Kosh

Did anyone catch this little little slip up in the Hussein/Rather interview last night?

Paraphrashing:

"This country, which has a history of over 8000 years will continue to exist". - Saddam Hussein

Wahhhhh? Shouldn't a good muslim trace his line back to Noah? (ie, 4000 years ago).

Kosh

Hmm, maybe this should have been in E/C.

Spaz

lol, well since when has saddam been considered a good muslim? Bin Laden doesn't like him, so obviously he's not a good muslim

Magus55

I guess he means the area where Iraq now is, was the Biblical beginnings. Iraq now covers what used to be Babylon.
Garden of Eden is also "presumed" to have been in that area. (Although lets not get in an argument about that - Garden of Eden location hasn't been proven - just ideas thrown out).

Kosh

If that were what he was talking about, "country" meaning "area", rather than a political entity, then there would have been no point in saying it. It's a given that the area will exist regardless of the war. He was making a statement that his political entity will survive the war.

Context Magus, context.

Vinnie

Somebody should tell him that the earth is only 6,000 years old! :banghead:

butswana

Yeah, and the garden of eden was where St. Louis is today.

Volker.Doormann

Hebrews have first taken place in Mesopotamia after 2200 B.C.E. and have distorted the sumerian culture. They was called Semite by the Sumers because they followed to a law code from India written by Manu, the 'ManuSmriti' doormann.org/manuslaw.txt from which the social commandments of Moses in the OT have its origin. The Semites have taken over then the myths of the Sumerians, which are time lined to about 3000 B.C.E. inclusive the Noah myth, which is taken from the 'Gilgamesh Epos' in the same time period.

Saddam Hussein is right, if he claims, that the culture in the country of the two rivers (Euphrat & Tigris) 'Mesopotamia', which today is Iraq, has a history of 8000 years www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/02/wam/ht02wam.htm.

Volker

Sarpedon

Saddam has always been interested in archaeology. He has been trying to make an identy for Iraq which is separate from both the Arabs and the Persians. He spent a great deal of money building a replica of the city of Ur, for example. The creepy thing is that he put his face on the painted kings riding chariots. He has never been a literalist muslim.

bagong

Actually the Semites are named after Shem, Noah's son, the legendary ancestor of the Semitic peoples.

About the original post: AFAIK the Qu'ran does not include any OT-style geneologies or any other way of dating the ancient events it mentions, so I think even strict Muslims are happy to go along with whatever dates archeology provides. Of course, in addition to this Saddam is far from a strict Muslim.