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The Persian Empire – Iran

by Mertze Dahlin

Ancient Persia was one of the oldest civilizations in history – it goes back 8000 ¹ years. Those Persian early years influenced the entire world. What do we think of Iran these days? For some reason, we think they want to become a nuclear power and drive Israel into the sea. In addition to that, they want to control the Middle East. We don’t know what they are doing so they must be up to no good.

We are well briefed on that simply by reading the daily newspapers here at home. We are told what to fear from day to day. A common failing among many of us is this built-in fear of the dark, of the unknown or the fear of a foreign language spoken in front of you. The implication being that they may be talking about you and you can’t understand what is said.

We have heard the threat about something mysterious going on in Iran. The news tells us that they are developing nuclear weapons and we should be afraid of that but Iran says it is just nuclear power to make electricity. That is our new fear, because we aren’t seeing them do it. They have done a lot that we didn’t see while they did it. How come nobody told us? Perhaps it was because most of it was accomplished during “ancient” times.

A small attempt such as this cannot cover as much as may be needed to understand what goes on within the Iranian government, but some of the history can be touched to get an idea.

While much of the world was hunting and gathering

The Old Persian language introduced the word Paradise. The Prophet Zoroaster ¹ introduced the concept of Monotheism and the judgment leading to Heaven or Hell requiring good thoughts, words and deeds. This resulted in influencing Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The rest of the world was still Polytheistic.      

Leadership personalities in Persia influenced the entire world in education, diplomacy, technology, Astronomy, Chemistry, Philosophy, Agronomy and all sciences that contribute to the benefit of mankind.    

Cyrus the Great, leader of the Persian Empire in 550 BC protected the Jews ¹ and helped them rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.     

It was believed that Cyrus the Great chose Persepolis to be his preferred center of operations but that Darius the great was the one who built the great palaces. The city was known as Parsa, “The city of Persians”. Persepolis was the capital city of the Persian Empire, though it was in a remote area and not convenient for attracting trade and influencing visiting heads of state, however, it was the capital of the entire Orient.    

Darius the Great, starting from 522 BC, greatly enhanced the infrastructure of the Middle East. He created a canal going from Egypt using part of the Nile River to the Red Sea – long before the present Suez Canal. He standardized weights and measures and commercial laws. The Persian Empire then increased their prosperity level.    

Persia did not achieve success through wars, it was obtained by Diplomacy. As an example, troubles between the Athenians and Athens were asked to be mediated by the Persian King Artaxerxes in 387 BC.     

From 550 BC The Persians were the leading world power for over two centuries ¹. They were the connection between the East and the West despite having many languages, races, religions and cultures. It demonstrated how to be prosperous under one central government.    

In 323 BC, Alexander of Greece had invaded Persia and he was responsible for setting fire to the great palace in the city of Persepolis which they had at first spared during their destruction of such a renowned city. After he died, the practices and rules of law from Persia were adapted by the Roman Empire.    

The Parthians ruled Persia for almost five centuries, but unfortunately, almost nothing of their civilization remained.    

In the early part of this past millennium from 224 AD into the 500’s several more rulers tried their methods of ruling and introduced universal religions including a try at what would be now called communism or socialism.    

The culmination of that period resulted in the largest collection of books in the world. This included translations of Indian and Greek scientific and medical texts into various Persian native languages.

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