Persians

In the "Rubaiyat", Omar Khayyam talks about life and love.  It delves into the deeper meaning of life and how life can vanish in a moment.  When you die it doesn't matter whether you are a sultan or peasant.  People will remember you for who you were, not what your title was.  In "The Manners of Kings" the king learns how to be a good person.  He learns to treat others as he wants to be treated, and to appreciate what he has now because you don't know what you have until it's gone.  The Persians were monotheistic and they believed in treating others with kindness and respect.  They were devoted to their faith and they found it important to be good people so that Allah would then reward them.

Flood Stories

We've been reading Gilgamesh and The Bible in class recently.  The flood stories in both are strikingly similar.  There was probably a common origin to both of these stories.  Either there was an actual flood and both stories relayed the events in slightly different manners, or the Bible  was written and Gilgamesh took pieces of the story and created a similar story with the use of gods to replace the Christian belief in one God.