ملخص الدراسة:

Ancient Iraqi laws, among which is with out definite article and some other cuneiform texts refer accidentally to the social classes the ancient Iraqi community consisted of. Some resources see that class differentiation among ancient community individuals, except the slaves, could be traced back to the pennunsula peoples. Their judgement is based on what was mentioned in the ancient Babylonian laws, the first of which is the code of Hammorabi. Many articles of the code included various judgements, and example of these include the inequity of social classes. The law viewed the social classes as non- equal within a political organization united by force. Although Iraqi legislators confirmed on justice in their legislation’s, but they, in general, discriminated among the slaves and non-slaves. They even discriminated among non-slaves and divided them in to what is called awilim and muškánum. The individual rights and duties and kind of punishment differed according to the class he/she belonged to, as this was clearly stated in the code of Hammurabi. The term awilim was translated by some researchers as a man, a master or a free man, If so, awilim refer to someone important whether he was head of a family or leader of an economic unit. The term muškéum is an ambigious one and still under research. Some researchers say that it refers to some one poor, but this does not mean that he is economically poor, or article (8) of the code of Hammurabi states. These two terms are difficult to be included in a limited one according to the circumstances of the ancient Iraqi community.