Zinda 30 July 2005

Another Look at the Myth of Gilgamesh*

Pirayeh Yaghmaii
Iran

Far, far beyond,
Where the confines of time are lost,
There is one that keeps telling us:
The mountain was formed
With the first boulder
And mankind was created
With the first agony of existence.

The myth of Gilgamesh, reportedly the most ancient one in record, is said to be around four thousand years old. It is the saga of the evolution of mankind and how he attains the heights of suffering and emptiness. The feature that makes this myth superior to, or at least distinct from others of its kind, is the more powerful philosophic tempo of the work that captures the soul with varying momentum, as each episode unfolds. Otherwise, the story flows with a simple texture and, in common with any other work of epic, tells the reader of extraordinary and incredible adventures of fantasy and heroism.

Gilgamesh is a man-god creation with two thirds created by God and one third by the human being. It could be claimed, consequently, that Gilgamesh is a medium, a bridge way, between God and man. This creature rules the land of Uruk with despotic cruelty, with an iron fist. Knowing nothing other than eating, drinking and indulging in sensual desire and acts of lust and savagery, he handpicks all the pleasant things exclusively for himself. He thus usurps girls and women from their fathers and spouses and brings chaos, doom and sorrow upon the families. His excesses drive the folk in Uruk to the verge of intolerance. So much so that they appear in God’s presence and plead with him to create another being that can protect them against Gilgamesh.

God concedes to the people’s wishes and brings into creation another human form called Enkidu and lands him upon Uruk. At first encounter, Gilgamesh and Enkidu engage in combat. The battle is mighty and fierce, but soon, the two shake hands and are bound in eternal friendship, never to part again. So, it happens that they merge in one another like one soul in two bodies.

The Story of Gilgamesh
Narrated by David Gonzales
Animated by Thoma Kiki

Click the above image for animation

With the passage of time, Gilgamesh influenced by Enkidu, that has a temperate passionate soul, discards his cruel stature and decides to embark on a fight, at the side of Enkidu, against a vicious monster named Humbaba who has long been plaguing the land and bringing terror and death upon the residents. On the way back after defeating and killing the monster, Enkidu gets sick through a curse placed upon him by Ishtar, a villain in the minor episodes. As a result of this malady, Enkidu dies, after a few days, at the height of great agony.

Following the death of Enkidu, the first experience in pain and agony for Gilgamesh, who has now acquired a human nature, the man-god becomes aware of the reality of mortality. He then turns eyes upon the pain and misery of the wise human being. Thus, while never unconscious of the pain brought about by the loss of his twin alter ego whom he laments and edifies in momentous sorrowful hymns, Gilgamesh sets out in search of immortality and eternal life. He embarks on numerous quests and reaches a variety of life forms whom he asks about the secret of immortality. He is told that death is the certain end to life and that, instead of his obsession with the prospect of such doom, he may as well seek joy and happiness in his remaining time while he still lives.

Impervious to all advice, Gilgamesh remains determined to press on in his quest. Eventually, guided by inspirations from an old sage, who is possessed of the secrets of immortality, he treks through the dreadful deadly marches across the waters of death and gets his hands, at the bottom of an ocean, on the plant that gives everlasting life. However, he does not consume the plant after he emerges from the abyss but decides to take it to Uruk and to share it with the people of his land. Unfortunately, a serpent, taking advantage of one moment of distraction on the part of the demigod, grabs at the herb and swallows it instantly. The serpent then sheds skin and becomes young. (Hence the reference, in folk cult, to the snake as the symbol of immortality.)

Exhausted, churning in the anguish of emptiness and replete with the pain in the aftermath of this futile expedition, Gilgamesh makes the trek back to Uruk. The demigod, disillusioned with the search for immortality and eternal suffering of life, has now found the truth. He then goes to the gatekeeper of the realm of death, the Netherworld, and asks for a look at Enkidu so he could ask the latter about the secrets of death, a destiny he has accepted and embraced as the ultimate truth. The gatekeeper shows him a ghost, a shadow of what was once Enkidu who then recounts to Gilgamesh, in an unintelligible language, the mortal nature of the human being and how he is destined to ultimately turn into dust. With this revelation and his own already complete inclination, the hero has now reached the acme of his emptiness and is ready to succumb to his fate. He lies down on the ground in the keep and hastens towards death.

*****

The general consensus, among religious schools, psychologists and scholars of mythology, whose disciplines are, in a way, interconnected, is that the human form that first emerged from the wellsprings of life was hermaphrodite. Plato writes, in his “Symposium”:

God first created mankind in the form of a sphere where the feminine half was separated from the masculine hemisphere. That is why every individual is wandering in search of his or her missing half and as he or she is finally confronted by a man or a woman, he or she gets to entertain the belief that it is his or her missing half.

In Talmud of the Old Testament, it is implied that God created mankind with two faces in a formation where the man and woman were placed at the two ends of a spectrum. God then cut into halves this creation of His.

In ancient Iranian myth also, Man and Woman (Mashy and Mashyaneh) formed the root of a certain shrub. As the seed sprouted out of earth and grew tall, the stem branched into two similar ones, each representing one of the genders, Mashy and Mashyaneh.

Karl Gustav Jung, too, has hinted expressly, in his works on Psychology, at the hermaphrodite nature of the early human being. Even in prehistoric times, it was predominantly believed that the early human being was bisexual in build, both male and female.

In folk cult, the male psyche is called “Anima” while the female one is referred to as “Animus”.
Jung believes that Anima and Animus are among the most important archetypes in the development of the psyche. According to him:

In the final analysis, the kind of human being that can attain the height of humanity is the one whose Anima and Animus achieve perfect fusion and total merger.

Jung has called this phenomenon of the union between Anima and Animus the Magic Marriage
Although in the myth of Gilgamesh the reader is faced, on the surface, with two separate characters, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, we can safely assume, in the light of what has been said, that those two are nothing other than one being. They are twins, a duo that complements one another. Gilgamesh represents the male half or the masculine psyche while Enkidu stands for the female half or the feminine psyche. In the story, it has been manifestly hinted at the feminine personality of the female psyche of Enkidu in appearance as well as in acts and deeds and outlook. In the story, we read:

Enkidu, like a woman, is endowed with long tresses that, like those of Nisaba, goddess of corn, keep on rippling in the wind.

When Enkidu dresses himself for the first time, it is in a woman’s attire. (A female prostitute shares her clothes with Enkidu.)

Enkidu symbolically appears in Gilgamesh’s dream for two nights in succession, before the two meet for the first time. Gilgamesh consults his mother, who knows about the mysteries and secrets of dreams, about this happenstance. The mother, in her interpretations of the two dreams, then promises Gilgamesh of the advent of one who is faithful and whom Gilgamesh will adore like a woman.

In the first dream, Gilgamesh has seen that a star has descended upon him and he has felt he is attracted to the star, as he would be to a woman. The mother says, in interpretation, that someone will make his appearance in Gilgamesh’s life that he will adore as much as he would adore a woman. The second time, Gilgamesh dreams of an axe appearing on his lap. He tells his mother that he loved that object just as if he were a woman. The mother answers, “The axe that was so powerfully drawing you to itself represents an ally that will come to you and whom you will love like you would love a woman.”
At the time Gilgamesh and Enkidu are setting off to fight Humbaba, Enkidu is afraid. Trying to calm him, Gilgamesh says, “I will go first and you are to follow me, because I am your master.” In general, in the Eastern way of thinking, men are always the leaders and women their followers. In this same episode, Enkidu many times addresses Gilgamesh as his lord. This title is among the terms that women in the East used to enhance their men.

After Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh covers him with a piece of lace cloth, the kind of lace that brides are clothed with.

The name “Enkidu” actually reflects this feature: it comprises three elements, En (meaning god), Ki (meaning earth) and Du (meaning creation of God). In reality, Enkidu symbolizes earth. In the lore of symbols, earth, because of its fertility, patience, fecundity, compassion and modesty, is the symbol of the woman. The sky, because of its thundering, pounding and indomitable power, has come to be regarded as the symbol of the man. Molana Jalal-al-Din (Rumi) has also made oblique reference to this in one of his poems:

The earth, like a wife,
The sky, like the husband,
Would, in a behavior like that of a cat,
Eat their offspring.

I do not understand such a woman,
I do not understand such a spouse.
I do not understand.

(Verse 1449 from the Divan of Shams)

Gilgamesh is an incomplete being before his encounter with Enkidu. After he has met Enkidu, he finds his missing half. The congruity between these two is so striking that, when the pair appears among the people in the cities of Uruk, even the common folk notice it and are astounded. They murmur among themselves, “What a perfect match those two make! Has Gilgamesh ultimately found his mate?”

After their furious combat, when Gilgamesh and Enkidu extend a hand of friendship towards one another, they are, in fact, the two halves born together, that have attained absolute unity. In the words of Jung, they are the Anima and the Animus that become one and the same and the magical marriage is thus consummated.

After this oneness, Gilgamesh ascends on the path towards human perfection and even achieves the stature that urges him on to go and fight, with aid from Enkidu, an abominable demon that he has known for years but has ignored its existence. This demon is simply his own other wicked inhuman side which he now rises to destroy. In fact, Gilgamesh revolts against himself and refines and cleanses that self of all wickedness and depravity.

It is at this time that Enkidu falls sick and Gilgamesh, now back to proper human stature, comes to understand the bitterness of human agony and the implacability of death.

Afraid of this knowledge, even hoping to deny it, Gilgamesh goes on a search for everlasting life.
He even weeps and mourns, with pain, the death of his other twin part and sings sorrowful songs in his eulogy. From then on, it is a philosophic outlook that dominates and characterizes the life of the hero. He addresses a lot of questions that are plaguing his mind. At this juncture, his interminable wanderings start. He goes on the quest for the herb of immortality that he is seeking not only for himself but also for all his folk. He is intent upon bringing the herb to Uruk to plant and propagate it there in the hope that he might be able to save the elderly from death. Once he reconciles the emptiness of life with the doom of inevitable death, he swings his obsession from the eternity of life to the eternity of goodness. He has now espoused the ideal of spiritual eternity, of leaving a lasting legacy of fine reputation. While everlasting life is not his destiny, Gilgamesh will leave behind him a name that endures. With the evolution to humanity now complete, the tired hero has finally reached total emptiness that is the lot ordained for the humankind. The now mere ordinary man thus surrenders to unavoidable death.

The epic of Gilgamesh is the first recorded tragic saga, in spectacular proportions, of the humankind. It depicts the horrendous sorrow of man who is embroiled in a tangle of doubts, cynicism, bewilderment and earthly agony while, at the same time, he is paradoxically obsessed with the desire for lasting life. The human mind is incessantly wandering in the losing strife to achieve eternal goodness. Gilgamesh is the embodiment of total loneliness who, of his own free will, abandons his godly claims and pretenses and condescends to wander towards the ultimate in humanness and to the final destiny, death. In fact, Gilgamesh experiences the reality of emptiness and puts to test the philosophy of despair and hopelessness of mortal life long before Omar Khayyam, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka and many other philosophers recognized such a plight allotted to man and theorized on the pain and emptiness of existence.

Notes

*Like Alexander the Great, Gilgamesh had a dual personality, the mythical and the historical. The name is attributed to a king whose grave has been discovered in Iraq.

The Author, Ms.Pirayeh Yaghmaii

“Les Symbols Vivant” by Monique de Beaucorps, page 41, first edition of the Persian translation by Jalal Sattari
“The Complete Works of Plato” Vol. 1 pages 438-444 of the edition of the Persian translation by M.H. Lotfi and R. Kaviani
“A Review and Critique of Talmud” , page 81
“ Avesta, a Treatise by Jalil Doustkhah” , Vol. 2, page 1054
“In answer to Ahab” by Karl Gustav Jung, page 214 of the Persian translation by Foad Rowhani
Under the entry “Soul” in the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols
“Man and His Symbols”, page 186 and also first edition of the Persian translation by A. Saremi, Amir Kabir Publications, page 246
“He had long hair like a woman’s. It waved like the hair of Nisaba, goddess of corn.” “ The Epic of Gilgamesh” N.K. Sandars, Penguin Books, page 63
“She divided her clothing in two and with the one half she clothed him, the other herself” Ibid, page 67
“…and to me its attraction was like the love of women.” said Gilgamesh. The mother answered, “When you see him, you will be glad; you will love him as a woman and he will never forsake you.” Ibid, page 66
“I saw the axe and I was glad; it was like a woman.” The mother replies, “That axe you saw, which drew you so powerfully like a woman, is the comrade whom I give you.” Ibid, page 71
“I will go first although I am your lord.” Ibid, page 71
“When Gilgamesh touched Enkidu’s heart, it was not beating. So Gilgamesh laid a veil as one veiled a bride” Ibid Page 95
“They said, “He is the spit of Gilgamesh.” / “He is a match even for Gilgamesh.”
“So Enkidu and Gilgamesh embraced and their friendship was sealed.” Ibid, page 69

Ms. Pirayeh Yaghmaii's article was originally published in Farsi. The English version appearing in Zinda Magazine was prepared by Mr. Ghafour Memarzadeh, a retired bank director and one-time teacher of English now living in Teheran. Mr. Memarzadeh has an MBA from the University of Oklahoma and BA in English Literature. Because of his penchant for comparative literature since his early college days, Mr. Memarzadeh seems to have acquired just the right technical credentials to undertake this kind of translation.

U.S. House of Representatives Amends Funding Bill to Help Iraqi Christians

Courtesy of Associated Baptist Press
29 July 2005
By Analiz Gonzalez

(ZNDA: Washington) The U.S. House of Representatives has amended a funding bill in an attempt to focus attention on the postwar plight of Iraqi Christians.

The amendment, which was added to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act on a voice vote, also asks the Bush administration to work with the United States Agency for International Development and use funding for welfare, education and resettlement of Iraq’s Christian minority.

The House then passed the bill, H.R. 2601.

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Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) offered the amendment. Eshoo is of Assyrian and Armenian descent and is the only Chaldo-Assyrian Christian in Congress. Iraqi Assyrian and Armenian minorities are two of several indigenous Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian groups with long histories in Iraq—histories that, in many cases, predate the advent of Islam in the nation.

Estimates of the number of Christians in Iraq vary, but the nation has long had one of the largest Christian populations in the Middle East. Under Saddam Hussein’s regime, they enjoyed a relatively high level of religious freedom. However, the political instability that has engulfed Iraq since American forces deposed Hussein in 2003 has led to an increase in anti-Christian attacks. Christians in Iraq also have complained of being overlooked as U.S. officials attempt to rebuild the fractious nation and broker peace deals and power-sharing agreements among competing factions of Iraqi Muslims.

“If a fully functioning and sustainable democracy is to emerge in Iraq, the basic rights and needs of all minority groups must be safeguarded,” Eshoo said while offering the amendment.

Up to 80,000 Iraqi Christians have fled Iraq since Hussein’s fall. “This ongoing exodus is deeply disturbing, and unless action is taken now to address the pressing needs of these indigenous Christians, we may well witness the complete loss of the Iraqi indigenous Christian community,” Eshoo said.

A lack of Christian representation on the committees drafting Iraq’s new constitution has caused additional fears in the Christian communities there, she added.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), who represents a large Assyrian community in central California, supported Eshoo’s amendment by saying he believes the United States has an obligation to “guarantee that the rights of all Iraqis, particularly women and Christians, are not overlooked in the constitutional process.”

“Throughout history, the Assyrian people have suffered greatly in their attempts to obtain greater freedom and recognition,” Cardoza said. “The Assyrians were essential partners in the Iraqi opposition movement, and paid dearly with the assassination of many political leaders under Saddam Hussein’s regime. We must make certain that the ethnic and religious groups that suffered and sacrificed under Saddam’s regime are afforded human-rights guarantees in the permanent constitution.”

Babylon's Dirty Secrets: No Tablet Left Unturned

Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
23 July 2005
By William Mullen

(ZNDA: Chicago) Only 200 or so people in the world are fluent in the Akkadian language. Scattered across four continents, they get together only once a year.

So by the time the scholars arrived in Chicago this week for their annual meeting, they had stored up a lot of things to discuss--from the harems of Assyrian kings to rising housing prices in ancient Babylon.

But they can't talk about them in Akkadian, because nobody knows how to speak it anymore.

Scholars learned to read the language through hundreds of thousands of written documents left behind by the Mesopotamian people who spoke it for 2,000 years. The documents are clay tablets covered in cuneiform: little, wedge-shaped characters that represented Akkadian words.

A mixture of government and business records, personal correspondence and literary works, the tablets have allowed scholars to draw some surprisingly detailed pictures of life in Mesopotamia 2,500 to 4,500 years ago.

Through Saturday, about 350 scholars, archeologists and art historians of the period--called Assyriologists--have gathered at the Oriental Institute on the University of Chicago campus for the International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology.

Those able to read the cuneiform tablets have spent the week telling everyone what they've been reading for the last year. It's a rare chance for them to talk face to face, because only so many universities and museums see a need for a staff Assyriologist, and only a few of those could afford to hire more than one.

Akkadian was one of the world's first written languages, evolving more than 4,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, the birthplace of human civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is modern-day Iraq.

The Oriental Institute is one of the most influential centers for Akkadian studies, as many scholars of the language came here to learn to read it. The institute is about to complete the definitive, 24-volume dictionary of the language, 50 years after the first volume was published.

"In our field, Chicago is a very important center," said Dominique Charpin, an Assyriologist at the Sorbonne in Paris. "For us, it is our Mecca."

Charpin, 51, and his wife, Nele Ziegler, 37, have been going over nearly 20,000 clay tablets generated during the reign of Zimri-Lim between 1800 B.C. and 1760 B.C. in the city of Mari, a ruin in Syria near the Iraqi border. French archeologists in 1933 found the tablets in a library in the king's palace, where they lay protected under a collapsed wall for roughly 3,700 years, after Hammurabi, the great Babylonian king, destroyed the palace.

Charpin discovered a text indicating that during a stretch of hard times in the kingdom, the king's mother and a high priestess lent grain supplies to many people--a transaction expected to be paid back with interest at the next harvest.

"When people borrowed silver or something else of value, a clay tablet record was made of the loan, listing the name of the person getting the loan, the amount and date for repayment and the name of somebody serving as a witness to the loan," Charpin said.

The two women, evidently concerned that so many people stiffed them on the loans, asked a scribe to inventory their outstanding debts. He listed them with oldest debts first, some four years or more in arrears. Charpin found no evidence any of it was ever paid back.

Meanwhile, back at the harem

Ziegler has been looking at clay tablets recording business of the king's harem and palace musicians.

"When he came into power, he had 350 women in the harem, some princesses, some concubines, some servants," Ziegler said. "Five years later, there were 650 women in the harem."

About 200 of the women were trained as court musicians, she said, some serving the dual purpose of concubines to the king. "There were also young girls in the harem being trained for palace life, not to serve the king," she said, "but to be given as gifts to other kings."

Music was so important that the music director was a government minister, one of the king's 10 most powerful aides.

The tablets that the scholars study are single slabs of clay that were hardened by baking in ovens or in the sun after scribes pressed inscriptions into the surface. The smallest were about the size of a matchbook; the largest, usually about the size of a modern stenographer's notebook.

Most surviving tablets are lists of commercial transactions such as purchases of animals or grain, or tax records and government reports. But there are also thousands of more literary texts, such as personal letters, poetry and diplomatic reports sent from abroad.

Often scholars choose to specialize in certain kinds of texts.

"It's not so different from the English language, where we see specialists devoted to reading and interpreting Shakespearean texts, and others who are experts in reading and interpreting Dow Jones stock tables," said Martha Roth, editor of the nearly completed dictionary and organizer of this year's Assyriology congress.

Heather Baker, 42, a British lecturer at the University of Vienna, has been looking at legal documents recording sales of houses and empty plots in Babylon between 700 B.C. and 500 B.C.

"We've known a lot about the temples and palaces of Babylon, many of which have been excavated," Baker said, "but we have very limited knowledge of residential and industrial neighborhoods."

Only about 40 residences in Babylon, most made of mud brick, have ever been excavated, she said, but the clay documents tell the story of thousands more, telling her "where housing was located, the size of them at the time of sale, the condition of the housing, who the neighbors were."

Real estate transactions were paid in silver, she said, with the more expensive houses being large dwellings up to 4,500 square feet and boasting two or three courtyards. The cheapest were 200-square-foot huts made of reed.

Location, location, location

Baker said that as population density increased in various parts of the city, land prices went up. Housing was a good investment, she said, as housing values steadily climbed over the 200 years she has been studying.

"You can see a lot of people were buying houses or parts of houses, then turning around and renting the units out for income generation," she said.

If the upwardly spiraling housing prices of Babylon ever turned into a burst real estate bubble, Baker can't tell, as the records she studies abruptly stop after 200 years.

Barbara Boeck, 37, a university researcher in Madrid, has inherited the work of her mentor and teacher in Germany, the late Franz Koecher, who translated pharmacological texts left by ancient physicians.

To the consternation of scholars, many of those recipes called for the excrement of animals--the droppings of dogs, pigs and other barnyard species--as key ingredients. Modern pharmacologists chalked it up to the ignorance of the ancients.

But Koecher found that the dung in the ointment--so to speak--actually was a clever ruse by the physicians.

"He discovered the physicians listed use of animal excrement simply as codes for actual secret plant ingredients that they didn't want their patients to know, so that the patients couldn't make their own medicine," Boeck said. "He discovered the equivalence lists, about 100 coded plant names.

Turlock’s Civic Club Honors Shamasha Albert Benjamin

Report for Zinda by Mikhael K. Pius in California

Mr. Albert Benjamin as the Civic Club’s TV Chairman in 1975.

On Mother’s Day this year, the Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock chose Nardine Mansoor Mother of the Year for 2005 for her various works and achievements for many years, especially in the field of education. And on Father’s Day 2005 the choice went to Shamasha Albert Benjamin, an active member in both the social and religious life of the community of the Turlock-Modesto area for more than three decades.

In 1973 Albert, with his family and parents, left Iraq. He came to America seeking, as most immigrants, a better life for himself and his family. Albert rejoined an older brother, the late Yosip, in Bay Area. But soon after he settled in Modesto close to Turlock where his church (St. Thomas) and the Assyrian club (Civic Club) were situated and in both of which he became an active member in order to serve his community. Obtaining a job at Gallo Glass, he worked for many years to support his family and afford his children proper Catholic education.

During the last three decades he has served in various responsible positions for the welfare of his club and church, among them: member of Assyrian Welfare Committee to encourage group education and foster support to new Assyrian émigré families; Civic Club’s member of Executive Committee in 1975, TV Chairman for 1975-76 and Assyrian Secretary for 1982-83, and Club President for two terms (1978-79 and 1980-81); and twice as Chairman of St. Thomas Church twice, once for several years in the early 1990s and currently since 2003. His wife Gladis, a former seamstress, has also been very active in St. Thomas Church serving twice as head of the Women’s Auxiliary raising money for the church. And with her help, Albert boarded at his home and took care of his elderly parents devotedly until their last days.

A rather handsome man with grey green eyes, he is mild-mannered, pleasant and intelligent, with a special gift as a speaker. He is the person who is most called upon to narrate, in Assyrian, bio-obituaries and eulogize at community funerals and to act as MC at special functions and he is quite adept at it. He has a strong sense of right and wrong and is a dyed in the wool Catholic who stands firm in his belief. He has studied briefly in a Catholic seminary and was consecrated a deacon for the Church in 1977. Judging from his actions in the past, I believe his faith always comes first. Currently, he is the right-hand man of St. Thomas pastor, Fr. Kamal Bidawid, a resourceful priest who is generally loved by his congregation and who has a strong belief in his faith and in his Church, but is in a constant struggle walking a tight rope to keep a balance between his (90%) Assyrian congregation’s nationalistic feelings and the Chaldean Catholic Church’s incompatible stand in political nationalism.

2004: Shamasha Albert Benjamin (sitting right), with family: Standing (left) George Silva (son-in-law), Raman (son); Sitting (left) daughter Ramina and mother Gladis with grandchild Mary.

The fourth of five children, Shamasha Albert was born to Eramia Shimoun Benyamin and Maria “Baaji” Gewargis Shallou on December 5, 1939 in Habbaniya, where his father worked as canteen manager for NAAFI and where Albert had his elementary schooling. In 1956 the family moved to Baghdad and five years later Albert graduated from high school. Having been born and raised a devoted Catholic he joined the Legion of Mary organization for which he served as president for six years. While he worked at the Central Bank of Iraq Albert also attended Baghdad University’s Institute of Accountancy and Business Administration, from which he graduated in 1963 with an academic degree in the subject. He served his two-year Iraqi Army conscription (1964-65) as reserve officer in Mosul. In June 1968 he was married to Gladis, daughter of Oshalim Sarkis of Baghdad. The couple was blessed with two children Ramina (in 1969) and Raman (in 1971). Ramina gladdened her parents’ hearts by presenting them in January 2004 with their first grandchild, Mary Elizabeth, after 12 years of marriage to George Silva.