The stark cliffs of the Zagros Mountains on the Iran-Iraq border, and the dusty hills and plains that lie between those mountains and the city of Mosul, might seem an unlikely location for paradise. Yet Christians living here in past centuries believed that a local river called the Great Zab had once flowed from Adam and Eve’s garden. Patriarchs of the Christian Assyrian Church of the East living on its banks once signed off their letters with the salutation, “From my cell by the river of Eden”.
These days the Patriarch’s letters are sent from a less romantic spot: 7201 North Ashland Boulevard, Chicago. Successive waves of persecution have driven out the leaders of this ancient, prestigious and little-known church – including Mar Dinkha IV, the present and 120th Patriarch of Babylon, who was consecrated in Ealing, west London, and is based in the United States. As for the Great Zab, this summer it ended up as the de facto border between Kurdish forces on its southern side and the so-called Islamic State (IS) to its north. From being the garden of Adam and Eve, Iraq has become the land of Cain and Abel. Yet even its melancholy recent history can remind us that the religious conflict that scars the modern Middle East is far from inevitable.
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