An Alternate Witness

This interview and the associated book offer a view of Iraqi history and culture not often heard these days:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/a_talk_with_orit_bashkin/?page=full

It's a controversial viewpoint, to be sure, one that I call the "Istrabadi version" of Iraqi history, because it's the one that I heard most often from my professors at Indiana University, Dr. Zainab Istrabadi and her brother Amb. Faisal Istrabadi. But there is some truth to this viewpoint. For a very long time, especially during the Abbasid Dynasty that built Baghdad, Iraq and especially Baghdad were the center of the known world. Scholars came to Baghdad, Basra and Kufa from as far away as al-Andalus in Spain or the Philippines to study with the some of the greatest scholars of their ages in Baghdad.

The Talmud, the greatest compendium of Jewish law, was written in Babylon (a suburb of present-day Baghdad), where the Jews had been banished by King Nebuchadnezzar II in 588 BC. Even after the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Palestine half a century later, many stayed on in Baghdad, and for 25 centuries there was a substantial Jewish population in Baghdad. In addition to Jewish contributions, The Thousand and One Nights as we in the West know it today was adapted from Hindi in Abassid Baghdad. The seat of the Nestorian Church, considered heretical and heavily persecuted by the Byzantine Holy Roman Empire, has always been in Baghdad, with Nestorians living peacefully alongside Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Armenian Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Jews, Sabeans, Zoroastrians, Muslims (Sunnis, Shi'is and Sufis), Yazidis and others.

As Zainab and Amb. Istrabadi's father used to say, Iraq is a country of 38 nationalities (i.e. ethnic and religious groups). The Istrabadi family tree itself includes Sunni Arabs, Shi'i Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Turkmens, and many others, and the Istrabadis are hardly unique in this respect.

I see two futures for Baghdad and the rest of Iraq. The tapestry of Iraqi identity may well survive and be repaired after the occupation ends, with all Iraqis finding a way to coexist. We may find, however, that America and the so-called Coalition of the Willing has shredded the Iraqi cultural tapestry so badly that Iraq will be shattered for generations.