How did the ancient Iraqi legends tell the story of Noah's flood, and how the holy books narrated it
The “Great Flood” event appears as part of the story of formation and migrations in different cultures and civilizations. Researchers have monitored nearly 500 legends about the Flood , around the world, that varied between religious narratives, historical legends and folklore; The article is concerned with following its formula in the ancient East and the Jewish and Islamic religions.
Quranic narrative and biblical narrative
The flood is one of the most prominent themes of religious stories, whether biblical or Qur’an, as it deals with the common idea between the two books, the Torah and the Qur’an: Noah’s inviting people to return to faith in God and obedience to Him, and his stay among them for centuries inviting them, and their disobedience to Him. The beginning of human life anew with Noah and his family and those who believed with him. If the Qur’anic narration agrees with that of the biblical one in the general features of the story, they differ in the details, as the biblical narration is unique in details such as the dimensions of the ark, the names of Noah’s sons, the extent of the height of the flood waters, and others. While the Quranic narration focuses on the controversy between Noah and his people, then Noah and his son, who refused to believe with him and tried to sit on the mountain, and it is unique in mentioning the gods of the people: Wad, Suaa, Yagout, Yaqoub and Eagle. As well as mentioning the Prophet’s prayer for his people to perish and God’s response to him by shedding the flood, as well as the difference in the two accounts regarding Noah’s wife, where God commands him in the biblical narrative to carry his wife with him while the Qur’an mentions that she was an unbeliever, which means that she was one of the drowned. We also find a fundamental difference in that Noah in the Torah carried his family only, while we read in the Qur'an that he was with him those who believed in him. Among the comparisons is that the Qur’an mentions that Noah kept calling his people for 950 years, while it is stated in the Torah that he called them to obey God for 600 years and then lived 350 years after the flood. Finally, the Torah is unique in mentioning that Noah released the birds after the end of the flood to explore the land and tell him if it was suitable for life, so the dove returned to him with a green olive branch, a scene that turned into a global icon symbolizing peace.
Sumerian Flood
In the period of the "dawn of the first dynasties" of the kings of the Sumer civilization in ancient southern Iraq, the story of the first flood was written. But the tablet on which the story was written, and whose text was published by the German researcher and scientist Arno Poppel in 1914 AD, after it was found near the Iraqi city of “Afak” (south-central Iraq and follows the Qadisiyah governorate), was distorted and did not provide complete details about the Sumerian flood, and that narration was not found. In any of the other tablets discovered, which made the Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir wonder if the story of the flood was one of the most prominent Sumerian literary exploits.
The Sumerian story is told by the Syrian researcher Firas al-Sawah in his book "The Mind's First Adventure - A Study in the Myth Syria, the Land of Mesopotamia". Sumerian, then there is an illegible passage of the text, after which the story continues that the gods decided to annihilate mankind by a flood. But the text shows that the gods were not all satisfied with this decision. While Anu, the father of the gods, and Enlil, the chief of the divine assembly, approved it, Inanna, the goddess of love and fertility, mourned for her people, and Nintu, the elder mother, wept like a woman in labor", and "Enki", the god of wisdom, "thought carefully and turned the matter on his face" and decided to save humanity from annihilation. At that time he ruled the city of Shuribak - the most important city of Sumer near "Al-Warka" in the present-day Muthanna Governorate in Iraq - a king named
What follows from the text is distorted, then the reader finds that the flood has already occurred and that torrents covered the earth for seven days and seven nights, and the ship was carried by the waves, then the flood ended, so Ziusudra opened a window in the ship to infiltrate the rays of “Utu” the sun god, and Ziusudra prostrated to Otto and presented Two sacrifices, one of the sheep and the other of an ox. After an illegible paragraph of the text, it is clear from the intact parts that both Anu and Enlil had sympathy for Ziusudra, so they descended to him and prostrated to them, and granted him immortal life, and then transferred him to live in the “Land of Dilmun” (currently Bahrain), which is the Sumerian earthly paradise where people live The selectors (not related to the afterlife, unlike some other faiths).
Babylonian flood
The Babylonians left three accounts of the flood, the oldest of which was found in the excavations of the ancient Babylonian city of Nippur, north of the Iraqi city of Afak in the present-day Qadisiyah Governorate, and it belongs to the ancient Babylonian state. It is a highly distorted text, which serves only to inform that a flood will occur. The second novel is "The Epic of Atrakhis", which is similar to the story of Ziusudra, except that it talks about the decision of "Enlil" to reduce the number of human beings due to his disturbance from their noise. For the god “Ea” (the god of wisdom equivalent to “Enki”) who is sympathetic to humans and reviews Enlil in their matter, then the flood occurs, but the text is distorted after that, so we do not know what happened, although it can be deduced by virtue of the sympathy of Ia / Enki with humans and his direct communication with atrachesis;
The most exciting text is that contained in the famous "Epic of Gilgamesh", which is the epic that deals with the story of Gilgamesh, king of the city of "Uruk" with a semi-divine nature, who goes through exciting events that lead him to search for the secret of immortality. He meets the immortal man "Utnapishtim" who tells him a story deluge. It is worth noting that the text of the flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first that was found from the epic texts in the excavations of the library of the Assyrian king “Ashur Banipal”, who was known for his love of knowledge and culture. Biblical.
The famous flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh visits Utnapishtim to ask him about the secret of immortality, and in his talk, the immortal Utnapishtim tells the story of the flood, saying that he was living in the city of “Shuripak” (and here we note the similarity with the story of Ziusudra), and then the gods decided in their meeting to destroy humans with the flood, and “Ea” was ( The Sumerian equivalent of Enki) was present, so he went down to Utnapishtim - who was probably the king of the city - and addressed him from behind the wall and said to him, "Tear down your house and build a ship... Abandon your possessions and save yourself... Leave your belongings and save your life... Work to carry the seed of every life and ship The one you are building will be according to exact sizes, so that its width will be equal to its length. Here Utnapishtim understood that he had to build a huge ship according to Ea's instructions and carry in it samples of every living creature. So he asked Ea what he would say to the people of the city if they asked him about the secret of building the ship, and he replied that he was telling them that he knew that “Enlil”
Utnapishtim builds a ship
So the man proceeds to carry out the command of his god, and informs his people of what he was commanded to say, and he also told them - according to the divine revelation - that the sky will rain on them with goodness and that the gods will provide them with food and fruits. People gathered to him and helped him build his ship, then he offered sacrifices, made food for them, and held celebrations. And Utnapishtim put on his ship what he owned of silver, gold, animals and beasts, then he collected animals in pairs with them, and he carried with him craftsmen and craftsmen, as well as his family and relatives. When the rain started, he closed the door and handed over its leadership to one of the navigators. And the flood began and began to sweep away everything while the ship was carried on board its waves, and "it struck the people as if it were war, and the brother did not see his brother, and the people did not recognize the sky, and even the gods were terrified of the flood, so they fled and ascended to the sky." Then the text mentions the fear of the gods at what they were commanded, so that Ishtar (the goddess of beauty and love) began to lament like a woman while she was giving birth, and she cried declaring remorse for agreeing to this decision, and the gods looked at what was happening while covering their faces in fear and sadness. And as in the Sumerian text, the flood lasted seven days and seven nights, then the waves carried the ship to settle on Mount Nasir (450 km from the city of Shurebak in a place called “Birh Makron” near Sulaymaniyah) and Utnapishtim opened the window to enter the light, then prostrated to the gods.
On the seventh day he released a dove and it came back because it did not find anything to land on, then he released the swallow and it came back also, then he released the crow and found the land had dried up, so it settled and ate, so he opened the doors of the ship and released what was in it of the animals and made an offering to the gods over a burnt offering, so the smell rose and they were all attracted to it and hovered around The Holocaust. So Ishtar raised her famous necklace made for her by Anu, the father of the gods, and said that she will not forget these days, nor will she forget her beloved necklace (indicating that she will not repeat participation in such a matter). It was a divine promise not to repeat the Flood. Then the gods added, warning Enlil to come to the burnt offering, because he was the one who ordered the flood without waiting. Here Enlil saw what was going on and fell angry that some of the gods had disobeyed him and saved some people.
But I blame Enlil for his decision and his severe collective punishment, saying, “Bear the sinner the burden of his sin, and bear the aggressor the sin of his transgression, but be merciful in punishment, lest he perish, and be strict in him lest he become more evil!” Here Enlil's anger subsides and Utnapishtim worships him, blesses them and grants him and his wife immortality. And here ends the story of the flood contained in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh. The reader in the story of the flood between both the Torah and the Qur’an on the one hand and the ancient Iraqi legends on the other hand realizes the extent of the similarity, although the similarity of the biblical story is greater with the Babylonian one, which prompted some researchers to ask the question whether writing the story in the Torah was affected by the Babylonian legend, especially with political friction And civilized between the Jews and the Babylonians? It is noted that some exegetical accounts of the Qur’anic story have been influenced by the biblical approach and its interpretation (this can be seen from reading the story of the flood in the history of Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari and the religious stories of al-Thalabi al-Nisaburi, which some describe as Israelites). Did the biblical reading inherit what was mentioned in the ancient Iraqi texts of the flood, especially with regard to the descriptions of the ship, blaming God for shedding the flood against humans, the story of the release of birds, and other similarities between the Torah and the Iraqi flood? It is particularly interesting to appreciate the extent of openness of the cultures of the ancient peoples of the world and the penetration of their contents into each other.
Sources: The First Adventure of the Mind, the Qur’anic stories and their biblical parallels, and the Encyclopedia of the History of Religions by Firas al-Sawah; The Civilization of Egypt and Iraq, by Burhan Al-Din Dallow; Encyclopedia of Myths and Peoples of the World, by Sami Rihana; The Epic of Gilgamesh, by Taha Baqir; The Beginning and the End, by Ibn Kathir; History of Nations and Kings, by al-Tabari; majlis brides, for foxes; Myths from Mesopotamia, by Stephanie Daly; Divinity and Thought: The Story of the Flood, by Arthur James.
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