major in social studies

1. Iraq
Al Jumhuriyah al Iraqiyah- The
Cradle of Civilization

2. Western Asia

3. Archaeological map of Iraq

4. Capital and Major Cities:
 Capital: Baghdad, population
9,500,000 (2008 estimate)
 Major cities: Mosul, 3,000,000
 Basra, 2,300,000
 Arbil, 1,294,000
 Kirkuk, 1,200,000

5. Top 4- Greatest History
Sites
 Baghdad
Heyday: Eighth century
Founded in AD 762 by the
Abbasid caliph al-Mansur as his
capital, Baghdad soon became the
intellectual focal point of the
Islamic Golden Age – the centre
of global thinking. This circular
city included parks and gardens
as well as a central mosque.

6.  The House of Wisdom, built by
caliph Harun al-Rashid in the late
eighth century, attracted
philosophers and scholars,
writers and mathematicians to
debate, create and share ideas,
and within 50 years had become
the largest repository of books
in the world.

7. Top 3- Greatest History
Sites
 Uruk
 (presentday, Wahrak)
Heyday: Fourth millennium BC
The greatest city you never
heard of is probably the earliest
large urban settlement on Earth.
In the fertile region of
Mesopotamia, between the Tigris
and Euphrates Rivers (in modern-
day Iraq), the burgeoning

8.  Sumerian civilisation developed
writing, the wheel and war. By
3000 BC, Uruk was the world’s
biggest city, with a population of
some 50,000. A change in the
course of the Euphrates saw it
abandoned by AD 700.

9. Clockwise from top: Aerial view of the Green Zone; Al-
Mustansiriya University; Al-Kadhimiya Mosque; Swords of
Qadisiyah monument; and the National Museum of Iraq

10. Uruk in 2008

11. Geography
 Iraq is a desert country, but it is
watered by two major rivers - the
Tigris and the Euphrates.
 Only 12% of Iraq's land is arable.
 It controls a 58 km (36 mile)
coast on the Persian Gulf, where
the two rivers empty into the
Indian Ocean.

12.  Its highest point is Cheekah Dar,
a mountain in the north of the
country, at 3,611 m (11,847 feet).
Its lowest point is sea level.
 It has a very small coastline of
just 36 miles (58 km) along the
Persian Gulf.

13.  Some years, heavy mountain snow
in the north produces dangerous
flooding on the rivers.
 The lowest temperature recorded
in Iraq was -14°C (7°F). The
highest temperature was 54°C
(129°F).

14. Government of Iraq
The Republic of Iraq is a parliamentary
democracy.

15.  The unicameral parliament is
called the Council of
Representatives; its 325
members serve four-year terms.
Eight of those seats are
specifically reserved for ethnic
or religious minorities.

16.  Iraq's judiciary system consists
of the Higher Judicial Council,
the Federal Supreme Court, the
Federal Court of Cassation, and
lower courts. ("Cassation" literally
means "to quash" - it is another
term for appeals, evidently taken
from the French legal system.)

17. Population
 Iraq has a total population of
about 30.4 million. The population
growth rate is an estimated 2.4%.
About 66% of Iraqis live in urban
areas.
 75-80% -Arabs
 15-20% are Kurds
 5%-Turkomen, Assyrians,
Armenians, Chaldeans, and other
ethnic groups

18. Languages
 Both Arabic and Kurdish are
official languages of Iraq.
 Minority-Turkoman, Assyrian,
Armenian
 Although the total number of
languages spoken in Iraq is not
high, the linguistic variety is
great.

19. Religion
 Iraq is an overwhelmingly Muslim
country (~97%)
 it is also among the most even
divided countries on Earth in
terms of Sunni(32-37%) and Shi'a
(65%) populations

20. Shi’a and Sunni Muslim
 Islam split into Sunnis and Shias
during the first Islamic civil war,
656-661. The Sunnis followed the
caliphs, while the Shia followed
Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law
Ali instead.

21. Sunni
 Also Known As: Sunnism, Ahl as-
Sunnah wa'l-Jama'h, Ahl as-
Sunnah

22. Shi’a
 Alternate Spellings: Shia, Shiah,
Shiite
 Examples:
 "The Shi'a are the most populous
Muslim sect in Iran."

23. Economy
 The economy of Iraq is all about
oil; "black gold" provides more
than 90% of government revenue,
and accounts for 80% of the
country's foreign exchange
income.
 Currency: dinar
 $1 US=1,163dinar=47PHP (2012)

24.  Workforce-service sector
 15-22% -agriculture sector
 15%-unemployment rate
 25% Iraqis live below the poverty
line.

25.  Since the start of the US-led
War in Iraq in 2003, foreign aid
has become a major component of
Iraq's economy, as well.

26. Climate
 As a subtropical desert, Iraq
experiences extreme seasonal
variation in temperature. In parts
of the country, July and August
temperatures averageover 48°C.
During the rainy winter months of
December through March,
however, temperatures drop
below freezing not infrequently.

27.  Multiple Exposure, Nimrud, Iraq
History

28. Timeline
1. Seat of the Sumerian and
Babylonian cultures c. 4,000 -
500 BCE.
2. After about 500 BCE, Iraq was
ruled by a succession of Persian
dynasties, such as
the Achaemenids, the Parthians,
the Sassanids and
the Seleucids.

29. o Although local governments
existed in Iraq, they were under
Iranian control until the 600s CE.
3. In 633, the year after the
Prophet Muhammad died, a Muslim
army under Khalid ibn Walid
invaded Iraq.
o began to Islamicize the region
that is now Iraq and Iran.

30. 4. Between 661 and 750, Iraq was a
dominion of the Umayyad
Caliphate, which ruled from
Damascus (now in Syria).
5. The Abbasid Caliphate, which
ruled the Middle East and North
Africa from 750 to 1258, decided
to build a new capital closer to
the political power hub of Persia.
It built the city of Baghdad,
which became a center of Islamic
art and learning.

31. 6. In 1258, catastrophe struck the
Abbasids and Iraq in the form the
Mongols under Hulagu Khan, a
grandson of Genghis Khan.
o The Mongols also burned the
Grand Library of Baghdad and its
wonderful collection of documents
- one of the great crimes of
history.
o at least 200,000 Iraqi died
o Caliph Al-Mustasim, refused and
died

32. o In the Mongols' wake, however,
the Black Death carried away
about a third of Iraq's
population.
7. In 1401, Timur the Lame
(Tamerlane) captured Baghdad,
and ordered another massacre of
its people.
8. Ottoman Tukrs supplanted
Timur’s army. The Ottoman
Empire would rule Iraq from the
fifteenth century through 1917

33. 9. Under the British/French plan to
divide the Middle East, the 1916
Sykes-Picot Agreement, Iraq
became part of the British
Mandate.
o On November 11, 1920, the region
became a British mandate under
the League of Nations, called the
"State of Iraq."

34. o Britain brought in a (Sunni)
Hashemite king from the region
of Mecca and Medina, now in
Saudi Arabia, to rule over the
primarily Shi'a Iraqis and Kurds
of Iraq, sparking widespread
discontent and rebellion.

35. o In 1932, Iraq gained nominal
independence from Britain,
although the British-appointed
King Faisal still ruled the country
and the British military had
special rights in Iraq.
10. The Hashemites ruled until
1958, when King Faisal II was
assassinated in a coup led by
11. Brigadier General Abd al-Karim
Qasim (Qasim’s rule).

36. 12. Qasim's rule survived for just
five years, before being
overthrown in turn by Colonel
Abdul Salam Arif in February of
1963. Three years later, Arif's
brother took power after the
colonel died; however, he would
rule Iraq for just two years
before being deposed by
13. a Ba'ath Party-led coup in 1968.

37. o The Ba'athist government was led
by Ahmed Hasan Al-Bakir at first,
but he was slowly elbowed aside
over the next decade by Saddam
Hussein.
o Saddam Hussein formally seized
power as president of Iraq in
1979. The following year, feeling
threatened by rhetoric from
the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,

38.  new leader of the Islamic Republic
of Iran, Saddam Hussein launched
an invasion of Iran that led to the
eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War.

39. Iran-Iraq War
 The Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to
1988 was a grinding, bloody, and in
the end, completely pointless
conflict. It was sparked by
the Iranian Revolution, led
by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,
which overthrew Shah Pahlavi in
1978-79.

40. o Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,
who despised the Shah, welcomed
this change, but his joy turned to
alarm when the Ayatollah began
calling for a Shi'a revolution
in Iraq to overthrow Saddam's
secular/Sunni regime.

41. o Video
o With support from the Gulf Arab
states and the United States,
Saddam Hussein was able to fight
the Iranians to a stalemate.
o He also took the opportunity to
use chemical weapons against tens
of thousands of Kurdish and
Marsh Arab civilians within his
own country, as well as against the
Iranian troops.

42. Watch video.
First Gulf War