It is well known that the Persian culture and its people played a pivotal role in the history of modern society, dating back to the 4th century BC. The Persian Empire, being one of the most influential and largest monarchies, was a global hub of innovative culture, religion, science, art, and technology for more than 200 years – many of which we inculcate in our daily lives today.
They were the first to build many new roads and establish regular communication routes between three continents—Africa, Asia, and Europe and were also the first to develop the world’s first postal service.
However, a lesser-known fact is that the Persians were the first to develop the notion of human rights civilisation, which included the first ever principles of governance that encompassed racial equality and religious freedom.
These laws eventually inspired Thomas Jefferson, the founding father of the United States, and had a significant impact on the current US constitution and Bill of Rights. Today, the United States is well-known for its liberal human rights laws, freedom, and civil liberties, thanks to the influence of Persian human rights value stemming from its history.
The History of Human Rights & Its Persian Origins
According to Youth for Human Rights, the armies of Cyrus the Great, the first king of ancient Persia, conquered Babylon in 539 BC. He abolished slavery, declared that everyone had the right to practice their own religion, and established racial equality. These and other decrees were written in the Akkadian language with cuneiform script on a baked-clay cylinder.
This ancient record, known today as the Cyrus Cylinder, is now recognized as the world’s first charter of human rights. It has been translated into all six of the United Nations’ official languages, and its provisions parallel the first four articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The concept of human rights spread quickly from Babylon to India, Greece, and, eventually, Rome. In response to the observation that people tended to follow certain unwritten laws in the course of life, the concept of “natural law” arose, and Roman law was based on rational ideas derived from the nature of things.
Individual rights-affirming documents such as the Magna Carta (1215), the Petition of Right (1628), the US Constitution (1787), the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), and the US Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors to many of today’s human rights documents.
The Cyrus Cylinder
The Cyrus Cylinder, also known as the Cyrus Charter, is a barrel-shaped cylinder of baked clay that measures 8.9 inch x 3.9 inch at its widest point and is a potent symbol of Iranian national identity. What distinguishes it from other discovered ancient objects is not its form, but the policy it records: Cyrus’ decision in 539 BC to allow deported peoples to return to their settlements and restore their desecrated sanctuaries. The message is one of tolerance, peace, and multiculturalism and portrays a very modern way of ruling with pluralism and tolerance at its core.
It was discovered among the ruins of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Babylon (now in modern Iraq) in 1879 and dates from the 6th century BC. It is now in the British Museum’s collection, which funded the expedition that unearthed the cylinder.
During a historic tour of the Cylinder of the United States and Canada in 2013, Director of the British Museum Neil MacGregor described the Cyrus Cyclinder as the first state model based on diversity and tolerance of different cultures and religions in a BBC article titled “Cyrus Cylinder: How a Persian monarch inspired Jefferson.”
“But the greatest discovery for many people, is ‘the importance of Cyrus to those who wrote the constitution of United States. The story of Persia, Iran, is part of the story of modern United States,” said MacGregor in the article.
“It’s vital that US audiences understand Iran’s extraordinary contribution to humanity,” said Julian Raby in the article, director of the Freer and Sackler Galleries, where the renowned piece of pottery has gone on exhibit.