Mesopotamia important to Europeans because:

• Mesopotamia has good fertile land and it is considered to be ancestors' land.

• It is very important to Europeans because many inventions and developments started from here only.

• Mesopotamia is important to Europeans because it has Tigris and Euphrates rivers that's why Mesopotamia land is a fertile crescent and the soil is also nutrient-rich.

• This is one of the important reason Mesopotamia is so valuable to Europeans.

A civil war broke out after Muhammad's death due to a dispute about who would succeed Muhammad as caliph. One faction supported Abu Bakr, who was the father in law of Muhammad. The other faction supported Ali, who was the son in law of Muhammad. After Muhammad's death in 632 CE, his friend Abu Bakr was named caliph and ruler of the Islamic community, or Ummah. Sunni Muslims believe that Abu Bakr was the proper successor, while Shi'a Muslims believe that Ali should have succeed Muhammad as caliph.

(i) The first Mesopotamian tablets, written around 3200 BCE, contained picture-like signs and numbers. These were about 5,000 lists of oxen, fish, bread loaves, etc. - lists of goods that were brought into or distributed from the temples of Uruk, a city in the south.

(ii) Mesopotamians wrote on tablets of clay. A scribe would wet clay and pat it into a size he could hold comfortably in one hand. He would carefully smoothen its surfaces.

(iii) Once the surface dried, signs could not be pressed onto a tablet : so each transaction, however minor, required a separate written tablet.

(iv) By 2600 BCE or so, the letters became cuneiform, and the language was Sumerian. Writing was now used not only for keeping records, but also for making dictionaries, giving legal validity to land transfers, narrating the deeds of kings, and announcing the changes a king had made in the customary laws of the land.

The conquest of large territories resulted in destruction of the caliphate based in Medina. In due course of time, an increasingly authoritarian polity took over. To consolidate their leadership within the umma, the Umayyads implemented a series of political measures. Muawiya, who was the first Umayyad caliph, moved his capital to Damascus. He adopted the court ceremonies and administrative institutions of the Byzantine Empire. He introduced hereditary succession. This innovation enabled the Umayyads to retain power for 90 years. In similar manner, the Abbasids ruled for two centuries.

The Umayyad state became an imperial power which was no longer based directly on Islam but on statecraft and loyalty of Syrian troops. There were Christian advisers, and Zoroastrian scribes and bureaucrats in the administration. But Islam continued to provide legitimacy to their rule. They always appealed for unity and suppressed rebellion in the name of Islam.

The French serfs worked for their lords. They were not allowed to escape from the estate of their lords. A serf was not even allowed to marry without his lord’s permission.

A Roman slave was treated like a commodity with no identity. The slaves could be bought and sold in market. They were often kept in confinements. They were encouraged to marry and produced too many children, so that more slaves could be available for work.

Aramaic is an ancient language of the Middle East, still spoken in parts of Syria and the Lebanon

 Semitic language known since the ninth century b.c. as the speech of the Aramaeans and later used extensively in southwest Asia as a commercial and governmental language and adopted as their customary speech by various non-Aramaean peoples including the Jews after the Babylonian exile.

factors responsible for urbanisation in mesopotamia

• rise of trade and commerce.
• development of writting.
• surplus agricultural production.
• abability of transportation.
• devision of labour.

Town Planning: The discovery of the Sumerian city of Ur has shed light on the lives of the early Mesopotamians. The Mesopotamian cities fell short in terms of town planning as compared to the Harappan centres but followed a uniform pattern nevertheless. The city was divided into three parts - the sacred area, the walled city on a mound and the outer town. The sacred area consisted of the temple tower or the ziggurat dedicated to the patron god of the city. There were also smaller temples of other gods. This area also had the storehouse as well as the offices. People resided in the walled city and the outer town areas. Houses were constructed along the streets, and each house had a central courtyard with rooms attached around it.

World history education helps us better understand how and why the world got to be the way it is. It gives attention to the histories of nations, civilizations, and other groups and the differences among them.

The Prussian King William I was proclaimed the German Emperor after its unification.

Mathematical contribution

• Tables with multiplication and division
• Square
• Square route tables
• Tables of compound interest
• Problem regarding
• A field of area
• Volume of water

• Writing was used not only for keeping records, but also for making dictionaries, giving legal validity to land transfers, narrating the deeds of kings, and announcing the changes a king had made in the customary laws of the land.

Mesopotamian Writing:

• The first Mesopotamian tablets, written around 3200 BCE, contained picture-like signs and numbers.
• Writing began when society needed to keep records of transactions – because in city life transactions occurred at different times, and involved many people and a variety of goods
• Mesopotamians wrote on tablets of clay.

1. Ur was one of the earliest cities to have been excavated in Mesopotamia. Narrow winding streets indicate that wheeled carts could not have reached many of the houses. Sacks of grain and firewood would have arrived on donkey-back. Narrow winding streets and the irregular shapes of house plots also indicate an absence of town planning.

Examples of primary sources are as follows: Artefacts, documents, diary, autobiography, etc. The literary works of the medieval periods which include the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire. Archaeological remains of Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire.

1. After 2000 BCE the royal capital of Mari flourished. Mari stands not on the southern plain with its highly productive agriculture but much further upstream on the Euphrates.  Here agriculture and animal rearing were carried out close to each other in this region.
2. Herders need to exchange young animals,cheese, leather and meat in return for grain,metal tools, etc., and the manure of a penned flock is also of great use to a farmer. Yet, at the same time, there may be conflict between the regions.
3. In Mesopotamian nomadic communities of the western desert filtered into the prosperous agricultural heartland. Shepherds would bring their flocks into the sown area in the summer.
4. Such groups would come in as herders, harvest labourersor hired soldiers, occasionally become prosperous, and settle down. A few gained the power to establish their own rule. These included the Akkadians, Amorites,Assyrians and Aramaeans.
5. The kings of Mari, however, had to be vigilant; herders of various tribes were allowed to move in the kingdom, but they were watched.The camps of herders are mentioned frequently in letters between kings and officials. In one letter, an officer writes to the king that he has been seeing frequent fire signals at night – sent by one camp to another – and he suspects that a raid or an attack is being planned.
6. Located on the Euphrates in a prime position for trade – in wood,copper, tin, oil, wine, and various other goods that were carried in boats along the Euphrates – between the south and the mineral rich uplands of Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.
7. Boats carrying grinding stones, wood, and wine and oil jars, would stop at Mari on their way to the southern cities. Officers of this town would go aboard, inspect the cargo and levy a charge of about one-tenth the value of the goods before allowing the boat to continue downstream.
8. Thus, although the kingdom of Mari was not militarily strong, but it was exceptionally prosperous.