Posts Tagged ‘church’
As of the Bible: Customs in the Levant, part 1. (March 14, 2009)
Note: I translated from the Arabic versions of the Bible because they convey more accurately the meaning of the life style and aphorisms in the Land of the Near East. I intend to post a series of articles on the theme: “Customs and traditions in the Near East”
All these customs and traditions of the Land in the Levant were practiced thousands of years before Judaism came to be. The Jewish religion adopted the customs of the land and wrote in the same style of imagery, maxims, and aphorism. The original manuscripts describe accurately the culture of the land and in the same style.
Abraham had no piece of land in Canaan; his clan let their goats and sheep graze in unclaimed lands. As there was a death in the family Abraham resolved to prepare for his burial; he sent a third party to ask Afroun son of Sohar of the tribe of Hath for a small piece of land to bury the dead. Abraham said: “I am a guest in your land. Could you give me a swath so that I may bury what is in front of me?” Every village had a burying ground facing east and guests, by the custom of hospitality, could be enjoying the same facilities. Afroun replied: “Abraham you are a reverend and I shall bury the deceased in the best of our graves” Abraham had set his mind to settle in Canaan and wanted his own burial ground, thus he asked to buy a piece of land. Afroun replied: “A land of no more than 400 silver shekels should not be an obstacle” Abraham got the hint and sent the amount. This polite and diplomatic negotiation is part of the Levant customs thousand of years before Abraham came to Canaan.
Abraham told his head slave “Lay your hand under my thigh. Pray never let my son marry a Canaan girl amidst whom I am living but one from my tribe” This custom of placing hand under thighs is the custom of the land representing an oath; nowadays we insert the hand under the belt. The custom also requires that the most respected in the family or clan is to propose on behalf of the father for the hand of a wife to his son.
In the Levant, women leaven their dough overnight in clay pottery for the next day baking; the baking lasted a whole day for a week ration. The neighboring families would select a day to using the special oven dug in the ground. The Jews were ordered to leave Egypt immediately. They carried their unleavened dough in wooden boxes, as done in Egypt, and had to eat their bread barely leavened. The shepherds in the fields in the Levant cook their own unleavened bread while at work.
Gideon wanted to avoid paying tax on his wheat harvest. The grape was not ripe yet and thus, Gideon used the top of his house to beat the wheat where grapes were pressed by feet. He was hoping that the Midyanites would not discover his subterfuge.
When Gideon gathered his “large army” to fight the Midyanites, God ordered Gideon to select the soldiers that stooped in front of the stream and drank off the palm of their hands. That was the custom of the noble citizens in the land; the common people knelt and drank directly off the stream. Thus, Gideon ended up with 300 soldiers who were deemed courageous, sober, and worthy to fight.
Handicapped persons have a hard life in the Levant; they are nicknamed according to their handicaps and up very recently they were hidden from the public. A handicapped woman got her courage and dared to touch the robe of Jesus and was cured. Jesus told her: “Woman, it is your faith and not my cloth that cured you. Go in peace” Jesus was alluding to the custom that touching anything holy would cure or satisfy a want.
“Thus spoken God; they will come carrying the little girls over the shoulders. Kings will be your vassals and queens will nurse you” The custom of carrying kid girls over shoulders is not practiced in the west but in the Levant mother resume her daily tasks while the kid girls sit their shoulders and getting a hold on the head. The prophet Ashaya speaks in imageries that the “noble” class in the Levant expect the common people to practice in their presence.
The same is true when John the Baptist said about the coming Messiah “I will be most honored if he permit me to untie his shoe lace” because feet were considered dirty parts of the body and stooping near feet is not acceptable and thus, the custom of sitting by the feet of a nobility is a mark of homage bestowed on him.
Carrying the cross Jesus said “Sisters of Jerusalem, don’t cry over me. Those who manhandled moist branches what they wouldn’t do with the dry ones?” If the sacerdotal caste could sentence to death an innocent man then what you, sisters of Jerusalem, expect them to do with you and your children? You should be starting to cry over your coming miseries and injustices. Aphorisms on moist things versus dry ones, or bitter versus sweet tasty foods are many in the Levant
Note 2: The people in the Levant are people of faith; they refrain from rationally structuring their religion into dogma. The early Christian communities relied on the custom of brotherhood and faith in the community. It is only when Christian communities were established in Greece and Rome that structuring got underway. Hundreds of Christian sects mushroomed in the Levant according to a few alterations in the re-structuring of the dogma that spanned into political and self autonomous sects. After the conclave of Nicee (Turkey) in 425, during the pagan Emperor Constantine, the Church got highly structured and hierarchical; the pagan ceremonies, symbols, and pageantry were introduced to win over the pagans who were in the majority. Since then, persecution of the “heretic” Christian sects started and is still alive into modern time.
What is “Syria National Social Party”? (Part 3)
Note: Part 3 will state the latest ideological foundations of the SNSP before the execution of its founder and leader Antun Saadeh. Part 4 will attempt to develop on any revisions or extensions to the principles after its founder.
Before the founder and leader of the SNSP (Antun Saadeh) was executed by a firing squad on July 8, 1949, in a makeshift military trial, he delivered a series of lectures at the American University of Beirut. The 10 doctrines for the ideology of the party were collected in a book “The ten lectures“.
The first principle states that “Syria is a total, complete and indivisible Nation. The Syrian people constitute one nation with a civilization enjoying unique characteristics.” The Syrian Nation is an amalgam of ethnicities that evolved uninterruptedly since the beginning of time and formed a population with specific cultures, customs, traditions, and spiritual identities. All the Empires that dominated Syria since the antiquity did not transform our fundamental culture but ended up being enriched with our civilization.
The second principle delimits the natural boundaries of Syria. This potential nation is bordered from the East by the Zahgross and Bakhtiyari Mountain Chains (in present Iran and facing the Arab/Persian Gulf). These mountain chains link with the Kurdistan Mountain Chains up north and then the Taurus Mountain Chains in present Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea. The south-east merges with the western desert of the Arabian Peninsula. The south border is bounded by the Arabian Sea. The south-west is bording the Sinai Desert and the west by the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, this potential nation included present States of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, part of west Iran, and part of south Turkey. Actually, the mandated French power ceased valuable lands in norther Syria to Turkey in 1936.
The third principle states that Syria is one of four Arab nations with a common classical language. The other Arab nations are the Arabic Peninsula, the Nile States of Egypt and Sudan, and the Northern African States of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco called the Maghreb (the sunset States of the Arab World). Saadeh didn’t view the Arabic issue from a romantic perspective of rough bedouins and so forth.
In fact, Saadeh’s father Khalil lambasted Britain for appointing Faisal of Hijaz (Arabic Peninsula) as King to Syria in 1919 because Syria was urban in nature and didn’t care for bedouins’ mentality of razzias and loot. Thus, Syria is Arabic by language with shared common long history during the Islam domination. The capital of the first Arab Caliphate dynasty (the Umayyad) was Damascus for over 100 years and then the Ayyubid Dynasty during the life of Saladin. Saada and his family spoke classical Arabic.
The fourth principle is the complete separation of State and religion in the administration and running of the State. In fact, Antun Saadeh instituted the first civil marriages among the members of the party and the ceremony to be resumed by a cleric if desired. Till now, wedding registers are the domain of the 19 recognized sect or castes; a civil marriage to be recognized has to be done outside Lebanon.
Saadeh wrote a book titled “Islam in its two messages: Christ and the Prophet Mohammad”. Islam (submission to One God) shares common denominators in belief system between the Christian sects and Moslem sects when all the administrative, civil laws, and political decisions have been excluded from the fundamental belief system.
I doubt that Saadeh would have encouraged the creation of an alternative religion (it would contradict the separation principle), but he might have encourage the publication of a unified book containing the verses common to both monolithic religions for educational purposes and for strengthening the unity of the society. Saadeh confessed to a cleric before his execution so that individual religious beliefs are independent of social responsibilities and rights.
I will quickly go through a few other political, economic, and philosophical principles. The ideology of the SNSP is neither communist (purely material philosophy) or racist (purely spiritual philosophy) or capitalist (unfair distribution of wealth and labor). The SNSP will not take side in the War II, but will fight both sides for the independence of Syria: the party cannot side with the Nazi axes (a racist ideology of domination) or the “Allies” axes because they still maintain their mandated powers over the Syrian States and plan to establish the State of Israel, our “existential archenemy”.
The SNSP was the first political organization in the Middle East that instituted order, structural hierarchy, and way of conducts, regulations, and tight discipline. Saadeh claimed that if the Syrian people fail to unite under an organized central command then the Zionist movement will inevitably succeed in establishing their State. The SNSP organization was based on a culture of symbols extracted from our mythologies.
Saadeh was a rational and positive thinker and encourage discussions within the party, but never tolerated public dissensions. The principle of ex-communication was applied to members who were expelled from the ranks and no communication with them was permitted. Thus, the combination of set of symbols, ex-communication, tight discipline, and the principle of the leader (Zaim) for life (a contract between the member and the Zaim) is a reminder that the philosophy of Antun Saadeh is a Church ideology adapted to civilian setting. It is the same with communism in its practice.
Actually, the SNSP never managed to get beyond the ideology of its founder, as if this ideology is a dogma that transcend time, and hardly tried to learn to adapt with the changing environment, cultures, and trends.
Note: You might ask: “Are there any ideological revisions or clarifications in the last 20 years?” I think “None”. Total inertia, a stone attitude. You might as well call it “The Petra Period”
Are there any political revisions or changes? It appears that the party has allied with the Syrian regime, and is unable to negotiate with all existing political parties in Lebanon, without prior green light from Syria…
Are there any re-organization and administrative changes in the SNSP? Yes. Lately, the SNSP conducted a true democratic transition of power through the various echelons but ended up electing mostly the same figures of the last 20 years.
