسعاَ: ربط التبادل التجاري مع تركيا بحل مشكلة المياه فليس من المنطق ان يتهجر شعبنا ويخسر اقتصادنا ملايين الدولارات بسبب قلة الماء ونكافئ الجاني بفتح اسواقنا له ليجني المليارات كل عام. عدم ربط التبادل التجاري بالأمن المائي، يشبه الى حد كبير ما فعلته السلطة الفلسطينية وعرب ما يسمى “الاعتدال” مع اسرائيل عندما قدموا التنازلات وتوقعوا بالمقابل ان تترحم اسرائيل وأميركا عليهم فتعيد الحقوق الفلسطينية المسلوبة، لكن الامور تدهورت عاماً بعد عام الى ان وصلنا الى صفقة القرن.

عاشراَ: حث الأمم المتحدة على القيام بدراسة ‘حيادية‘ حول ظاهرة وقوع الزلازل في منطقة جنوب شرقي تركيا، ومدى تأثير ذلك علـى سدود الميـاه المقامة فيها. أيضا يجب الضغط على الجانب التركي على عدم القيـام بـإملاء سد أليسو واتاتوك وغيرهما بكامل طاقتهم التخزينية قبل إتمام الأمم المتحدة لدراستها، وذلك خوفاً من إحتمـال تعرضـها لزلزال قوي قد يؤدي على الأرجح، حسب الخبراء، الى انهيارات وتصدعات في السدود وتكون عواقبها وخيمة على العراق (24).

احد عشر: اذا استمر الاتراك ببناء السدود وخاصة سد جزرة القاتل للعراق واستمر التعنت التركي برفض توقيع اي اتفاقات تلزمها على المدى البعيد، فلا بد من تقديم شكوى الى المؤسسات الدولية كمحكمة العدل الدولية ومجلس الامن. ان توصيات مؤتمر” استعمال المياه الدولية لغير الملاحة” الذي صدقت عليه الامم المتحدة في 2014 تدعو للتوزيع العادل للمياه وعدم قيام اي دولة باي مشاريع مائية تسبب الاذى بدول النهرالاخرى. الكاتب والباحث العراقي علاء اللامي تساءل بدهشة عن سبب عدم استعمال العراق لهذه الاتفاقية التي هي مئة بالمئة لصالحة وقال: ” أن هذه الاتفاقية الدولية النافذة تعتبر وبحق سلاحا فعالا ومرجعية رصينة وقوية يمكن للدولة العراقية استعمالها والاستناد إليها في دفاعها عن حقوق العراق المائية ومصالحة الحيوية والتي بلغت اليوم خيار الحياة أو الموت بالنسبة لشعب العراق” (17).

اثنا عشر: اذا لم نتفع كل هذه الخطوات فلن يكون للعراق وسوريا أي خيار غير قطع العلاقات بشكل كامل مع تركيا واعتبارها عدواً وبذلك استخدام الدولة والشعب لكل الوسائل المتاحة وعدم استثناء أي خيار مهما كان صعبا للدفاع عن الحضارة والتاريخ والوجود والمستقبل.

أمامنا فرصة وربما الاخيرة لمواجهة هذه الخطر الوجودي فإذا لم نكن بمستوى المسؤولية ونواجه شريعة الـ”غاب” التركية موحدين فنحن قادمون على مشاهد كثيرة من “الصيف الجاف” يتناحر فيها شعبنا على الفتات. هذا وعلى المدى البعيد سيؤدي الى نكبة لشعبنا في الشرق العراقي شبيهة بنكبة شعبنا في الجنوب الفلسطيني، وسيتحول هلالنا الخصيب الى هلال نضيب، يصبح فيه العراق واجزاء كبيرة من سورية امتداداً لصحراء الجزيرة العربية.

هذه ليست اقوالاً للترهيب، ففي تقريرين منفصلين للمنظمة الدولية للبحوث ولمنظمة المياه الاوروبية هذا العام استنتجوا فيهما موت نهري دجلة والفرات في العراق في العام 2040 بسبب السدود التركية (15). كذلك فالعالم الياباني، أكيو كيتوه، من معهد متيولوجيكل للابحاث في اليابان، الذي يدرس تحولات الطقس وتأثير السدود التركية، توقع زوال “الهلال الخصيب القديم” في هذا القرن “والعملية قد بدأت” (16).

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ملاحظة: هذا البحث كان قد وضعه سابقاً الباحث راجي سعد، تحت عنوان: من هلال خصيب إلى هلال نضيب، ثم عاد وحدّث معطياته مشكوراً لنشره على منصّة سيرجيل,

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Short history of Eastern (Oriental) Christian sects: Assyrian, Nestorian, Chaldean, Jacobite,

Posted by: on: May 10, 2012

Short history of Eastern Christian sects: Assyrian, Chaldean, Jacobite

The Christian Assyrian Church or Athurian, also know as the Nestorian and the Persian Christian Church, was originally the Syriac Oriental Church. The message started in the city of Orfa (Ruha) in north Syria by the Euphrates River, and spread to the Parthian Kingdom during the Roman Empire) on the Tiger River.

The Syriac Oriental Church claims the disciple of Jesus Thomas as patron Saint. It consolidated its headquarters in the twin cities of Slik and Ctesiphon (ancient Capital of Persia), and 35 kilometers south of the newly built city of Baghdad around 762 by the Abbassid Calif Al Mansour.

The Assyrians refer to people who settled north Iraq 5,000 years ago, and the Arab historian Hassan Ben Bahlul defined the Assyrians as those inhabiting the city of Mosul and the neighboring provinces in current Kurdish region.

The Persian Empire vanquished the Parthians in the 3rd century and relocated to the Capital Ctesiphon, Consequently, the Assyrian Church was part and parcel of this Persian Empire. Their Patriarch was called Jathlic.

The Persian King Bahram II decided to institute Zarathustra as the religion of the Empire. Coincidentally, the Roman Emperor Constantin decided around 315 to recognize Christianity as one of the official religions in the Empire. King Bahram got suspicious and considered the Assyrian Christians as potential enemies and persecuted them harshly.

In the 5th century, the Syriac Church split from the Catholic Church.  In 431, the conclave of Ephesus (Afassus) condemned the doctrine of the Patriarch of Antioch Nestor as heretic. Thus, the Syriac Church was known as the Nestorian Church and located East of the Euphrates River in the Persian Kingdom.

In 451, the conclave of Chalcedon (Khalkhedonia) condemned the dogma of the priest Otikhus as heretic, and the followers were known as the Jacobite (Yaakibat) in reference to Bishop Jacob Baradei. This church settled on the west shores of the Euphrates River.

The main oriental “Catholic” Church in that period was named the Melkite Church, referring to the Church of the King or the Roman Emperor.

More than 5 decades before the birth of Islam, the Nestorian Church had reached China and translated its Bible into the Chinese language. The preaching activities followed the Silk Trade Road, and Nestorian churches and communities were established in Tibet, and Eastern Turkmenistan, and in India (the coastal province of Melbar)

During the Arab Empire, particularly during the Abbassid dynasty, the Nestorian Church members counted 8 million when the world population barely reached 300 million. The Abbassid dynasty made good use of the Nestorian scientists, mathematicians, medical profession, accounting, translation of Greek works in the “House of the Wise” (Beit el Hekmat) established by the Calif Al Maamoun.

For example, Patriarch Tiothius I reigned during a period that witnessed the coming to power of 5 caliphs: Mahdi, Hadi, Harun Rashid, Amin, and Maamoun.

In 1251, the Moguls ransacked Baghdad and established an Empire in the Middle-East that lasted two centuries before settling in India. During the Mogul Empire period, the Nestorian Church, Moguls and Turks joined the Church of the Orient and transformed it into an Asian Christian Church.

The warlord Tamerlane persecuted the Nestorian Church in around the year 1400 and forced them to flee to the Kurdistan region in north Iraq and East Turkey.

In mid 15th century, a sect of the Syriac Oriental Church split and recognized the Pope Eugene IV who called them Chaldeans, in reference to the ancient city of Chaldo.

The Nestorians in India were forced to affiliate with Rome Catholicism, revolted, and split in schisms in modern time. The Nestorians in north Syria and Turkey were persecuted and suffered the genocide alongside the Armenians between 1915-18.

The Syriac Orient Church was subjugated to several massive persecution, the two worst genocides were done at the hand of Tamerlane (Timorlenk) and in modern time by the Ottoman Empire and the Kurds.  For 16 centuries, the Syriac Orient Church struggled against powerful religions such as the Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, and Protestantism…

During Saddam Hussein reign on Iraq, the Chaldean Bishop Louis Sako summarized the conditions as: “We were not free but we enjoyed security. Currently, (after the US invasion of 2003 and the radicalization of Islam in Iraq) we are supposedly free but we lack security…”

It numbers around 400,000 members, when it was 8 million ten century ago.  In 1994, Patriarch Danhka IV signed the “Common Christian Declaration” with Pope John-Paul II. Unfortunately, Egypt Copt Church is putting the pressure on the Syriac Jacobite to recognize the Assyrian Church…

Note 1: The Swiss Christoph Bomer published in 2006 “Orient Church: The Illustrated history of the Assyrian Christians…”.  Azziz Amanueel Al Zibawi published a short Arabic review in the Lebanese daily Al Nahar.  The book is of 400 pages and divided in 12 chapters.

Note 2: Plenty of stories would like you to believe that the religious schisms in the Churches of the Orient were based on divergences on the “nature of Jesus“. History demonstrates that every Byzantium Emperor since 325 who “usurped power” tried to establish his own Church, even reverting to paganism.

Note 3: Before 325 and the official recognition of Emperor Constantin of the Christians as religions, the Near-East witnessed the mushrooming of particular Christian sects, each sect reading from its own Bible and living in isolation and going about according to particular life-styles along the Orontes (Al Assy) and the Euphrates rivers.

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Christianity: From total persecution to State religion: what happened?

Posted by: on: November 3, 2009

Christianity: From total persecution to State religion: what happened? (Nov. 2, 2009)

            By the beginning of the fourth century, Christians in the Roman Empire were no longer persecuted as a sect behaving contrary to the Roman values.  The Christians have suffered one of the worst waves of persecutions from 303 to 311.

The father of Constantine persecuted the Christian mercilessly and Constantine witnessed the massacres. Constantine inherited England and France as co-Emperor, one of three other co-Emperors to the Roman Empire that dominated the Mediterranean Sea.

This article is not about the fictitious story or not of Constantine seeing the symbol of the Christians at night or in a dream before the battle to capturing Rome from Maxence in 312. This post intends on explaining the moratorium on Christian persecutions as this sect reached the threshold of a minority of 10% of the total population.

At that period, a Christian was not born a Christian: he was not baptized a week or longer after birth.  A Christian had to prove that he believed in Christ as the Redemptor of our sins, that Christ resurrected from death and that God is the creator of man and the universe and that God is One and all powerful, and all our actions were to be offered in honor of Him.

The intellectuals and educated leaned toward this concept of a unique God, an abstract God who is not emulated on earthly natural powers or actual planets and Sun: it was the cultural rage of the time.  The high ranked in the Roman caste system didn’t have to proselytize or proclaim their conversion; this task was relegated to the poorer Romans in the caste system so that the Christian religion spread its tenants with example of persecutions in arenas for the pleasure of the Romans.

The four co-Emperors needed stability in their respective allocated Empires and they needed the Christians support in the highest administrative jobs.  If the Christians were about 10% of the total they constituted a much higher ratio in the Orient and in Africa.  After Constantine won the Orient he was left with only one co-Emperor Licinius in Africa.

Emperor Constantine who build Constantinople (later to be named the Byzantium Empire) converted to Christianity and was both pragmatic toward the vast majority of pagans and an intolerant Christian who wanted to unite all the Christian sects in his empire, a sort of centralized orthodox church with a dogma that suited a newly converted Emperor.

Christianity was Not a new ideology to Emperor Constantine; that would be the case a century later. The people were born in the rituals to being “patriotic” to the Roman Empire and to obeying the reigning Emperor. The people were not dupe: not a single ex-voto (in Greek or Latin) to an Emperor (living or dead) was found. People asked and demanded from their Gods to be cured or saved from calamities.

The temporal sovereign was considered a need to safeguard the peace and continuity of the communities; as long as no new heavy taxes were imposed the Emperor could be labeled “The so good and beloved monarch”. The luxurious way of life of the monarch was accepted as a right that fit the position: the monarch didn’t have to abuse of pageantry to impress upon the people, it was not a sort of propaganda to remind the people of his role and power. It was simply a right attached to the position of power.  All that an Emperor had to do is to occasionally speak on the virtue of the existing rituals so that to clear the void and the silence in the kingdom.

In 325 Emperor Constantine summoned all the Bishops to a conclave in Nicaea (Turkey).  The conclave dragged on for four months and ended with a slight majority agreeing to a new abstract dogma of the Trinity of Father, Son, and the Virgin Mary, the Holy Ghost and the Credo.  The dissenting Christian sects were labeled “heretics” because they wanted to believe in One God and not bestow divinity on Jesus and much less on Mary.

Ten years later Emperor Constantine defeated Licinius and became the sole Emperor to the Mediterranean Sea Empire. Persecution of the heretic Christian sects started in earnests and they had to flee to the eastern shores of the Euphrates River, a kingdom under the Persian Sassanide Empire.

Apparently, Emperor Constantine was never defeated in military battles; if he were he might have had a second thought about his all powerful protector new God; at least he might have listened more seriously to the heretic Christian Unique God.  Two years before his death, Emperor Constantine defeated the Germans and wrote to the Bishops meeting in conclave in Tyr (Lebanon) “The Germans are converting to Christianity; they are convinced that our God cannot be defeated or vanquished.”

Constantine died in 337.

From this year to 400 Christianity could have easily lost its supremacy as the Emperor religion.  Emperor Julian reverted to paganism but died two years later; he could have easily converted the whole Empire to paganism which was the vast majority.  Several Christian Emperors were elected by factional armies not on religious ground but for many other reasons.

One main reason that Christian Emperors succeeded to the throne in the next 60 years was because the paganism was flexible, indifferent, and tolerant, while the Christian Church was exclusive (once converted then you are sucked in) and it grabbed tightly at any rights it gained.  The minority Church used to the hilt the temporal power of the Emperors to affirm its positions.

In 394, Emperor Theodosius managed to defeat the pagan German General Arbogast in Slovenia. This defeat was a pure fluke of nature: a violent wind blew in the face of the combined more powerful Roman/Germanic army.  Arbogast had reigned in Rome and installed a figure head Emperor Eugene; he re-confirmed paganism in Rome and for six years paganism was master in the western provinces. Also, two years earlier to the definitive battle, Theodosius had banished all public pagan rituals in the Orient in reaction to Arbogast attempts to restore paganism.

This military defeat had set the stage for the supremacy of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Thus, in the 5th century, the number of bishops jumped drastically; from around 6 to 50 in North Italy, from 20 to 70 in France (Gaul), and in North Africa the number tripled. The pagans transformed Christianity into paganism rituals of visiting every new sanctified Saint or shrines where miracles were invented and propagated.  Pictures and statues of Saints and the Virgin Mary proliferated much quicker than churches.

When Islam conquered the Near East by defeating Heracles in the battle of Yarmouk, the heretic Christian sects (the true monolithic sects) converted to a religion that coincided with their belief system in One and Unique God and that accepted all the Jewish and Christian Bibles as forming integral part of Islam’s fundamental doctrine.  If the Byzantium Empire had selected the Christian heretic dogma instead of the Trinity Islam would have never emerged to fill this vacuum since the Prophet Muhammad was initially a convert to one of the Christian-Jewish sects in Mecca.

There are two distinct civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea. 

The main difference is in the transmission of rituals and traditions among the people.  The Oriental civilization accepts a temporal sovereign who appoints the religious clergy of bishops and Imam (a decentralized religion) and the western civilization was comfortable with the cast of the clergy using the temporal power to expand its dominion over the people (a centralized religious power in Rome); that was the case after the year 400 in pagan Rome.

The Christian religion emulated the trend of former civilizations and a major schism occurred in 1000 between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches based on the perception, power, and the rights of the temporal power. In fact, Emperor Theodoric of Constantinople exerted pressures on Pope Gelase 1st to submit to the temporal rights of the sovereign; then, the Pope created the theory of separation of the spiritual and temporal powers in order to appease the Emperor.

While the Orient experienced a resurgence of the sciences and rational thinking in the 7th century, Europe was engulfed in the Dark Age till the 15th century because the Catholic Church prohibited any rational challenges to its authority.

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Why Europe was barbaric for 3 centuries? What is “Catholic Church”?

Posted by: on: October 21, 2009

The barbaric Catholic Church;(October 13, 2009)

There is a resurgence of Islamophobia in France, couched under the pretext of discovering the origins of European civilization as a combination of Greek and Christian cultures.

It would be worthwhile to set the historical facts straight for any meaningful reply.

By 324 AC, the Roman Emperor Constantine had defeated the three other co-Emperors and is the sole ruler of the Mediterranean Sea Empire, including England, France, northern Africa, Egypt, Turkey, and the Near East to the Euphrates River.

Emperor Constantine ordered the Bishops of all the Christian sects in his Empire (they were a dozen at least) to meet in Nicea (Turkey) to adopt a unifying “dogma” for a central Orthodox Church based in Constantinople. (Every empire seeks to have its own religion and persecute all other sects as heretics)

By a slight majority, bishops who agreed to Constantine’s radical abstract dogma (he was a new convert) started to persecute the “heretic” Christian sects who fled to the western side of the Euphrates River that was under Persia Empire.

From 325 AC to around 700 AC there was a Christian Empire dominated by Byzantium with Capital in Constantinople. This empire was to the east of the Euphrates River, crossing Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, all the way to England and including North Africa

To the west of the Euphrates River there was a Persian Empire, mostly under the Sassanid Dynasty.  For four centuries, the Christians of the Orient under the central power of the Church of Constantinople avoided any rational thinking and sciences were halted.

The Arabic/Islamic Empire, around 650 AC, entered Damascus and conquered Persia, but did not conquer the western part of Turkey which remained with the Byzantium Empire until 1450 when the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad 2 entered Constantinople and spread all the way to the borders of Vienna in Austria.

The Christians of the Orient, especially the heretic sects, converted to Islam that represented a pragmatic common denominator religion, away from the abstract Orthodox Church, though this Islam adopted most of the Jewish mythical stories and even the customs of the Jewish desert life-style traditions.

Rational thinking got a boost because the Omayyad dynasty settled in Damascus as Capital endeavored to translate foreign knowledge and Greek manuscripts (by the Syrian scholars who mastered at least 3 languages) to the Syriac and Arabic languages got underway; it was about time.

It took almost 100 years for the Islamic empire to acquire enough knowledge to go ahead and produce scientific books.

In around 1000, a major schism in Christianity split the Catholic Church of Rome with the Christian Orthodox Church of Constantinople. Actually, the initial Crusade campaigns had for objective to conquer Constantinople and coerce the Orthodox Church into uniting with Rome.

That is what took place and Constantinople was ransacked and burned before the Crusading forces marched on toward Jerusalem. The other successive Crusading incursions had for objective to capture Egypt and free the spice routes directly to Europe without paying taxes to the Muslim Kingdoms along the maritime and land caravan routes.

The Koran was translated in Constantinople in the 9th century.

It was also translated in Toledo (Spain) in the 12th century but was not disseminated in Europe.

Europe got aware of Islam’s concept of decentralized religious power in the 16th century when printing made it feasible; this was the period when the Catholic Church of Rome experienced its decline on holding on absolute religious and civilian power.

Thus, from 325 to 1450 Europe was Christian.  Why Greek civilization, if Europe insists on taking the source of its culture from antique Greece, was not prevalent during over 11 centuries?

Why Europe remained barbaric till the 15th century?

Is it because the Christian dogma of Rome was barbaric and refused other civilizations and cultures to infiltrate Europe?

Certainly the Christian clerics were at least bilingual, mostly Latin and Greek, and consequently, if Greece had any culture it would have been translated into Latin.

Some would give the lame excuse that the scholars in Europe, mostly the clerics, could read the Greek manuscripts in their original forms and had no need to translate any manuscripts into Latin or other live languages; this would be another proof that the Catholic Church of Rome was barbaric and refused philosophical and scientific disciplines to penetrate into Europe.

Europe experienced a demographic surge around 1000 AC; it is after getting in contact with the Near East culture and civilization (under Arabic/Islamic kingdoms) during the Crusading campaigns that culture entered Europe from the open door.

Even after the total defeat of the Crusaders in 1200, the Near East culture permeation would continue via Andalusia in southern Spain. The Arabic/Muslim civilization in Spain was the main source for the transfer of sciences into Europe until the “Christian” Spanish monarchs conquered completely Spain in around 1450 and chased out Moslems and Jews from its territory.

Greece after Aristotle did not produce much in culture.  It was just a brilliant century for the City-State of Athens during Pericles period, as so many glorious periods for a dozen other City-States that dotted the Mediterranean shores and the Euphrates River, from Mary, Harran, Edessa, Ugarit, Tripoli, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, Tyr, and much later Alexandria, Antiochus, and Ephesus… that scholars and archeologists have to start focusing on for the origins of civilizations.

The proof is that the Byzantium Empire that was established in Greece for over 11 centuries is no where mentioned as source for any worthwhile civilization.

Macedonian warriors under Alexander conquered the Near East.  It is not because the Near East people, from Alexandria, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and coastal Turkey, who assimilated the Greek language and spread their own culture and civilization in the Greek language that Europe has to claim its civilization to Greece. Europe should not.

It is the Near East culture and civilization that assimilated the languages of the various conquerors (Mesopotamians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs from the Arabic Peninsula, Ottomans from the Turkish Plateau, and the most recent French colonialism, and English colonialism) that absorbed and disseminated the fundamental cultures and civilizations to its neighboring environment.

It is not because of the invasion of nomadic warriors from the Arabic Peninsula that Arabic civilization should be labeled Arab.

Why the Mogul Empires that lasted longer than many Empires and stretched much further than many are not given any civilization?  It is a shame that Europe still feels the urge to attribute civilization to military conquering warriors.

Europe would have remained barbaric if it was not superseded as a superpower by the USA and Russia after WWII.

The recent colonial dominations and the slaughtering of indigent people is a striking proof.  The single streak that the USA inherited mostly from Europe is its barbaric pre-emptive wars against smaller nations and its racist tendency for hegemony whenever the chance knocks.

Thus, the break up of the “heretic” protestant sects with the Catholic Church of Rome opened the way for Europe’s renaissance and the transfer of Islamic scientific discoveries and scientific methods with sound mathematical discipline.

Strong with new sciences the “heretic” Protestant sects created models of nationalism to civilize the “barbarians” of the world.  Renaissance of Europe turned out not to be driven toward humanitarian purposes but based on exclusive nationalism proprietary that exhibited its brutal and ugly racist behavior for many decades.

After the 18th century, Papal Rome tried hastily to catch up with the scientific trend and put up a face of progress and the conservator of scientific investigation.  This obscurantist religious central power initiated and backed all European invasions; it supervised the extermination of aborigines under the guise of “Christianize” the pagan barbarians.

Note: I use shock titles to lure readers. Those who patronize my blog comprehend that my posts are highly rational: They are the work of much analysis and reflection. I have no zeal to dwell into religions of any kinds. I would like readers to refer to my recent post “Damascus saved the Greek culture and language”.

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The devil is NOT in the details

Posted by: on: October 16, 2009

The devil is NOT in the details; (October 16, 2009)

 

            Details are what bring people together to communicate, dialogue, and negotiate to reach compromises.  The main wall that separate among communities is the concrete wall mixed with myths, general concepts, and abstract notions.  Strong with draft details each organization can start to sort out the differences and comprehend the big picture; it is never the way around in social behavior. I will discuss two cases, one religious and the other of political nature.

            After the crucifixion of Jesus many Christian sects were born in the Near East in the first four centuries.  Fundamentally, these sects were almost identical in applying the Jewish daily rituals or the Jewish 650 laws of “correct” conduct. What separated these sects were abstract concepts that did not harm their peaceful coexistence in separate communities of believers: they never attacked by force one another; military persecutions started when the Church acquired central power in Constantinople; whole “heretic” sects and entire communities had to flee to safety. 

            Thus, The Mighty Wall was erected after 325 AC when Byzantium Empire decided to adopt Christianity as the main religion of the Empire.  Thus, the central power concept of the Empire dictated that church should be centralized.  Instead of focusing in negotiating on the details that split the various sects an upper abstract super-structure on concepts was imposed; concepts such as the dual nature of Christ, the deity of the threes (the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit), the virginity of the mother Mary and on.  This time around, the sects were to join the Orthodox Church by force if need be: a central Empire cannot permit disunity, even on totally nonsense abstract conjectures!

            Consequently, the labeled “heretic” sects had to flee beyond the eastern shores of the Euphrates River (to the Persia Sassanide Dynasty).  The Nestourian sect reached China and translated “their” Bible into the Chinese language. Many other “heretic” sects settled in the Arabic Peninsula; the Christian-Jewish “Ebionite” sect was firmly entrenched in Mecca; the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, Ain Warkat, was the Patriarch of this sect and Muhammad learned to read in the Aramaic Ebionite Bible; Muhammad aided his uncle in the translation of this specific Bible into the Arabic slang of Mecca.  Thus, Islam is originally a common denominator “heretic” Christian sect, one of many Christian sects in the Arabic Peninsula; the Prophet had to delete all the abstract notions to unite the sects; it was named Islam or the belief in the One and only God.

            The strong animosity of the Catholic Church of Rome against Islam was not directed at a religion such as Buddhism or Mazdean but at a new “heretic” Christian sect usurping its central power in the Near East. The Orthodox Church in Constantinople was more lenient with Islam because it understood its genesis and the causes for the need of this new “heresy”; for Constantinople Islam was the oriental counterpart of Protestantism to Rome when Islam became the dominant religion in the region. 

            It is said: “the enemy of my enemy is my ally”; this Machiavellian principle was lost to obscurantist Catholic Church. Rome was too far away and fought Islam with the ignorance of abstract concepts. For the Catholic Church in 1,000 AC, Islam was doubly “heretic” instead of just the counterpart to the central Orthodox Church of the Byzantium Empire: it failed to realize that if Islam spread so fast and so widely it is mainly because most the labeled Christian heretic sects quickly converted to Islam as representing their system of belief against the monopole of Constantinople.

 

            The other case is the concept of a Syrian Nation with well delimited natural borders including Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and part of Iraq to the west of the Tiger (Dujlat) River. This concept was highly widespread among the people of the region as the Ottoman Empire was dying during WWI.  It was still even more alive during the mandate of France and Britain to the region (Near East) after WWI. The people in the Syrian Nation speak one language and have the same customs and tradition.  This nation was as natural as ABC; the immigrants were first called Turks during the Ottoman Empire and then they were all called Syrians regardless of location or religion.

            The main problem is that the political parties spent two critical decades proving the evident (according to the newer definitions of the West for a Nation) instead of making the effort to developing draft detailed programs on the type of political administrative structure for this nation, the social representation, and election laws; (for example, is it a Federal structure like the USA where each mandated State is fully autonomous with local government and local parliament, or provinces tailored made to religious, ethnic, and sectarian majorities, or loosely united States with open borders, common money, central army, or centralized foreign affairs; is Syria to be a monarchy and what kind). 

            Instead of discussing detailed programs, political parties mushroomed with abstract concepts not based on facts or pragmatic long-term goals. The colonial “mandated powers” of France and England had field days of “dividing to rule”.  Every sect established its political party in every potential State claiming either total independence, or seeking a pan-Arabic Nation of Arabic speaking majorities in States, or Islamic Nation.  We watched the emergence of communist parties disclaiming the notion of affiliating to a nation, to sectarian parties claiming democracy, socialism, and progressive. The worst propaganda that was encouraged by the colonial powers is to incite citizens against the Syrian people with the objective of discrediting the word Syria and giving it a bad connotation.

              Natural borders of chain of mountains, desert, or large rivers do not necessarily protect from invasions; natural borders certainly encourage people to trade and interact inside the borders.  It is the internal rough geography and terrain that protects from outside military incursions.  Once a force crosses the border then Syria is an open land all the way to Egypt. Syria, or the Near East, was continuously occupied by foreign armies: these foreign invaders had to retreat quickly or get absorbed culturally. Whatever monuments, constructions, temples, sport arena, or scholarly works that were attributed to invading nations (Persia, Egypt, Greek, Rome, or Arab) are basically the work of the Near Eastern civilization, their scholars, their craftsmen, and their adventurous business acumen.

            The City-States in the Near East (Tyr, Sidon, Byblos, Ugharit, Mary …) competed in commerce and trade but never attacked one another militarily.  In Greece, City-States frequently waged military wars against one another.  The Near Eastern people adopted defensive strategy; even Carthage in its apogee refrained to antagonize Rome militarily.

            Egypt and Persia frequent invasions in the Near East did not last long.  The Greek were absorbed: what Europe claim as Greek civilization is nothing less than the civilization of the Greek writing Syrians who spoke Aramaic.  Rome was finally absorbed: the Roman Laws are of the legal minds from the school of Beirut and the latest Emperors were born, raised, and educated in Syria. The Byzantium Empire was fundamentally a Near Eastern Empire.  The Arabs from the Arabic Peninsula were absorbed when Damascus was selected as Capital during the Umayyad Dynasty; the Arabs were absorbed by the Persian civilization when the capital shifted to Baghdad.  The Mogul retreated quickly but established long lasting Empires in India and Afghanistan. The Ottoman conquered this land and could not be absorbed: the Syrian people were already exhausted from many years of successive invasions, religious obscurantism, and immigration by scholars to greener pastures.  France and England retreated within two decades.  Israel failed to retreat on time and is now being absorbed as Near Eastern regardless of Israel attempts to seeking European image.

            Consequently, failing to writing a draft on a possible administrative program for the Syrian Nation opened the door to abstract concept instead of working out negotiation and dialogue on pragmatic matters that concerned the people.

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The barbaric Catholic Church

Posted by: on: October 13, 2009

The barbaric Catholic Church; (October 13, 2009)

 

            There is a resurgence of Islamophobia in France couched under the pretext of discovering the origins of European civilization as a combination of Greek and Christian cultures. It would be worthwhile to set the historical facts straight for any meaningful reply.

            Since 325 AC to around 700 AC there was a Christian Empire dominated by Byzantium with Capital in Constantinople. This empire was to the east of the Euphrates River, crossing Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, all the way to England and including North Africa. It was basically a Mediterranean Sea Empire.  To the west of the Euphrates River there was a Persian Empire, mostly under the Sassanide Dynasty.  The Arabic Empire did not conquer the western part of Turkey which remained with the Byzantium Empire until 1450 when the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad 2 entered Constantinople and spread all the way to the borders of Vienna in Austria.

            In around 1000 a major schism in Christianity split the Catholic Church of Rome with the Christian Orthodox Church of Constantinople. Actually, the initial Crusade campaigns had for objective to conquer Constantinople and coerce the Orthodox Church into uniting with Rome. That is what took place and Constantinople was ransacked and burned before the Crusading forces marched on toward Jerusalem. The other successive Crusading incursions had for objective to capture Egypt and free the spice routes directly to Europe without paying taxes to the Moslem Kingdoms along the maritime and land caravan routes.

            Thus, from 325 to 1450 Europe was Christian.  Why Greek civilization, if Europe insists on taking the source of its culture from antique Greece, was not prevalent during over 11 centuries?  Why Europe remained barbaric till the 15th century?  Is it because the Christian dogma of Rome was barbaric and refused other civilizations and cultures to infiltrate Europe?  Certainly the Christian clerics were at least bilingual, mostly Latin and Greek, and consequently, if Greece had any culture it would have been translated into Latin. Some would give the lame excuse that the scholars in Europe, mostly the clerics, could read the Greek manuscripts in their original forms and had no need to translate any manuscripts into Latin or other live languages; this would be another proof that the Catholic Church of Rome was barbaric and refused philosophical and scientific disciplines to penetrate into Europe.

            Europe experienced a demographic surge around 1000 AC; it is after getting in contact with the Near East culture and civilization (under Arabic/Islamic kingdoms) during the Crusading campaigns that culture entered Europe from the open door.  Even after the total defeat of the Crusaders in 1200 the Near East culture permeation would continue via Andalusia in southern Spain. The Arabic/Moslem civilization in Spain was the main source for the transfer of sciences into Europe until the “Christian” Spanish monarchs conquered completely Spain in around 1400 and chased out Moslems and Jews from its territory.

            Greece after Aristotle did not produced much in culture.  It was just a brilliant century for the City-State of Athens during Pericles period, as so many glorious periods for a dozen other City-States that dotted the Mediterranean shores and the Euphrates River, from Mary, Harran, Edessee, Ugharite, Tripoli, Byblos, Beirut, Sidon, Tyr, and much later Alexandria, Antiochus, and Ephesus, and on that scholars and archeologists have to start focusing on for the origins of civilizations.  The proof is that the Byzantium Empire that was established in Greece for over 11 centuries is no where mentioned as source for any worthwhile civilization.

            Macedonian warriors under Alexander conquered the Near East; it is not because the Near East people, from Alexandria, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and coastal Turkey, who assimilated the Greek language and spread their own culture and civilization in the Greek language that Europe has to claim its civilization to Greece. Europe should not. It is the Near East culture and civilization that assimilated the languages of the various conquerors (Mesopotamians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs from the Arabic Peninsula, Ottomans from the Turkish Plateau, French colonialism, and English colonialism) that absorbed and disseminated the fundamental cultures and civilizations to its neighboring environment.  

            It is not because of the invasion of nomadic warriors from the Arabic Peninsula that Arabic civilization should be labeled Arab.  Why the Mogul Empires that lasted longer than many Empires and stretched much further than many are not given any civilization?  It is a shame that Europe still feels the urge to attribute civilization to military conquering warriors.

 

Note: The title was meant to be catchy to drive through the purpose of the topic. I have no zeal to dwell into religions of any kinds. I would like readers to refer to my recent post “Damascus saved the Greek culture”.

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Damascus saved the ancient Greek culture

Posted by: on: October 8, 2009

Damascus saved the ancient Greek culture; (October 10, 2009)

 

            The German philosopher Heidegger stated: “Philosophy is purely Greek” and thus, the European love to believe that philosophy is purely a western conception. In “Aristotle at mount St. Michel”, the latest book of Sylvain Guggenheim, it is said in substance that Europe would not have needed the Arab civilization to accede to the Greek heritage in philosophy and sciences and that it is the Christian “Arabs” who introduced Hellenisms in the Islamic-Arab world. It goes on “As a religion, Islam didn’t offer anything to the European civilization, neither textual reference nor theological argument. It goes also in the legal and political domains.”

           

I got into thinking.

            The Islamic armies defeated the Byzantium forces of Heracles in Syria and the Persian Sassanide forces in Iraq and expanded into Egypt during the second Caliphate Omar Ibn Khattab.  Within five years, the Umayyad dynasty of Moawiyat decided on Damascus for Capital of the new Arab Empire.

            Damascus was the hotbed of most of the Orthodox Christian sects that paid allegiance to the center in Byzantium and they were learned in the Greek language along with the Aramaic popular language.  The “heretic” Christian sects had fled beyond the Euphrates River to the kingdom of Persia.

            The Arab Umayyad dynasty relied on the Orthodox Christian educated people to translate Greek philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and science manuscripts into the Arabic language; the Aramaic language was the root language for the spoken Arabic language in the Arabic Peninsula and thus it was easy for the Syrian to adopt Arabic and translate the Greek and Roman manuscripts.

            It is not that the Near East people just loved the ancient Greek manuscripts of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euripides, and Sophocles. It is more likely that most of the Greek schools of sciences, philosophy, and medicine were erected by Greek speaking scholars born on the Mediterranean shores from Alexandria, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey; those famous scholars span from Euclid, Thales, Heracles, Plotine, Zenon, Ptolemy, and passing by the great law givers and founders of the Roman Empire located in Beirut.

            If the new Islamic Empire failed to settle on Damascus as Capital and opted to stay in Medina then it is very likely that the Greek manuscripts and culture would have vanished during the hegemony of the Arabic Empire.

 

I got into thinking.

            If in the nick of time, the fourth Caliphate Ali ibn Abi Taleb decided not to defeat and pursue the army of Mouawiyat then the Capital of the Islamic Arab Empire would have been Koufa in Iraq.  The ancient culture of Persia would have been the civilization of the land from the confine of China to England.  What the European scholars love to label their race as Indo-European would have been a more fitting name: the Persian-Indian culture and civilization.

 

I got into thinking.

            If the Prophet Muhammad did not adopt the Jewish Bibles and the Christian New Testaments as integral part of Islam in an attempt of consolidating common denominators among these monotheist religions then what kind of Christianity Europe would be having today?

            Damascus saved the ancient Greek language. Damascus saved its culture.  Like it or not, the European should be proud of their real Near Eastern heritage along the eastern Mediterranean shores. (More on that topic in following posts).

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