“Nations disappear, but their effect remains on the way of society, industry and craft. The manner of thinking and the character of literature and art; languages become dead but their words, proverbs, symbols and metaphors enter new languages to become a part of them; the divinity of old beliefs comes to an end, but old idols remain in the sleeve of every new religion and every fold of the turban and tiara; civilisations vanish but the palaces of a new civilisation keep dazzling with their marks and decorations

Five thousand years ago such a civilisation arose in the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates and before the eyes, it spread across the entire East. This civilisation established its authority for 2500 years from the Mediterranean to the Arabia Sea.

Then the chants of the worshippers of Zoroaster arose in the fire temples of Persia, and the Achaemenid rulers raised the buildings of Iranian civilization over the rubble of Babylon and Nineveh. The civilisational current of the Tigris and the Euphrates mixed with the Iranian civilisation and neither the religion of the land between the two rivers remained nor the language; but we cannot forget the favour which the inhabitants there have bestowed on the world by introducing man to the knowledge and arts for the first time.

The world’s oldest villages have been found in this same land between the two rivers; cultivation became a custom there for the first time indeed; the potter’s wheel was first invented there; the remains of the most ancient cities were found there; city-states were established for the first time in the same valley; and the first code of law was compiled on this very land.

But the greatest feat of the ancient inhabitants is the invention of the art of writing. The first schools were also opened on the coasts of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The oldest libraries have also been available there and the oldest epics are also the creation of this area.”