Posts Tagged ‘mecca’
Book review of Genevieve Chauvel
Posted on October 11, 2008 (Written in November 19, 2007)
“Aïcha la bien-aimée du Prophet” by Geneviève Chauvel
Note: This review is very large and I opted to split it into 2 parts. The second part will start when Prophet Muhammad died.
I decided to review “Aicha, the most beloved wife of the Prophet” for the chronicles of the active life of the Prophet Muhammad, and the specific circumstances that revealed the messages from Archangel Gabriel. Aicha lived to be 67 of age and experienced Islam since she was born, and she died as Islam was splitting into schisms.
Aicha was born in 616 in Mecca and she was redheaded like her maternal grandmother. Her father Abu Bakr, later the first Caliph, spared her life because Khadija, the wife of Mohammad, played a part in this difficult and life threatening birth.
Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Hachim was an orphan brought up by his uncle Abu Talib, the father of Ali. The father of Muhammad died before his birth and his mother passed away as Muhammad was only 6 of age. Ali was to be the fourth Caliph.
(Islam would like us to believe that Muhammad was illiterate to exaggerate his divine message, but I beg to differ. Read link in note #4).
Khadija, a wealthy caravan trader, hired Muhammad to lead her caravans to Damascus. Khadija was almost 8 years older than Muhammad (A large difference at that time with low life expectancy) when her uncle urged her to marry his nephew Muhammad. She was widowed twice and Muhammad was 25 year-old. Khadija gave him a son Al Qasem, who died at age two, and four daughters. Two of the in-laws became later Caliphs, Uthman and Ali.
Khadija was the first person to believe in Muhammad “prophecies/messages” and for 11 years protected him from the mockeries and sarcasms of the inhabitants of Mecca and cared for him during his fits of epilepsy when Archangel Gabriel used to appear to him.
Two of Muhammad’s daughters were repudiated by their husbands because they refused to be married to girls who converted to Islam. Fatima, the youngest one, married Ali, Muhammad’s nephew, and gave Muhammad two grand boys, Hassan and Hussein and two granddaughters.
Zainab, one of the daughters of Muhammad, was married to Aboul-As whom she loved so much that she preferred to stay with him in Mecca. Aboul-As fought against Muhammad at the battle of Badr and was made prisoner and later decided to convert in order to keep Zainab.
Rukaya was married to Uthman ibn Affan, later the third Caliph, and when she died, Muhammad married his daughter Oum Kulthum to Uthman because he needed his Kureich clan on his side.
Uthman abandoned the position of his archery contingent during the lost battle of Uhud and thus had vacated a strategic position held by the archers, which allowed the cavalry of Khaled bin Al walid to defeat the Muslims in this battle and forced them to retreat..
Muhammad adopted Zaid ibn Haritha who was Khadija’s slave at the age of twelve and he used him to be his personal messenger to his wives after each battle. Zaid was very learned and translated and interpreted the Jewish Books to Muhammad and was devoted to his adoptive father.
Muhammad married Sawda (Black) after Khadija died because he needed an experienced woman to run and maintain the household. Sawda was widowed to a convert who fled to Ethiopia from the Quraish tribes’ persecution.
After the death of Khadija, Muhammad realized that he won’t be protected anymore from certain death; he fled Mecca to Yathrib in the year 622 (later called Medina or the first city-state of the Muslims) after foiling an assassination attempt on his life.
It took him and Abu Bakr almost four months to arrive at Yathrib, a six days travel, to avoid the headhunters of the tribes of Quraish. Most of the Prophet’s followers had preceded him to Yathrib and welcomed him as a hero.
Muhammad married Aisha in Yathrib when she was ten years old.
Abu Bakr (father of Aisha) was the first adult male to convert to Islam and he was Muhammad’s closest Companion and guide. Aicha was 8-years old when Muhammad officially asked her hand and waited to marry her at age ten.
The mother of Aicha, Oum Roummane, almost died when giving birth to Aisha and Khadija was called upon to deliver her and Muhammad saw Gabriel at the same time he was contemplating to commit suicide by throwing himself off a cliff because of the miserable life that Gabriel forced upon him.
After the death of Khadija, Mohammad saw Aicha three times in his dreams, as a baby wrapped in green blanket and the third time it was Gabriel who removed the blanket for Muhammad to recognize the face of baby Aicha, and ordered to obey the request of Gabriel to take her as wife. Aicha had a vast memory and was educated to read and write and she was the person who transposed the verbal messages into written verses during the revelations.
The migrating Muslims in Yathrib were suffering from miseries.
First, they were not used to the humid climate and the marshes: Many died of the malaria fever. Aicha almost died as she arrived in Yathrib.
Second, the emigrants could not find suitable employments and had to accept temporary jobs at the Jewish households and farms. Consequently, the emigrants had to revert to what the tribes did when they were hungry and penniless. They decided to raid a major caravan coming from Damascus and lead by Abu Sufyan (a chief of the Quraysh clan in Mecca). The caravan was to stop at an oasis called Badr but Abu Sufyan got wind of the raid and diverted its route and sent for troops from Mecca. The Muslims won the battle of Badr, their first.
Sawda father and brother were killed in the battle of Badr fighting against the Muslims. Sawda was greatly grieved and lambasted the prisoners parked in front her house and told them that they should have fought instead of being taken prisoners. Mohammad repudiated her for a while until she asked forgiveness and she opted not to have intercourse with him as the tradition regulated Mohammad nights among his wives.
Mohammad encircled the fortified castle of the Jewish tribe Banu Qaynuqa because the tribe decided to break the treaty with Mohammad rather than pay the ransom for a murdered emigrant. The tribe capitulated when it realized the succor from Banu Khazraj was not forthcoming.
Muhammad had set his mind to beheading all the males of the defeated Banu Qaynuqa tribe as the revelation dictated, but the chief of the Ansar (supporters) tribe of Khazraj prevented him saying: “I am a man who fears the reversal of circumstances”
The Banu Qaynuqa were allowed to leave the city and it settled in the Jewish town of Khaibar, around 20 miles north west of Yathrib.
Mohammad married Afsa (3afsa), the widowed daughter of Omar ibn Khattab, the second Caliph, because he needed Omar total loyalty. She was eighteen. Actually, Omar insisted on Uthman to marry Afsa but he declined the request repeatedly. Muhammad had set his mind to marry his second daughter Um Kulthum to Uthman to secure the Ummaya powerful clan. Aicha was crest fallen and suffered her first jealousy attacks.
The Muslims lost the battle of Uhud, but the forces of Quraish did not pursue their objective to enter Medina and retreated to Mecca. Muhammad directed his angst against the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadhir that secretly supported Quraich. He ordered this Jewish tribe to leave Medina; the eye witness accounts related that the citizens in Medina never saw a caravan as opulent, rich and luxurious in their lives.
Mohammad married Zainab, the daughter of the clan leader of Bani Assad, who was widowed and 30 years of age. Zainab died three months after her wedding.
Mohammad married Hind, daughter of Abi Ummayah, a recent widow of Abu Salama who was mortally injured during the battle of Ohud, the first defeat of the Moslems against the tribe of Quraich and their allies outside the walls of Yathreb and now called Medina.
Hind or Um Salama was about thirty of age and had many children and declined to marry Abu Bakr and Omar and even Muhammad. Muhammad asked her hand a second time and promised to care for her many offspring.
Muhammad married Zainab bint Jahsh, a cousin thirty of years of age and of great beauty. Zainab was the wife of his adoptive son Zaid ibn Haritha who separated from her when she welcomed Mohammad almost nude to entice him and throw trouble in his heart.
She roamed after Muhammad reminding him that she separated because of him. The Koran was very strict on the number of only 4 wives for the believers but Mohammad received a message from Gabriel telling him that Zainab is an offer from God that cannot be rejected. The aggrieved Aicha interjected that God has a tendency to accord his Messenger all his desires.
Mohammad repulsed a fresh attack by Quraich on Medina by following the suggestion of Salame the Persian; Salame supervised the digging of a large and deep trench around Medina that the cavalry could not jump over.
A violent wind followed by a torrential rain convinced the Quraishi armies to retreat. Then, Mohammad surrounded the hold up of the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza for 25 days because they were tacitly allied to Quraich.
The Prophet beheaded 700 of the male captives and dumped their bodies in a large hole and ordered Ali and Zubair (the husband of Aicha’s sister Asmat) to participate in the performance of the executions.
(This 700 could be a magical number in tales. Even 70 beheading executions is too large a number in a single day. Why Muhammad made Ali to have blood on his hand is to be examined. Actually, the hatred of the Jews for Ali is a consequence of this narrative)
Muhammad asked the hand of Rihana, a Jewish captive girl, to marry him but she declined. After she converted, Mohammad asked her hand again and she preferred to remain slave than marry someone with several wives but she became his concubine.
Since this mass cruel beheading, troops of Muhammad had easier tasks convincing the neighboring tribes to join Islam and plundering the caravans arriving from Damascus or Alexandria.
Mohammad married Juwayriah, the daughter of the chief clan of Harith, which his last raid brought her as captive. The Harith tribe and their allies convert to Islam.
A turning point was reached when Aicha lost her favorite collar that her mother Em Rumana gave her for her wedding.
Aicha joined that raid and lost her favorite collar that the Prophet had offered her during their wedding. The fighters were utterly upset for wasting precious time searching for the collar and the time for prayer was close and they were far from the nearest oasis.
Muhammad had to receive a message allowing ablution with sand when water is not available. This revelation allowed the Muslim armies to expand its raids in the desert and later in their territory expansion.
The story goes that Muhammad took Aicha on an expedition. Aicha lost her collar as the troop were heading to the next water well and the caravan was very short on water for the ablution before prayer.
On the way back from the expedition, Aicha stepped away from the troop for bodily relief. As she reached the caravan, she realized that she dropped this loose collar again. Aicha went back to search for the collar and the troop started without her.
Aicha would recount that she was so light that the attendants to her tent/hawdaj didn’t realize that she was Not in the cabin that was raised over the camel. Aicha lay down. Safwan, a young and handsome convert was a little behind the caravan, and found Aicha and mounted her on his horse. Safwan was confident that the troops will retrace their path searching for her as they reached the camp.
Later, rumors spread that, while the 60 years old prophet is resuming his mania of marrying far more than the four allowed by the Koran, and that his younger of wives is cheating on him. Aicha fell dangerously sick and was moved to her folks’ quarter and Mohammad didn’t pay her a visit for 28 days because he started to believe the rumors.
When Mohammad finally arrived to see Aicha, the Angel Gabriel showed up and revealed to the Prophet that Aicha was innocent. Um Roumana told Aicha to come forward and thank the Prophet. Aicha retorted: “By God I will not! I will praise but God who finally decided to declare me innocent”
Seventeen revelations were dedicated to these awful circumstances; calumny was revealed as a crime, as dangerous as adultery and specific penalties prescribed.
Mistah, a cousin of Aicha, Hassan ibn Thabit, the poet of Islam, and Hannah bint Jahsh, the sister of one of the Prophet’s wives, were flogged 100 times for their crimes of calumny without having 4 witnesses for their accusations. Aicha regained her position as the most favored “Um al Mu’mineen”. (The Mother of the Believers). It is said that Aisha kept a deep grudge for Ali who seemed to believe the rumors of her cheating.
Mohammad had a dream while sleeping with Aicha that he shaved his head and performed the pilgrimage to Al Kaaba in Mecca. Aicha encouraged him and Muhammad left Medina with 700 unarmed men to Mecca.
The favorite camel of Muhammad named Qaswa parked in Hudaibiya, close to Mecca, and would not move. By the way, Qaswa was the camel that selected the location for the Prophet house and the Mosque in Yathrib.
The Quraichi’s tribes sent delegations and they reached a 10-year non-belligerence treaty and promised Muhammad that they would permit the Muslims for pilgrimage starting next year.
Although Muhammad was not allowed to enter Mecca, he wanted to perform the rites in Hudaibiya but the Companions refused. Um Salama encouraged Muhammad to perform the sacred rituals and shaved Muhammad’s head and then slaughtered his sacrificial camel and the believers hurried to follow suit; the party returned to Medina sanctified.
Mohammad married Safiya, a Jewish beauty and of high grace from Khaibar who was married to a brute of a husband that died during the battle of Khaibar.
Muhammad had just conquered the fortified Jewish town of Khaibar, North West of Madina in the year 630. The lands were turned over to Mohammad and his closest Companions and the Jews agreed to cultivate the land as serfs for 50% return for their subsistence and relinquished their treasures.
Um Salama escorted the Prophet in this raid and recounted to the harem that a Jewish girl roasted a lamb for Mohammad and then he realized it was poisoned; when asked why she poisoned the lamb she replied: “You killed my father, brother and husband. If you are a King then good riddance; if you are a Prophet then you must discover the plot.”
The girl was not punished for the rationale that she will spread her conviction that Muhammad is indeed a prophet. Un Salama added that Muhammad liked his new wife Safia very much: he didn’t wait the customary 40 days grievance and married her on the way back to Medina and spent four whole days and nights with Safiya. With virgins, the husbands spend 7 entire days and nights! Aicha thought that Um Salama could have spared her added anxieties.
Mohammad married Um Habiba, the daughter of Abu Sufyan, his arch enemy of Quraish. Um Habiba was a recent widow and 40-year old and living in Ethiopia with her husband who converted to Christianity; she was one of the first converts to flee to Ethiopia after the Quraish persecutions.
The governor of Coptic Egypt sent Muhammad gold and fine gifts and two Christian girls as slaves, Maria and Sirine. Maria became immediately the concubine of the Prophet until she converts to Islam and he spent most of his time with Maria, raising a revolt within his harem.
Aicha took a definite advantage over the remaining wives.
Individuals who wanted to offer the Prophet gifts learned that the best moments were when he is with Aicha. Aicha thus enjoyed the best fabrics and gifts and the other wives revolted again wanting fair distribution of the gifts.
Mohammad told Um Salama that his revelations descend when he is with Aicha, but the revolt went on and the Prophet decided to retreat from his harem for a whole month, sending fear and frustration in the community of the believers.
After a month, Mohammad revealed a message placing men as superior to women and admonishing wives to obey their husband, and permitting husbands to punish their wives if they disobeyed. Mohammad reconquered his authority in the harem, and wives had to pay the price of this revolt for centuries after.
In 630 or the 8th year of Mohammad emigration to Yathrib , the Prophet assembled ten thousand fighters for his pilgrimage to the Kaaba and entered Mecca and destroyed the pagan Gods and became the uncontested leader of all the tribes in the Arabian peninsula. (Too large a number to be credible)
Islam arch enemy Abu Sufian converted to Islam, before the troops of the Muslims entered Mecca. The wife of Abu Sufian, Hind, reluctantly converted to Islam also. Hind is the famous woman who opened the chest of Hamza in the Battle of uhud and ate his liver in order to avenge her father in the battle of Badr. Hamza (an uncle of Muhammad) had killed Hind’s father in a singular fight before the battle of Bard.
Mohammad married Maymouna, a relative of both tribes of Abi Taleb and Hashim to the fainting and shock of the harem.
A revelation descended that the messenger is allowed all the women he desires.
Besides his 9 wives, Muhammad had two concubines, Maria and Rihana, and uncounted numbers of women who wanted to offer themselves to him to gain Paradise.
Once, Fatima told the harem that her husband Ali wanted to take another wife and she intervened with the Prophet; Aicha was beside herself to learn that this plain woman, and not as educated, could enjoy one husband and generate four offspring, two of them males. Aicha realized that she could not get pregnant, even after her sexual expertise led to many successful full coital with Muhammad.
Rihana died shortly after as well as Mohammad’s eldest daughter Zainab.
Maria gave Mohammad a male son called Ibrahim and thus, Maria was released from bondage.
The blood family of the Prophet consisted of Ali, Fatima, his two grandsons, his two grand daughters and Ibrahim; his adoptive son Zaid died during a battle in the north against the Byzantine Empire.
Mohammad organized an army of 30,000 fighters in the year 631, recruited from all over Arabia and marched to Tabuk, a city within the Syrian borders, to avenge the death of his adoptive son Zaid; he took Aicha with him on this campaign.
The Governor of Syria didn’t deign to challenge the Prophet and Muhammad returned to Medina after securing many treaties with the neighboring tribes and oasis in Syria (among them the more civilized and more urban of tribes that will later tip the balance in the war against Byzantium). The whole of “Arabia” was converting to Islam.
Ibrahim, the son of Mohammad, aged 18 months, dies. The Prophet cried and lamented, a behavior which was not the custom of the male believers.
The Prophet went on pilgrimage to Mecca the next year with 30,000 pilgrims and the entire harem went this time. Mohammad gave a speech alluding that it might be his last pilgrimage.
Shortly after his return to Medina Muhammad suffered from terrible headaches for a month; he asked Abu Bakr to preach in his place when he was bedridden. The Prophet dies on June 8, 632; he was 63 years old.
Notes:
- Muhammad was mortally sick for at least a month and he knew his days were counted because Gabriel gave him a choice between this world and the Other World and the Prophet opted for the Other World. Muhammad had time to think about the succession of power and the appropriate processes but no revelations were forthcoming.
- The tribal spirit was to dominate the political landscape, the same spirit that Muhammad intended to re-direct toward a Unique God and unite the “Ummat al Islam”. The Arab and Muslim World were tribal in structure and ended up with a caste system when the Central Asian tribes overpowered the Quraishi tribal rights for leadership.
- The Prophet Muhammad was highly literate https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/the-parson-and-the-prophet-book-review/
“Satanic Verses”? Just two of them?
Posted by: adonis49 on: December 12, 2020
Revisiting Salman Rushdie controversial book
“The Satanic Verses” by Salman Rushdi, Part 1 (October 30, 2008)
This manuscript is of 547 pages and divided into 9 parts:
The Angel Gabriel (Gibreel), Mahound, Ellowen Deeowen, Ayesha, A city visible but unseen, Return to Jahilia, The Angel Azraeel, The Parting of the Arabian Sea, and A Wonderful lamp.
I will review the chapter “Mahound” because this section is crucial for setting the geo-political, commercial and society structure in Mecca and the neighboring towns.
This description would help comprehend the climate within which Islam was born and grew.
Mahound is one of several names given to the Devil/Satan/Shaytan.
It is very unfortunate that Rushdie decided to represent the Prophet Muhammad by this name just to state that one of the verses was inspired by the Devil, and thus forbade over one billion Muslims from reading this essentially wonderful and most informative book.
Many “fatwas” in the Muslim World, and especially in Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini, permitted the killing of Salman Rushdie for this blasphemy.
Rushdi has been since then protected by the British police and been mostly in hiding. (See description of actual event in the Notes)
I feel that Muslims should be thankful to Rushdie in not naming Muhammad as the one who delivered the two “Satanic” verses that deviated from the message of One God. I will use the name of Muhammad in the remaining review.
Mecca at the time of Muhammad was built four generation ago to cater for desert caravans bringing goods from Zafar and Yemen to bifurcate toward Egypt, Iraq/Iran, or Syria/Turkey and back to Mecca.
It barely rains in that region and the only potable well was called Zamzam.
The story goes that Abraham abandoned his Egyptian wife Hagar and his son Ismail to their fate in this unforgiving area. Luckily for Hagar, Angel Gabriel (Gibreel) uncovered for Hagar the well Zamzam and she survived with her newly born son.
Once a year, the Bedouins of Arabia Peninsula who adored 360 idols, which are imported from the neighboring countries to encourage pilgrimage to the Black Stone (Al Ka3ba), celebrated the passage of this same Abraham (Ibraheem) in the vicinity!
Mecca was structured around concentric dwellings starting from the Black Stone and fanning away. Houses closest to the Black Stone belonged to the most prominent personalities (families) in the city council and their respective clans in the extended Kuraich (Shark) tribe.
There were four main clans and each clan was specialized in one kind of commerce; the Scarlet tents sold spices and scents, the Black tents cloth and leather, the Silver tents precious metals and swords and the fourth colored tents or the owners of the Dappled Camels specialized in entertainments, wine, hashish, and the slave trade.
Water carriers were despised because any overflowing of water would damage the streets and homes built out of sand.
Around the year of 600 the businessmen in Mecca were losing trade to the sea transports. Worse, another new and famous Temple was built in Sheba in Yemen and pilgrims were investigating these new regions.
The pilgrims were getting scarce in Mecca because they realized that they were being bilked (milked) from every penny they had and young girls were abducted for ransom. Consequently, in order to keep afloat, the Kuraich tribe encouraged vile entertainment activities during the pilgrimage season to attract more customers.
The Black Stone enshrined around 360 idols brought from around the neighboring civilizations to entice pilgrims in from all around the regions. The colossus Hubal the shepherd was sent by the Amalekites of Hit, the idol Kain was the patron of musicians and blacksmiths, Astarte (He-of-Shara) was brought by the Nabataean as well as saturnine Nakruh. Manaf was the sun-god, in the eagle-form Nasr, Quzah or rainbow; Uzza the goddess of beauty and love, and Lat the all-powerful mother goddess.
The idol Allah had some sort of overall authority, an all-rounder in an age of specialist idols and thus was not that popular and didn’t generate money.
Hind, the all-powerful wife of the preeminent Karim Abu Simbel owned the three most famous goddesses of Al Lat, Manat, and Uzza.
Muhammad was rich (he married one of the richest women in Mecca Khadija), but he was an orphan and his clan was of lower stature and thus was Not represented in the city council.
His wife Khadija was about less than 5 years older than him and she had hired Muhammad to lead and manage her caravans heading to Damascus.
Khadija was the first person to believe in the message of Muhammad. By the age of 44, Muhammad message of “No God but Allah” was not making any major breakthrough among the city dwellers.
The lampoons of the very young and most famous poet named Baal were pinned up all over town “Messenger, do please lend a careful ear. Your monophilia, your One, One, One, isn’t for Jahilia. Return to sender”
Beside his uncle Hamza and a few poor fellows, Not many were paying any attention to Muhammad revelations. Among those poor individuals were Khalid the water carrier, Salman from Persia (who later would suggest to dig a wide ditch around Medina to prevent the cavalry of Kuraich to enter the town), and Bilal the mighty slave that Muhammad set free from his owner and would later be appointed the first official “muezzin” calling the believers to the five prayers of the day.
In order for his message to find a breakthrough, Muhammad was inclined to accept the deal of Abu Simbel.
Abu Simbel would recognize Allah as the mightiest God and would offer Muhammad a seat in the city council in return of recognition of Al Lat, Manat, and Uzza as Goddesses or the best interceding goddesses to Allah. (Given that he owned these idols)
The clan of Hind, the Umayyad, owned these three most privileged Goddesses from pilgrimage revenues.
Muhammad thus returned from the Mount Cone and delivered publicly the verses stating that “Lat, Manat, and Uzza are the exalted birds, and their intercession is desired indeed”. I guess these were the “Satanic verses” alluded to by Rushdie
The disciples of Muhammad were beside themselves and could not assent to accepting a God but Allah. Muhammad did not dare face his wife Khadija that night and did not enter his house.
Follow the story in the next part or the chapter “Return to Jahilia” https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/the-satanic-verses-part-2/
Note 1: The prophet belonged to a Christian sect deemed heretic by Byzantium and his uncle was the bishop in Mecca. I conjecture that Muhammad believed in the Trinity and paid special worship to the Virgin Mary.
Probably, this verse in his mind was in the spiritual sphere and Not literally adopting any idol of the Jahiliya, but people were literal in their interpretations.
Note 2: Finally, after 3 decades to the fatwa, a young man of 24 decided to fulfill the Fatwa and stabbed Salman 10 times while delivering a lecture in the USA, a country that he settled in. Rushdi did Not die (yet) but he will be physically greatly diminished
“How these sons of bitches became Calif of Islam?”. By Ussama Anwar Akkasha
Posted by: adonis49 on: July 7, 2018
“How these sons of bitches became Calif of Islam?”. By Ussama Anwar Akkasha
Note: It was common in Mecca during the “Jaahiliyat” period (Before Mohammad spread his message of One God) to have many taverns and Whore houses for the thousands of pilgrims and traders. Thus, many of the known Muslim leaders and Calif were descended of women running these houses.
This article is sort of historical account and names of women who generated many Emirs in early Islam.
Late Ussama Anwar Akkasha is an Egyptian author and scenarist
قبل سنوات كتب الروائي والسيناريست الكبير الراحل أسامة أنور عكاشة مقالا أثار ضجة كبيرة وقتها، بعنوان:-
“أبناء الزنى كيف صاروا أمراء المسلمين”، ووصل الأمر إلى أن أصدر الأزهر بيانًا، يرفض فيه ما جاء فى مقال عكاشة، إلا أنه رفض التراجع عما كتبه، مؤكدًا أن رأيه لا يعنى كفره بما هو معلوم فى الدين.
*إليكم نص المقال :::*
_*أبناء الزنى كيف صاروا أمراء المسلمين*_
–
أنه ليس من الصدفة أن يبدأ الصراع فى الجاهلية بين أولي الشرف من العرب كبنى هاشم ومخزوم وزهره وغيرهم، وبين من اشتهر بالعهر والزنا مثل بنى عبد شمس وسلول وهذيل، والذى امتد هذا الصراع إلى مابعد دخول كل العرب فى الإسلام.
ولم تكن من قبيل الصدفة أن أغلب من التحق بالركب الأموى كانوا ممن لهم سوابق بالزنا والبغاء، فهذه المهن تورث الكراهية والحقد لكل من يتحلى بالعفة والطهارة، إضافة إلى أنها لاتبقى للحياء سبيل وهى تذهب العفة وتفتح طريق الغدر والإثم والعهر.. لنرى بعض ما أنجب البغاء:
*1- حمامة أم أبى سفيان وهى زوجة حرب ابن امية بن عبد شمس، وهى جدة معاوية، كانت بغيا صاحبة راية فى الجاهلية.(الرايه)علم تضعه العاهره على دارها دلاله على البغاء، يعني مثل الملهى بتسمية وقتنا الحالي*
*2- الزرقاء بنت وهب، وهى من البغايا وذوات الأعلام أيام الجاهلية، وتلقب بالزرقاء، لشدة سوادها المائل للزرقة وكانت أقل البغايا أجرة، ويعرف بنوها بنو الزرقاء وهى زوجة أبى العاص بن أمية، أم الحكم بن أبى العاص (طرده الرسول من المدينة)، جدة مروان بن الحكم، يقال إن الحسين بن علي رد على رسول مروان بن الحكم قائلا، ” يابن الزرقاء الداعية إلى نفسها بسوق عكاظ“*.
*3- آمنة بنت علقمة بن صفوان أم مروان بن الحكم جدة عبد الملك بن مروان، وكانت تمارس البغاء سرًا مع أبى سفيان بن الحارث بن كلدة… وهذا مروان هو الذى أتوا به بعد ولادته الى رسول الله (ص) فقال الرسول ”ابعدوه عنى هذا الوزغ ابن الوزغ الملعون ابن الملعون ”وهذا الذ ى يلعنه الرسول يصبح أميرًا للمؤمنين..!!!!!*
*4- النابغة سلمى بنت حرملة، وقد اشتهرت بالبغاء العلني ومن ذوات الأعلام وهى أم عمرو بن العاص بن وائل، كانت أمَةً لعبد الله بن جدعان، فاعتقها فوقع عليها فى يوم واحد أبو لهب بن عبد المطلب وأمية بن خلف، وهشام بن المغيرة المخزومى وأبو سفيان بن حرب، والعاص بن وائل السهمى، فولدت عمرو، فادعاه كلهم لكنها ألحقته بالعاص بن وائل، لأنه كان ينفق عليها كثيرا…*
*5- سمية بنت المعطل النوبية، وهى من البغايا ذوات الأعلام، وكانت أمة للحارث بن كلدة، وتنسب أولادها ومنهم زياد مرة لزوجها عبيد بن أبى سرح الثقفى فيقال زياد بن عبيد ومرة يقال زياد ابن سمية ومرة زياد ابن أبيه، حتى استلحقه معاوية بأن أحضر شهودا على أن أبا سفيان قد واقع سمية وهى تحت عبيد بن أبى سرح، وبعد تسعة أشهر ولدت صبيا أسموه زياد. ولم يستلحقه معاوية حبا وكرامة ولكن لأن زياد بن أبيه كان عامل سيدنا على على فارس والاهواز فأراد استمالته.*
*ويستمر البغاء فى إنتاج رجال الرذيلة ليكونوا سادة العرب.*
*6- مرجانة بنت نوف وهى أمة لعبد الرحمن بن حسان بن ثابت، كان يصلها سفاحا العديد من الرجال، من بينهم زياد ابن أبيه فباعها عبد الرحمن وهى حامل من الزنا، فولدت عبدين هما عباد وعبيد الله ابنا مرجانة لا يعرف لهما أب، فاستدعاهما زياد واستلحقهما به… فكان عباد والى سجستان زمن معاوية، وعبيد الله بن زياد واليا على البصرة، حيث يبدو أن أمة العرب قد خلت من الأشراف لتنصيبهم فى هكذا مناصب، فلم يبق إلا أولاد الزنا، ولكن الطيور على أشكالها تقع؛ فرجل كمعاوية لا يمكنه استعمال رجل ذو فضيلة. وبعد أن كان عبيد الله ابن زياد واليا على البصرة زمن معاوية ولاه يزيد الكوفة، حيث قاتل الإمام الحسين حفيد نبى الأمة، حيث خاطبه الإمام بالدعى ابن الدعى.*
*وقيل للحسن البصرى: يا أبا سعيد قتل الحسين بن على، فبكى حتى اختلج جنباه ثم قال (واذلاه لأمّة قتل ابن دعيها ابن بنت نبيها)…*
*7- قطام بنت شحنة التيمية، وقد اشتهرت بالبغاء العلنى فى الكوفة وكانت لها قوادة عجوز اسمها لبابة، هى الواسطة بينها وبين الزبائن، كان أباها شحنة بن عدى وأخاها حنظلة بن شحنة من الخوارج، وقد قتلا معا فى معركة النهروان، فأصبحت والغل يأكل قلبها لهذا طلبت من عبد الرحمن ابن ملجم عندما جاء لخطبتها أن يضمن لها قتل سيدنا على (ع) ويصدقها بثلاثة آلاف درهم وغلام وجارية، فلم يشف غليل هذه الزانية مقتل الإمام بعدما سمعت بمقتل ابن ملجم أيضا، لهذا بعثت إلى مصر من وشى على جماعة من العلويين هناك عند الوالى عمرو ابن العاص، ابن البغى سلمى بنت حرملة، ومن هؤلاء الجماعة خولة بنت عبد الله وعبد الله وسعيد أبناء عمرو بن أبى رحاب.*
*8- نضلة بنت أسماء الكلبية وهى زوجة ربيعة بن عبد شمس وهى أم عتبة وشيبة الذين قتلا يوم بدر. يذكر الاصفهانى فى كتابه الأغانى أن أمية بن عبد شمس جاء ذات ليلة إلى دار أخيه ربيعة، فلم يجده فاختلى بزوجة أخيه وواقعها. فحبلت منه بعتبة.*
*ويروى أن أمية هذا ذهب الى الشام وزنى هناك بأمة يهودية فولدت له ولدا اسماه ذكوان، ولقبه أبو عمرو وجاء به إلى مكة داعيا أنه مولى له، حتى إذا كبر اعتقه واستلحقه، ثم زوجه امرأته الصهباء، قال ابن أبى الحديد إن أمية فعل فى حياته ما لم يفعله أحد من العرب، زوج ابنه ابو عمرو من امرأته فى حياته فولدت له أبا معيط ظدد جد الوليد بن عقبة بن أبى معيط، الذى ولاه عثمان الكوفة؛ حيث كان يأخذه النوم بعد أن يقضى ليلته فى شرب الخمر ولا يصحو على صلاة الفجر… هكذا كانوا ولاة أمور المسلمين!!!!*
*يروى أن عقبة بن أبى معيط لما أسره المسلمون يوم بدر أمر الرسول (ص) بقتله فقال يا محمد ناشدتك الله والرحم فقال الرسول ما انت وذاك انما انت ابن يهودى من أهل صفوريه.*
*9- هند بنت عتبة، وقد اشتهرت بالبغاء السرى فى الجاهلية هى زوجة أبى سفيان، وابنها معاوية يعزى الى اربعة نفر غير أبى سفيان، مسافر بن ابى عمرو بن امية، عمارة بن الوليد بن المغيرة، العباس بن عبد المطلب، والصباح مولى مغن لعمارة بن الوليد…*
*يروى أن، أمير المؤمنين علي، على (ع) قال فى كتابه إلى معاوية (… وأما قولك نحن بنى عبد مناف ليس لبعضنا فضل على بعض… فكذلك نحن… لكن ليس المهاجر كالطليق ولا الصريح كاللصيق…). وهى إشارة واضحة بإلصاق أصول معاوية بعبد مناف.*
*10- ميسون بنت بجدل الكلبية، هى ام يزيد بن معاوية، كانت تأتى الفاحشة سرا مع عبد لأبيها ومنه حملت بيزيد، ويروى أن معاوية خاصم ميسون، فأرسلها إلى اهلها بمكة وبعد فترة أرجعها إلى الشام وإذا هى حامل……!!!! قال يزيد للإمام الحسن ( يا حسن إنى أبغضك) فقال الإمام (ذلك لأن الشيطان شارك أباك حينما ساور أمك فاختلط المائان).*
*قال الامام محمد الباقر، (قاتل يحيى بن زكريا ولد زنا وقاتل الحسين ابن على ولد زنا ولا يقتل الأنبياء والأوصاء إلا أبناء البغايا).*
*11- آمنة بنت علقمة بن صفوان هى أم مروان بن الحكم كانت تمارس الزنا مع أبى سفيان فولدت مروان. اخرج ابن عساكر من طريق محمد القرظى قال (لعن رسول الله الحكم وما ولد الا الصالحين وهم قليل) وقالت السيدة عائشة (رض) لمروان (لعن الله اباك وانت فى صلبه، فانت بعض من لعنة الله ثم قالت والشجرة الملعونة فى القرآن).*
*هؤلاء هم الرجال الذين أسسوا الدولة الإسلامية، فلا غرابة أن نرى الدماء تلون كل أوراق تاريخنا!!!.*
“Man was created weak” (Apr. 2, 2010)
In verse 23 on “Women” the Koran said: “Man was created weak (da3eef).” The imams had no problem identifying the main characteristic of this weakness in men: men have untamable sexual desires (shahwat) and men frequently succumb to carnal desires (among other desires like voracious eating and drinking binge?)
The best remedy was not to educate mankind to take on his individual responsibilities but to minimize temptations; thus, women had to be the sacrificial victims and be made scarce in public; if need be to go out for tending to daily affairs then, women had to get veiled (preferably completely wrapped up in loose garments that hide rotund parts of the body)
An unveiled woman (mutabarrijate) is a “fragile prey” in the mind of the patriarchal societies and thus, women lack defensive “frontiers” and barriers (hosn). The best defense for women is seclusion at home and be provided for by a husband, a father, or a brother! The big threat nowadays for Islamic/Arab States is that there are no frontiers anymore, physically and visually.
High-tech enemies dominate the sky by airplanes and by satellites that diffuse all kinds of “inadmissible” sexually potent ads and movies. The frontiers (hudud) that Islam wrapped itself in to protect against foreign influences are down.
For example, the second Abbassid Caliph Al Mansur, who built Baghdad in concentric shapes called the city “Madinat as-Salam” (City of peace); to that effect, any quarters that necessarily required mixing of genders and with foreigners (such as commercial souks) were ordered outside city-limit.
Another example that might be a reason for that kind of thinking is that in the fifth year after the Prophet fled to Medina (the first Islam City-State) from Mecca, Mohammad had to adopt a defensive tactic suggested by a Moslem Persian convert (Salman) to dig a ditch around the city (20 yards deep by 20 large) to prevent Quraich tribe cavalry entering and invading the city. The Quraich alliances of tribes encircled Medina for a month and the Moslems endured badly this period. The city experienced civil unrest and great doubt about the new message and the Prophet’s ability to conduct political and military undertaking. Muhammad had lost the previous year the battle of Uhud and no raids were launched for three years to bring in loot and prosperity. During the siege, women were ordered to stay at home. Muhammad had to sit by the ditch facing the enemies to encourage volunteers to resume digging what was a first among tribal warfare.
It is no surprise that Moslems, after the Prophet’s death, picked up on the idea of erecting barriers; women were the first victims to be heaped upon all kinds of barriers and space division. During the first invasion of Iraq by Bush Sn (the father) in 1991, it was women who took to the streets shouting, demonstrating, and sitting in front of foreign Embassies of States that participating in the invading alliance. Women knew what to do while men needed plenty of time to discuss and reason out the pitfalls of getting on the move.
In this first invasion, Baghdad was defenseless from the sky and frontiers were destroyed; women tore down the psychological barriers and defied men were totally impotent to applying defensive measures, especially against collateral damages of “smart bombs” killing innocent civilians. In the war of 2003, one critical factor changed: it was the Western enemies who were scared because the Arabs had means for instant capturing of images and war reporting.
Note: Man was created weak but woman is endowed to becoming weaker as she learns to enjoying sexual pleasures; thus, harem were built and more space divisions erected to keep women isolated. Mankind has generally preferred to appreciate “raw potentials” in capabilities, physically and mentally, at the expense of slow continuous development of potentials. We may account for that tendency on the assumption that our psyche is aware of life duration and days are counted: we are in a hurry to judge and apply what is at hand.
By the age of fifty, we realize that we were fooled: we actually had plenty of time to develop our potentials but we were caught up in the survival process; now nobody is willing to hire us because we failed to develop new capabilities and skills. We react in frustration and anger for our current “impotence”.
Date Zero: Prior period to Islam is untouchable to investigation; (April 1, 2010)
Islam calendar starts in 622 AC, the date the Prophet Muhammad fled to Medina (Yathreb) from Mecca.
The past or before date zero, or the culture and tradition of pre-Islam Arabic Peninsula, has been practically untouched by researchers and Islamic investigators.
The period prior to 622 or year one of “Hegire” is lumped as the period of ignorance (Jahiliyya) by Moslems.
The Arab World still teaches pre-Islamic poetry and poets; it is mostly through these poems that the Arabs are acquainted with the very rich parts of pre-Islamic culture, traditions, and customs.
Fact is, you cannot understand Islam without the contexts that pressured the prophet Muhammad to compromise with the multitude of tribes allied to Byzantium and Persia empires.
We can claim that a curtain (hijab) has descended on pre-Islamic period simultaneously with the veil that descended on women after the Prophet’s death.
Thus, women were banished from political power and dealing with political affairs in public two decades after Muhammad’s death.
This is no coincidence that Islam after Muhammad’s death had made the connection between pulling a curtain on the Jahiliyya period and the veiling of women in society; removing women from the public political landscape.
During Jahiliyya, each Arabic tribe worshiped idols made of wood or stone; there were many Jewish and “heretic” Christian-Jew sects (as labeled by Christian Orthodox Byzantium Empire) in Arabia and in Mecca.
The 3 most potent and powerful idols were female idols such as Al Uzza, Manat, and Al Lat. Although the tribes made their yearly pilgrimage to Mecca where the Kaaba contained over 360 idols, this pilgrimage was mainly for doing commerce and enjoying the weeklong festivities and debauchery. The main pilgrimage (hajj) for the powerful tribes was to their preferred idols in other locations and towns.
The pragmatic nomads in the Arabic Peninsula and the neighboring deserts have created idols commensurate to their individualistic needs to vent their frustrations with periodic sacrifices, including babies of both genders.
During Muhammad’s time, baby girls were mostly the sacrificial human kind by poor families, especially in periods of great food distress.
Since violence, revenge, and frequent wars “razzias” against other clans were the norm for looting of animals, camels, and slave girls… powerful female goddesses were purchased and erected for pilgrimage as scapegoats to the tribes’ violent activities.
Thus, female goddesses represented violence, symbol that violence and revenge are the mark of female behavior and dark spirit.
For example, goddess Manat (death) was the oldest idol and was worshiped by the tribes of Aws and Kazradj that inhabited the region of Yathreb, later called Medina (the first Islam City-State). The original meaning of Manat is taken from a Semitic root meaning “counting of the days of life” that connote death (manyya).
The temple of Manat was a natural rock (sakhra) on the coast between Mecca and Yathreb; the two tribes considered that the pilgrimage was not complete until they stopped at the temple of Manat where they shaved their head and offered sacrifices. Manat was a powerful goddess dictator (taghia) and swords were deposited in her temple.
The Prophet gave his nephew Ali bin Abi Taleb the two swords in the temple after it was demolished; one of the sword was called Zul Faqar. Representatives of the tribes of Aws and Khazradj had extended permission to Muhammad, after three years of negotiation, to settle in Yathreb with his converts after the tribes of Mecca decided to chase them out.
The other female goddess was Al Lat and was worshiped in Taif, a region on the eastern shores facing Persia. The main tribe of Taif, the Banu Taqif, erected square walls around the rock of Al Lat. Most desert tribes, all the way to Palmyra in northern Syria, worshiped this goddess.
Al Lat had all the attributes of goddess Athena wearing battle helmet, breastplate, armor, and holding a lance. Banu Thaqif was one of the latest tribes to submit to Allah because Muhammad failed at several expeditions to enter Taif. Actually, it was Taif that was the preferred destination to Muhammad when he decided to flee Mecca but he was chased out of Taif after his failed negotiation to settle there.
The third most powerful “taghia” goddess was Al Uzza (dignity, physical force and power); the most powerful tribe of Quraich in Mecca consecrated her. Al Uzza was the most violent divine warrior and was represented in the form of a tree or three acacias trees and located way up north in Nakhla as Shamiya on the way to Iraq’s caravans.
The temple of Al Uzza was equipped with a slaughtering alter (manhar) called “ghabghab”. General Khaled bin Al Waleed was ordered to destroy the temple of Al Uzza in 630 after Muhammad entered Mecca peacefully as the victor.
General Al Waleed was the Quraich leader who defeated Muhammad’s troops in the battle of Uhud; this failed campaign of the Prophet generated 3 years of civil unrest in the City-State of Medina and most of the verses that abridged female equal rights that were previously gained in the first four years.
Note: About ten years after Muhammad’s death, the Arabic Islamic Empire had extended vastly.
The governor Abu Mussa al Ach3ari wrote to the second caliph Omar bin Al Khattab: “You sent me several letters that were not dated.” Omar assembled a council to set up a calendar.
A few opted to using the Byzantium calendar, others the Persian calendar, but the majority recognized that a calendar means power and wanted an Arabic/Islamic calendar.
The discussions led to adopting the date of the Prophet’s immigration to Medina in 622 AC as Date Zero. Omar had said: “this is the year that divided truth from falsehood.”
Islam lunar calendar is of 354 days and started with the month of “Muharram”; the pre-Islamic particular month that prohibited wars and revenge among clans.
In pre-Islam, the tribes used to add one month on the third year for calibration with their commercial dealings. Muhammad forbid to add this month; thus, the Islamic calendar is one year ahead for every 33 Christian years since the year 622.
Medina, the first Islam City-State
Posted by: adonis49 on: March 26, 2010
Medina, the first Islam City-State; (Mar. 26, 2010)
Many Moslems do not turn toward Mecca to get inspiration: They turn toward Medina where the Prophet Muhammad ruled, established his message, and was buried. The Prophet Muhammad was buried in his green overcoat, in the ground, under the bed of Aicha, his most beloved wife, in this humble room apartment, a door opening directly to the first mosque.
The same small “apartment” where the Prophet head was in the mosque, extending his head through the door for Aicha to wash his long hair.
Muhammad had to flee Mecca in 622 after his powerful wife Khadija trespassed. Mecca had over 360 idols representing the Gods of countless tribes, paying pilgrimage every year and being scalped of every dime they carried with them on a week-long debauched festivities.
Muhammad was welcomed in Medina (Yathreb) as a prince after the two main tribes of Aws and Khazraj extended an invitation to settle after many years of negotiation. The immigrant Moslems from Mecca (the Muhajirun) had preceded their Prophet to Medina many months ahead of him. The Muhajirun were the strangers and they were almost penniless; the tribes of Medina had to accommodate them within their residences and find them work in their fields to earn a living.
The first 4 years were glorious years: it was the period when recognition of individual rights and development as equal converts to Allah superseded tribal attachment and customs. Women didn’t wear the veil and walked the streets unaccompanied my male relatives.
The veil was a custom in Mecca for the aristocratic women to be discriminated from common women and slaves. Medina was an agricultural vast city extending for miles over several villages of clans and tribes. Women worked the field with men, and wearing veil was unheard of.
The women in Medina were working people and Medina was mainly a matriarchal society. The wife had to simply lock the door of her tent for the husband to go find a sleeping place among his clan.
The muhajirun from patriarchal Mecca felt lost and appalled in this new community of traditions and customs, where sexuality was not a big deal and women had a say in city politics.
In the first four years, women demanded equality with men and got it in the Koran. The Prophet went at great length detailing heritage procedure and shares for every member of the family; even an orphan and a child born from a slave and a free person (regardless of gender) had a share as any other member of the family.
Muhammad insisted that at least one of his wives join him in his military expeditions to the grand dam of the masculine army. People of both genders would visit the Prophet’s wives for clarifications and explanations on verses of the Koran and the daily routines of behavior. There was no dividing space line between private and public life: And the Prophet was constantly harassed with countless queries even in his residence because the new converts wanted to learn the new message of change.
Then, Muhammad lost the battle of Uhud in 626 against a coalition of tribes under the leadership of Quraich of Mecca.
Three hard years of civil unrest in Medina followed. Muhammad opted for defensive attitudes and no serious military campaigns “razzia” brought much loot for the survival of the growing followers in Medina.
Believing in Allah and his Prophet took serious shaking down and the incredulous turn to cynicism, calumny, and even open anger. One clan leader entered the apartment of Aicha and Muhammad and demanded of the Prophet to swap Aicha with one of his wives.
The wives of Muhammad were apprehended in the streets with sexual overtones under the pretense that the “munafikeen” thought they were women slaves since they wore no veil.
The second Caliph Omar was the most intransigent misogyny “muhajer”: he kept harassing the Prophet for demanding women to wear the veil and to refrain from dealing in public affairs.
People were becoming openly highly critical of Muhammad’s behaviors and his selection of newer wives. This open space between private and public life was to tumble down gradually under the massive pressures of little military excursions and civil unrest.
Verses were pronounced to drop curtains in Muhammad’s apartment for visitors who were not invited. Omar obtained that the wives of the Prophet start wearing veils when out of their residences. The Prophet who never beat or slapped any of his wives had also to permit male ascendancy in the family.
Violent Omar was told by Muhammad “You may slap your wives but this would be the behavior of the unaccomplished Moslem”
The next year to the battle of Uhud, Quraich tribes came back and set siege to Medina for 28 days.
For the first time in Arabia, a large ditch was dug around a city for defense purposes to enemy cavalry. Civil unrest in Medina grew and women avoided walking out their residences. The Prophet had to give priority to political survival at the expense of equal rights to all converts, for both genders, for class differences, and for further emancipation of slaves.
Islam is one of the “heretic” Christian-Jewish sects: A challenge…
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 24, 2010
Islam is one of the “heretic” Christian-Jewish sects,(Feb. 23, 2010)
A challenge to all theologians and social scientists
Before Emperor Constantine, who established Constantinople as Capital for the Roman Empire in the Orient (called Byzantium Empire) around 315 AC, there were hundreds of Christian sects in the Middle East. Each sect had its dogma and its Bible (there were hundreds of versions).
The belief systems of these Christian sects differed greatly in the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, the Holy Spirit, the status of the Virgin Mary (many would not even mention her name since women were considered impure), the status of Judas Iscariot, the rites, the language, the daily rituals, the status of the Old Testament, the communion of the flesh, the age to baptizing new converts, and to which race to focus on.
Many sects obeyed the laws of the Old Testaments in their integrity and many refused to adopt the Old Testament as part of their belief systems.
The Council of Nicaea (on the shore of Turkey) in 325 made things even worse: Constantine wanted to unify all the Christian sects into a religion of the Empire. The notion of three Gods into one (Father, son, and Holy Ghost) were forced upon the sects as well as the Sanctity of Mary and many abstract concepts wrapped into the Credo.
Any sect that refused the unified Orthodox dogma, of the Emperor in power at the time, was labeled “heretic” and was persecuted. It turned out that, for over 70 years, successive Emperors were in favor of one or another “heretic” belief system, and a few emperor reverted to paganism.
Around the year 400, another Emperor reverted to the Orthodox dogma and the persecutions resumed and even intensified. The heretic sects fled to beyond the Euphrates River under the dominion of Persia Empire and spread to the Arabic Peninsula and reached India and China.
Prophet Mohammad was from a clan that believed in one of these Christian-Jewish heretic sects that were established in Mecca; the father of Mohammad was a convert and his uncle was the Patriarch of the Christian sect.
In the year 1000, another schism took place between the Bishop of Rome (Catholic) and the Bishop of Constantinople (Orthodox) and another wave of persecution of heretic sects got under way.
The various Protestant “heretic” sects in the 16th century are but the latest in the variety of Christian sects and offshoot of ancient heretic Christian sects.
All that Prophet Muhammad did was to drop the abstract notions in the Orthodox dogma and to adopt the common denominator belief system of the various heretic Christian-Jewish sects in the Arabic Peninsula, Syria, and Iraq.
Thus, Islam combined the Old Testament integrally and the version of New Testament read by the Jewish-Christians sect, the Ebionites, of Mohammad’s tribe in the Mecca: the Patriarch of this sect was one of Muhammad’s uncles.
The Ebionites sect was fundamentally a Jewish sect that attached the teachings of Jesus (another Prophet) to the Old Testament. This sect considered St.Paul as a heretic because he opened the religion to the “gentiles”.
Historical facts prove that the early Christians, and particularly the illiterate disciples lead by Jack, the eldest brother of Jesus, who conglomerated in Jerusalem were very conservative Essenism Jews: Jesus was their Rabbi and they tried to follow his message.
When Peter finally marched out of Jerusalem it was to follow on the trail of Paul in order to dismantling Paul’s Christian communities and converting them to the Jewish laws. Paul had to tone down his discourse and adopt a few Jewish social laws in order to counter the vehement practical attacks of the “Jerusalem sect of Christians“.
Islam became the unified Christian-Jewish heretic sect opposing the Orthodox Christian Church in Constantinople. It is no surprise that the heretic Christians in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine rallied and supported Islamic troops against Byzantium and Persia.
After Constantinople fell in around 1450 to the Ottoman Empire, many of the non-Moslem Christian sects united politically to the Catholic Church in Rome, even though their dogma did not mesh nicely with the Catholic Credo.
Islam means submission (to God, the one and only). I submit a challenge to all theologians, religious researchers, and philosophers of all religious denominations (monolithic or not).
My hypothesis is: The religious message of the Prophet Muhammad, during the first 13 years of proselytizing in Mecca, is identical to one of the Christian-Jewish sects. Let me suggest the following procedure or protocol:
First, select all the religious Christian sects till the Council of Nicaea in 325; and then select the Christian sects after Nicaea until the year 400.
Continue the selection process of the sects after the split between Rome and Byzantium around the year 1000, then go over the Christian sects that were formed between 1000 to the Martin Luther schism, all the way to the modern Christian sects from Protestantism, Calvinism, Baptism, Methodism, Episcopalian, Armenians (Catholic and Orthodox), and all the sects in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere.
Second, develop taxonomy of attributes in order to categorize all these Christian sects.
Third, allocate all the sects to one of six categories or more if need be.
Fourth, select the verses in Islam that correspond to the period of 13 years in Mecca, before the flight of the Prophet Muhammad to Medina (Yathreb) and the establishment of the first City-State of Islam
Five, assign each verse in that period to the taxonomy of step two.
Six, allocate the message of the prophet Muhammad in one of the categories chosen in step three.
The foundation to my hypothesis stems from reading a manuscript titled “Islam in its two messages: Christ and Muhammad.”
The author of the book is late Antoun Saadeh, a Lebanese of Christian Geek Orthodox denomination. The book was written in 1942 and Saadeh proves that Islam is almost identical to the message of Christ when we analyze the verses of the Koran pronounced during Muhammad proselytizing of his message before the legislation period for the new community in Medina.
Since Christianity is an amalgam of many sects that split into schisms in the last two thousand years, I figured that, from a scientific perspective, it would be more appropriate to differentiate Christianity according to sects.
It would also be fitting to study Islam by analyzing the various Moslem sects; though the variations would be based more on the legislation (Chari3a) and Hadith (stories on Muhammad) than the fundamental spiritual content during the first 13 years of the message in Mecca.
I suggest to start with four broad categories: Catholic, Orthodox, Christian-Jews, and Jewish-Christians. The basic differences are in the adoption of the Old Testament as act of faith and social regulations to follow.
There are Christians who do not adopt the Old Testament in their act of faith neither intrinsically or even using it in preaching and its myths in rhetoric; other use Old Testament as act of faith but do not adopt the Jewish laws for daily rituals; others adopt the Jewish laws either partially or entirely.
For example, Islam and Jehovah Witnesses may be allocated within the Jewish-Christian category because they abide by the nomadic Jewish laws for daily behaviors.
Note: I find many resemblance between St.Paul and the prophet Muhammad. Both avatars of God had apparitions and revelations and did what they had to do to spreading the message. Their message was to be universal:
1. Paul disseminated monotheism to the Mediterranean Sea basin (Roman and Byzantium Empires) and Mohammad spread monotheism to all of Asia (India, China, and Indonesia).
2. Paul’s method took 300 years to grabbing 10% share of the population; Mohammad’s method was more efficient, and rallied millions in just two decades.
I demand freedom to pay tribute to my Idol
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 9, 2009
I demand freedom to pay tribute to my Idol
People are more inclined to be loyal to a saint, a shrine, or an honored Imam, or apostle.
People have need to use their senses to get connected to a spiritual entity: you cannot expect human to think exclusively on abstract notion without the intermediary of their senses of seeing a representative picture, of smelling incense, of touching a bust, or of listening to a hymn.
One God who created man and the universe is fine, but is not sufficient for man. Several Gods doing the job is more convincing and pragmatic: specialization is highly valued.
Monotheism is a totally abstract concept that no human was yet able to feel physically loyal to a one, all encompassing God.
Ever since man descended from his tree, his prime concern was struggling for his freedom to pay tribute to his favorite Idol God.
Fear of the many dangers threatening his survival forced man to seeking a much more powerful ally to protect him and come to the rescue. Depending on his wide spectrum of phobia, man wanted the total freedom to worship and be loyal to his “loyal” companions in times of imminent dangers.
Man would not take for granted Idols imposed upon him; he wanted his personal choices that most satisfied his psychological world. Freedom of belief is not a modern concept; man fought all his life and for millennia for this natural right and is continuing the struggle.
I noticed lately that my dad, at each pass in front of the Virgin Mary or Mar Charbel (a Lebanese National Saint), has to touch these pictures in the house with his index, kiss his index, and then sign the cross.
Dad is 85 years old and has refrained attending mass for years. Mother is also devoted to the Virgin and all the national female saints such as Rafqa; she never misses an occasion to get in the car or a bus going to pay tributes to shrines; she pay money, that she has not, for the Saint so that the church make “good” use of it.
Obviously, Mar Charbel is in her pantheon too, along with the newly beatified Hardini. Interestingly, miracles have a way of occurring at election times.
In all ages, whether a religion claim to be monotheist or polytheist people end up selecting a particular idol to pay allegiance to and write ex-votos to Him in order to be cured, enjoy prosperity, safety to the family, and safe travels.
Indeed, people are loyal idolater to whom they perceive to be pretty much handy, accessible, and an excellent intermediary to the One God.
For example, in Latin America people are loyal to the Virgin Mary and cannot think of any other Saint to turn to in time of distress; thus, St. Mary of (name a city or a village), or the Virgin of (name a city or a town) and you have hundreds of Virgin Maries, tailored made to a specific locality, ready to come to the rescue.
The Greek Orthodox Church cannot think of more than three female saints to name girls at baptismal ceremonies: it must be either Mary, Ann, or Elisabeth; as for male kids you have an assortment of complicated and long Greek saints with plenty of X and Ch.
In predominantly Moslem Egypt, and generally in North Africa, you have St. Fatima, Aicha, Ali, Hussein, the Imam of the regional legal sect, or the shrine of the veneered Sheikh of a locality is paid more attention and visits to any other worshiping figures.
Pictures of Moslem saints are prohibited in public places or in mosques but that do not prevent homes to hang pictures of their preferred saint as relevant to current standards of beauty for both genders.
There is this myth that the Jewish religion is the first to adopting monotheism; it is just a myth.
Ancient civilizations were never monotheists; they all had an overall God, nominally superior to the other demi-gods but that nobody paid much attention to or prayed to Him or even remembered asking his help in ex-votos.
God El was the all encompassing God in the Middle East as was Allah in the Arab Peninsula or Zeus for the Greeks, but He never generated a dime to tribes that had exclusive rights to his worship.
People converged to more palpable and understandable demy-gods; cities and towns adopted one of them as symbol and recognition of their trades or power. In general, more weight was given to the “messengers of a God” (they were written in plural) than to a specific God.
Yahweh (God of thunder) was one of the Gods to the Jews after Moses introduced Him during the long crossing of Sinai and the worship of the “golden cow”: the Jews had, before and after Moses, many regional demy-Gods who did exist even if at periods they were forbidden to be worship.
Jews might have converged to a unique God in Judea in the second century BC. Many of Canaan demy-Gods were far more beneficial and interesting than this newly created Yahweh that came into the picture during war periods. In war time, Jewish mercenaries were asked to support Baal under the banner of the dusted off Temple and bust of Yahweh.
Salomon worshiped Ashtarout (the Goddess of Sidon in Lebanon), and idol Baal had many Temples in Jerusalem while Yahweh had only one.
One common denominator to all salafist or extremist religious sects (Christian, Jewish, Moslems, or cults) is being totally peeved and obfuscated that the One True God is being sidetracked for substitutes.
Joshua offered the Jews choices of keeping Yahweh as sole God or accepting other demy-Gods. When the Jews decided to keep exclusively a “tribal” God then Joshua ordered all strangers’ Gods destroyed. In ancient time, destroying the bust of a God didn’t mean that he no longer existed, but that the local God was to be more efficient to the survival of the tribe or community.
When Prophet Mohammad entered Mecca without a fight, after 9 years of taking Yathreb as his headquarter for his companions, he ordered all the 160 idols destroyed or effaced (pictures) save two: Allah and the Virgin Mary.
Mary was not bestowed virginity at all but she was veneered as the mother of the latest great prophet Jesus (Issa). In Islam, idols were no longer Gods and never existed as was the case in ancient cultures.
The early Protestants erased pictures and destroyed busts of all Saints except crucified Jesus. For the Protestants, erasing pictures of Saints didn’t mean that Saints didn’t exist but they were not that worthy to be worshiped and supplant God through the interceding process.
The most honest monotheists were the “heretic” Christian sects that the Orthodox Christian Church during the Byzantium Empire persecuted relentlessly. Most of these sects would not even bestow a divine nature to Jesus, and Marie was not virgin by any means; no pictures or drawings were permitted for any Saints.
The farthest that these sects could indulge in is to veneer the apostle whom they claimed to have written the “true” Testament they adopted and read in. The Nestorian sect proselytized in China and translated its Bible in Chinese in around the year 600; it built churches all along the “silk road”. Thus, you don’t need to create saints along with pictures and busts to have the faith that travels to China.
I have noticed that:
1. centralized churches promote many saints with pictures and busts; it is a tactic to please the people so that it may enjoy total control over their temporal existence;
2. that these centralized churches inherited pagan religions aided a lot to the widespread propagation of multiple idols for each locality.
Decentralized religions have no urge to promote idols and pictures such as in Islam: it is the temporal power at every state that appoints clergies, Imams, and sheikhs.
I don’t see why all that fuss for monotheism.
If a few tribes still refuse to believe that it is earth rotating around the sun or that earth is flat, why then submerge them with an extra abstract notion?
Killing and committing suicide attacks in the name of a God is not an abstract act; this does not mean that human mind cannot reach a level of distortion that far surpasses the mere abstraction of a One God, creator of man and the universe.
Note 1: This is a revised version of my post “Mono-idolatry (monolatry) or monotheism? (Nov. 6, 2009)”
Note 2: The Christian Greek Orthodox is the church of Byzantium that persecuted the “heretic” Maronites in the year 1,000 and forced them to settle in the northern mountain chains of Lebanon. Decades later, the Maronite allied to the Church of Rome and has been a steady ally to France since then.
These persecutions took place at a period the Moslem Arabic empire was disintegrating into small fiefdoms and Byzantium re-conquered the coastal portion in Turkey and Syria. The second crusade campaign burned Constantinople and occupied the lands of Byzantium in Turkey, Syria, all the way to Jerusalem.
Note 3: The various Protestant sects have similarity with the Wahhabi Moslem sect by discarding icons and pictures of saints in their place of worship. The Wahhabi makes it a trend to demolish any worshiping place that is decorated with pictures, icon, and shrines, whether they are Christians or Moslems…
Moratorium on spreading myths: Hezbollah and “Wilayat fakeeh” (part 1)
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 1, 2009
Moratorium on spreading myths: Hezbollah and “Wilayat fakeeh” (part 1)
I selected Hezbollah for my topic for three reasons: first, I need to have a specific target in order to minimize tendencies for generalization; second, Hezbollah is the most powerful movement in Lebanon in number, organization, military training, and in readiness and thus, this important social and political force can either spread havoc or strengthen the independence of Lebanon, depending on open dialogue and communication among all Lebanese political parties; and third, because I have a high respect for this organization that saved Lebanon twice from becoming a total non-entity within the last decade.
Yes, with Hezbollah, I feel that Lebanon is no longer just a State recognized by the UN, but has acquired the status of a Nation; a tiny Nation but with the potential of agreeing that we are one people under the law and against all contingencies.
The first myth that Hezbollah needs to lay off is “dress codes should be a religious matters”. Dress codes for man and woman have nothing to do with religious dogma. In Mecca, during the life of Prophet Mohammad, only noble ladies wore the veil outside their homes, as a discrimination dress code of their rank from the other working women. When the companions of the Prophet fled to Yathreb (Medina), at the onset of persecutions, the veil was not used in Medina: Women had large freedom; and they had their own mind.
Actually, it was a chock for the women of Yathreb seeing a few of the companions’ wives wearing veils as if they considered themselves of nobler ranks!
Prophet Muhammad did not bring the issue of dress codes until he married many women for political exigencies. Sexual rumors spread about a few of his wives: Muhammad had to ask his wives to wear veils and long dresses when stepping out of their homes in order to minimize their recognition by the public. Thus, a particular and local case needs not be extended to whole communities and to people of different cultures.
I suggest to Hezbollah to taking the bold decision of toning down the importance of dress codes and desist of spreading this myth. Women who have no convictions that dress codes are of the domain of religious belief should not be pressured to cheat on their convictions. Extending liberty to exercising the power of individual rational thinking is the best asset for higher confidence in leadership and tighter cohesion in the ranks in dire circumstances. The leaders of Hezbollah should give examples within their own family and relatives.
The second myth to get rid off is combining political and religious responsibilities. It certainly is a proof of internal weakness in the organization when the Secretary General feels the need to offering the face of an Imam.
The Prophet Muhammad was upset with the central “Orthodox” Church of Byzantium (Constantinople) because it labeled one of the Christian sects in Mecca (the Ebionite) as “heretic”: Muhammad’s uncle Ain Warkat was the Patriarch of this Christian-Jew sect and he taught Muhammad to read and write in the Aramaic language, the lanhuage of the Bible the sect read in.
Ain Warkat translated his “Bible” into the Aramaic slang spoken in Mecca, which was called Arabic. The Prophet goal was to unite the “heretic” sects under common denominators by discarding the abstract notions that divided among them; after all, they all followed the daily rituals of the Jewish customs that they inherited by tradition.
Muhammad abhorred central religious power and viewed it as the enemy for harmony and peace among the believers. That is why the Prophet declined to name an Imam before his death so that Islam should not be regulated by any religious central power; he could have named Ali as Imam and Ali would have been an excellent religious guide.
Preaching at every religious event as if in a Friday prayers, Hassan Nasr Allah is definitely sending the wrong message to the Lebanese: The mixing of politics and religion is bound to lead to disaster. We need to hear Hassan Nasr Allah political messages and wish he spares us his religious belief that is not the concern of the people at this junction.
What the Lebanese people, and many members of Hezbollah, understand is that Hezbollah is a shifty religious sect following the sect of the Iranian Guide in power.
Taking a religious story to drive through a political message, every now and then, is appropriate rhetorically, but when the entire speech is religious then the people get tired of too much chatting in matters they care less about. Everyone should have his specialty, responsibility, and his target audience.
State business, political organization, and religion should not mix. Lebanon has 18 formally recognized sects and we need not exacerbate our caste problems. We need to be the vanguard to the other Arabic and Islamic States in running our life and strengthening our individual freedom for rational thinking.
That is my first installment on myths, from all religious castes, to confront head on our calamities for a harmonious and stable Lebanon. The next follow up post is entitled “Hezbollah to desist spreading myths: Encore“
Islamophobia is anathema to rational thinking; (October 18, 2009)
Islam is quickly becoming an integral religion in the Western world. There is a growing sense of uneasiness for Islam devotees: they pray at least three times a day facing Mecca (the Kaaba) and take seriously the fasting month of Ramadan. The various Christian sects barely practice their religion; the “Christians” mostly use their religion as political platforms during voting seasons to discriminate among cultures for the “proper way of life”. A recent scandal broke out in England: the government is wire taping the Moslems on ground of social study. In France there was an attempt at disqualifying Arabs as carrier of any philosophical civilization that could have impressed on European Renaissance. The Arabic media didn’t respond to “Aristotle on Mount St. Michelle” simply because the book talked of philosophical import and didn’t discuss the scientific aspects.
The main confusion in Europe or in the Arab/Islamic world is about what Empires we are alluding to: Arabic Empires (culture) or Islamic Empires (civilization) and how to discriminate among the cultures of each one of the Empires. The modern nationalistic models (brainchild of emerging Europe) could not correspond to ancient models of thinking and thus, the attempts to explaining past Empires with modern models of what constitute a nation is confusing research and biasing facts with awkward interpretations.
In all periods, elites of Empires needed an ideology to assure the articulation of various heritages (Arab, Persian, Byzantium, Roman, Greek, and Aramaic). The unstable structure of ancient Empires frequently pressed upon its elites to rethink the new culture of the emerging Empire and re-construct it via a mould where diverse elements were poured in (ethnicity, community, belief systems, and language). Thus, social thinkers struggled to present a coherent understanding of the new Empire; the purpose was not an erudite analysis for posterity but to get the new Empire functioning properly.
This post is meant to investigate the allegation that European civilization is fundamentally the heritage of ancient Greece civilization. I have examined the contention that “Europe civilization is because of Christianism”, a proposal that I refuted in a previous post (read “The Barbaric Catholic Church of Rome”) where the centralized church prohibited the influx of “heretic” scientific manuscripts to Europe from the Near Eastern Byzantium Empire and later from the Islamic Empire till way the 16th century.
The best route for this examination is to consider two civilizations that imbibed the Islamic Empires. The first Umayyad Arabic Empire 650 to 800 AC had for Capital Damascus; the culture in the Near East in that period was principally Hellenistic in the sense that scholars and educated people wrote in two languages, the Greek and Syriac languages (Aramaic dialect developed in Edesse, current Turkey) ; the common people spoke the language of the land or Aramaic. Aramaic is the root language for Hebrew and the various local languages, especially the two Arabic branches that were spoken in Mecca and in Yemen. It is in this period that lasted 150 years that translation of Greek and Syriac manuscripts into Arabic received its impetus. Translation of Greek works to Syriac continued way into the 9th century. The people easily assimilated the spoken Arabic of Mecca and gave Arabic its proper alphabet and grammar.
The second period can be called the Islamic Empire when the Capital was re-located to the newly erected city of Baghdad (Baghdad was to become the largest metropolis in this Empire of over one million inhabitant); this Islamic civilization was marked by the Persian culture and language with high import from India: trade was cut off with Europe for many centuries first during the Mamluk Empires after kicking out the last remnant of the Crusaders and later the early Ottoman Empire as Constantinople fell in around 1450.
The Umayyad Dynasty exported to Islamic Persia the embryo of the current scientific works and the nascent Islamic philosophy (falsafa); the more developed scientific works were later mostly written in Persian language; the same scholars wrote the disciplines that were related to religion, philosophy, rhetoric, legal, mathematics, and algebra, in Arabic because they were needed for the proper function in the administration of the Empire. Educated and cultured people who were familiar with Greek works met in “salons” (majalis) to discuss on various subjects, philosophical incursions into the possible, the intellect, the sensibility and the soul.
Schools of learning were erected and knowledge was no longer the prerogative of the initiation of master to disciple for rich people. By the first century of Islam (8th century), schools were exploding everywhere with targeted practical disciplines (algebra, geometry, arithmetic, trigonometry, jurisprudence, theology (kalam), science of tradition (hadith), history, linguistic, lexicography, math combinatorial analysis, cryptography, and grammar) mainly to support the functions of the Empire administration and train cadres for offices such as fiscal, heritage, religious calendar, and army logistics. The schools were inspired by different traditions such as Greek, Persian, Indian, and Syriac). By the second century of Islam specialized schools in theoretical mathematics, medicine, physics, optics, and astronomy were booming.
The first acknowledged Moslem philosopher Al Kindi (9th century) admitted that Aristotle was the most eminent Greek philosopher and wrote: “We have to thank the prior thinkers who shared with us what is right; they made it more accessible to us researching the truth and they provided the premises that leveled the way for what is true. Offering reasons and demonstrations are part of the acquisition process in the sciences for veracity. Those strangers to scientific inquiries are trafficking in religion even though they have got no religion: indeed the one who sells one thing does no longer belong to him.”
Personally, I tend to attribute the name of Islamic civilization for the import of scientific disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, physics, optics, and chemistry. Arabic civilization should be restricted to the Umayyad Dynasty period in matters of rhetoric, legal, practical mathematics, Kalam (reflection on the world according to the Koran paradigm), grammars, language, and the import of any outside scientific knowledge that the Old World reserved in Constantinople, Persia, India, and China.
A follow up post will demonstrate that European Renaissance in the 16th century was fundamentally Islamic scientifically; the decentralization of the Christian power away from Rome was also inspired by the decentralization nature of Islam as a religion. The title is “Europe’s Renaissance is Islamic”. It is worthwhile for researchers not to confuse the recent period of Islamic radical decadence with early Islamic civilization that lasted from 650 to 1100 AC in the Orient and then re-surfaced in Andalusia (Spain) from 800 till 1400 AC. After 1400 AC Christian Spanish monarchs chased out the Moslems and Jews from their kingdom; the Catholic Church in Rome instituted the Inquisition to harass the new converts to Christianity.
Adonis Diaries 