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Revision as of 20:56, 26 November 2006

Euphrates
Physical characteristics
Mouth	Shatt al Arab
Length	2,800 km

The Euphrates (the traditional Greek name, Arabic: الفرات Al-Furat, Armenian: Եփրատ Yeṗrat, Hebrew: פְּרָת Perath, Kurdish: Ferat, Azeri: Fərat, Old Persian: Ufrat, Syriac: ܦܪܬ Frot or Prâth, Turkish: Fırat, Akkadian: Pu-rat-tu) is the westernmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia (the other being the Tigris).

In the Bible, God's promise to Abraham and his descendants (which also includes Isaac and Jacob) of the promised land extends to this river.

Etymology

The name Euphrates may have originated from Old Persian Ufratu, as it were from Avestan *hu-perethuua, meaning "good to cross over" (from hu-, meaning "good", and peretu, meaning "ford"). Alternatively, some suggest that the name Euphrates is possibly of Kurdish origin. In Kurdish, fere means "wide", re means "flowing water" and hat is "flowing", giving fererehat, meaning "wide flowing water". The modern Kurdish name, Ferat, is possibly a reduction of the older name. However, the Indo-European etymology of the name is put into doubt by the Sumerian and Akkadian names for the Euphrates are Buranun and Pu-rat-tu, respectively, Buranun being attested in an inscription associated with king Gudea (22nd century BC). It seems thus likely that the Old Persian name arose by popular etymology based on the pre-Iranian name of the river.

Course of the Euphrates

The river is approximately 2,780 kilometers (1,730 miles) long. It is formed by the union of two branches, the Kara (the western Euphrates), which rises in the Armenian highlands of today's eastern Turkey north of Erzurum and the Murat (the eastern Euphrates), which issues from an area southwest of Mount Ararat, north of Lake Van. The upper reaches of the Euphrates flow through steep canyons and gorges, southeast across Syria, and through Iraq. The Khabur and the Balikh River join the Euphrates in eastern Syria.

Both rivers have their origins in Turkey. Downstream, through its whole length, the Euphrates receives no further water flow. North of Basra, in southern Iraq, the river merges with the Tigris to form the Arvand/Shatt al-Arab, this in turn empties into the Persian Gulf.

The river used to divide into many channels at Basra, forming an extensive marshland, but the marshes were largely drained by the Saddam Hussein government in the 1990s as a means of driving out the rebellious Marsh Arabs. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the drainage policy has been reversed, but it remains to be seen whether the marshes will recover.

The Euphrates is only navigable by very shallow-draft boats, which can reach as far as the Iraqi city of Hit, located 1,930 kilometers (1,200 miles) upstream and which is only 53 meters (58 yards) above sea level. Above Hit, however, shoals and rapids make the river commercially unnavigable. Its annual inundation, caused by snowmelt in the mountains of northeastern Turkey, has been partly checked by new dams and reservoirs in the upper reaches. A 885 kilometer (550-mile) canal links the Euphrates to the Tigris to serve as a route for river barges.

Euphrates in the Bible

A river named Euphrates is one of the four rivers that flow from the Garden of Eden according to Genesis 2:14. It is the fourth river, after the Pishon, the Gihon, and the Tigris, to form from the river flowing out of the garden. The river of the same name marked one of the boundaries of the land promised by God to Abraham and his descendants (Isaac, Jacob, etc). In the Hebrew Bible, it is often referred to simply as "The River" (ha-nahar).

The word Euphrates is a translation for the word "Gush forth" or "break forth". It has always been assumed to mean "river" but this is not explicitly stated. It literally means "breaking forth of liquid". The river Euphrates was named from this root word, "To gush forth".

In the Book of Revelation, it is prophesied that in the "near future the Potamos Euphrates or "breaking forth like water" of the middle east will dry up in preparation for the Battle of Armageddon.

Islamic prophecies

In Islam, some of the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad, suggest that the Euphrates will dry up, revealing unknown treasures that will be the cause of strife and war.

• Soon the river Euphrates will disclose the treasure of gold. So, whoever will be present at that time should not take anything of it. — Sahih Bukhari.
• The Prophet Muhammad said: "The Hour will not come to pass before the river Euphrates dries up to unveil the mountain of gold, for which people will fight. Ninety-nine out of one hundred will die , and every man among them will say: 'Perhaps I may be the only one to remain alive'." — Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim.
• The Prophet Muhammad said: "The Euphrates reveals the treasures within itself. Whoever sees it should not take anything from it". — Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi `Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir az-Zaman, p. 28.
• It will uncover a mountain of gold . — Sunan Abi Da'ud.

Euphrates in history

The Euphrates provided the water that led to the first flowering of civilisation in Sumer, dating from about the 4th millennium BC. Many important ancient cities were located on or near the riverside, including Mari, Sippar, Nippur, Shuruppak, Uruk, Ur and Eridu. The river valley formed the heartlands of the later empires of Babylonia and Assyria. For several centuries, the river formed the eastern limit of effective Egyptian and Roman control and western regions of the Persian Empire. Also, the Battle of Karbala occurred at the banks of Euphrate river, where Imam Hussain, along with his family and friends, were martyred.

Controversial issues

As with the Tigris there is much controversy over rights and use of the river. The Southeastern Anatolia Project in Turkey involves the construction of 22 dams and 19 power plants by 2005, the biggest development project ever undertaken by Turkey. The first of the dams was completed in 1990. Southeast Turkey is still struggling economically, adding fuel to the discontent expressed by Turkey's Kurdish minority centered there. The Turkish authorities hope that the project will provide a boost to the region's economy, but domestic and foreign critics have disputed its benefits as well as attacking the social and environmental costs of the scheme.

In Syria the Tabaqah Dam (completed in 1973 and sometimes known simply as the Euphrates Dam) forms a reservoir, Lake Assad that is used for irrigating cotton. Syria has dammed its two tributaries and is constructing another dam. Iraq has seven dams in operation, but water control lost priority during Saddam Hussein's regime. Since the collapse of Ba'ath Iraq in 2003, water use has come once again to the fore. The scarcity of water in the Middle East leaves Iraq in constant fear that Syria and Turkey will use up most of the water before it reaches Iraq. As it is, irrigation in southern Iraq leaves little water to join the Tigris at the Shatt-al-Arab.

Israel to cover "from the Nile to the Euphrates"?

There is a long-standing Biblical tradition that Israel is intended to cover the region "From the Nile to the Euphrates". There is some evidence that Zionists over the last 125 years have also aspired to these territorial limits, and plenty to prove that others believe it of Israel. (There is a second tradition that the two blue lines in the Flag of Israel are intended to represent these two rivers with the Star of David. Tempting though it may be to believe this, there is no evidence that the flag was designed in this way).

The following listing explain some of the reasons why people might believe Israel is intended to be this big:

1. "From the Nile to the Euphrates" is in the Bible. God promised Abraham (Genesis 15:18) "To your descendants I give this land from the River of Egypt to the Great River, the river Euphrates". (Brook of Egypt and other sources imply that this passage refers to a water-course near the Nile, within modern Egypt, and not the Nile itself).
2. Moses promises his descendants in Deuteronomy 11:24 that "every place where you set the soles of your feet shall be yours. Your borders shall run from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea."
3. In 1898, Theodore Herzl (founder of Zionism) planned to ask the Ottoman sultan for a territory stretching from the Egyptian frontier to the Euphrates. Theodor Herzl and Isidore Bodenheimer regularily spoke of Jewish settlement in "Palestine and Syria,". So did the Jewish National Fund and the Zionist Congress. In 1902, Herzl spoke of settling Jews in Mesopotamia . However, at this stage, the new Israel might have also been in Uganda, Madagascar or Argentina.
4. Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: "From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates." (See passage above for commentary on Brook of Egypt).
5. The British ambassador in Istanbul, in 1910 "the domination of Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, who forced the Jews to build Pyramids, is part of the future heritage of Israel."
6. At least one of the inter-war founding Zionists intended an Israel bigger than the one we know. Vladimir Jabotinsky (founder of Revisionist Zionism, precursor of Likud) was quoted in 1935 saying "We want a Jewish Empire" .
7. Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947: "The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon."
8. David Ben-Gurion in 1954 "the border of Israel will be where the army takes it", when ex-Iraqi Jew Naeim Giladi meets his (by now) ex-Prime Minister and asks why Israel does not have a constitution.
9. According to the then President of Syria, Hafiz al-Asad, the Israeli general and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan visited the Golan Heights shortly after its capture by Israel in 1967 and announced that "the past generation established Israel within its 1948 borders; and you have to establish a Greater Israel from the Niles to the Euphrates.". (Assad died in 2000 after 30 years in power - his informant was the Jewish Polish communist author Robert Gessner, referenced above at #6).
10. Sa'd al-Bazzaz in his book "Gulf War: The Israeli Connection" claimed something along the same lines: "We have taken Jerusalem .... and are now on our way to Yathrib and Babylon". (Cities in Saudi Arabia and Iraq). 22 years later, Yitzhak Shamir called Syrian leader's Hafiz al-Asad talk on the subject "sheer nonsense." Global Security).
11. Menachem Begin (Israeli Prime Minister 1977-1983) was quoted by American television evangelist Jerry Falwell as saying that the Bible predicts the Israeli state will eventually include portions of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait..

(Some of these last clips would not normally be included, as they do not meet regular Misplaced Pages Reliable Source. They are included in order to illustrate that "From the Nile to the Euphrates" is still believed, by Zionist and anti-Zionist, to be a national aim of at least some Israelis).

A further catalogue of Zionist and Israeli statements on this topic appear in the (out of print) book by Ass'ad Razzouq, Greater Israel: A Study in Zionist Expansionist Thought (Beirut: Palestine Liberation Organization Research Center, 1970), especially pp. 83, 87-90, 92, 96-97, 99-103, 144-45, 167-69, 178-81, 187, 209, 212-14, 230, 234, 240, 243-45, 249-52, 264, 278-82, 286, as well as Maps 3 and 4. (reference provided by the Zionist Daniel Pipes ).

The claim that Zionists still want "From the Nile to the Euphrates" first came to the attention of many people when Yasir Arafat stated it in a 1988 Playboy Interview. Several times in 1990 (including in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in Switzerland) he went round waving an Israeli coin, the new 10 agora piece, claiming it showed a map of of "Greater Israel" (it doesn't) and that there'd been an inscription to "From the Nile to the Euphrates" in the Knesset for many years (there hadn't). See also: and

Other accusers of Israel simply make unsourced statements such as: "By guile, treachery and bloodletting, the Zionists plot to annex all of Jordan, virtually all of Syria, half of Iraq and a large part of Saudi Arabia and all of the rich cotton lands of the Nile Valley. It would be a simpler matter then to grab Yemen, Aden, Muscat, Qatar and Oman with their rich oil development. Israel is already well advanced in the development of its first nuclear warhead" MediaMonitors reprint "America-firster" John Henshaw 1968.

See also

• Cradle of Humanity
• List of places in Iraq
• Tigris-Euphrates alluvial salt marsh

External links

• Bibliography on Water Resources and International Law See Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. Peace Palace Libray
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Euphrates; discusses the Old Testament references to the river
• Tigris-Euphrates River dispute, details of conflict and cooperation
• The Turkish National Policy for Utilizing the Waters of Euphrates-Tigris Basin (THE THREE-STAGED PLAN) Template:Tr icon

1. Theodor Herzl, Zionistisches Tagebücher, 1895-1899, edited by Johannes Wachten, Chaya Harel, et al. (Berlin: Ullstein, 1983), vol. 2, p. 650.
2. Secret letter from Gerard Lowther to Charles Hardinge, 29 May 1910, Foreign Office 800/193A (Lowther Papers). Quoted in Elie Kedourie, Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies (London: Frank Cass, 1974), p. 256.
3. Robert Gessner, "Brown Shirts in Zion" New Masses, Feb. 19, 1935, p. 11.
4. Damascus Television, Feb. 18, 1986
5. translated Namir Abbas Mudhaffer (Baghdad: Dar al-Ma'mun, 1989)
6. Tyler Courier-Times-Telegraph, 5 Feb. 1983; reported in The Los Angeles Times, Feb. 6, 1983
7. Rubin, Barry. The PLO between Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism, Background and Recent Developments, The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1993. Accessed Apr 3, 2006.
8. Rubenstien, Danny. Inflammatory legends, Haaretz, November 15, 2004. Accessed April 3, 2006.

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• Rivers of Turkey
• Rivers of Syria
• Rivers of Iraq
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