SPENTA MAINYU'

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: "Ignorance is an affront."

YOU ARE IN DARKNESS
 Islam page 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PRIME TOOLS OF COERCION USED BY THE MESSENGER’S TEACHING

 

1. THE BASIC BRIBE AND THE BLACKMAIL

 

 

A GOD-LIKE EXISTENCE IN PARADISE IN RETURN FOR AN ABSOLUTE CAPITULATION ON EARTH

Kuran 9:111 has the ultimate blackmail, and we do not need anything more to comprehend the fundamental bribe    the codebook offers. This verse is a straight confession:

No explanation is needed. This verse announces the basic requirement of Islam: Do as you are told without  objection, do not ask questions, and just be obedient. Only then would you have the chance to become god-like and live forever in the presence of god, you will be free to enjoy all that is forbidden in the worldly existence.

Like some other belief systems Islam also offers salvation and an afterlife, immortality and a god-like existence to the credulous incognizant people, in return for an absolute capitulation here on earth.

How could we explain this inconsistency? Neither the Islamic ideology nor the others have an answer.

The name of the place where the righteous would live(!) their afterlife is cannat according to the authors of Kuran. Where is this paradise? Paradise is given the names of Adn, Aden, and Eden. According to some scholars all of these words derive from the Babylonian word Edinu, ‘garden.’ Therefore, paradise is a garden. According to the Encyclopaedia of Archetypal Symbolism, “The English word paradise derives from the Old Persian pairidaeza, which means ‘walled enclosure, pleasure park, garden’.  This term entered Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek while still retaining its original meanings.”

 “There is good indication that the Biblical paradise, which is described as a garden planted eastwards of Eden may have been originally identical with Dilmun, the Sumerian paradise-land” writes Samuel Noah Kramer.

Here is what Edward Burman (The Assassins - Holy Killers of Islam) wrote on paradise: “The idea of paradise as a place of rest and refreshment in which the righteous live in the presence of god appears in Mosaic scriptures and thence in both Christianity and Islam.. The word itself is said to derive from the Old Persian ‘pairidaeze’, meaning an enclosed area, usually a royal park or pleasure garden, although some derive the word more simply from the Persian ‘firdaws’ (corrupt version of pairidaeza) or garden. Whichever is the case, the origin is undoubtedly Persian.”

We must leave aside the Sumerian and Zoroastrian origin of paradise and look for an actual place on Earth, like we have for hell (gehinnom). According to the Old Testament, YHVH had set up a garden in the ‘corner of east ‘, in paradise (Genesis 2:8); and also a running water arose from the paradise to water the garden, which separated into four branches THe Old Testament  names these branches as Fizon(?), Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates. Here again, leave aside the names of the rivers and stick to the fact that there was an abundance of water in paradise.

What do we have in the paradise, canna, cannat, and 'garden' of the Ismaelite-Hagarene Messenger and/or the later author/editors of Kuran? Here they are:

We must separate the actual from the abstract in the list above. The following seem to be real and connected to a physical site: Fruits, shades (of trees?), flowing water underneath or underground, streams, furniture to sit on or recline etc. All of these are the things found in a garden. This paradise must be a civilized place situated near a developed locality like a town or a city. In other words, it must be the exact opposite of the wilderness-desert. Was there an actual place as described by Kuran?

In Kuran 3:195 god swears that he “would cover up the evil deeds of those who migrate, who are expelled from their countries, those who are tortured, and who have fought and died for my cause (..) I would place them in the paradises where rivers flow underneath.” The author seems to have written about an actual place. We are told that during the Byzantine rule the area outside the southwest walls of Yerushalim was known as ‘gardens’. The remarkable thing is that ‘Ge bne hinnom’ (the valley of the son of Hinnom) was also there, next to the ‘gardens’, which means that hell (Geenna, cahannam, cahim) and ‘garden’ (edinu, pairidaeza, firdaws, canna, cannat) were side by side. There are many many references to paradise and hell in Talmud, where it is written that a few of the evil would stay forever in Gehenna and the rest would go to Adn (paradise) following a suffering of 12 months.

Since the ‘gardens’ and gehinnom were side by side, could this physical positioning have been an inspiration for the 'from paradise to hell' process? Here are some points to reflect upon:

The symbolism fits the physical world perfectly.

This Talmudic reference makes one wonder if there is a bridge in between the hell and paradise! Do not forget  the reference in Islamic literature to a sırât bridge. Those who are righteous would be able to walk over that bridge to paradise (‘gardens’). That is why I mentioned a possible bridge in between the valley of the son of Hinnom and the ‘gardens’ lying to the north. I wonder if there actually was a bridge (sırât bridge) between hell and the ‘gardens.’ You may wonder how gardens were made possible in a basically ‘dry’ environment. Well, remember what the people did in Petra. They built cisterns to store the rainwater. An identical underground storage system was built in Yerushalim. J. T. Milik in his book Saint Thomas of Phordesa writes that Yerushalim had a “complete and complex system of irrigation.” Phordesa, phordesaya were the names given to the ‘gardens’ by the Christians. Make a note of the resemblance between paradise, pairidaeza and phordesa. So, here are your ‘underground rivers’. This underground water reportedly came over ground and watered the ‘gardens’.

 

 

2. THREATEN AND TERRORIZE

 

THE JUDGMENT DAY AND THE UNTOLD-OF-SUFFERING IN HELL

The ‘valley of the son of Hinnom’= ‘Ge bne Hinnom’ was in the southeast of Yerushalim, just outside the walls of the city. This name was shortened to ge-hinnom and gehenna, which is ‘gehinnam’ in Aramaic. The Greek word  geenna is derived from the Aramaic.

‘Ge bne Hinnom’ was the name of the valley where the Canaanites burnt their children as offering to Baal, their god. The name of the valley is thought to derive from the name of the original Jebusite owner of the property. In the Old Testament this is a geographical term, which divides ancient Yerushalim (Zion) from the hills to the South and West.. It is the modern Vadi-ür Rababi, which joins the Vadi-ün Nar (the Kidron) at the southern extremity of the Hill of Zion. According to John L. McKenzie (Endtime: The Doomsday Catalogue) “The valley was a point on the boundary between Judah and Benjamin” (Joshua 15:8, 18:16)… It is called simply ‘the valley’ (Jeremiah 2:23). Because of this cult Jeremiah cursed the place and predicted that it would be a place of death and corruption” (7:32, 19:6ff).

The horrific usage of this valley is reflected in Nehemiah 11:30. The valley had an unholy reputation in the later Old Testament books because it was the site of Tophet, a cultic shrine where humans were offered (II Kings 23:10; II Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31, 19:2ff, 32:35).

The valley is referred to, not by name in Isaiah 66:24, but as “a place where the dead bodies of the rebels against YHVH shall lie. Their worm shall not die nor shall their fire be quenched.” The spirits of the dead “are going to be thrown into a blazing furnace. They are going to be wretched in their immense agony, and into darkness and chains and burning flames” (I Enoch 98:3, 103:7-10). Over 200 years later, in Revelation 20:14 the author writes how Hades itself would be consumed by fire: “Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.”

“There, Jews who turned to foreign religions performed horrible ceremonies, burning their children in honour of pagan gods” (Jeremiah 7:30, 31). In the first century it was the fires of burning refuse that lit the valley. By that time its name had been put into Aramaic as Gehenna, and had become a common Jewish word for hell” writes Alan Millard (Discoveries from the Time of Jesus).

The believers of Islam now you know one of the sources of your ‘hell’.

Prior to Yshua, the Essenes reportedly had pictured ‘gehenna’ as a monstrous torture chamber that sinners needed  to endure to purify them of their sins, and making them suitable for an afterlife fitting the saints (Sounds very Islamic). Essenes have got this idea from the Zoroastrian doctrines. Islam has adopted the concept of hell-gehinnom-cahannam totally.

The hell of Islam is called cahannam, cehennam, cahîm, where there is deep, tormenting ‘unending darkness’, and ‘fire’ in the form of a lake of fire (the idea is borrowed from Zoroastrianism). This hell of Islam is waiting for those souls who have failed to pass the account taking in the judgment day. Kuran reminds as often as possible the indescribable, untold­-of-suffering, the pain of burning in the fire, swallowing down boiling water with the rupturing of the stomach etc. These admonitions are accompanied with a warning/threat that the end of time, the judgment day, the pain and suffering are ‘very close,’ and ‘imminent,’ and ‘at hand.’ So the sinners and wicked should heed the ordinances of the supreme creator.  The codebook of Islam blackmails, threatens, and aims at scaring the credulous masses to gain their acceptance.

Those who are keen on reading the details about cahannam (hell) of Islam are referred to the suras:  2:24, 39, 80,81, 126, 167, 175, 206, 217, 221, 257, 275; 3:24, 116, 151, 181, 185, 197; 4:10, 14, 30, 55, 56, 93, 97, 115; 5:10, 29, 37, 72, 86; 6:128; 7:36, 41-50; 9:35, 49, 63, 68, 81, 95; 8:36; 10:4, 27; 11:106, 107, 119; 13:5, 14:16, 29; 15:44; 16:29; 17:8, 18, 39, 97; 18:106; 19:68, 71, 86; 20:74; 21:29, 100; 21:29, 98, 99; 22:9, 19, 22, 51, 72; 23:103; 25:34, 65; 29:54; 32:13; 33:65; 35:36, 37; 36:63; 37:23, 62-68; 38:55-64; 39:19,60, 72; 40:46, 47, 60, 72, 76; 41:28; 43:74, 77; 44:56; 45:10; 47:15; 48:6; 50:24, 30; 52:13; 55:43, 44; 56:41-56; 58:8; 59:17; 66:9; 67:6; 69:17; 72:15; 74:31; 76:4; 78:21; 79:36; 81:12; 85:10; 87:12, 13; 89:23; 96:18; 98:6; and 111:3.

 

 

3. DIVINE PUNISHMENT(!)

 

 

NATURAL PHENOMENA IN GENERAL, EARTHQUAKES IN PARTICULAR

 

Here, I would like to concentrate on two periods of disasters caused by the atmospheric and terrestrial phenomena, because I believe;

Islam has taken its basic doctrines and stories from the Mosaic belief system, which actually is based on the fictitious story of building a nation. The Mosaic belief system in turn got its stories and doctrines from the cultures of the past (Sumer, Assyria, Babylon, folk tales of the region, and Zoroastrianism etc.).  Both the Mosaic scriptures and Kuran have the habit of presenting the natural events as the acts of the supreme overseer.

Amalekites were the connection between the first period of natural disasters and the Ismaelite-Hagarene movement. Amalekites were leaving Makka to the lands in the north, when there was a major natural ‘upheaval’. Amalekites were Ismaelites and the Arabs consider them as one of the peoples of the ‘Arab-ı Baide’=‘Lost Arabs’ or the ‘pre-Arab Arabs.’ As a result of the ‘sea invading land’ a part of them have perished near the ‘sea of passage’. The following phenomena were in progress when a group of Hebrews were fleeing Egypt in the 15th century B.C., under their leader who is known to us by the name of Moses:

A papyrus containing (According to its first possessor Anastasi) the words of Ipuwer was found in Memphis-Egypt, at the neighbourhood of the pyramids of Sakkara. The scholars who have studied the papyrus say that the document is the copy of a text a few centuries older. The copy is thought to have been made sometime during the 19th dynasty of Egypt, “but the spelling is, on the whole, that of a literary text of the Middle Kingdom, if this term be interpreted in a very liberal way” (A. H. Gardiner, Admonitions). Events described in the original text are thought to have taken place just before and during the Hyksos (Amu-Amalekite) invasion of Egypt, between the Middle and New Kingdoms. The papyrus acquired by the Museum of Leiden in the Netherlands was written on both sides. The story of Ipuwer on the face of the papyrus is full of lamentations, and description of ruin and horror:

“The land turns round as a potter’s wheel...towns are destroyed. Upper Egypt has become dry...All is in ruin…The residence is overturned in a minute…Years of noise. There is no end to noise...Oh, that the earth would cease from noise, and tumult (uproar) be no more...Plague is throughout the land...The river is blood...human beings thirst after water…(Referring to the Nile) That is our water! That is our happiness! What shall we do in respect thereof? All is in ruin...Trees are destroyed. Neither fruit nor herbs are found…Forsooth, gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire...hunger...All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan...The land is not light (‘without light’, ‘dark’)..Forsooth, the children of princes are dashed against the walls...Forsooth, the children of princes are cast out in the streets...He who places his brother in the ground (inters) is everywhere...It is groaning that is throughout the land, mingled with lamentations...Forsooth, those who were in the place of embalmment are laid on the high ground.”

As seen from here the papyrus of Ipuwer contains evidence of a natural cataclysm or a series of catastrophes accompanied by earthquakes, and acts as a witness to how the events appeared at that time. The last observation about the dead bodies lying on the ground must have been transformed into the story about the ‘dead who will rise out of their graves on the day of the lord / the judgment day,’ which is the fundamental doctrine of Islam. This story and the similar scenes after the frequent earthquakes in the region are the most probable origin of the visual aspect of the judgment day scenarios of the later belief systems. As to the date of these events, the references in the papyrus indicate a period immediately before the biblical Exodus.

For those who may wish to learn how the events of the ‘last night in Egypt before the Exodus’ is echoed in the Old Testament, I suggest Exodus 12:12: “This night (..) against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment..”  Those who would like to know what actually has happened that night must read the Preparation for the Gospel by Eusebius (Book ix, chapter xxvii): “The statues of the gods fell and broke into pieces.”

This is a perfect example of alteration with intent of a completely natural phenomenon. What was that phenomenon? It was a perfectly natural one of course, but which one?

The period of 1500s B.C. coincides with the end of the Cretan culture - the Middle Minoan II age - which is coeval with the Middle Kingdom in Egypt. The excavations in Knossos revealed that this magnificent period of Minoan civilisation had come to an end due to a terrible natural catastrophe.

People of the region have called this ‘supreme being’ El Shadday, El, Eloh, Elohim, YHVH, and later Allah; and they called the day that he would supposedly settle his accounts, the judgment day.

Now let us go into the cause of this natural catastrophe in the 15th century B.C.

The volcano on the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean to the north of Crete ‘blew its top off’ literally and collapsed in on itself. The actual body of the volcano had disintegrated after this explosion of unprecedented violence. Millions of tons of volcanic ash were blown into the atmosphere. The atmosphere vibrated with powerful shock waves. Giant tidal waves were created, which caused utter destruction in the coastline of Eastern Mediterranean.

Natural disasters and earthquakes destroyed the Minoan palaces around 1480 B.C. The research done by professor A. G. Galanopoulos had established a very thick layer covering the ruins of a once lively town, indicating that the cataclysmic eruption of Santorini has occurred sometime around 1480 B.C.

This explosion was preceded and followed by violent earthquakes. The explosion  (that destroyed the volcano on Santorini and left behind a few islands) is believed to have been several times greater than the Krakatau eruption in 1883, in the Sunda Strait of Indonesia. Scientists call the Santorini type eruptions as ‘hydro-magmatic’. In a ‘hydro-magmatic’ eruption the cold seawater flows into the underground cavities of lava at the base of the volcano. The steam produced in those cavities results in the blowing off of the top of the volcano by the expanding steam and the hot lava. When the tremendous pressure is released, the remainder of the volcano collapses into the emptied cavities underneath. The outcome is the caldera we see today. Following the explosion more than 10 cubic miles of seawater is believed to have filled this caldera rapidly. Filling of this caldera must have created a withdrawal of water along the nearest shorelines. Could this be the explanation behind the ‘parting’ or ‘withdrawal to one side’ of the waters at the ‘sea of passage’? I believe so.

We have seen the most recent example of this phenomenon in the December 2004 earthquake along the Sunda-Andaman fault zone, northeast of Sumatra. Earthquake between the India and Burma plates created tsunamis, which hit the shoreline with unprecedented force destroying villages, towns and cities, killing tens of thousands of people living on the shores of India, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Malaysia, Myanmar, Maldives, Nicobar islands, and Andaman islands. These tsunamis travelled ~1600 kilometers to Sri Lanka and more than 6000 kilometers to the shores of Africa, where they wiped out villages and caused deaths in Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania. We have witnessed the whole phenomenon beginning with the ‘withdrawal of the sea hundreds of meters’ than ‘rushing back as a wall of water’ in a few minutes, and ‘destroying everything on its path.’ This sounds familiar, is it not?

An identical series of events had taken place at the ‘sea of passage’ when the Israelites were migrating towards the Promised Land. The ‘water parted’ because the northern side (the left hand side) was the direction where the Santorini explosion had taken place and the tsunamis were moving south. It is a known fact that water along the shoreline withdraws tens of hundreds of meters before the tsunamis hit. So the waters receded hundreds of meters on the left hand side, leaving the bottom of the ‘Sea of Reeds’ dry. The Israelites proceeded ‘on dry land’.  It must not have taken the Israelites long to leave behind the low ground (which is normally filled with water), at the end of which period the ‘water rushed back while the pharaoh and his army was still on the low ground and drowned them.’ This is a completely natural phenomenon. There was nothing out-of-this-world behind this event. A hydro-magmatic volcanic eruption and the ensuing tsunamis were behind this narration.

The Arab historians report that the escaping Amalekites from the plagues in Makka arrived at their ‘native land’ when an unexpected flood overran the land and many of them had lost their lives. This must be the same event, which killed the pharaoh and his army.

When the seawater filled this huge cavity, huge waves must have been created at the centre, and the excess water must have moved out in the form of tidal waves in all directions with extremely high speeds. These tsunamis must have had destructive effects on the shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea.

Seismologists maintain that in Crete there have been three earthquakes per century in the past. According to the research done by the experts the Knossos palace was destroyed for the first time in the 18th century B.C. (1720). The palace was rebuilt and restored, but it was destroyed again by the earthquakes of the 14th century B.C. Therefore, these earthquakes must have continued well into the 14th century B.C.

The eastern Mediterranean is full of fault lines in the Earth’s crust. Eurasian continent is moving away from Africa, because of the ‘push’ by the Arabian plate. The fracture to the south of Crete must be one of the continuations of the fracture in Jordan, where the Dead Sea and the Jordan River is situated. These fracture zones are the result of the Arabian Peninsula pushing against the Eurasian (Europe+Asia Minor) continental plate. The southeast-northwest movement caused by the push of the Arabian plate has created active and dangerous fault lines on the Anatolian plate. The dynamics of the tectonic system in the East Mediterranean region has created one of the most active seismic zones in the world. There are numerous extinct and a few active volcanoes in the countries around the central and eastern Mediterranean. There are areas covered with volcanic material. The Sinai Peninsula is covered with basalt lava  (M. Flinders Petrie, Ancient Egypt). The Arabian Desert also has lava layers (N. Glueck, The Other Side of Jordan), and a string of volcanoes stretch from Palmyra to Makka (C. P. Grant, The Syrian Desert).

This catastrophe must have had its effect also on the shores of Akaba and the slopes of the Seir range down to the shores of Tehame and Hicaz.

There had been times of drought, famine and plagues, before and after this cataclysmic event. Countries were annihilated, became desolate and abandoned. Pharaoh had lost his life and his army perished. Peoples migrated to find other lands to live on and be secure. The Amalekites reportedly had to leave their ancestral home in Makka and migrate to ‘their native land’. We come across the repeated references to clouds in the history of the wandering. According to the Kitab-al Aganî  “the Amalekites journeyed in the direction of the cloud”  (presumably thinking there would be water there).

According to the Islamic literature an unexpected torrent has destroyed the Sun temple/sanctuary in Makka. The sons of Ish’mael have expelled the Djorhomites from Makka (Was there a place called Makka in the 15th  century B.C.!). These Djorhomites settled near Juheinah (Cuheyne). A sudden torrent there had drowned all of them in a single night. The area of this catastrophe is known as Idam in Tehame (Idam means to execute, to kill to annihilate; the root word is adem). Masudi quotes an ancient poem written by el Harit: “From el-Hadjoun up to Safa all became desert; in Makka the nights are silent, no voice of pleasant talks. We dwelt there, but in a most resounding night and in a most terrible devastation we were destroyed.”

 

***

The second period I shall refer to is the 6th century A.D., because the 6th and 7th centuries cover the period when the Messenger was in action. The memories of the natural phenomena in these centuries must have been still vivid when the Messenger entered the stage.

First, we must mention an unexplained event. Mediterranean historians and writers refer to a strange natural phenomenon in 536 A.D. when a dark cloud or fog blocked the Sun for about 18 months. It was observed also in Europe and the countries of the northern hemisphere. Referring to the effects of the cloud in 536 A.D. the Italian statesman and scholar Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus has written, “..Sun had lost its light and appeared blue; there were no shadows at noon; Sun did not heat; northern wind has killed the crops; there was no rain.”

Ioannes Laurentios Lydos wrote that Sun was dimmed for about a year, which killed the fruits.

The chronicler Mikhael the Syrian noted the following: “Sun became dark….for eighteen months. Each day it shone for about four hours (but it) was only a feeble shadow...the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.”  

This is what the archaeologist Michael Baillie said on the same event: “There seem to have been comets, meteors, earthquakes, dimmed skies and inundations, and following the famines of the late 530s, plague arrived in Europe in the 542-5 A.D.” (Michael H. Brown, SpiritDaily).

This natural phenomenon has had its effect also on the tree rings. Michael Baillie has completed an extensive study on the tree growth patterns in the last 5000 years. This study made clear that there had been five significant environmental disturbances worldwide. When he compared the historical records with his findings he has established five ‘dark ages’:

2354-2345 B.C. ;   1628-1623 B.C. ;  1159-1141 B.C. ;  208-204 B.C.;   536-545 A.D.

The last period is very important from our angle because supposedly 25 years later the Ismaelite-Hagarene Messenger was born, when the memory of the natural disasters were still fresh.

The event in 536 A.D. was not a local one. In China stars could not be seen for three months. There was no light of the Sun, no rain, but there was snow in summer, famine etc. Chinese historical records of 540 A.D. include a narration of the fight of dragons in the pond of ‘K’uh o’, which went westward…and broke all the trees on their path. Then there was the plague, called the Justinian Plague, which is said to have begun in central Asia, spreading to Egypt and then to Europe.

In general there was a series of earthquakes in this period during the reign of Justinian (527-565 A.D.). According to the sources, these earthquakes and especially the one in 540 A.D. had devastated Palestine and the neighbouring regions. Beirut was destroyed totally. Tyre and Sidon have received extensive damage. The temple at Baalbek was in ruins. The deadliest of them all was reportedly the quake in 551 A.D., as a consequence of which the sea is said to have withdrawn two miles.

Petra was a prosperous Byzantine city, but a series of devastating earthquakes have been amongst the factors that left their marks on the city. These earthquakes had begun in the 4th century A.D. The quake in 363 A.D. is reported to have been the most powerful, which had damaged Caesarea Philippi, Capernaum, Tiberias, Gadara, Sepphoris, Scythopolis, Sebaste, Gophnia, Yerushalim, Caesarea, Ptolemais, and Petra.

In 419 A.D. another earthquake shook Palestine and destroyed many towns and villages, amongst which Antipatris was destroyed as well and Yerushalim received severe damage. In 447 A.D. thermal baths at Gadara were destroyed (D. H. K. Amiran, E. Arieh).

Then there was the powerful quake in 551 A.D., which levelled more of Petra (and the cities in Negeb/Negev).

The bottom line is, there was a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in the 15th century B.C. There was also a series of quakes closer to the time of the Messenger in the 6th century A.D. There was probably another volcanic eruption or a meteor impact in 536 A.D. As one can see the Middle East cultures are full of the stories of natural terrestrial, celestial, and atmospheric phenomena.

The folk stories about these tremors, atmospheric and celestial occurrences must have given the Messenger and his closest followers an additional material in their efforts to coerce people into accepting the Hagarene  teaching.

 

THE ‘PERISHED PEOPLES’ OF THE MESSENGER

 

The Messenger or the earliest author of the Ismaelite scriptures refers time and again to a series of perished peoples. In addition to god’s annihilation of the people of Noah and the people of Lot, the author has written into the scriptures the adventures of more perished peoples. The authors give the names of these perished peoples as Ad, Thamud, Midianites, the people of Ayka, and Rass people / ar Rass (‘people of the grove’). The stories about their annihilation by god are all alike. Some of these stories could not be found in the texts of the earlier codebooks. Therefore, what is the origin of these stories?

The Mosaic scriptures had their particular stories of perished peoples in the form of the people of Noah and the people of Lot. Therefore, in addition to these stories, Kuran could not have done without the local stories of its own perished peoples, hence the Ad, Thamud, the Midianites, people of Ayka, and the people of the grove (ar Rass). All of these communities, living in the villages in the region, have been the victims of natural phenomena, all of which have been interpreted as divine acts to penalize their rejection of the ordinances of god.

 

PEOPLE OF NOAH

The story is in Kuran 71, where we learn that the people of Noah had idols. When one goes through the literature one meets the idols of the people of Noah: Wadd was shaped like man; Suwa was shaped like woman; Yaguth (Yaghus, Yoguth) was a lion; Nasr was a vulture; and Yauq was a horse. They had another idol called Naila. The people of Noah have reportedly refused to give up their idols. The rest of the story is in the codebooks.

 

PHARAOH AND THE EGYPTIANS

Pharaoh’s treatment of the Hebrews and Moses had supposedly prompted god to send plagues to Egypt, and a final devastation, which ended the period of the Middle Kingdom. This supposedly ‘divine punishment’ must have been the cataclysmic eruption of the Santorini. We have the records of this event in the form of the Old Testament story on Exodus, and the papyrus texts originating from the region.

 

THE AD PEOPLE

The references to Ad people (Adites) in Kuran made me check the Islamic sources. Those who are interested in the genealogies give the descent of Ad as follows: Ad son of Ous son of Iram son of Sam son of Noah. As seen from here Ad was a Semitic tribe. There are other theories as well, like “Ad nation lived either near Hadramaut in the desert or more likely they were Aramaeans and lived in the land of Edom. Hud was their messenger.”

According to Kuran the messenger Hud was charged with the duty to preach ‘Islam’ (god’s verses) to his tribe. The story in the Islamic literature tells that messenger Hud had promised paradise after death for those who had surrendered to the ordinances of god, but the king of the Ad people countered this promise with a claim that he would build a paradise in this world. Then he built the city called Irem / Iram. Ad people worshipped four goddesses, Hâfiza ('lady who saves’), Sâkiya (the ‘one who brings water’ = ‘one who brings rain’), Râzika (the ‘one who gives food’) and Sâlima (the ‘one who heals’), according to the Islamic literature.

There are other stories in the Islamic literature like the one by Ibn Haldun, where he claimed that Iram was the name of a powerful clan of the ancient Adites, and the word ‘imâd’ in the expression ‘Irem-i zat-ul imâd’ meant a tent-pole. This story makes Irem a place “with the numerous tents or tent-poles.”

We are told in another story that NASA established the ruins of Ubar from space in the 1970s. This city is on the borders of al Ahkaf to the west of Hadramaut in southern Arabia, under the sand dunes. A lot of people have claimed that these ruins were of Irem. Evidently their purpose is vindicating the statements in Kuran. My theory is that they were trying to prove that Islam had its origin in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. But the presentation in Kuran of Ad  of predecessors and Thamud as the successors and the fact that we know where the Thamud had lived make me go for the proposition that the Ad people had lived in ancient (greater) Syria. More precisely, they must have lived in the land of Edom extending along the Seir range as far as the valley of Hicr in northwest Arabia.

According to the Islamic literature Irem was built by Ceyrun bin Ad in Sham (Dimask, Dimisk-esh Sham, Damascus), Ceyrun bin Ad had two sons, Shedid and Shaddad. The latter one reportedly went to the desert of Aden and built an exact replica of the city. A. Sprenger has shown that the Ad people have lived north of Makka (near or in the valley of Hicr) near the Thamudites. But I think that the Ad people were a clan within the tribe of Nabataeans who ruled the region from Petra (Irem) to the valley of Hicr. Therefore, the findings of Sprenger, that Ad lived in or near the valley of Hicr, do not contradict the supposition that Ad people were the founders of Irem. Ad was a Nabataean clan, and according to Sprenger’s findings, the clan was living closer to the early ‘Muslims’, who naturally accepted them as the founders of Irem. In the end we can say that Ad people were entirely distinct from the Sabeans of Yemen.

The Edomites controlled the region around Petra 1200 years before Christ. They were gone from Petra by the middle of the 5th century B.C. A group called Nabatu / Nabataeans took over the site.

Kuran mentions the Ad people in 7:65-72; 11:50-60; 14:9-15; 26:123-140; 29:38-42; 41:13-16; 46:21-28; 51:41-42; 69:4-8; 7:74; 9:70; 22:42; 25:38; 26:123; 29:38; 38:12; 40:31; 50:13; 53:50-51; 54/18-20; and 89:6-8, of which the following verses are important for us:

Who were the people who would be settled in the lands of the unbelievers? The people who are addressed here are the Messenger and his followers. Which land is promised to them? Since the verses are related to the people of Ad and Thamud, the land must be where they have settled. It must be the valley of Hicr, the land of Edom, and even Palestine and Bakka. This geography adds up to the land promised also to the Ismaelites as their birthright.. 

Have they been settled there later on? If I had to answer that question, this would be my response:

If we keep in mind the fact that the Ismaelite-Hagarene movement had its sights on Palestine and Bakka (which was their kıbla because of the ‘first house of god’ there), and they have conquered the land, we can certainly say that god’s promise were realized on two counts - first the valley of Hicr and secondly Palestine. You should keep in mind that their hometown and the land where they would be settled has never been Makka!

Here are some more verses:

Let us summarize our facts:

In the orderly progression of history in Kuran the next people in line is the Thamud, who must have been the successors to the Ad people. Thamud have settled almost certainly in the same general area.

 

THAMUD PEOPLE

Who were the Thamud? First of all, as usual with the Semitic people, the name of the tribe is derived from the name of the founder. Therefore, Thamud is the person who founded the tribe. Thamudeans lived under the rule of the Assyrians according to the Islamic reference sources. Their lineage given by the Islamic scholars is as follows: Thamud son of Ad son of Ous son of Iram son of Sam son of Noah. Here one could see immediately that the Islamic scholars thought Ad and Thamud as peoples of the same lineage. Thamud is a Semitic tribe. They are thought to be the ones who survived the destruction of al Ûlâ with their messenger Hud. If we go by this genealogy Ad lived in al Ûlâ. Al Ûlâ means the ‘first,’ the ‘earliest’. Barring the peoples of Noah and Lot, which have their origin in the Mosaic scriptures, Ad is the first in the list of peoples in Kuran. Dedan kingdom had its centre in al Ûlâ. Dedan was the first kingdom in the list given by the Islamic literature. Everything seems to fall in place. Both the codebook and the literature of Islam agree that al Ûlâ was the ‘first’.

Researches have reportedly established four different periods in al Ûlâ:

 

Here one must make a note of the name Lah-yan and Lah-yanîn. Consider the similarity between Lah-yan, Lah-yanîn and ‘Lah-iyyûn.’ The suffix ‘iyyûn’ means something like ‘those who belong to’, followers of‘.’ Therefore, Lahiyyûn means ‘those who belong to Lah’ or ‘followers of Lah’ or ‘of the line of Lah’. Al Lah / El Lah (‘the god’) has been one of the major deities of the Arabs before the advent of Islam. Lihyan / Lahyan kingdom had existed in the region where the Arab language took shape. Lihyanite was one of the tongues, which contributed to the Arabic of our day. Lahiyyûn means the believers / followers of Lah.  El Lah is the supreme being, which has begun to be known with the name of Allah with Islam. The Messenger came from el Hicr. Allah is the name of the Messenger’s deity

 

Everything seems to be in a natural progression.

Greek and Roman historians wrote that Thamud lived in the valley of Hicr near Hejaz (Hijaz, Hicaz) north of Medina and on the road to Syria. Salih was their messenger.

Ad and Thamud lived in dwellings hewn into rocks. The verses in Kuran give the impression that Thamud were the successors to Ad and their god was the same one. The codebook reflects the belief that they have been given identical verses. Who actually were Hud and Salih? They could have been Mosaic emissaries calling the pagans to the belief system of YHVH. On the other hand they could very well have been clever characters, who by claiming 'messengership', had tried to establish their authority in their communities.

Kuran mentions Thamud people in 7:73; 11:61-68, 95; 9:70; 14:9; 17:59; 22:42; 25:38; 26:141-159; 27:45-53; 29:38; 38:13; 40:31; 41:13, 17; 50:12; 51:43-45; 53:51; 54:23-31; 69:4-5; 85:18; 89:9; and 91:11-15.

Here are some verses on Thamud:

Like Ad, Thamud were also ‘seduced by the devil.’ They have rejected the divine ordinances, and were annihilated. According to Kuran 15:80 the “Hicr people have also rejected the messengers sent to them” and they were devastated by the known method.

The narration in the codebook of Islam makes clear that the Thamud people hold a special place amongst the  tools of blackmail employed by the Messenger, The codebook makes them a special case of example.

 

LOT’S PEOPLE

Another one of those perished peoples is the people of Lot. Before getting involved with the villages, which were destroyed by “a shower of anguish” we must acknowledge that the star of this show is Lot. According to Genesis 11:29, 12:5 and 14:12 Lot is ‘Av’ram’s brother’s son’, but in 14:16 he becomes the ‘brother’ (AKJV). I am aware of the very strong possibility that the Lot ‘character’ could be a pure invention, but let us proceed.

The Old Testament story that placed Lot in our memories is the one about Sodom and Gomorrah. It is in Genesis 18-19. Here god decides to destroy the villages where sodomy is widespread First, god bargains with Av’ram over Sodom and Gomorrah. In the end of their bargaining god accepts that if Av’ram finds 10 righteous men he will spare the villages. God ends the conversation and leaves. Lot is in Sodom and two angels come to the village. Sodomy is widespread there. Men of Sodom want the angels. Two angels speak to Lot and tell him to take everybody in his house with him and flee the town. They warn him: ‘Look not behind you, neither stay in all the plain, escape to the mountains, otherwise you will be consumed.’ Now follow the story as it is told in Genesis 19:18-25:

According to Kuran 11:82 and 15:74 the shower “consisted of stones made of baked mud/sediment.”  In Kuran 54:34 it is written: “We have sent them a wind hurling / showering stones.” Compare the shower of brimstone and fire in the Old Testament with Kuran’s shower of baked stones. They sound similar. Furthermore compare Kuran 8:33 where Allah waits for the Ismaelite Messenger’s departure to punish the unbelievers, and the Old Testament’s god ordering Lot to leave quickly because He “cannot do anything until you (Lot) be come (arrive) there.” Interesting?

 

THE LAND OF MIDIAN AND THE MIDIANITES

As I mentioned earlier, the Messenger or the earliest author of the scriptures or the later nationalist Arab editors of  the codebook put the peoples, their messengers and the events leading to Islam in a clear order in history. This order may be the exact order of local events as seen by the Hagarenes or it may be a collection of local folk tales, which the Messenger or the author, or editors/storytellers, or the tutor of the Messenger had put together with a specific purpose. I believe that the events which had been quoted as examples of divine(!) wrath by the Hagarenes were later put in a specific order by Makkans, when they had the chance to rewrite the scriptures from their nationalist angle. Their purpose could be nothing but an orderly progression of peoples, messengers, revelations all ending with a supreme being for the Arabs, a messenger from their midst, and a codebook in Arabic, in other words a religion for the Arabs - Islam.

Genesis story equates Midianites with the Ismaelites. “Sons of Ya’kub notice a group of merchants coming from Gilead, and rather than killing their brother Joseph they decide to sell him to the Ismaelites” (Genesis 37:25-28). Here the author who had written the relevant sections of the Genesis story (probably in the post-exilic period) seems to believe that either the Midianites were Ismaelites or he wished to present them as such. These two names are used interchangeably in different sections of the Old Testament. In the book of Judges 9:24, 26, 28 we see the same usage. Since the book of Judges was written during the Babylonian exile either Midianites and Ismaelites were thought as the same group of people or the prevailing conditions necessitated that presentation. The Midianites and Ismaelites are said to have claimed a common descent from Av’ram. They were both nomads, constantly changing their abodes.

Midianites were Arab nomads. The Old Testament references to the Midianites paint a picture of an important tribe in which the chief clans of the southern Arabia have reportedly come together. They ruled the desert. They had caravans on the trade routes. sons of Israel were in their formative phase in front of the mount Sinai when they came into contact with the Kenites (one of the Midianite clans).

When the sons of Israel were on their way to the Promised Land, Moabites provoked Midianites into opposition to the free passage for Israel. We read that in the time of Gideon the eastern Midianites have started their raids into the region where Israel had settled. The Midianite chiefs killed the brothers of Gideon. The conflict resulted in Gideon taking his revenge by killing the chiefs of the Midianites, and the Israelites went berserk against Midian, slaughtering every male. They were ordered to kill every living creature, human or beast. Only the virgins were spared.

With this event Midianites lost their position and never regained their previous standing. From what the Greek geographers and Arabian authors wrote we learn that the Midianites seem to have settled on the borders of the Gulf of Akaba in the town called Madian (Medyen). The place called Mughayir Shuayb (Aynunah, modern al Bir, to the northwest  of Tabuk) is proposed as the place where the remains of ancient Madian could be seen. ‘Mughayir’ in Arabic means something like non-conformist, dissident, deviationist, eccentric, discordant. Well, Shuayb did start preaching something against the established order and beliefs, did he not? He was the one, who had supposedly rejected to obey the accepted principles of his community, was he not?

I have to clarify that the kahins, shairs, prophets, seers etc. of the ancient times are ‘unusual and strange’ persons.  They were rebels, non-conformists uttering original words, spreading new ideas, teaching something original and unheard of. They were usually seen against the interests of the members of the established order.

The people of Medyen (Madian) were Arabs genealogically, who apparently had followed the Ad and Thamud. They were all Midianite ‘Arabs’. But according to Islam these people were ‘Muslims’ (‘surrendered to the will of god’). This dimension must be a late addition by the nationalist desert Arabs.

Shuayb was the messenger of the people of Medyen. In addressing his people (as told in Kuran) Shuayb had this to say: “O my people! Make sure that your arrogance won’t make you come face to face with the calamity that befell the nation of Noah or the nation of Hud or the nation of Salih. The nation of Lot is not too far away from you.” These words make clear the progression of peoples and nations according to Kuran (11:25-84) had existed before the Ismaelite-Hagarene Messenger, and of course Islam. They also seem to show that the peoples of Noah, Hud, Salih and Shuayb were the communities of the same region, and the local populace knew their stories.

We should add Hebrews, Christians and Arabs to this list, which consists of the Noah’s people, Ad, Thamud, Lot’s people, and the Midianites. Accordingly here is the list of recognised messengers of Kuran in progression: Noah , Hud, Salih, Lot, Shuayb, Moses, Jesus and the Ismaelite Messenger who is known to us by the title of ‘Muhammad’. This sequence shows how the architects of Kuran saw the progression, which led to the culmination of revelation (Kuran 7:103).

What happened to these characters of the Islamic ideology? All of the messengers predating Moses were saved either alone or with their immediate followers / families (wives of Noah and Lot were not saved). Their opponents / unbelievers “fell to the ground, fell on their knees”, and were annihilated.  Their dwellings and standing structures were destroyed by one or more of the following: A strong earthquake, as-saikha (thunderbolt), a strong wind, torrents, high winds bringing hail and stones, floods, a very high noise, and an extremely powerful thunderstorm. Here one should not forget that the sound of a strong earthquake is not dissimilar to a thunderstorm.

One could not find a better confession than this. These phenomena are all natural occurrences. But in order to be sovereign and to stay in power, incognizant masses had to be fooled; a supreme-supernatural-metaphysical entity had to be invented to reach that objective; and all these natural phenomena had to be presented as the sign of the ‘wrath of god.’  As one reads Kuran the verse 17:16 shines like a star. This verse explains the basic strategy of the supreme creator’s ‘acts of wrath’ directed at his subjects: “When we wish to destroy a land/civilisation we give orders to their wealthy and spoilt leaders, through their messenger. They do not obey and judgment on them becomes legitimate, and we overthrow that place.”

The concept of a devious, scheming supreme being, invented by the author is immediately apparent, is it not?

 

RASS PEOPLE / AR RASS

There seems to be confusion on the identity of the Midianites, and the people of Rass, because Kuran says that Shuayb was sent also to Rass people. Since Midianites were a vast conglomeration of tribes Rass might have been one of the clans in the tribe. But the tradition has it that Rass is one of those small groups of people living in one of the villages of Thamud and their messenger was Huzelah bin Safvan / Huzla ibn Safvan.

 

AYKA PEOPLE

It is written in Kuran 15:79 that the ruins of the town of the people of Ayka, and Lot’s town (both peoples were annihilated!) are “standing in the forefront (or along) a busy road.” Ayka people could have been a clan also in the Midianite group, living (maybe) somewhere along the valley of Hicr, in or near a grove.

 

 

SOME MORE PEOPLES AND THEIR STORIES

 

SABAEANS AND THE ‘FLOOD OF THE DYKE’ - ‘DELUGE OF MARIB’

Kuran 34:15-20 tells the story of the ‘saylab-el arim’ ('flood of arim’). The word Arim or arimen is a dam or barrier in south Arabian dialect. According to Masudi “Those who know the tradition agree that arim is the word for a solidly built dam.” This story is told in one of the earliest Arab traditions predating Islam: The “flood of the dyke” or “deluge of Marib”.

Here is the story: Land of Saba/Sebe was at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Sabaeans have conquered the old Qatabanian state and established their rule on the land. In the capital of the Sabaean state - Marib - there was a dam (~50ft high, ~180 ft wide, ~1900 ft long). There are records of this dam in the Himyerite (Himyarite) texts. Joseph Halevy and Dr. Eduard Glaser proved that the Marib dam was an ancient structure. It was repaired in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., but reportedly collapsed in 542 A.D. We are told that the resulting flood had devastated the land and ended the economy based on agriculture. The final collapse of this dam was reported to be in 570 A.D., which forced the survivors to flee to the other regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Legend has it that this catastrophe was the reason behind the spread of the Arab population throughout the Middle East. Consequently the Sabaean state had reportedly left the stage of history. This incident must have been the result of a natural cause like a fault in the structure caused by the water eating into the structure or an earthquake, but Kuran calls this incident the ‘flood of arim’ and presents it as the wrath of god to punish the arrogant Sabaeans.

Standing structures were overthrown, trees were broken, and population of the land were drowned. A single dam could have caused a damage of this size to a village or a small town, but damage to a whole country or a kingdom seems impossible. Some stories even claim a devastation, which had an effect on the whole of the south Arabia. This devastation could not have been caused by the collapse of a single dam.

The Arabs of the desert must have kept the memory of a distant past when the destruction of Marib took place with the ensuing migration of tribes from south of Arabia to the north. Could this have been the cataclysm, the upheaval in the distant past, which caused extensive and permanent changes in the region? The stories of old times in Kuran are usually taken from the Hebrew scripture, but this one is an original Arab story. Could this story narrated by the Arab writers be connected to the upheaval that occurred in the eastern Mediterranean? The event referred to by Immanuel Velikovsky in his book Ages in Chaos was an unimaginable natural catastrophe  (Santorini explosion) when the land masses submerged, volcanoes erupted, ‘sea invaded land masses,’ ground shook, structures fell down, floods and torrents swept away whole populations. Therefore, there is a distinct possibility that this flood of arim story is a distant memory of that event. That upheaval had also had an impact on Egypt, Sinai, coast of Tehame, Hejaz (Hicaz) and Yemen among other places.

 

THE AMALEKITES (ISMAELITE ARABS)

The Exodus was in progress in the 1500s B.C. Moses and the Hebrews entered the land of Midian, where they met, at a place called Rephidim, an army of the Amalekites. According to the Old Testament “Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim…Joshua defeated Amalek and his people” (Exodus). Who were these Amalek?

We are told that the tribe of Amalek was one of the oldest of the Arabian tribes, and that Amu, Hyksos, and the Amalek are one and the same people. Now let us follow the adventures of the tribe of Amalek through the relevant literature.

According to the story in Numbers 24:20 Balaam ‘takes up his oracle…and looks on Amalek’ and he says: “Amalek was the first of the nations; but his latter end shall be that he perish forever.” Islamic historians consider Amalekites  as one of the most ancient of the Arab tribes. Immanuel Velikovsky quotes Ab-ul Feda (13th century A.D.) who wrote: “Shem [son of Noah] has several sons, among them Laud, to whom was born Pharis, Djordjan, Tasm, and Amalek.” Thus Ab-ul Feda made the Amalekites a primeval tribe.

“The progenitor of the Amalek was Imlik. Amalek was dispersed throughout the land. The people of Hicaz (amongst others in the Arabian peninsula), of Syria, and of Egypt have all descended from him.. People living in Medina are descendents of the Amalek. People of Necd and Tayma (Tema) are of them. The king of the Hicaz in Tayma was one of them” wrote Ebu Cafer Muhammad bin Cerir al Tabari about the Amalekites.

Amalekites were amongst the tribes who possessed the hacar-ul aswad (the meteorite at Ka’ba): “We have told the story of the peoples who possessed it each in turn (who were) Djorhom, Iyad, Amalek, Khuzaa” and “Amalek were expelled from the sacred precinct by the tribe of Djorhom” wrote Masudi.

Es Someyda was the last Amalekite king who dwelt in Makka and ruled over Palestine and the lands in between. Here is his story:

The old Arab tradition put the upheaval in the third or fourth generation after Ish’mael (Ismail), son of Av’ram (Ibrahim). The old Arabian traditions connect the time of the cataclysmic upheaval with a general migration of tribes and especially with the migration of the Amalekites in the direction of Egypt and Canaan. The Old Testament  narrates the meeting between the Hebrews on their way to the Promised Land and the tribe of Amalekites on their way to Egypt. Amalekites took possession of Egypt, and the Israelites took possession of Syria according to Ibn Haldun (Mukaddima).

Tribe of Amalek reportedly dwelt in Medina until the time of the Messenger because they had an alliance with him. In the meantime they have adopted the Mosaic faith. This break of alliance with the Messenger is claimed to have been the cause of the first Islamic war ever and the majority of the Amalekites were expelled from Arabia.

According to the Arab historians, the Amalek escaped from the plagues of Makka, which was their ancestral ‘home’ and arrived at their ‘native site’ where all or a part of them, were drowned in the flood, according to Kitab-ul Aganî.   Their native land was mount Seir according to the Old Testament, which is between the gulf of Akaba and the Red Sea. This must be the place and time, where and when they met the Hebrews running from the Pharaoh. “The   waters covered the lands...and ruined the habitations, and killed all the troops” according to Masudi. The upheaval must have had its effect on the shores of Akaba and the slopes of the Seir range.

What I am particularly interested is not the tribe of Amalekites in the 15th century B.C., but rather the existence of Makka during the time of this primeval tribe, contrary to what is written in the western texts.

I believe the last option is the most likely, because the desert Arabs needed a ‘sacred site’ of theirs within the context of Islam. Bakka was connected to the Hagarene teaching thus unacceptable.

 

NABATAEANS

There must have been something attractive in the western and north-western regions of Arabia, which made the Bedouins surge out of the east, and move towards the Mediterranean Sea. The wave after wave of the Bedouin nomadic tribesmen, moving out of the heart of the Arabian Peninsula towards the more fertile and attractive perimeter is the persistent characteristic of the Near East in history. Each and every wave into the Fertile Crescent have shaped the ethnic texture of the region, and the primitive desert way of life was in turn refined and transformed to a certain degree, through contacts with the civilisations there. Do you want examples? The Amorites, Aramaeans and the Arabs are the foremost that comes to mind.

As regards the mount Seir, the Amalekites have succeeded the Horites (Hurrians - who were not Semitic) living there; Idumaeans (Edomites) have followed the Amalekites; Midianites have followed the Idumaeans; and the Nabataeans have followed the Midianites.

The historians tell us that the early Arabian history could be divided into four periods:

The Semitic peoples have settled in four regions of the Middle East:

The western and southern Semites were separated in the pre-Bedouin era. ‘Arabs’ were agriculturalists living in the oases. They were raising animals, mainly camels. They did not know yet the nomadic life. The centre of their civilization in those days was Madian, which is mentioned in the Old Testament. The first contribution by the Arabs to a universal religion happened here. According to the story Moses had to flee Egypt and take refuge in Midian, where he married Tsippora. YHVH had appeared to Moses on mount Horeb in Midian and ordered him to return to Egypt, take the sons of Israel living there and lead them to the Promised Land. YHVH’s initial appearance was a ‘column of fire’ accompanied by smoke, rumbling and earthquakes. This story is a perfect description of a volcanic eruption, which makes YHVH a local volcano god of the Kenites. This local deity was merged later on with the elohim and Baal in the Old Testament and became the god of the Israelites.

In the period of the proto-Bedouins, tribes formed by the camel raisers have separated themselves from the oasis agriculturalists and went out into the desert. Towards the year 800 B.C. camel raisers are believed to have had vast herds and a civil structure of their own. It was at about this time that the caravan commerce began; the Bedouins travelled about with their camels from one oasis to another, and sold goods. It was also about this time that the word ‘Arab’ appeared. We read that the Assyrians called these Bedouins Arubu (nomads). The noun ‘Arab’ comes from the verb ‘araba’, meaning to displace, move about, and travel. Thus Arab and nomad were practically identical words etymologically, in those days and also in the present era. During the time of the early Bedouins the Arabs are said to have started referring to themselves as Arabs, but the two most important groups of the time are known to us by other names: the Saracens (Saraceni, Sarakenoi) and the Nabataeans.

In the proto-Bedouin period the tribes of camel raisers left the oasis agriculture and moved to the desert. These tribes are believed to have had a unique civilian structure and vast herds of animals. With the beginning of the camel trade along the roads of the Peninsula the Bedouins have begun to ride their camels between the oases and sell their goods.

Both Rome and Byzantium, which had dominated the present Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt, had serious concerns about invasions by the nomads, whom they called Saraceni or Sarakenoi. Until the 19th century, Saracen was the name the Europeans gave to the Arabs from the Middle East. The definition, ‘saracen’ was reportedly identified with a Nabataean site to the east of the Dead Sea. This was taken as an indication that the Ismaelites called themselves Saracen. Kuran has no reference to the Nabataeans or Saracens, but the definition ‘al Arab’ (Kuran  9:90) is suggested as a reference to Saracens.

An Arab culture had sprung from the southern Sinai region about 600 B.C., and a second one from the land of Edom in Jordan about 400 B.C. They were the Edomites and Nabataeans. They lived around the Dead Sea (Sea of Araba), and had a close relationship, because both communities claimed a female line of descent from Ish’mael (son of Av’ram). So they were Ismaelites. The group that the Messenger had assembled was initially called the Ismaelites. Is this a coincidence?

Classical authors refer to a people called the Nabatu situated along the western edge of the Arabian Peninsula. They have reached Sala (Petra), the southernmost stronghold of the biblical Edomites, and settled there. It is likely that the majority of the Edomites have moved westward to settle in southern Judah and became known as the ‘Idumaeans’, while some remained behind in Edom. Eventually, the merging of the Edomites who had stayed in the region with the Nabatu is thought to have led to the formation of the historical Nabataeans. Relations between the Idumaeans and the Nabataeans must have continued, as illustrated by the family of Herod the Great, whose father was an Idumaean and mother a Nabataean. The Nabataeans had set up their capital in Sala (‘rock’, the ‘rock mountain’), which in Latin is Petra.

According to some scholars, the Nabataeans can be equated with the Nebaioth of the Mosaic scriptures and the Nebayat of the Assyrian records in the 7th century B.C. These words were used as the names of one of the many Arabian tribes. It was probably during the course of the next two centuries that the Nabataeans are believed to have started moving northward and westward out of the desert. They eventually settled in the southern part of Jordan, where the formerly strong Edomite state had already collapsed, and the rule of the Persians over the region was relaxed. We do not know anything about these early migrations. It is only in 312 B.C., 1O years after the death of Alexander, that the Nabataeans appeared for a moment on the stage. Greek historian Siodorus Siculus writes that they were attacked in their stronghold (in Petra) by the forces of Antigonus, ruler of Phrygia. The attack failed, but the Phrygian army made off with a hefty booty, including 700 camels, which were the vital ‘vehicle’ of an extensive caravan trade that Nabataeans controlled.

Nabataeans came into contact with a great change when they moved to Edom. The whole of the Near East was becoming Hellenized. They called themselves the ‘yashaby Sala’. The meaning of this term is given as the ‘mountain/rock dwellers’, ‘Arabs of the mountain/rock.’  Here the ‘mountain/rock’ is thought to refer to the massive rock right in the centre of the city.

The resemblance between the word ‘yashaby’ and the Arabic word ‘ashab-ı’ (‘those who belong to’, ‘those who    own,’ ‘those who have’) is taken into account we get a better meaning of it, and the close affinity with the Arabic comes to the fore. So ‘yashaby sala’ meant, the people of Sala, the ‘Salans’.

The Nabataeans wrote in Aramaic, which was the lingua franca for the whole region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates. Nabataeans were the ‘fathers’ of the Arabs of today.

Ismaelite tribes have dominated the area between the Sinai, Arabia Deserta, south of the Dead Sea and the land of the Israelites. These were the Ad and Thamud peoples, Amalekites, Midianites, and the Nabataeans.

Almost all of the historical records in Europe do not refer to the Nabataeans as Arabs. According to the Europeans everything, which originated from Palestine and the Jordan valley is taken as Hebraic or Jewish. That is wrong.

The Nabataean kingdom was the dominant power in the north and northwest of the Arabia Deserta between 312 B.C.-106 A.D. They were overcome by the Romans, but managed to survive until the time of the events described in Kuran. As their kingdom started to decline some of the Nabataeans left the Roman territory and moved - amongst other places - to Medina. These newcomers to Medina have influenced the area of linguistics, and also the religion. Do not forget that the Islamic literature accepts Medina as the native city of the Messenger’s mother.

The Nabataeans worshipped a whole series of gods, some of whom either appear in Kuran, or played a role in the birth of the Hagarene-Muhammadan teaching. We are told that the dominant pre-Islamic Makkan religious customs can appropriately be linked to the Nabataean belief system. Herodotus wrote that the Arabs worshipped Alilat as sole deity. Alilat or Al Lat (‘the goddess’) was known in all the pantheons. Alilat is visualised as the daughter or a consort (depending on the region) of Al Lah (‘Lah the god’), who is said to have been the lord of the Ka’ba in Makka in those days. Alilat is also named in the Thamudic texts. Alilat /al Lat formed a trio with the goddesses al Uzza (‘the Powerful’) and Manat (or Manawat=‘Destiny’).

The temple in Sala (Sela, Petra) is said to be the most important Nabataean temple discovered until our time. The excavation work revealed that the temple was dedicated to the goddess al Lat/Allat. Amongst the Nabataeans al Uzza was the consort of Kutba or al Aktab (‘the Scribe’=Mercury). Manat was depicted as destiny in the Nabataean iconography. These three goddesses were called the ‘Daughters of Al Lah’ in the pre-Islamic Makka, and they are mentioned in Kuran 53:19-22. In South Arabia they were called the ‘Daughters of IL’.

When Jesus was around, Nabataea was an independent kingdom with an influence reaching as far north as Damascus. The Romans have annexed Nabataea, but Nabataeans reportedly managed to survive as a significant Arab power until the time of the Messenger. Nabataeans were caravaners and middlemen par excellence, and by  the end of the 4th century B.C., they were already rich and powerful. Little is known of the Nabataeans in the following centuries. They have retained their independence until 106 A.D., when they were incorporated into the newly created province of Arabia, by the Roman emperor Trajan, with its capital at Bostra in southern Syria. This final period is obscure, exactly like the earlier phases of the Nabataean history. We see Petra as a Christian city and the seat of a bishop around mid-5th century A.D. Petra seems to have been a dirty Byzantine town in the 6th century A.D. When we reach early 7th century A.D. Petra appears to have been virtually deserted. It is nowhere mentioned in the annals of the Ismaelite invaders who passed along its caravan routes.

Nabataeans were expert camel traders, carrying goods to and from the Arabian Peninsula. The Nabataean deities were introduced to southern Arabia when these Nabataean traders and others who had to leave their land for various reasons settled in different parts of the Peninsula. These three goddesses were worshipped in Sala (Petra) and the Nabataean lands. It is safe to assume that these idols were in the sacred shrines (ka’bas) all around the region. Because “it was profitable to build a Ka’ba (a sacred shrine) in these market towns so that the people coming to market could also do their pilgrimage or penitence to the idols contained within” (P. Crone-M. Cook). The Ka’ba in Makka was just another sacred shrine. All these ‘sacred shrines’/ka’bas, the one in Makka as well, were open to all cults and beliefs, and they had specific rules ensuring the free passage for all.

These pre-Islamic Arab cultures were constructing personal names by incorporating the name of their deity.  Examples of the names incorporating ‘al-Lah’ as a suffix are Garm’allah (‘god decided’), Aush’allah (god’s    covenant), Shalm’allah (god’s peace), Shalm’allat (goddess’ peace), Amat’allahi (god’s female servant), Halaf’allah (god’s successor), Vahab’allah (gift of Allah), Abd’allah (Allah’s slave/servant). What is the lesson we get from here?  The people of Sala (Nabataeans) knew already the word ‘al-Lah’, which is the name Muslims use for god - Allah. Could this be another clue to the Messengers origin?

The proper names of the Nabataeans are north Arabic; even more importantly, they show a characteristic that is typical of the Arabs - the article al or el. In the majority of the Semitic languages, the article used is ha. The Nabataeans have disseminated across the region their article al or el and other characteristics of their language, thus allowed the passing of Aramaic to Arabic. The Aramaic speaking Nabataeans had created a new writing form to add to those in use, which has later evolved into the Arabic writing that is still in use today. That ancient Arabic is reportedly still inscribed at Petra and Medain Salih. Therefore, the Arabic of today was invented by the Nabataeans, and travelled south towards Hicaz.

Nabataeans were very successful in trading and by the 1st century A.D. they have become the number one merchants in the Mediterranean. They were supreme in the trade in an area from Damascus in the north to Medain Salih in the south (this makes Nabataeans the successors to Thamud), throughout the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, and the Roman lands to the west.

Why did Arabs moved north and settled there before the expansionist thrust of Islam? Here are some crucial questions and observations:

Some historians and scholars insist that the religion we know as Islam today was an Arab invention that took form in the region of the Arabian Peninsula called as  Midian/Medyen by the Old Testament. That is also what I believe:

 

‘CHOSEN’ SACRED PEOPLES

We gather from the statements by the Islamic sources that the ‘last’ belief system did not like at all the story of the ‘chosen people’ in the Old Testament. But a closer look will reveal that Islam also has adopted an identical understanding. Here is Kuran 3:110:

According to the Islamic literature, the ‘auspicious people’ is the Hashimî-Hashemite family of the Kureysh tribe  living in and around Makka. The concept of ‘auspicious people’ was most probably written into the codebook after the desert Arabs have transformed the Hagarene teaching into Islam. This was the Arab answer to the Israelite story of the ‘chosen people’ (‘goy kadosh’) of YHVH.

The root of the word ‘kadosh’ is ‘kds’. There were no vowels then. Here are a few examples to the possible constructions based on the root ‘kds’: Kuds, kudsî, kudsiyyân, kudsiyyât, kudsiyyet, kuddise, kuddusî, kuddûs. All of these are Arabic words based on the Hebrew root ‘kds’. Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages from the same root. Arabs and Israelites are Semitic peoples, whose culture, geography, understanding, and outlook on life are fundamentally same. The issue, which separates them is only the nationalist Arabic ideology called Islam. This divide between the Jews and Muslims has taken the World hostage and created the clash between the cultures.

The later editors of the codebook of Islam have answered the story of the ‘chosen people’ in the Old Testament   with a story of their own. But in the earlier sections of the codebook which includes the messages from the Hagarene period, sons of Israel are acknowledged and presented as the ‘superior people’, who got a supreme being, a messenger, and a codebook before all. But the Arabs had nothing of the sort in those days. Consequently, the desert Arabs wrote into the codebook that the tribe of Kureysh was the ‘chosen’ of the supreme being; that it is superior to all the other tribes because it was the protector of the Ka’ba long before the Messenger have started preaching.

The concepts of chosen people, chosen messenger, and chosen ruler have existed in the Middle East throughout  the history. Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians and their kings and rulers have considered themselves the chosen peoples and administrators. Kings have acted as the representatives on Earth of the supreme entities and they were deified after their death.

Here is how the Zoroastrians have visualized the ‘lord of light’ Ahura Mazda’s feelings towards Zarathustra:

Compare this Zoroastrian statement with the ones, which the Islamic legends have formulated for the Messenger. You will see almost identical concepts with the inventions of the Persians.

 

THE MESSENGER’S VILLAGES, TOWNS AND CITIES

 

IRAM / IREM

Kuran mentions the city called Iram/Irem in 89:7 where we read the expression “Iram of columns”.  If we read the verses 89:6 and 7 together we get this: “Have you not seen what your Rabb had done to the Ad people...to Irem of columns? The equal of which wasn’t created anywhere.”

Where was this Iram/Irem?

If Irem and the Ad people appear in the same sentence we would not be wrong to assume that Irem was a place identified with the Ad people. Irem must have been the capital, the main town, or the fortified city (as it was customary in those days) of the Ad people. According to the Islamic sources of reference “Iram is a garden planted by Shaddad and planned similar to paradise at the time of the Ad people. It is thought to be either in or around ‘ash Sham’ (Syria) or in Yemen.” I tend to prefer the former geographical location, Syria. The expression ‘Irem-u zât-ul imâd’  (‘Irem of columns’) has lead to many interpretations. Some scholars who are proficient in Arabic claim that imâd means a pillar/column and not a tower or a tent pole as suggested.

The most impressive thing about Petra was its magnificent temples, dwellings, and tombs carved into the mountains. They were so unusual and magnificent that later civilizations continued with their usage, and also added to the structures. For instance Romans added theatres and colonnaded streets, ending up with a ‘city full of columns.’ Compare that with the description in Kuran: “Iram of columns. The equal of which wasn’t created anywhere.”

The ‘Hicr’ in Kuran 15:80 should be understood properly. It is not a reference to a town. It is a valley. ‘Rock’ in Arabic is ‘hacar’ and not ‘hicr.’ Moreover except the tombs and dwellings carved into the rocks along the valley of Hicr this area has nothing to do with ‘rock’ (The meaning of Hicr was discussed earlier).

 

PETRA

We know that in the land of Ad, neighbouring the lands of Thamud and Medyen / Midian, there is a city called Sala (the ‘rock’), which is also mentioned in the Old Testament. Romans called this city Petra, which is ‘rock’ in Latin.

As to the origin of the word Sala here is the story: Petra was the famous town of the Nabataeans who had emigrated from the deserts of Arabia to the region south of the Dead Sea. They called their capital town Sala (‘Rock Mountain’), and themselves the ‘yashaby sala,’ which should be ‘ashab-ı Sala’ in Arabic. In plain language it means the ‘dwellers of Sala’, or ‘Salans.’

The major city on the road from Medina to Irak was Sala (Petra). The structure called ‘rock’ is a huge rocky citadel rising from the floor of the basin to a height of about 1000 feet. The Arabs called this structure ‘umm-el biyara’ (‘mother of cisterns’) because of a number of cisterns carved into the rock on the summit. A possible location of the biblical Sala was identified as the Umm-el Biyara, the rock, which overlooks the Petra valley. But we are told the excavation work carried out by the British archaeologist Crystal M. Bennett on top of the plateau has exposed a small Edomite settlement. The earliest remains there indicate a settlement from the 7th century B.C., a century later than Amaziah. Although Petra was inhabited in the Iron Age, Umm-el Biyara couldn’t have been the site of the Sala of the Amaziah story.

Petra had plenty of water and was at the junction of the trade routes North-South and East-West.

As I have mentioned earlier Petra is the Sala of the Old Testament located in the land of Edom, approximately 170 miles south of Amman, and less than 40 miles south of the Dead Sea. It is between the two seas, the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akaba. The city is on the edge of the mountainous and rugged desert of Wadi Araba. Petra is accessible from the West through vadi Musa (the valley of Moses). The actual city is surrounded by towering hills of reddish sandstone. Due to its location at the crossroads of ancient trade routes and being a commercial centre Petra had  an estimated population of 10,000-20,000. The city was famous for its ‘columns’; it had an altar on a high point; it was situated in a valley; it was strong militarily; due to an advanced hydraulic system it had plenty of water supplied to every dwelling; and it had a dam.

Some archaeologists date the beginnings of Petra to 3500 B.C. Some researchers claim that the Hebrew tribes coming out of Egypt on their way to Palestine must have spent some time at this location. They say if Cebel Mazbah (‘mount of altar to god’) is actually the ‘mountain of god,’ where offerings were made to god, Petra should have been the place where the Hebrew tribes arrived for their communion with god. The ‘mount of the prophet Aaron’ situated at the southeast of Petra is said to be the proof of the stopover by the Hebrew tribes at Petra. The Old Testament story in Numbers 22-29 is about the Hebrew tribes under the leadership of Moses starting out from Kadesh (Kadesh Barnea?) and arriving at mount Hor, where Aaron died (Arab’s call mount Hor, ‘Cebel Nabî Harun’= ‘mount of   prophet Harun’). The city was so well protected and the Edomites were so strong militarily in those days that the Israelites on their way to the ‘Promised Land’ felt the need to obtain the king of Edom’s permission to pass through the area.

A cache of 152 rolls of burnt papyri was found in the 1990s in a Byzantine church in Petra. All the readable texts have been dated to 528-582 A.D. This is a period, which covers the reign of emperor Justinian and his successors. These scrolls have exposed a prosperous Byzantine city. Petra was transformed under the Roman influence, and became a Byzantine administrative centre. Armies of the Hagarene movement captured Petra (which they call Batra) in 636 A.D.

A series of devastating earthquakes may be taken as other factors that had taken their toll on the city. These earthquakes began in the 4th century. The one in 363 A.D. was the most powerful. Then there was another powerful one in 551 A.D. But despite these natural disasters the papyri scrolls and the archaeological evidence made clear that Petra had carried on as a viable entity throughout the 6th and the 7th centuries A.D.

We cannot be sure, but I believe the stories placing Irem in southern Arabia are the products of the efforts by the desert Arabs aiming at cutting the ties of the Hagarene teaching (which they have restructured as Islam) with northwest Arabian Peninsula.

 

SODOM AND GOMORRAH

What could possibly be the backbone of the Sodom and Gomorrah tale in the Old Testament? The Jordan valley is part of a huge fracture in the earth’s crust. The subsidence released volcanic forces that had been lying dormant deep down along the whole length of the fracture. “In the upper valleys of the Jordan near Bashan there are still the towering craters of extinct volcanoes; there are extensive deposits of lava and deep layers of basalt on the limestone surface.” Evidence after evidence has demonstrated that this fracture had produced numerous earthquakes throughout the history. The Old Testament records them. The codebook of Islam also has descriptions of tremors  and quakes, which are presented as the examples of divine wrath.

The surface surveys on the east of the Dead Sea (Lot’s Sea) are offered as the evidence confirming the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Traces/ruins of the ancient cities (five of them) dating back to the Middle Bronze era are reportedly discovered. Evidence is reportedly found of the layers of the bituminous pitch, which were hurled into the air during the tectonic event, eventually raining down and covering the cities. These sedimentary rock layers are reportedly fused by intense heat, as is evident on the summit of the Cebel Usdum (mount Sodom). The theory is that oil beneath the Dead Sea got ignited and erupted, coming down as ‘rain of fire and rubble’ (compare the description in Kuran) upon these cities. “The cities are clearly shown to have stood in front of Cebel Usdum (Mount Sodom) where they lie under the waters (of the Dead Sea) today. This region was found by geologists to be a burnt out area of oil and asphalt, of which there has been an accumulation, which is now being exploited. Where these conditions exist, there is an accumulation of gases. Geologists admit that at some earlier time there was a great explosion, with first an upheaval and then a subsidence of strata. Salt, mixed with sulphur was carried up into the heavens white hot and so rained down upon the cities of the plain, exactly as the Scriptures describe the rain of fire and brimstone from heaven” according to the archaeologist Melvin G. Kyle.

Other cities of the plain were Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar. Zoar (or the city where Lot had taken refuge) was saved because of Lot’s presence there. According to Tacitus the plain was “fertile and provided for great and populous cities.” Whereas Strabo wrote that there were “thirteen inhabited cities in that region, where Sodom was the metropolis.” There are other theories as well but they are not our concern. What interests us is the fact that certain cities were submerged. The Dead Sea then may have extended further South. If we search for the sites of these cities we are faced with differing opinions some of which suggest that a number of those cities may have been situated on the northern shores of the Dead Sea.

Kuran says that the ruins of the destroyed cities could be seen alongside a busy road. So these are not the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah, because they cannot be seen. According to some researchers their ruins could be under the layers of bituminous pitch. Therefore, not the actual ruins of the cities but the ‘marker’ (the mount of bituminous pitch) could be seen, and this marker is the ‘ensample’ that is referred to in Kuran. I do not think so!

If you remember, I have objected to the interpretation of these Kuranic verses as referring only to Sodom and Gomorrah. Here is my point: These ruins were too far north for the Kureyshis to pass by in the morning and at night. Therefore, the mistaken inference there could be the result of the repeated editing in the past. There were also other ruins, alongside a busy road or in the general region like the ones at the valley of Hicr, Madian and Medain Salih. Therefore, if we consider that the actual ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah are not visible today; that there has not been another ‘shower of fiery brimstones’ to cover the ruins and change the situation in the meantime we could say that the ruins of these cities have never been visible. This rock covering the supposed ruins of the cities is called the mount of Sodom. Therefore, only the sign is there as a lesson for the populace. This makes my proposition about the ruins in the land of Midian much more plausible.

Now back to the story. Genesis 13:10 tells that returning from Egypt, Av’ram and Lot are separated between Beth El and Ai, which are located in the land of Canaan, north of Yerushalim. Av’ram chooses to stay in Canaan and Lot continues to Erden basin in Jordan/Yordan. There is an extremely valid dispute here.

According to these tablets all of the mentioned cities were destroyed by fire. Therefore, these cities had never existed in Biblical times, but their supposed ruins or their ‘markers’ must have been there to be seen, and the folk tales indicating the sites where they existed once upon a time must have been circulating.

These are the crucial questions at this stage;

Here is the summary until now:

The Hagarene Messenger and/or the author/editor/storyteller must have seen in the supposedly divine destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah a tailor made ‘lesson’ for the Hagarene mission, because either one or the other, or all of them used the story to persuade their opponents.

The tablets uncovered in the ruins of the ancient city of Ebla are witnesses to the ‘borrowed’ stories of the Old Testament. The city called Salim is in the tablets, but there is no indication to its geographical location. Urusalima (Yerushalim, Jerusalem) is also in the tablets, which is the earliest known reference to the city. Hazor, Lachish, Megiddo, Gaza, Dor, Sinai, Ashtaroth, Joppa and Damascus also appear in the tablets.

The five “cities of the Plain” (Genesis 14:2) are Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar. Here the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah appear in the tablets dated to about 2300 B.C. The references there seem to show that  Sodom and Gomorrah were on the King’s Highway that ran down from Dimishk-esh Sham (Damascus) and they  were visited on a regular basis.

The names of Av’ram’s relatives - Paliga (Peleg), Til-Turakki (Terah), Nakur (Nahor), and the name of his native town, Haran, are also in the Ebla texts. They also mention ‘Ur in the region of Haran.’  This Ur in the region of Haran could be none other than the present day Urfa in south-eastern Turkey, which is supposedly the city that Abraham had started out to become the partriarch of the Hebrews.

 

MEDAIN SALIH

The origins of the Nabataeans are shrouded in mystery. They are believed to have been the semi nomadic herdsmen and traders who penetrated the disintegrating Edomite kingdom from north-western Arabia. Some of the earliest securely identified Nabataean sites are indeed from this region, such as the ancient Egra / Hicr (Medain Salih). Nabataeans made Medain Salih their second capital, and soon came to dominate the trade routes that were developing in the region, which made them wealthy and prosperous.

Medain Salih - Salih’s villages are located north of Medina. Al Hicr is reportedly the name given to Medain Salih that are actually located in the valley of Hicr. ‘Adall’ is said to have been another name given to this region, which was considered ‘cursed / damned’. Believers of Islam were discouraged from going there.

Here ‘hicr’ appropriately means ‘forsaking’, ‘abandoning’, ‘leaving behind’. God has abandoned the people of Hicr, has he not? Furthermore ‘Adall’ means ‘the one who has gone astray,’ ‘one who has deviated.’ The people of the valley of Hicr/Medain Salih have rejected the verses of god, have they not?  They have been annihilated, have they not? The names tell a lot!

The Arabians are called ‘Agarenes’ (Hagarenes, sons of Hagar = Ismaelites) in Baruch 3:23. These are the Arabs  living in the east and south of Palestine. In his book Arabia and the Bible James A. Montgomery quotes Psalm 83:5-7 and claims to have found where the sons of Hagar were located. In this Psalm the author refers to the enemies of god: “For they have consulted together with one consent: They are confederate against thee…The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ish’maelites of Moab and the Hagarenes…Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre.” Gebal is cebel in Arabic, which is the name of the mountainous region south of the Dead Sea.  According to Montgomery the identification of Hagar and Hagarenes with the Agraioi (in northwest Arabia) of Ptolemy and Strabo must be taken as a sign that Hagarenes must be connected with al Hicr in the Thamudene country of northwest Arabia.

The land of Midian is the region to the east of the Gulf of Akaba. Arab tradition also places Midian there. In his book Travels in Arabia Deserta, the British explorer Charles Doughty relates a tradition amongst the ancestors of the Arabs he met in Arabia Deserta: “In the distant past they occupied all that country about Maan, where also Moses fed the flocks of Yetro the prophet.”

The Jewish historian Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews) also believes that the ‘mountain of god’ is in Midian: “Reguel (Yetro), Moses’ father-in-law…willingly came to meet him (Moses)…he (Moses) had offered sacrifice, he made a feast for the multitude, near the bush he had formerly seen (the bush where YHVH spoke to him), which multitude, every one according to their families, partook of the feast.”  While narrating the ‘coming out of Egypt’ Josephus wrote  “Moses came to mount Sinai (where) the vision of the bush and the other wonderful appearances had happened.” Here Josephus made clear that the mountain of the burning bush in the land of Midian and the mountain where the divine law was handed to Moses are one and the same mountain. According to Josephus’ account Moses  then  came to the city called Madian in the country of troglodytes. Charles Doughty has visited the region of north-western Arabia called Medain, which is the name the “Syrian caravaners have given to the hewn monuments in the crags of  al Hicr on the Hajj road.” There are other researchers as well who put the ‘mountain of god’ in the land of Midian.

From the story told in the Mosaic scriptures, the Mountain of god was most definitely a volcano. Cutting the story short, the extinct volcano Cebel el Lauz in the land of Midian is suggested as the mountain of god, the ‘mount Sinai’, the mountain of law giving. This was the sacred mountain of Midian. Josephus was aware of the Arabian tradition about this sacred mountain, which he has equated with mount Sinai in his book the Antiquities of the Jews.

As it is usual with all the cultures in those ancient times the Thamud people of the land of Midian have also associated high mountains with supreme beings. Cebel el Lauz, complete with the deity living high up close to the summit, was the mountain of god for them .

Al Hicr, where Thamud people have lived, is in the land of Midian in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula. The land of Midian is believed to be on the shores of the Gulf of Akaba. But some scholars believe that the Midianites had controlled a much wider geography from Sinai in the west to Medina in the south.

 

 

ENVIRONMENT BEFORE THE MESSENGER

 

THE SCENE BEFORE THE HAGARENE TEACHING

More than a millennium before the rise of the Hagarene teaching and the Messenger an indigenous civilization of a high order has flourished in the south-western corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Their language was a separate branch of the Semitic linguistic family. It was distinct from Arabic with an alphabet of its own. This culture had trade links  with the Indian Ocean and with the part of Africa lying immediately opposite the water (Abyssinia). The civilization in that part of Africa seems to be an offshoot of the south Arabian culture. Occasional links between the south Arabian culture and Egypt seem probable. But the closest and most marked connection they had was with the Semitic populations of the northern Fertile Crescent. The affinity is so close that even a common origin seems certain. The overall view of the southern Arabian culture is definitely Semitic. A Greek and Hellenistic influence is also noticeable in certain areas like coinage.

Southern Arabia was divided politically between Minaeans, Sabaeans, Qatabanians, and Hadramautites. Starting from the turn of the era Bedouin of the inland steppes began to show themselves in the affairs of the established kingdoms and the populations of the Red Sea coast.

A fifth power showed itself on the Arabian political scene around the beginning of the Christian era. It was the tribe of Himyar (‘Homerites’ in the Greek accounts). A Greek source of the 1st century A.D. states that in those days there was a sort of dual monarchy of Saba (Sebe) and Himyar. In the following centuries Himyar seems to have become the dominant element in the south Arabian affairs. The Christian Greek authors commonly refer to the people of the southern Arabia as Homerites and the Islamic authors apply the term Himyarite to all the pre-Islamic south Arabian antiquities. But when viewed overall, the pre-Islamic history of the southern Arabia was all about a Sabaean expansion. By the 5th and 6th centuries A.D. all the ancient kingdoms and the boundaries had vanished and the entire southern Arabian culture fell under a unified political control. We have no clear indication about the actual position of Himyar in this political control, but we know that Himyar has seen itself as the historical successor to the ancient Sabaean kingdom. With this development the long isolation of southern Arabia has begun to break up and the region has tended more and more to play a part in the political affairs of the northern Arabia and the Mediterranean world.

Another prominent Arab culture had sprung up from the southern Sinai region about 600 B.C. and from the land of  the Edomites in Jordan about 400 B.C. They lived around the Dead Sea (Sea of Araba). They had a close relationship, because both communities claimed a female line of descent from Ish’mael, the son of Av’ram the patriarch. They are said to have migrated from Arabia into this rich and fertile land, where they established Petra (the ‘rose red city half as old as time’) as their capital. They were the Nabataeans.

 

SUPREME ENTITIES, CULTS, AND TRADITIONS..

Herodotus wrote that the Arabs worshipped Alilat as sole deity. Al ILAT or al Lat (‘the goddess’) was known in all the pantheons. Al Ilat is visualised as a daughter or a consort (depending on the region) of Al Lah (‘Lah the god’), who is said to have been the lord of the Ka’ba in Makka in those days.

Al ILat is also named in the Thamudic texts. Al ILAT/al Lat formed a trio with the goddesses Al Uzza (‘the Powerful’) and Manat (or Manawat=‘Destiny’).

The Nabataeans worshipped a whole series of gods, some of whom either appear in Kuran, or played a role in the birth of the Hagarene ideology. We are told that the dominant pre-Islamic Makkan religious customs can appropriately be linked to the Nabataean belief system. The temple in Sala (Sela, Petra) is said to be the most important Nabataean temple discovered until our time. The excavation work revealed that the temple was dedicated to the goddess al Lat/Allat. Al Uzza was the consort of Kutba or al-Aktab (‘the scribe’=Mercury) amongst the Nabataeans. Manat was depicted as destiny in the Nabataean iconography. These three goddesses were called the ‘daughters of Al Lah’ in the pre-Islamic Makka, and they are mentioned in Kuran 53:19-22. In South Arabia they were known as the ‘daughters of IL’.

The Ka’ba in Makka, which became the sacred shrine of the Muslims, is a closed cella (which was full of idols in pre-Islamic times) in a walled enclosure with a well. A cloth called ‘kiswa’ covers the building in one of the walls of which is placed the black stone. This reminds us the leather cover of the Ark of the Covenant.

Throughout Arabia the priests interpreted the oracles, which were mostly obtained by istiksam (cleromancy), which was done by asking a question to the god and the supposed answer was determined by drawing lots from a stack of marked arrows or sticks. Many Sabaean texts mention the oracles, but only one inscription mentions arrows in connection with them. A bunch of sticks possibly used for that purpose was found in 1987 in a Sabaean temple (Please remember the Messenger’s ban on using these sticks and fortune-telling). Among other forms of divination known from the pre-Islamic Arabia, only oneiromancy (divination by means of dreams) is well attested in Sabaean texts.

Throughout the pre-Islamic Arabia, truce of god allowed people to attend in security the yearly pilgrimages to important shrines. The rites included purification and the wearing of ritual clothing, sexual abstinence, restraint from shedding of blood, and circumambulations (tavaf, davar) around the sacred object, which ended by the slaughter of animals that were eaten in collective feasts. What do you think the Muslim pilgrims do in the yearly hac (hajj) today? These practices of the pre-Islamic times (days of cahiliyya = ignorance) form the core of the pilgrimage to Makka. The classical, Nabataean, Lihyanite, and Sabaean sources also mention pilgrimages.

The sovereigns of Saba/Sebe performed a rite called ‘hunting the game of Athtar and the game of Kurum.’ The gazelle was the symbol animal of Athtar and Kurum is now known to be a hypostasis or a consort of Athtar. This rite was aimed at causing rain to fall, and that is also the aim of a formal tribal ibex (wild goat) hunting, still performed today in Hadramaut.

Istiska, a collective invocation for rain with magical rites, in times of acute drought, is mentioned by the Muslim tradition and in two Sabaean texts. The rite is still part of the Islamic ritual.

South Arabian texts confessing offences against the ritual cleanliness, along with data from the classical sources and the Muslim tradition on the pre-Islamic customs, contribute to outline an ancient Arabian code of ritual cleanliness similar to that of the Leviticus and of Muslim jurisprudence. Some Islamologists attributed the Muslim code on ritual cleanliness (taharat) to a Jewish (taharot) influence on the early Muslims in Medina. Here I would like to remind you that the Islamic code of ritual cleanliness is almost identical with that of the Sabians-Mandaeans.

 

INITIAL STAGES OF MONOTHEISM IN THE REGION

Southern Arabia has abandoned its polytheism around the end of the 4th century A.D. and monotheism entered the stage. The supreme deity of this belief system was called Rahman ‘the Merciful’. Between the 4th and 6th centuries we do not see a Jewish or Christian prescription in the texts of this belief system. This deity called Rahman appears in Kuran in 1:1, 3; 2:163; 13:30; 17: 110; 19:18, 44, 45, 58, 61, 69, 75, 78, 85, 87,88,91, 93, 96; 20:5, 90, 108,109; 21:26, 36, 42, 112; 25:26, 59, 60, 63; 26:5; 27:30; 36:11, 15, 23, 52; 41:2; 43:17, 19; 50:33; 59:22; 67:13, 19, 20, 29; and 78:37, 38 where you will find references to Rahman either as god or the name of the god.

Kuran 17:110 is interesting:

What do you get from here? Implication is that, the name is not necessarily Allah, but Rahman could also be used. It does not matter what you call him because all the good names are his. Rahman is a good name, so you may use it. But the most peculiar expression about Rahman is in Kuran 43:45:

What we understand from here is that an ‘entity’ who has the power to create and who is superior to Rahman has created Rahman. But we know from Kuran that Rahman is also the name of the god of Kuran, the ‘omnipotent creator’ himself. Therefore, is there another creator higher than Rahman? What should we understand from this statement?

The ‘gentle’ approach in Kuran 17:110, quoted above, could also be seen as necessitated by the need to win over  the members of a monotheistic belief system existing in the region before Islam. This seems to be a natural ploy. It  is interesting that when we check the table of the order of revelations, the references to Rahman are concentrated around certain suras: 41, 42, 44, 45, 50, 73, and 77. In contrast with this order of revelation, here is the placement of the suras referring to Rahman in Kuran: 36, 25,19, 20, 17, 21, and 67. What is the reason for this change? Well, the codebook was written and rewritten many times, and if there has ever been a logical order it is lost in the mess created by the editors. Furthermore why are the references concentrated in suras 41, 42, 44, 45, and 50?  Do these suras belong to the period when the Ismaelite Messenger or the writers of Kuran has heard for the first time of the existence of Rahman (supposedly the first example of the sole god in southern Arabia), hence the high count and concentration of references around the mentioned suras? By mentioning the name of this sole god the Arab prophet or the writers of Kuran may have aimed again to associate Rahman with their god and win over Rahman’s followers.

It is almost impossible to solve this section of the codebook. This statement may be the product of the imprudent authors who were unable to realize the importance of this statement. They may have been in a hurry and wrote it without grasping the meaning of it, or the later editors may have just copied it. Which one?

Let us look into this name, Rahman, and try to find where it would lead us. Rahman is not Arabic but Syriac, and the original is Rahmono, meaning ‘the merciful’ (actual name of this supreme being was Rahman ‘the Merciful’). D. B. MacDonald in the Encyclopaedia of Islam wrote: “It is almost certain that the prophet has borrowed the sentence ‘Bism-el Rahman’ from Southern Arabia” where this monotheistic belief system had existed [in fact the expression has become “Bism’el (Lah el) Rahman,” which means ‘with the name (of the god Lah) the merciful’].

The research done on the texts shows us that this name Rahman was borrowed by the southern Arabians from Aramaic and Hebrew, then turned into Rahmanan and shortened into Rahman. Here I would like to remind you that the Sabians and other peoples of Mesopotamia used the name Rahman also as the name of god.

The Messenger has reportedly addressed his god as “Ente ilahi! lailahe illa ente!” (“You are my ilah! There is no other ilah, but you!”). As seen clearly from here the Messenger called his supreme overseer ‘ilah’, the origin of which could be traced back to the Hebrew and Syriac words elah, eloh, Al Lah, aloho, alaha etc. which are the names given to gods of the region by different peoples.

Another word used as the name of the supreme being in Kuran is ‘Rabb,’ which means ‘teacher’ in Hebrew.

 

HAS THERE BEEN A COMMON SEMITIC BELIEF SYSTEM?

Could the Semites have had a common religion in the beginning? This is a question impossible to answer. Words, names, ideas, concepts applicable to all may be an indication. The words used as names of or depicting the concept of god are almost identical in all the Semitic languages. The names of the highest or the supreme entity   is ilu in Akkadian, il or el in Canaanite, el or elohim in Hebrew, el or elah in Aramaean, il in southern Arabian, ilah, Al Lah / El Lah in classic Arabian. The personal names incorporating the name of the supreme being may be another indication.

It is clear from the names used amongst the Arabs that the name of the supreme being, el, has been in use as a part of the personal names before Islam, before Christianity, and may be even before Judaism. The examples are Abd-ul-lah (servant of Lah), Ruh-ul-lah (spirit of Lah), Nur-ul-lah (light of Lah). These names also seem to show that Semitic peoples had a very strong tendency towards monotheism. Therefore, it is not strange that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are born in the land of the Semites.

Other names of gods common to the Semitic peoples are Ishtar in Akkadian, Athart/Astarte in Canaanite, Athar in southern Arabia, and Astar in Abyssinian (Ethiopian). The name of planet Mercury in Arabic, Utarit, is thought to be from the same root. The Sun god was Shamash in Akkadian, Shapash in Ras Shamra, Shams in southern Arabia, all of which are the names given to Sun.

This greater region was the pot where all the Semitic-Abrahamic belief systems (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) were born. Jews, Christians, Zarathustrans; Sun, Moon and star worshippers; pagan idolaters; stone worshipping, polytheist, belligerent Arab tribes and all kinds of nomadic peoples were living there. Like the whole of the region these Arab tribes and the nomads had very strong family ties and almost no concept of a united community. The only factor, which created a feeling resembling unification was said to be the Ka’ba that was recognized as sacred by the populace.

Hagarene teaching was born in the northwest Arabian Peninsula, but it was transformed into Islam by the desert Arabs. The desert and southern Arabs were polytheists with numerous deities. These deities were essentially based on a planetary system. Moon was a masculine deity and prevailed over the others. They used a star calendar especially  in Hadramaut. This shows that the peoples around this region have revered the night sky. Southern Arabians continued with their worship of the Moon. One can say with almost full certainty that their religious calendar was also lunar and their years were calculated by the positions of the Moon.

Amongst the peoples of the region Moon god had different names: Sabaeans called it ilumquh; Qatabanians called it Amm and Anbay; Minaeans called it Wadd/Uadd (love); Hadramautites called it Sin (this name was in use also for  the Moon god in Haran and Edessa in southeast Asia Minor at Biblical times); Wadd’s characteristic description  was ‘god is love’ whereas the characteristic description for Al Lah was ‘the Merciful’ (this is Rahman!). Moon god had a consort known amongst the southern Arabs as ‘Dhat Hamym’ (‘she who sends forth strong rays of benevolence’).

Sun, as part of the personal names appeared before and after Islam in the region. Let us start with Shamash (Sun), which was the name of Sun god in old Babylon. There is allegedly someone named Abd-el Shams (the 'servant of Sun') amongst the forefathers of the Messenger. 

It is belived that Ka’ba was built as a temple for Sun worship. The image of Hubel (ha-Bel, ha-Baal in Hebrew) was brought from the land of the Amalekites (Moab) to Makka and was placed in Ka’ba by Amr bin Luhay. It was the symbol of the Sun god. Ka’ba was the Sun temple. The god who the Arabs called Rabb-el Erbab (god of gods) is believed to have been this Hubel. Hubel is thought to have been the Rabb-el Ka’ba, which was frequently mentioned in the pre-Islamic Arab poetry. Amr bin Luhay is thought to have been pointing at the image of Hubel when he said “Your Rabb sends the summer through Lat to remove the cold from Taif and the winter through Uzza to rid the heat from Tihame.” In the light of this statement, the following words, allegedly uttered by the Messenger, should be understood in a different perspective: “Because he made them familiar with the winter and summer journeys…they should worship the Rabb of this house.” Could it be that the ‘entity’ which the Messenger was supposedly referring to was originally this Sun god, the Rabb-el Ka’ba, which was also the Rabb-el Erbab, Hubel, Bel and Baal of the earlier periods?

There was another male god called Athtar, the equivalent of the Phoenician god Astarte. There was a trinity here: The Moon-god Sin, the Sun-god Shams (its equivalent is the Babylonian Shamash who is an all-seeing supreme entity ensuring justice and equity, and helping mankind) and Athtar (its equivalents are Inanna in Sumer, Ishtar in Akkad, Anat or Astarte in Canaan, and Astar in Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia). The earliest temple known in this region was called Mahram Bilkis (or Belkis). This temple was previously called Awwam, the temple of the Moon god ilumquh, which dates from 700 B.C. We are told that the lower levels of this temple may be substantially older. Sabean cult existed until Judaism and Christianity overtook it around 400 A.D.

Inscriptions dated to 280 A.D. show that the inhabitants of Sheba and Yaman (Yemen) were pagans/idolaters worshipping Athtar (Venus). But by 378 A.D. paganism seems to have been replaced by a type of monotheism that invoked the ‘Merciful’ who was ‘the lord of heaven and earth’. Choesin Jamme and Alain Danielou  (and also other historians) tell us that Arabia Felix was very influential on the events and the history of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen was the stage where we see a real push for the complete Judaisation of the Arabian Peninsula. Therefore, a Judaic monotheism must have had established itself already in the 4th century A.D. and presumably moved north in the following centuries.

From the 4th century A.D. onwards, Christian bishops managed to win over many kings of Himyar. There was still around a century to the birth of the Hagarene Messenger. Early in the third decade of the 4th century the south Arabian king who is said to have professed Judaism pursued a policy of persecution of the Christians in his dominions. Najran (Nagran) was a Christian stronghold and Medina became a focal point of the Jewish influence. This policy culminated at the massacre of the Christians in Najran, which came as a shock to the Christian world   with the consequent martyrological literature in Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic. Byzantium decided to seize the opportunity to incite the Christian king of Aksum in Abyssinia (Ethiopia) to invade the southern Arabia. Invasion was successful, the persecutor was killed and a Christian puppet ruler was set up. But this puppet was dethroned by a native uprising, which put Abraha in throne, who managed to maintain a precarious independence between the powers of Byzantium, Abyssinia  (Ethiopia) and Persia. Abraha made San’a a Christian pilgrimage centre, which rivalled Makka. Abraha sent a Christian expeditionary force to destroy Ka’ba. A few years after his death (possibly around 570 A.D.) his kingdom collapsed and southern Arabia was subjected to Persian occupation for some years and it has never regained a unified independence. The closing years of the century brought the fragmentation of the kingdom of Ghassan and the decline of the power of Hira to the north.

While that was the scene in the south a different situation has grown in the north. The conflict between the imperial powers, Byzantium and Persia, has forced some Arab tribes into coming together, and they sided with either one empire or the other. The Christianised Arab tribes from Hejaz (Hicaz) preferred to move to Syria, Palestine and Egypt where there were Christian communities. The decline of the Christian population must have left behind a clear majority of Jews with Sabians, Zoroastrians, pagans and idolaters as smaller groups. This made the Arabian Peninsula the stage of theological conflict. The region called Hicaz was reportedly like a Jewish territory in the second half of the 6th century A.D.

Christianity was extremely successful in its spread in the north and northeast of this region. Francois Nau in The Christian Arabs of Mesopotamia and Syria in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries wrote that Christians formed the clear majority of the population in Mesopotamia and Syria. The prevailing atmosphere was overwhelmingly Christian in the beginning of the 7th century A.D. “The territory of the Ghassanides by 570 was flourishing with Arab Monophysite monasteries” wrote Fr. Henri Charles.

In the opening of the 7th century, Arabia was a mass of insignificant autonomies with no unifying centre. This confusion was the chance of a lifetime for the Messenger who have been living somewhere (most probably in Midian) in the northwest of the Arabian Peninsula. He might have been convinced that if he was to declare his preordained 'last' messengership of the assumed creator of the Universe he would initiate a new wave of religious fervour. He might have decided that spreading such an impression was suitable for his aims. That is as close as one can get. It is my belief that the Messenger has started preaching in his hometown  in the land of Midian, and especially after moving to Medina he must have seen a chance to become a new ‘leader’ for the population. The ground was ripe for him to take the initiative. He took it.

 

 

BAHRAM THE MANDAÎ

THE CHOSEN PATRIARCH OF THE HAGARENE MESSENGER

 

WHO WAS AV’RAM?

Av’ram (Ibrahim) is the patriarch of Islam according to the Hagarene Messenger. We do not know if ever there was  an ‘Av’ram;’ If there was an ‘Av’ram’ back in history we do not know when he has lived. The only references to Av’ram are in the Old Testament, New Testament and Kuran. Talmud, which collects views on the matters related to the Old Testament stories, also mentions Av’ram. The problem is, these books share basically the same myths, legends, and folk tales etc. as their source. These books have also been written and edited many times in keeping with the requirements of their particular societies. So, there are no references to the Biblical and Kuranic Av’ram / Ibrahim  in the independent sources.

But while we are searching for the truth we should not forget the Ebrum of the Ebla tablets. Hebrews claim to have descended from the Biblical Eber. Ebrum reminds Eber and also Abram (Av’ram, Ibrahim). Ebrum has lived sometime between 2400-2250 B.C. He was the third and the greatest of the six kings of the Ebla dynasty.

Could the dating of Av’ram / Abram (Ibrahim) to 2300 B.C. (the period when Ebrum was alive) by the Arabs be a coincidence? Who knows? Could Ebrum be the ‘patriarch’ Av’ram/Ibrahim, who is claimed to be the forefather of Arabs?

Ebrum is believed to have introduced substantial changes. In his community there were names like Ishma-el, Mika-el and Isra-el, where the suffix -el or -ilu represented the god El. But when Ebrum has begun his term as the king, a change occurred in the suffixes of these names from -el or -ilu to -ya(w) (-yahu, -yah?), and for instance Mika-ilu became Mika-ya(w) (Mika-yah/yahu?). There is no doubt that these suffixes are divine names, names of gods, or words simply meaning god, as it was customary in those days. Therefore, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Ebrum had made some major alterations in the religion of Ebla. The suffix ya(w)’s relation to YHVH, who as the god of Israel had replaced god El, is arguable according to some researchers. It is only natural, because the acceptance of a connection between ya(w), yahu and YHVH would be another proof that the Mosaic texts are really a collection of the ancient fairy tales with nothing divine in them. This is absolutely unacceptable for the Israelites. Since YHVH is also the god of Islam (with a different name) this argument should have profound implications also for Islam.

Moreover another thing in the Ebla texts has a direct bearing on the god of Islam: The divine name given to Ebla’s deity is ‘Hayyum’ which means ‘the living one’,  ‘the ever living one’,  ‘life’.  One can derive the name of a Semitic  deity, Hay/Hai, from Hayyum. It is also one of the names of the supreme creator of Islam, Hayyum-ul Kayyum. Moreover we are told that “in Hebrew and its cognates this term is used to designate the subterranean springs, which are termed the ‘living waters’ or ‘waters of life’- the mayyim hayyim in the Old Testament (R. R. Stieglitz).

The Moon god Sin was worshipped in the time of Av’ram and in the lands that are mentioned in his story in the Mosaic scriptures. Av’ram must have worshipped Sin when he was in Ur. I believe this ‘Ur’ is the ‘Ur-a’ of the Ugaritic texts. ‘Ur-a’ was near Haran according to these texts. Citing Ur, Urha, Ur-hai, Al-Ruha, Edessa, Antiokhea, Kallirhoe, Rohe, Orroes, Khurrai, which are the ancient names of Urfa, Turkish scholars believe that the place called ‘Ur’ in the Mosaic scriptures is the Turkish city of Urfa. Excavations have shown that there have been people settled there about 10000 B.C. They did not know how to make earthenware but established settlements and developed a belief system. The fact that even at those very early times a belief system had developed there may have turned this region into a religious centre. The locals call Urfa the ‘city of messengers’ and there are many stories there about Ibrahim (Av’ram, Abraham). Abraham’s mother is believed to have given birth to him in Urfa. Adam and Eve are claimed to have lived there.

Av’ram of the Mosaic texts (if that ‘character’ had ever lived) must have worshipped the Moon god Sin in Ur, and YHVH in Canaan. That’s the closest we can get to the truth.

I have mentioned in the pages titled PROPHET ABRAHAM and elsewhere in this site that the stories about Av’ram, Ya’kub (Yakob, Yah-kobe) and I’zak look like inventions with the specific purpose of finding an origin for Israel back in history. The bottom line is, insofar as the ‘character’ in the Mosaic scriptures is concerned, Av’ram is ‘non-existent.’

 

THE MOON CULT, SABIANS, BAHRAM, ‘PEOPLE OF THE BOOK’, HANIFS / HANIFIYYUN

According to the Islamic reference sources Sabians were one of the ‘peoples of the book’. These Sabians should  have been the Sabians of Syria (Irak) and not of Harran. The codebook of Islam mentions Sabians in 2:62, 5:69 and 22:17.

Kuran 3:65-67 describes Ibrahim (Av’ram of Hebrews, Bahram of Mandaeans) as follows: “O people of the Book!   Why are you bickering about Ibrahim, both Tavrat and Gospels were revealed after him. Why do not you understand? Ibrahim was neither a Jew nor a Christian, but he was a ‘hanif’ Muslim, and he equated none with Allah.”

Islam was originally the 'unadulterated faith of Bahram the Mandaî', who is known to us under the names of Av’ram, Abraham, and Ibrahim.

Attempts to find the origins of the concepts of god and the ‘divine law’ that we find in the ‘sacred books’ necessitate  the study not only of the Sun cult, but the Moon cult as well. As I have mentioned elsewhere earlier we see the Moon cult mostly and mainly amongst the Chaldeans. It is accepted generally that the ancient astrology and the religious belief in the celestial beings have begun amongst the Chaldeans and spread to other communities from there. Star, planet and mainly Sun and Moon worship was widespread amongst the communities of early ages. One of the renowned Islamic historians Masudi (d. 957 A.D.) has made an interesting quote according to which there were  seven temples all of which are described as ‘very big’. These temples were built for the worship of Sun, Moon and the five planets. One of them is the Ka’ba in Makka. Three of them are in Esfahan and Khorasan in Iran. Fourth is in Sa’na- Yemen. Sixth is in India and the seventh is in China. In Khorasan we have two temples, one of them is the Sun-temple in Fergana and the other is the Moon-temple in Balkh.

The Old Testament story about Abraham refers to the ‘Ur of the Chaldees’. There was no Chaldean kingdom when Abraham was around.  Chaldea appeared hundreds of years later. But when the author of the section on Abraham was writing his story Chaldea was a kingdom of the past and the remnants of that kingdom were to be found in and around the region. The story of Bahram also was in circulation amongst the Mandaeans living in Kutha-Irak. So the authors of Genesis had the Chaldea, and Ur and the story of Bahram the Mandaî to use and to tailor them to their needs.

So far as we could tell, Abraham’s faith centred on his belief in a god whom he called El-Shadday (deity, god of the mountains). Seemingly there is evidence indicating that his tribe has also venerated ancestral images. The story about Abraham coming to Palestine and settling there as the forefather of the Israel; the stories on the Egyptian origins of the people of Israel are clearly an attempt to connect the mythical Babylonian ancestors with the story of Israel coming out of Egypt.

The city that Abraham is claimed to have lived before Haran is called the ‘Ur of Chaldees’, which tells us that this city  of Ur was a Chaldean city. Chaldeans included also the eastern Aramaeans. These Aramaeans were of the Sabian faith, which was about mainly of the Moon cult, and the worship of the stars and planets. As I have made clear there was no Chaldea in the time of Abraham and there was no ‘Ur of the Chaldea’. This city of Ur would be the city of Urfa in south-eastern Turkey. Eastern Aramaeans were living there. There was Moon-cult there. These people have also worshipped stars and planets.  Abraham may have been instrumental in introducing the Sabian belief system to Haran, or people of the Sabian belief system may have come to and settled in Haran, before Abraham and his family came to Haran, due to the fact  the people of their faith were settled there. Abraham may have been of the same conviction. He may have been a star-worshipper. This may be the reason behind Kuran’s description of him as ‘hanif’ because ‘hanif’ is the Arabicised version of ‘hanefo’ and ‘hanifu’ in Aramaic and Syriac, which means ‘idol-worshipper’ or ‘star-worshipper’ (which is a Sabian). These are the possibilities that come to mind after one reads the story in the Old Testament.

The last alternative may be, that there were people in Harran who were star worshippers and they have come to be called the ‘Sabians’, to be precise the ‘Sabians of Harran’ in later periods, which is much more likely.

Furthermore Av’ram erected a stone to his god at Beth El, when he reached the land of Canaan, which means again that he was an idol worshipper. The Hagarene teaching called this place ‘the first house of god’ (Bakka; Kuran 3:96).

According to the story in Kuran Ibrahim left his family because they were idol worshippers. Relations with his father became very cool. Ibrahim tried hard to make his family accept the concept of sole god, but without success. When he was very old mysterious visitors came to him and revealed that he would have a son, etc. (Those who are interested  in this invented story may read Kuran).

The ‘word of god’ (Torah) speaks, among other things, about the divine(!) ordinances given to Av’ram and Moses. Echoes of these in Kuran took shape either in line with what was written in Torah or together with the details of the Jewish myths and legends of the day circulating in the region. Eventually these concepts became clear. All the narrations, which leave in dark the periods and the procession of the previous messengers, began to be substituted by an orderly classification. They were put in a chronological order. Islam gave everything a proper place in the flow of history, ending with the Arabs as the ‘last chosen people’ and the Hagarene Messenger as the ‘seal of the messengers’.

Arabs recognized Av’ram as the forefather of Ya’kub (Jacob), and indirectly as the patriarch of the twelve tribes of Israel, and also the distant forefather of Moses who was supposedly instrumental in revealing the truth to the sons of Israel. Islam implies that these patriarchs were not Jews: “Are you saying that Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishak, Yakub and their grandchildren were Jews? Tell them: ‘Who knows more, you or Allah?’ ”(Kuran 2:140). This is the usual style of the authors of Kuran and the believers of the present day Islam referring the matter to god with remarks like “Allah is the one who knows everything”, “Who knows better, you or Allah?”

Because;

Jews and Christians looked down on the Arabs, and accepted them as the ‘uncivilized barbarians’. Arabs did not have  a temple or a ‘sacred place’ like the Sabians, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians. Jews and Christians called the  Arabs with the belittling label, hanif / hunefa. Arabs had to begin their journey to find the sole god as hanifs who were the godless idolaters according to Jews and Christians. But nevertheless hanifs did have a faith, which is said to be a branch of the Sabianism, the Mandaean faith.

We know that there have been peoples whose belief in the sole god predated by far the elements of Judaism and Christianity. Who were they? Could they have been these hanifs-hunefa-hanifiyyah who were aiming to reach the god Lah without adopting either Judaism or Christianity? Could Av’ram / Abraham (if he has ever lived in those times) have been one of them?  

In the words of Kuran, Ibrahim was the first ‘Muslim’ (‘who surrendered to god’) to have faith in the existence and power of Allah.  The Messenger and/or the writers of Kuran must have thought so. They were very clear in their minds when they wrote Kuran 2:135:

Here polytheism refers to the Christians who have deified Jesus and corruption refers to the Jews who are claimed to have altered the Old Testament (The ‘word of god’, the divine revelation).

Paul was the first one to declare in 58 A.D. that Abraham was the ‘father of all of us’ (Romans 4:16). Here, the Messenger and/or the authors of Kuran have repeated Paul’s statement in their own words.

Before his call the Messenger has learnt that some Arabs living in Syria have rediscovered the ‘unadulterated faith of Ibrahim’. Moreover, four prominent members of the Kureysh tribe have adopted the hanifiyye (the faith of Ibrahim) according to the e Islamic literature. It was unthinkable to assume that the Messenger did not know the hanifiyyah. I have pointed out earlier that the Av’ram 'character' presented to us had never lived. Following is the position adopted by the Messenger and/or his advisor/tutor and/or the authors of the Hagarene scriptures vis a vis Judaism and Christianity:

There was serious conflict between these belief systems. But the Messenger was not obliged to choose either of them. In this environment the Messenger and/or his advisor/tutor must have thought (or the writers of the initial scriptures must have believed that they had done so);

This aspect was crucial for the particular needs of the Messenger and / or his advisor-tutor and  /or the authors of the scriptures, and they have declared Ibrahim the forefather of the Hagarenes.

The extremely clever exploitation of this card gave the new teaching the opportunity to by-pass Judaism and Christianity. Now, the Messenger had all the aces and he had the chance to accuse the Jews and Christians of corrupting and perverting the true faith of Ibrahim. 

I have mentioned that the ideologues and authors of the belief system we know as Islam today have been deeply influenced by the Psalms, and quoted from them. According to the mu’mins (believers) of the Hagarene teaching of those early days, Psalms (they called them the Zebur - a separate codebook) were a book given to David (Davud). But the studies carried out in the 20th century showed that the book of Psalms is a collection of poems reflecting all periods of Israel’s history. The most interesting thing in connection with Islam’s position vis a vis the book of Psalms is written in Psalm 47:

The psalmists sacramentally saw all the kings of the Earth who would worship YHVH as the "people of the god of Abraham.” Does it remind you of anything? The Messenger had recognized all the books and the messengers. Psalms, according to the Messenger was a book given by god to David. Who is this god? YHVH, of course! He is the god of Abraham as well (that is what we are told). The Messenger declared that he was going back to the unadulterated faith of Ibrahim. Therefore, he became one of the people of the god of Abraham, and he made his people a part of the nation of Ibrahim. Interesting connections?

While addressing the people of the book Kuran 3:65-67 has this to say about Ibrahim:

This verse also reveals the basic approach of the Hagarene teaching to Judaism and Christianity. 

According to Michael Cook, the concept the Messenger had developed about the faith of Ibrahim (Abraham) could be found in the Book of Jubilees (140-100 B.C.), which is accepted as apocrypha. Cook suggests this as the source of the Messenger’s declaration. But I do not share that opinion. I believe that;

 

***

The text known as Fiqh Akbar II by the great imam Ebu Hanife is extremely interesting, because it establishes the basics of the faith:

There is nothing strange here because the god of Judaism and Islam are the one and same supreme being. ‘Polytheism’ in Islam means putting other higher beings besides or on par with the god of Islam.

The Islamic ideology has felt the need to proscribe the act of putting other higher beings besides the god of Islam;

***

According to the Islamic mythology Ibrahim had settled a part of his family in a barren place around the ‘house, which should be respected’. He, together with his son Ismail had built this temple and developed it into a sacred place for refuge and forgiveness. Again according to the Islamic mythology, Ibrahim prayed to Allah to “Make this city a secure place and provide those in there who believe in god and the judgment day with multitude of goods” (Kuran 2:126). The story goes on in Kuran 2:129: “Our Rabb! Send them a messenger from amongst themselves to read your ordinances, to teach the book and wisdom, and to purify them”. We could see from here that the ideology of Islam has renamed Abraham as Ibrahim (Arabic of Abraham) and relocated him to Makka, and established a point of reference for the Hagarene Messenger way back in time.

The accusations levelled at the Israelites, with a novel approach,  by this new and transformed ideology of Arab nationalism are as follows:

While the ideology of Islam maintains that Jesus was killed on the cross, the original source of Islam, the Hagarene teaching has written in its scriptures that the person who was cucified was not Jesus but someone else. This is written in the verses 4:157-158, which I believe were left from the initial teaching. The Hagarene teaching must have borrowed this concept from the early Christian sects, the Basilidians and Carpocrathians of the 2nd century A.D.

There is one crucial point that deserves a mention here: The Messenger (or the writers of Kuran) has claimed that   the Jews and Christians had tampered with the divine message. Therefore, what is written in the Old Testament and the New Testament was not the original revelation. It was very clever of the Messenger (or them), because this claim together with the by-pass reaching back to Ibrahim (Av’ram, Abraham) automatically made the text of Kuran the original, unadulterated truth itself. If Kuran was the original teaching of Abraham (who has predated both Judaism and Christianity) there should have been no references to the ‘wrongdoings’ of Jews and Christians.

By referring his teaching to Ibrahim, the founder of the Hagarene teaching (presumably the Messenger), and by upholding that connection, the writers of the codebook of Islam have also achieved the following: 

But the ‘truth’ in the story of Abraham (Av’ram) in Torah is somehow different. Hagar was Abraham’s slave. Though she gave him the first son the royalty belonged to Saray and her son from Abraham - I’zak. Hagar was taken by Abraham to the desert and left there with her son Ish’mael.  Due to the fact that the story was adapted to the nationalistic ideology of Islam, which had no sympathy for Judaism, the ‘truth’ in the story of Abraham was overlooked. The nationalist Arabs ignored the ‘royal’ son - I’zak (who is the forefather of Israelites), and chose the first born but the ‘common’ son Ish’mael. But interestingly, there is no reference in Kuran to Hacar’s position – the rejected slave of Abraham.

Could this approach explain the inclusion of stories from the Mishnah, Midrashim and Tosefta?  Well, if the Old Testament was not the ‘original, but the altered revelation’ (according to the nationalist Arabs) other sources must be found. Mishnah was known to be the written form of the ‘oral tradition’ spanning thousands of years, was it not? So why not take the stories from there? But Mishnah and the other texts are not divine. The stories about Abraham breaking the images, and thrown into fire are not in the Old Testament, they are in the folk tales of the Sabians (Mandaeans), and Kuran emphasizes them to underline the faith of Ibrahim in Allah.

Here is a summary of a relevant story from the Newsweek: 

Errors/falsehoods like these came about because the authors have added features from the periods they live in, about 1000 years after the events they described. The traditions and conditions told in the book of Genesis reflect the situation in the beginning of the second millennium.

Once again, almost all of the stories told in the codebooks and in the related literature of the Abrahamic-Semitic belief systems are invented narratives. These codebooks and their related literature have been invented and edited along the lines of specific needs.  For example, the immoral sections of Av’ram’s story in the Old Testament have been left out in the story that appears in Kuran. Moreover the vicious narratives about the god of the Israelites in the Bible are edited out of the versions read to children.

Kuran gives the name of Av’ram’s son, who was taken to the mountain to be sacrificed as Ish’mael because the authors of  Kuran have taken the story from Talmud. Moreover, during the period when Abraham is said to have been around, the predominant belief system of the day must have necessitated the sacrifice of the first son in accordance with the divine edict “the first-born is mine.”  I’zak is the legal son of Abraham, but he is younger than Ish’mael. Ish’mael is older but he is not the legal son, he is not from the legally wedded woman but from a female servant, and he did not have the legal right to his father’s inheritance. What can we say here?

I believe that the person or persons who wrote this story into the scriptures have rejected the existence of I’zak because he was the person who started the Jewish line. Now I must ask some crucial questions. Moreover;

On the other hand, since the codebook of Islam has taken so much from the other cultures and codebooks, all the ambiguities, confusions etc., in the source materials naturally appeared in Kuran.

Kuran mentions Ibrahim (Av’ram, Abraham) in 2:125-130, 132, 133, 135, 258, 260; 3:33, 65-68, 84, 95-97; 4:54-55, 125, 163; 6:74-87, 161; 9:70, 114; 11:69-76; 12:6, 38; 14:35-41; 15:51-60; 19:42-49; 21:51-73; 22:26, 43, 78; 12:6, 138; 16:120-123; 19:41-49, 58; 21:51-71; 26:69-87; 29:24, 27, 31-32; 29:16-17, 25; 33:7; 37:100-113; 37:83-113; 38:45-47; 42:13; 43:26-28; 51:24-35; 57:26; 53:37; 60:4-5 and 87:19.

 

 

THE ORIGINAL AV’RAM / ABRAHAM / IBRAHIM:

BAHRAM THE MANDAEAN

However, at this stage I would like to introduce another dimension to the mythical Av’ram of the codebooks. Here are three quotes about him:

Moses ben Maimonides, who is accepted as the ‘Second Moses of Judaism’ has written that Abraham (Av’ram) was a Sabian (Mandaean?):

According to this story Av’ram’s (Abraham) hometown is not ‘Ur of the Chaldees’, but Kutha.  Kutha in turn is one of the sites, specially named among the places where Mandaeans were living. According to Abu al-Zanad (d. 747 A.D.) from Irak is of the opinion that Mandaeans was a tribe, which lived in Kutha in Irak.

If you are curious about the reason of Av’ram’s migration from ‘somewhere’ to Haran, we have a story which explains a certain period in the distant past. The following paragraph is a quote by Al Birunî from a story told by Ibn Sankila (The Knowledge of Life, Şinasi Gündüz):

In the rest of the story we have Abraham offering his son to the planet Saturn.  The planet Saturn sees that Abraham is truly repented. Saturn allows Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead. Part of this Abraham story is in line with the Jewish tradition, but it also contains a unique connection with the Mandaean tradition in that region, and also his circumcision.

In Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran E. S. Drower relates the Mandaean folk tale titled Abraham and Yurba, but does not identify the narrator:

“Yurba is of the powers of Darkness. Power is given to him, but he acts as the servant of the powers of Light, for the powers of Light rule, and do not serve. It was Yurba who gave the Jews their power. Abraham was one of our people.  We called him Bahram. Yes, he was a Mandai, a Nas’urai. His brother was a ‘rish amma’ (chief, a king-priest), and they were a family of priests. Bahram developed a sore (dumbala) and, because of it, he was circumcised. He was very troubled when this happened, because he could no longer act as a slaughterer or priest. For the Mandai do not accept as their priests, the maimed persons or those who have lost a finger, ear or part of any member. These are henceforth unclean.

…Abraham dared not tell his brother, but his brother discovered what had happened and said to him. ‘It is written that you may not be a priest any more. No doubt the origin of your sickness was in darkness, and you committed a fault, because no sickness comes to the pure.’

…And it is so; for, if a person lives purely and does not frequent people of ‘eHshukha’ (Darkness), and prays and keeps his thoughts clean, disease and sores do not come upon him. If a person is strong in purity and light, he may go amongst evil or sick persons and surlier no hurt: on the contrary, he has power from Mara ad Rabutha (‘lord of greatness’), which goes out from him to them and heals them.

…Bahram said to his brother, ‘It will be better if I go out from amongst you, and go forth into the desert.’ So he left the city and established himself (for he was rich) in the desert..

…With him went all the unclean amongst the S’ubba; the leprous and those who were deficient and of these bas’ran Sira (Moon-deficients) their descendants are unclean and deficient until the seventh generation. They went, the leprous and the unclean, with their children and their families, and Bahram began to worship Yurba. Yurba came to him on the wind and began to rule him and his people in all that they did. He said, ‘Do thus’, and they obeyed, Bahram and his people.

…Thus Bahram became a large tribe and a powerful people. Yurba had been given power in this world, and he gave to Bahram such magic power that fire was unable to burn him.

…Amongst the Mandai and Nas'urai also there were those who quarrelled (with the true believers), and they joined themselves with Bahram, who said to them, ‘I have power from Yurba and can conquer.’

…They and Bahram sought to force the Mandai, saying, ‘Come with us and be like us, or we will fight with you!’  

…The Mandai answered them; ‘We may not fight, because it is forbidden to us to kill men.’

…Bahram said to them, ‘Then I shall take you by force.’ And he caught them as opportunity offered, on the roads or in the wilderness, and circumcised them by force, thus making them lacking and unclean like himself. If they resisted, he killed them.

… The Nas’urai sent to reason with him, saying, ‘Why do you seize people thus and circumcise them or kill them? You commit sin and will be punished.’ Bahram replied: ‘my power is of Yurba and not from Melka Ziwa: what can you do?’ (..) Thus, likewise, Yurba had power, and it was by this power that Abraham became strong. (According to this folk tale Moses also had his strength from Yurba) But Prophet Moses never suffered himself  to be circumcised, neither did the prophet Jesus, for Jesus was of our sect, and they do not allow mutilations.” (Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran, E. S. Drower)                        

Here is what we understand from this tale:

This story is extremely important from the angle of many Sabian doctrines we come across in the Hagarene teaching.

The stories in the codebooks of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the one hand and the Mandaean tales on the other, portray the same person with three different personalities and three different names: Av’ram-Abraham in the Torah and the New Testament; Ibrahim in Kuran; and Bahram in the Mandaean folk tales.

I would like you to reflect upon the circumcision story in Torah and Kuran, and the one in the Mandaean literature, and help you make up your mind as to which story sounds more realistic and convincing. The medical necessity or the divine(!) intervention? The whole situation is extremely clear, is it not?

Although the Old Testament contains a great deal of seemingly tangible information on the history of the Israelites, it also has chapters that contain irrational and imaginary stories borrowed from the written and oral tales of the other cultures in the region.  The Bahram-Abraham story is a witness to that. The story was taken from the Mandaean culture and written into the Mosaic scriptures with a Hebraic slant. It is clear that the purpose of the Old Testament was to create a nation from the Hebrew and Canaanite tribes.

From the angle of the Hagarene teaching the following points are crucial:

This story is extremely important from the angle of many Sabian doctrines that appear in the ideology of Islam:

Islamic reference books of our day describe the Sabians as the ‘people of the book’, and the  ‘people who have the book in their hands.’ Kuran speaks of the Sabians in 2:62, 5:69 and 22:17

We are faced with an all-inclusive movement embracing, among others, the Mandaeans-Sabians, Bahram-Ibrahim and the Samaritans. The Mandaean and Samaritan doctrines, stories from Torah and the related texts, tales from the Gospels and the Christian literature, basic dualism from the Zoroastrian texts have been collected, mixed and edited according to the needs of the 'leaders' and a new divine(!) perspective was created: The Hagarene teaching.

Simon Magus of Samaria was the progenitor of the doctrine of Gnosticism (esoteric knowledge, wisdom, ‘hikhmat’ in Arabic), which had a great influence on the group of Jewish-Christian sects called Haemerobaptists, Mughtasilah, Sabians. Another Samaritan, the Samaritan messiah Dositheos has played a great role in this movement of sects. Therefore, the Samaria connection must have been very important for the Hagarene teaching.

 

 

THE MESSENGER’S GOD

 

WHAT SHOULD THE BELIEVERS OF ISLAM DO?

The Messenger has taken over the essence of ‘celestial monotheism’ from his predecessors. Believers of Islam are enjoined to ‘live’ the supreme being as a moral necessity. But there are differences between YHVH and Allah, who are supposedly one and the same god. Compared to the anthropomorphic god of the Israelites (YHVH), the god of Islam is immeasurably far away and unapproachable. According to the ideology of Islam human beings could only perceive god by the signs in nature, but YHVH was an anthropomorphic supreme being. Do not forget that following the editorial work done by Ezra the priest the anthropomorphic (human-like) god of the Old Testament was transformed into another supreme entity very much like the god of Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda. Therefore the differences between YHVH and Allah stem from this transformation in the source material.

YHVH was an obstinate and vicious god, who felt the need to interfere with the physical world and to direct the worldly affairs (or those who imagined him thought so). The god of Islam is so transcendent that he could only be referred to by parables, but YHVH was communicating(!) with human beings.

Here is the central theme of the codebook of Islam:

The codebook of Islam emphasizes over and over again that reason is needed to comprehend the messages and the ‘signs’ of the supreme being. The believers of Islam should never push reason into second place, but observe the nature with curiosity and interest. The observation of nature would clarify that the god of Islam has a transcendental dimension, which only allows us to refer to his manifestations through parables. Moreover, stories about the messengers, statements about the judgment day, narratives about the wonderful things in paradise should be understood not literally, but as allegories related to an exalted and inexpressible reality. Is this not pushing an assumed ‘truth’,  which presumably exists, on to a totally ‘symbolic’ base to conceal it?

The transformation of polytheist Hebrews into monotheist Jews took 800-900 years. Paulinism (Christianity) was born in a monotheist environment. Assumption is that it took Arabs 23 years to become monotheists. They were not the Arabs, but the Ismaelite-Hagarenes. The nationalist ideology of Islam was finalised in the 8th century A.D. with the appearance of a finalized codebook in Irak, when Haccac had had the final text written in Kufic script. The existence of monotheistic Judaism and Christianity in the environment of the Arabs and the monotheist beliefs in some sections of the Arab community may have been the factors that played a role in the rapid taking root of the Islamic ideology.

 

IL, EL, EL LAH, ALLAH

We are told that the revelation of the codebook of Islam has begun by an order from the archangel Cebrail/Cibril. Cibril is the arabicised version of archangel Gab’ri-el (‘El is my strength’) of Judaism. El is the supreme being of the Canaanites. The source of Gab’ri-el is the Amesha Spentas in Zoroastrianism.

Gab’ri-el is the archangel of YHVH. He presents himself again in the Hagarene teaching and in Islam. This time his name is Cebrail/Cibril. Cibril is the supreme entity, who made the Messenger read the revelation for the first time. Cibril’s order is as follows: 

The expressions “read with the name” and “Allah merciful and gracious” are not particular to Arabic. We are told that in the houses found in Syria, Lebanon, Irak and Palestine dated to the 4th century A.D., we read the inscription “Bism el-Lah al Rahman al Rahim” (With the name of Lah merciful and gracious). This is exactly the form of address (“with the name of Allah merciful and gracious”) that Muslims of our day use. The proof that the desert Arabs did believe in El Lah is in Kuran 9:99:

El is the name of one of the ancient god of the Canaanites and the people in Palestine. It is also the generic name for god. In that sense El Lah means literally ‘god Lah’ or ‘Lah the god’. ‘El’ or  ‘al’  is also the definitive article ‘the’ in Arabic. El originally was the definitive article used by the Nabataeans; they were the ones who had introduced it to the present day Arabic. Nabataean is the predecessor and the source of the Arabic of our time.

Makkans already had a supreme entity to worship before the Messenger’s teaching. Therefore, the omnipotence of  the god of the Hagarene teaching did not impress them much, because their god was also an all-powerful being. In addition to other observances they were offering animals to their god, so that also was not an innovation. Insertion of the nationalistic feelings into this new message and the consequent division between the Arabs and Jews seem to have been the crucial factors making the new belief system apparently more acceptable. But still the resistance was strong which evidently resulted in the messages of an afterlife and threats of hell for those who were not bowing to the orders of Allah.

The regional literature indicates that the pagan Arabs of the day in Makka have worshipped a Moon god named Hubal, Hubel (ha-Bel, ha-Baal of the Hebrews). The relevant story tells that a descendant of Kahtan, Amr bin Luhayy has put Hubal on the roof of Ka’ba 400 years before the birth of the Messenger. According to Ibn Kalbî this statue stood inside the Ka’ba. “The statue of Hubal was inside the building during the Age of Barbarism, but the ritual performed there was the Abrahamic one of circumcision,” writes Flinders Petrie (The Hajj). Therefore, the people who performed that ritual may have been the Sabians-Mandaeans or the followers of Bahram the Mandaî.

Hubal was one of the chief deities of Kureysh. The other 360 idols in Ka’ba came in all shapes and sizes: Man, woman, lion, horse, vulture etc. Hubal was placed higher than all these idols. Most probably El Lah (which will become the god of Islam) also was invoked in this place, but it was not represented with a physical symbol. So El Lah may have been considered the transcendent being, the ‘highest’ of all the idols, in this ‘sacred place.’ El Lah was already a remote being before Islam.  Because of Lah’s unattainable superiority all the other idols, including Hubal may have been considered the interfaces to reach the ‘highest’ being - El Lah. Hubal may have been accepted as the physical symbol of the god Lah.

Pilgrims used to bring the blood of their offerings to the deities of Ka’ba and sometime they even killed human beings as an offering.

Nabataeans and probably other peoples were adding as suffix the word ‘allah’ to personal names, which meant god. They called their god Hubal, and by adding the suffix they arrived at ‘Hubal allah’, meaning ‘Hubal the god’ or ‘god Hubal’.  In other words, in those days ‘allah’ was the general term meaning god. This must have been the practice in the general region of Hicaz and in and around Ka’ba as well. The evidence of a fundamental change in  this practice caused by the Islamic ideology could be seen in the definition where ‘allah’ became a proper name. ‘Allah is the only deity and there are no others beside him’  is the formula that establishes this shift. This doctrine means that all the other idols in and around Makka and Ka’ba, the names of which are invoked by the suffix ‘allah’ are no more, because as the official story goes the Messenger entered Ka’ba and smashed all the idols therein. Therefore, the unseen, unheard, distant ‘suffix’ of Ka’ba was left alone and became the supreme entity ‘Allah’, with no others around him: ‘Allah is the only deity and there are no others beside him.’

Islamic ideology asserts that the following were realized with the Messenger declaring his teaching. But in my opinion it happened when the Hagarene teaching was being transformed into Islam by the desert Arabs.Suddenly ‘Allah’ has become the name of the ‘highest’ supreme being.

According to Toshihiko Izutsu  (God and Man in the Koran) the Arabs of the pre­-Islamic era recognized ‘Allah’ as;

The concept of El Lah among the pre-Islamic Arabs was amazingly similar to the concept of Allah in Islam. Kuran is at a loss as to why such a correct understanding of god had not led the ‘infidels’ to accept the new reality. These pre-Islamic Arabs believed that El Lah;

The only thing that makes Kuran feel uneasy towards these pre­Islamic Arabs is the fact that though they knew god as the ‘one who created the sky and Earth,’ they did not end up with the conclusion that he was the only one to worship. In the Encyclopaedia of Gods (Michael Jordan) the origin of the supreme entity called Allah is given as “Nabataean and Arabic: Derived from the western Semitic god IL (..) Period of worship: circa 300 B.C., until present…Perceived in pre-Islamic times as the creator of the earth and water.”

According to ideology of Islam;

Here is the all-inclusive formula in Islam:

If you consider the characteristics of the god of Islam (the ‘omnipotent god of creation’) you will realize that the characteristics Arabs have formulated in their minds for their god are not unique. These characteristics have been handed down through the societies and generations from the time of taboo and totem. Arabs have created a tailor-made mixture for their needs and invented a particular literature on their understanding of god.

“La-ilahe il-l-al-lah. Muhammad-en rasul-al-lah” (‘There is only one god and Muhammad is His messenger’) is called the kelime-i tavhid (statement of god’s unity). The first part must be a remnant from the Hagarene teaching: “La-ilahe il-l-al-lah.” In other words ‘Lah is the only god,’ and / or ‘There is no other god, but Lah.’  In the sense of the ‘unity of god’, the first part of this statement is also identical with the fundamental doctrine in Judaism and Christianity. The second part about ‘Muhammad’ being the messenger of god completely and naturally separates Islam from them. It is my belief that this second part is an addition, put there in the process of transforming the Sabian-Hagarene teaching into the nationalist Arab ideology of Islam.

The basis of the Kuranic morality is the understanding and acceptance of the existence of only one god. Muslims should fully comprehend the fact that Allah is the greatest and the sole reality.  Here is Kuran 112:

This was reportedly how the pre-Islamic Arab believers of El Lah have also described their supreme being.

According to an early Islamic tradition, the incomprehensible god of Islam has wished to be known. The related hadith has god say the following to the Arab Prophet:

According to the ideology of Islam, these words belong to the supreme being of Islam, which is the sole god and the sole creator. He is the ‘omnipotent power.’ The Messenger and/or his advisor / tutor were extremely clever to declare that their god is the god of  Ibrahim (Av’ram, Bahram the Mandaî), Moses, and Yshua. The Messenger’s brilliant act of linking his teaching directly to Ibrahim was a critical step, because by doing that he by-passed the Jews and the Christians, and established a direct line between himself and the patriarch of the Hebrews-Israelites-Jews.

The second, and an equally brilliant, act by the Messenger was incorporating into his teaching the messengers, doctrines, and stories from Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, paganism etc. This made possible a sort of continuity between the earlier ‘ideologies of the book’ and the Hagarene teaching. The net result of this action was the introduction of the impression that the Hagarene teaching was not new but ancient, which was taught to Av’ram by the supreme being even before Judaism and Christianity.

This second action led naturally to a third achievement, which raised the Arabs to a level higher than the Jews and Christians.

Now let us go back to the ‘official’ story of Islam about Ka’ba as told by Islam.

The ideologues of the belief system put this story into writing within the formula “Allah is the sole god, there is no god but him.”

Islam continues with the traditional approach, which claims that humanity could see god only in his acts. Through his activities god makes himself known, thus presenting his inexpressible being to the limited understanding of the humanity. Islam wants Muslims to develop a perpetual consciousness (taqwa) of the face or self of god that surrounds them on all sides. Islam is in parallel with the Christian Fathers in seeing god as the ‘absolute’, who alone has true existence. Therefore, we are back to square one. Nothing has been explained. We are still faced with something inexpressible, unseen, incomprehensible, and beyond the intellectual capacity of the mankind.

Some scholars believe that ‘Allah’ was originally the name of the Moon god of northern Arabia. Furthermore, as a name of a deity, ‘Allah’ was reportedly used for the Moon in those ancient times. Imagine the Bedouin out in the desert at night; the only celestial light source to help him see around would be the Moon. The shapes drawn by the blinking stars up there, and the Moon piercing that ocean of darkness must have played fundamental roles in the out-of-this-world conceptions of that Bedouin. The Moon must have been his most favoured deity as shown by the Moon cult in ancient Haran, Irak, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. Moon must have been associated with the cooler and a friendlier weather of the desert nights. On the contrary, Sun must have been seen as a scorching destroyer of life. The lunar calendar of the Hebrews and Arabs and the Semitic peoples in general is another indication in that direction. One should not forget the Moon (Crescent from the days of Sabian faith) and star on the flags of the Arabic and Muslim countries. On that line, one should try to understand the concept behind the paradise of Islam with a cool environment, plenty of trees and shade, and streams etc. If a messenger in the Nordic lands had introduced this description, his paradise would have been a warm place with lots of sunshine.

Muslims tend to reject the suggestion that the pagan Arabs were worshipping Allah at Ka’ba in Makka before the Messenger. Samuel M. Zwemer (The Muslim Doctrine of God) writes “The pagan Arabs, before Muhammad’s time, knew their chief god by the name of Allah (which) denoted the chief god of their pantheon, the Ka’ba.”

Regardless of the statements in the reliable sources on the history of Islam, that there was the worship of a supreme being called ‘Allah’ at Ka’ba in the pre-Islamic days; and of the fact that these statements do appear in the encyclopaedias (Encyclopaedia of Islam), Muslims tend to reject that the Arabs have worshipped ‘Allah’ before the advent of the Messenger. 

When one considers the belief in Allah in a time span beginning with the pagans and ending with the belief system of Islam, the Messenger appears like a person who has reformed and restructured the belief in Allah by putting it on a very strong monotheistic foundation. There is no need to explain why this proposition is absolutely unacceptable to the followers of Islam.

Philip K. Hitti writes in the History of Arabs: “The name ‘Allah’ occurs in two south Arabic inscriptions, one a Minaean found at al Ûlâ and the other a Sabaean, but abounds in the form  ‘HLH’ in the Lihyanite inscriptions of the 5th century B.C. Lihyan, which evidently got the god from Syria, was the first centre of worship of this deity in Arabia. The name occurs as ‘Hallah’ (HLH) in the Safa inscriptions five centuries before Islam and also in a pre-Islamic Christian Arabic inscription found in umm-al-Jimal, Syria, and ascribed to the 6th century.”

I believe this Lihyan connection is very important, because;

It is an indication to the real homeland of the Messenger. 

The evident inability of the desert Arabs in reading and understanding the Messenger’s verses is only natural, because this language was Nabataean.

The earlier revelations by the Messenger had nothing revolutionary or disturbing. These ordinances did not introduce fundamental religious novelties. In the beginning the Messenger’s supreme creator denied neither the existence nor the power of the other supreme entities. The reason is obvious, is it not?

Without threatening the Messenger had emphasized the omnipotence of his god. In those early times, the supreme being in his mind must have been the god as conceptualised in the Old Testament by Ezra the priest. In the messages after the transformation of the initial teaching into Islam, we began reading threats against those who believe in the existence of other gods beside Allah with an accent on Allah’s 'soleness'. The ideology of Islam explains this change as follows: The Messenger of Arabs has presented his teaching, but he was confronted with criticism and rejection. That is why the supreme being has adopted a more inflexible attitude. Nevertheless, I believe that the real motive was much more earthly.

With these transformations, the vital conversion was accomplished for the new ideology to take hold. The Arab nationalism was unable to break the resistance of Judaism and Christianity. Therefore, the ideologues of Islam must have thought that the messages related to the judgment day, the afterlife, and threats levelled at those refusing to heed the divine(!) ordinances would be appropriate.

Divine messages that the Messenger is reported to have received in Medina/Yathrib/Yesrib were formulated later on under five headings as the doctrine of Islam:

The first three doctrines are for all the faithful and the last two are only for the wealthy. The first three have no conditions attached but the last two are conditional.

Scholars and researches should know that the classification above is definitely the product of the transformation of the Hagarene teaching into Islam by the desert Arabs. The initial Hagarene teaching did not have the above classification. It was a teaching containing mainly of Sabian principles, doctrines from Judaism, and Christian and Zoroastrian stories. 

There is no Salat (prayer) in Judaism and Christianity. Jews fast on the day of Ashura, they do not have fasting like the one in Islam. There was no Zakat (alms) in the initial teaching. The Messenger and / or the theoreticians ordered, in  the initial teaching, a Hac (Hajj) to the ‘first house of god’ (Beyt-u Elah, Beytullah which is not in Makka but in Shechem (Sichem) near Nablus in Palestine). The name of this placed where Av’ram (Abraham, Ibrahim) had erected a  stone to his god was Bakka (Kuran 3:96).

Therefore, I believe that the original and primary objective was not to accuse the Jews and destroy the Christians but  to establish a joint community with the Jews to capture Palestine and the  Beytullah in Bakka (where the first house of god is situated), which were under the Roman rule. 

He did precisely what he was supposed to do (We shall see the details later). Due to the reasons given above the initial Hagarene texts had positive words for both communities. But in the codebook we have today there are also negative things said about Judaism and Christianity. I believe these negative aspects were the later additions to the codebook during the editorial work carried out in the period after the death of the Messenger, in parallel with the conquests, when the efforts were centred on the creation of an Arab identity that has a desert Arab orientation, and an Arab nationalist outlook.

The new ideology of Islam demands faith in the following doctrines of creed:

Only those who fulfil these conditions are accepted as faithful of the new ideology. Muslims, wherever they may be, are under the obligation of conforming to these basic doctrines of creed. This is why Islam is the most homogeneous and monolithic amongst all the belief systems.

The rituals of Islam, the last one of the irrational ‘celestial’ belief systems,’ were finalized 300 years after the death of the Messenger. This was accomplished by continuous reference to Kuran, hadith, and sunna.

 

 

THE MESSENGER’S ACTS

 

EARLIER TRADITIONS, THE REVOLUTIONARY STYLE

The story about Messenger’s habit of seeking solitude in a cave on mount Hira seems to be an echo or the continuation of the Jewish and Christian tradition of renouncing the world. There is nothing strange here, because the Arabs considered Judaism and Christianity as the imposing belief systems of the day. They were also the predecessors of Islam, so anybody could have borrowed their traditions. Today we know that the Old and New Testaments were written by the people living on this Earth.  But in those days of incognizance they were looked upon as the divine codebooks given by a supreme entity. The outsiders have accepted the doctrines, stories and traditions written in these codebooks as containing stories fantastic and incomprehensible. Therefore, the Arabs were jealous of these books and the relevant communities.  Keeping that in mind, there is nothing strange in selecting pieces from these codebooks, borrowing stories from their literature and putting them together in a new teaching.

Style of the Messenger is said to be identical with those of kâhins. His sentences, like the sentences of kâhins, were full of vows that hold many things in the Universe as witnesses. His style is a kind of primitive poetry and not a novelty. But the content is said to be completely different, consummately superior and rich than the other examples. Some scholars are of the opinion that the Messenger’s attitude was revolutionary by its foundations and consequences. But I cannot keep myself from asking a crucial question: Who is this ‘Messenger with a revolutionary attitude’?

 

THAT ‘HISTORICAL DAY’ ON MOUNT HIRA

That presumed ‘day’ in the stories of the desert Arabs, when the Messenger supposedly received his first divine(!) message, must be labelled as a ‘historical day’. Because the ball that started rolling on that presumed ‘day’ shook and toppled the established systems, and transformed irreversibly a great part of this world. On that presumed ‘day’ an irrational, fantastic and imaginary event, which had reportedly happened over and over again in the communities of the region, allegedly repeated itself (for the last time, so the Arabs say). That fateful ‘day’ invented by the official nationalist Arab ideology could not be documented and / or substantiated, but it has to be ‘assumed to have taken place as told.’ The Messenger was placed at the focus of a supposed event, which had presumably happened to many messengers of the previous religions and cults. This is an invention, because first of all the Messenger did not begin his preaching in Makka but in the land of Midian.

We should go back to the official story and the supposition. According to this supposition, the Messenger has received the first divine message on mount Hira. However, we should find answers to some crucial questions here:

You know the answers. I know that you do, but keep them to yourself, and bear with me when I explain my approach:

According to the official nationalistic ideology of Islam an angel appeared to the Messenger on mount Hira and issued his command: “Read!” (ikra!). This archangel imagined by the ideologues of the nationalist Islam as the Gab’ri'el (Cebrail, Cibril) of the Old Testament, who is not involved anymore with the sexual affairs between the supreme entities and the mankind like we read in the fairy tales of the New Testament. This was the first time god was revealing his word in Arabic, following the previous occasions when he did it in Aramaic, Syriac, Egyptian, Hebrew, and in numerous other local languages and dialects.

According to the official Islamic ideology when this god revealed(!) his final word in Arabic the Messenger called upon the Jews to join him, to join the true belief system of Ibrahim (Av’ram, Bahram the Mandaî), which is the Sabian faith embellished by pieces borrowed from the Mosaic scriptures, Christian tales and Zoroastrianism via Judaic texts. But finding out that the revelation given to the Messenger was not different from theirs Jews rejected him. The Messenger has answered by upholding his composite faith, which he claimed would turn the perverted version of the Abrahamic religion back to its original. The Messenger has also claimed that Ibrahim and his son Ismail (Ish’mael) were either the builders or the restorers of Ka’ba. In short, the Messenger has declared that Ibrahim was the forefather of Arabs, and the Arabs were the progeny of Ibrahim (through his son Ish’mael).

With this prescription Arabs have raised themselves to the level of Jews, or maybe higher. Arabs have presented themselves as the ‘restorers’, those who reintroduced the original version of the religion, which has been perverted by the Jews. The Arabs claim that but no one said that the origin of the Mosaic belief system was the Sabian faith.

Allegedly being the first one who either built or restored the ‘house of god’ - Ka’ba, Ibrahim was the first ‘Musslim’, (‘the one who surrendered to god’). This seemed to be an appropriate choice. Arabs must have thought that this choice would give them an added push to win the Jews and Christians to their side, because Ibrahim, known to them as Abraham, was their patriarch also.

Now we must list some of the fundamental and most important results of the above-mentioned clever steps for the Hagarene teaching and its transformed version, Islam:

The Mosaic belief system and its codebook have aimed at creating a nation out of a tribal society. The Hagarene teaching had no such objective, but the transformed version of it, Islam and its codebook did aim at creating an Arab ‘nation’. Therefore, Islam did not give up the Judaic tradition, but there was a crucial dimension, which separated Islam from Judaism - expansionism- imperialism. With this dimension, Islam has subjugated peoples from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific and from Central Asia to Africa in a very short time.

Islam has continued with the rule that was written into the Old Testament by Ezra the priest after the Babylonian exile:

The amendments in the Old Testament by Ezra the priest have substituted the anthropomorphic supreme entity with a transcendent sole god. With this switch, Jews were pushed in to a position where they could only experience the glory (kavod) and not the physical presence of YHVH. This supreme entity could no longer be seen, heard or understood by the humans.

In other words, an earth bound ‘creature’ does not have the ability to understand what he saw even if he did ‘see’ the supreme entity. Well, everything is obvious, is it not? The supreme being could not be seen, heard and understood, he could not exist in the physical realm, and he is the subject only of the thought processes within the brain. Therefore,;

The concepts of ‘face’ and ‘self’ are the continuation of the kavod story in the Old Testament. Islam is in parallel with the Christian Fathers in seeing god as the absolute, who alone has true existence. So, we are back to square one. We have explained nothing. We are still faced with a ‘being,’ which is inexpressible, unseen, incomprehensible, and beyond the intellectual capacity of the mankind.

 

THE ‘REAL’ HICRA (HIGRA, HEGIRA)

The migration of the Messenger and his family and / or followers from their native town to Medina must have been the real Hicra - the breaking off with the native town (Kuran 29:56). The Arab ideology presents this as moving from Makka to Medina, which I believe is an attempt by the Makkans to connect the Midianite Messenger with Makka and transform the Ismaelite-Hagarene movement to provide themselves with an identity, and a ‘place’ amongst the ‘believers of the book.’

It is obvious that the rejection by the members of his hometown (according to he official ideology it is Makka) and the negative attitude of the people in that town (according to the official ideology they are the Jews) have made a deep impression on the Messenger. These narrations seem to have had a similar effect on the authors of the Ismaelite texts, and the later author-editors of Kuran who have transformed the teaching into Islam. This deep impression shows itself in the underlying themes of Kuran. Here they are:

The repeated references to the past wrongdoings of the regional communities - especially of the Hebrews, sons of Israel, and Jews - in their dealings with their god, and the price they had to pay are further indications that the formative process of Islam must have taken shape when Islam had to stand up to the environment dominated by Judaism. Islam has met this challenge by referring to the past, drawing lessons from the past events, by accusing the past communities of doing wrong to their god and the messengers etc. Thus, it has separated itself from the Jews, built an identity for itself, and proceeded relentlessly towards creating the ultimate example of a monolithic religious body in the world.

The Messenger had offered a teaching based on his newly announced faith (Sabianism), which was enhanced with the collected and reinterpreted concepts from various sources. He could be seen as a person who had announced a ‘synthesis’ exclusive to him. That is why some scholars have added ‘Muhammadan’ to the Hagarene label. Some of the scholars in the west believe that the Hagarene teaching began to take shape when it went out of Hicaz. I believe that the native land of this teaching was out of Hicaz. The Sabian faith was already extant in the land of Midian (Medyen), and during the stay of the Messenger in Medina it evolved into the Hagarene teaching.

In the beginning the Messenger was in the land of Midian where he must have called his fellow inhabitants to his Sabian faith, which he had probably embellished with ‘suitable’ motifs taken from other sources. This was a soft and incoherent teaching. The Messenger must have been trying to get himself accepted. In his efforts towards that end he was using the natural phenomena in an uncertain past, and presenting them as the ‘wrath of god directed at those who had rejected his (god) messages and messengers.’ There is no doubt that he interpreted these phenomena subjectively as divine ‘lessons’. He claimed that both the Jews and Christians had altered the original faith of Ibrahim. That is why he chose to borrow from these religions the narrations, which he believed to be ‘unaltered’ and suitable for his needs. The Messenger believed that Ibrahim’s faith (Sabianism) was the only unaltered religion and called the Jews and Christians to join him in accepting Ibrahim’s faith.

In short, the Messenger was not prepared to separate his teaching completely from the existing religious movements. So he borrowed from them. He must have seen an advantage in staying within the realm of the Mosaic faith. He began acting in alliance with the Jews when he went to Medina. But after the Messenger’s death the desert Arabs have transformed the original teaching into a nationalist and expansionist ideology called Islam, and put an end to the friendly relations with the Jews. When the desert Arabs decided to go it alone, this ‘new’ ideology has continued with its relentless advance and become the ultimate example of a monolithic religious body in the world.

In connection with the altered stories in Kuran following possibilities may be considered:

The choice is yours.

The concepts, dealings related to the creed, notions pertaining to morality and to life in general, and the stories about history and traditions were borrowed from the Mosaic scriptures. Judging by the remarks allegedly made by the Messenger (or was conceived by the ‘author’ of the codebook as the words uttered by the Messenger) the initial aim of the Hagarene teaching seems to have been the creation of an all-enveloping belief system and a union of all faiths. But, the desert Arabs have given priority to the Arab nationalism and expansionism after the death of the Messenger, and the Jews have proved to be an impossible partner and a stumbling block in the path of this zealous movement.

Therefore;

The need for transformation has necessitated differentiation, and differentiation has necessitated new rules. But these rules should not be totally beyond the boundaries of the Jewish environment. Torah was extremely powerful as the first and the foremost book of revelations supposedly from the sole god, but the patriarch Av’ram / Ibrahim would be a perfect ‘beginning’ for the new faith. Therefore, the followers of Islam required something within the Jewish world but that something should approach the widespread popular Judaism with a fundamental criticism. They needed that desperately to build a personality of their own.

According to Ibn Ishak only 70 people joined the Messenger in this ‘brake with the native land’ (Hicra).  But Ibn Ishak believes also that the Hicra was from Makka to Medina. At this point remember Kuran 33:27, where it is written that the land which the Messenger hadn’t yet stepped on was Makka. Therefore, the later authors and editors of the story of Islam must have rewritten the story to cleanse the Ismaelite-Hagarene-Muhammadan movement off of its northern Arabian connections, and to substitute Makka for that place of origin, Bakka.

This is the summary: The group called themselves Ismaelites. They considered themselves as the descendants of Av’ram through Ish’mael. The place, this very small group of people (who may have been only the members of the Messenger’s family and a few of his closest followers) had left behind could not have been Makka. They were not Makkans. Their language was different than the tongue of the desert Arabs. You need a hint? When there was no agreement on a piece of text in the writing down the scriptures Zayd (who must have been the closest person to the Messenger) dictated it in his tongue. Zayd was in the small group that accompanied the Messenger to Medina. He was a Nabataean.

According to one of the stories invented to create the nationalistic Arab ideology, the Messenger was a member of the Kureysh tribe. Was he really? When referring to the attitude of the Kureysh tribe the Messenger has reportedly said that Kureysh had slighted him in the past and avoided him, and Kureysh had called him ‘müzemmem’ (‘condemned’), but he was ‘muhammad’ (‘praised’). Therefore, the Arab ideology should resolve the following contradiction in the Hicra story:

The truth is clear. The Messenger and his group were not Kureyshis. The Messenger was accepted to the tribe later on when a ‘distinguished’ person intervened on his behalf.

There are no Arab documents about Hicra dating to the 7th century A.D. according to some scholars. The Greek and Syriac materials reportedly refer to this era as that of the Arabs. But two Nestorian ecclesiastical documents from 676 A.D. and 680 A.D. quoted by these scholars, give us the starting point of Hicra as the emigration of the Ismaelites not within Arabia, but from Arabia to the Promised Land, possibly outside of Arabia (P. Crone-M. Cook). That is right! Ismaelites were on the move towards their Promised Land, Palestine, and Bakka, where the ‘first house of god’ was situated.

Patricia Crone, in her article entitled The First Century Concept of Higra, lists 57 attestations which come from within and without the Muslim tradition, which point to a Hicra, or exodus, not from Makka to Medina, but from Arabia to the north, or to the surrounding garrison cities.  However, I feel that it would be right for me to stick to my theory:

 

THE ‘BASE OF OPERATIONS’ FOR THE HAGARENE TEACHING = MEDINA

We should acknowledge the fact that the most important town in the life of the Messenger was Medina. If the objective of the Messenger in creating an ‘umma’ around his teaching in Medina was not ‘imperialism’ (which is the predominant occupation of the Arabs in later epochs), then what was it? If I am right, his objective in the beginning must have been to ‘advance’ towards north, to reach Palestine and Bakka and take them.

Medina of today is a town about 50 kilometers northwest of Makka. The Babylonian records tell us that this was an ancient town. It has changed hands many times in its history and its population has been renewed. The Jews from Palestine are believed to have inhabited Medina. There were monotheist Arabs living there, who had adopted generally the Arab customs. Their language was Arabic. There were three Jewish tribes, and two Arabian tribes which are thought to have emigrated from Yemen. There were also small Arab communities, which have adopted Judaism, living side by side with the Jews. Jews called this place Medinta - city. This is very important, because Medinta must have been the only place in the Arabian Peninsula, which could be called a town / city. All the other inhabited places, Makka included, were most probably unimportant settlements due to backwardness, ignorance and climatic conditions.

Arabs called the town al Medina. It came to be called the Medinat-en Nabî (the ‘city of the messenger’). Therefore the present name of the city comes from the Jewish original.

The Messenger and his followers had never had Makka in their sights, because Makka was not important and not widely known. Kuran never mentions Makka but talks of a sacred ‘place’. On the other hand Kuran reveals the name of a specific place - Bakka (3:96).  Eventually the Sunni Islam became influential and ideologically dominant. Consequently, Bakka was replaced with Makka. Desert Arabs have instituted the belief that Makka and Bakka are the same place, and the name Bakka was the result of a different tribal dialect.

Here we must ask our crucial questions:

Because;

Under the Roman rule the rich Nabataean families have migrated to the big cities of the Roman Empire, with the not so rich or poor left behind. They were mainly involved with trade in general and camel trade in particular. The Messengers family must be one of those left behind, and their town must have lost its previous importance and brilliance. There must have been oppression as well. Here are my propositions regarding the teaching revealed by   the Messenger in this environment:

The authorities and followers of the other faiths must have made life difficult for the Messenger, who in the end felt  the need to leave, or made to leave the Nabataean lands in the valley of Hicr. He must have severed his ties with his native town, and taking his family and a small group of followers with him he must have gone south, to Medina, which was a Jewish town, the only town in the Arabian Peninsula.

 

HAGARENE MOVEMENT IN NEED OF  STRENGTHENING  IT’S TEACHING

The very first record about a Hagarene teaching in the western sources is in the form of a letter written in Syriac to the Christians of Irak. The ancient sources referring to this letter claimed the ‘glorious Amir’ mentioned in the letter was Umayr Ibn Sa’d al-Ansari and the ‘blessed Father’ was the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, John I. Our copy, which is kept at the British Museum, dates from 874 A.D. Francois Nau has published it in the Journal Asiatique. From there Alphonse Mingana abridged and published the English translation in The Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society (1916) and reprinted it in The Muslim World  (1917). The following text is as stated by Alphonse Mingana. It is supplemented from a modern translation. The bold parts provide an insight to the minds of the Hagarenes of those early days:

The Amir then asked, “What do you think of the Christ? Is he god or not?” Our Father then answered.... And the glorious Amir asked him this question, “When the Christ, whom you call god, was in the womb of Mary, who was holding and governing heaven and earth?” Our blessed Father answered.... And the glorious Amir said, “What were the views and the belief of Abraham and Moses?” Our blessed Father answered.... And the Amir said, “Why did they not write clearly and show their belief about the Christ?” and our blessed Father answered.... When the Amir heard these things, he only asked whether the Christ born of Mary was god, and whether god had a son, and whether this could be proven by the Torah and by reason. And our blessed Father said, “Not only Moses, but all the holy prophets have previously related these points of the Christ.” And the glorious Amir said that he would not accept the proof of these points by quotations from the prophets; but only required that it should be proven to him by quotations from Moses that the Christ was god. And the blessed Father among other quotations, brought forth the following from Moses, “Then the Lord from before the Lord brought down fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah” and the glorious Amir required that this quotation should be shown to him from the Book. And our Father showed it to him dla tuhhaya (without delay), in the complete Greek and Syriac books. In that assembly, some Mhaggraye were present with us, and saw the text with their own eyes, and the existence of the glorious name of the Lord twice. And the Amir called a certain Jew, who was believed by the Jews to be a knower of books, and asked him if this was literally true in the Torah; and the Jew answered, “I do not know with certainty.”

Then the Amir digressed from this point and asked about the laws of the Christians, how and what they were, and if they were written in the Gospel; and asked, too, if a man dies and leaves sons or daughters, with a wife, a mother, a sister, and a cousin, how would his heritage be divided among them?.... A long discussion ensued; and not only the best-known men among the Mhaggraye were present there, but also the heads and the rulers of the town, and of the faithful and Christ-loving (Arab) tribe… And the glorious Amir said, “I want you to do one of these three things: Either you show me that your laws are written in the Gospel, and that you are following them, or you should follow the laws of the Mhaggraye.” And our Father answered, “Our laws, the laws of us Christians, are just, equitable, and in harmony with the teaching and the commandment of the Gospel, the prescriptions of the apostles and the laws of the Church.” It is with this that the first gathering of that day ended, and up to now we have not been again with the Amir.”

The word ‘Gospel’ in this conversation is thought to have meant the Matthew’s Sermon on the mount, along with an infancy narrative based on Matthew or Luke, but not including John.

It is clear from this letter that the Hagarenes did have a respect for the Mosaic scriptures. Kuran 4:136 (‘Have faith in the book that he has given before’) and 10:94 (‘Consult those who were reading the book before you’) could be taken as indications to that effect.

Based on what is written in the letter above, the themes known and discussed by the Hagarenes could be summarized as follows:

 

THE HAGARENE TEACHING BEGINS TO TAKE A SOLID SHAPE IN MEDINA

The Messenger and his earliest believers were Sabians. They were living in an environment dominated by Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. The local cults and beliefs of the neighbouring peoples were also having an effect on the first Hagarenes. But they needed a distinct identity and a strong teaching. Their history was very limited in that sense. They did not have a certain person or an episode that would be instrumental in achieving the unity they needed. They only had Hud (the messenger of Ad), Salih (the messenger of Thamud), Shuayb (the messenger of Midianites), and maybe a few more. But that was not enough.

The Messenger was in Medina, nearer to the desert Arabs, who did not have the required unifying ‘factor’ in their past. They had a few incidents from the Makkan period, a ‘sacred place’ (called Ka’ba today), and a few traditions connected to that place. The Messenger and his close companions were faced with the following options.

The Messenger and his closest followers have opted for the second alternative. The authors of the initial Hagarene scriptures (which are the source material of Islam) were aware of the following:

I believe, the most important source of influence beyond their Sabian faith was a certain version of the Torah (We shall see this in detail later). The Hagarenes did know the messengers mentioned in Torah, but they were either ignorant of the messengers like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Hezekiel, or did not accept them. They did know Yunus (Younis, Jonah). They did know that the founder of their faith Ibrahim (Av’ram of the Jews, Bahram of the Mandaeans) was also accepted as the founder of Judaism. Therefore, they were the descendants of the same person. Hagarenes and Jews were both Semites.

The Hagarenes did not borrow a lot from Christianity either because they were not very knowledgeable about this cult, or rather; the basic doctrines of this cult did not suit their basic requirements. Even the name Isa is taken through other peoples and cultures, because the proper name of Yshua in Arabic should have been Yeşu, Yeşua. The Hagarenes in the later periods, and the authors of Kuran after them, became interested in the Christian tales when some of them had migrated to the ‘land beyond the sea’ (Abyssinia) and established close contacts with the Christians there. But the initial writers of the Hagarene scriptures must have realized the widespread influence of the Christianity, because they have refrained from a disrespectful attitude towards Yshua.

 

TWO NECESSITIES: AN IDENTITY AND STAYING IN THE REALM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Messenger’s ancestors were predominantly Jews, who are believed to be relatives of the Arabs because of their common ancestor Av’ram-Ibrahim. Judaism was the most influential belief system in the local environment of the Hagarenes. Therefore, they decided that staying in the realm of the Mosaic faith while upholding their own Abrahamic-Ibrahimî doctrines, and taking up the closest position to the principal religion would be beneficial. Here is the impression we get according to the official story:

There should be nothing strange in his attitude, because Moses, Torah and Judaism were predominant in the Arabian Peninsula. Arabian and Jewish communities were living side by side. Monotheism was already flourishing. The stories in the Torah might have helped the Messenger exemplify the abstract concept of sole god. There would be nothing more acceptable than to adopt the ‘personified’ god of the Torah, who had sent ‘ordinances’, the edicts of whom were collected in a book, and who has been a source of inspiration for the other belief systems.

When the Messenger realized that he could not stay on in his native town and decided to go to Medina he must have believed that the Jews there would adopt a favourable attitude towards him. This attitude could have meant a mutual front against the Arab heathenism and Kureysh. The Messenger is said to have familiarized himself with the Jewish customs.

The official story creates the impression that the Messenger has received this support from Jews because he was able to create an ‘umma’ around him by signing the Medina Constitution with the Jewish and Arab tribes living in Medina. He must have utilized the following themes while doing that:

Especially the third theme and the historical notes by the Monophysite Patriarch of Antioch, John I (St. John Damascene, Joannes Damascenus), make me consider the possibility of the Messenger presenting him as the expected messiah when found a receptive audience.

Before moving to Medina, the Messenger has reportedly sent a letter to the person he had dispatched to that city as an intermediary. In this letter he wanted meetings of prayer organized on Fridays, because on this day Jews were getting ready for their Sabbath.

Jews were fasting on the tenth day of the month of Tishri (teshrin/tishrin/tisrin in Arabic). The Jewish year begins in September or October (tisrin’ül sani in Arabic) with Rosh Hashanah (The day the world was caused into existence by YHVH). On this day, he caused all the creatures to stand in judgment. The following ten days are spent in repentance. At the end of these days Yom Kippur arrives. This is the holiest of the Jewish year. People fast for twenty-five hours, no material or sexual comforts are allowed and much of the time is spent in the synagogues, confessing. At the end of the day the sinner is believed to have repented and forgiven by god. Yom Kippur is called asura / ashura (asura in Arabic is the tenth day of the Arabic month Muharram, the first month of the year). The Messenger  has wanted Muslims to take part in these asura celebrations.

Furthermore the Messenger had set an hour of worship and prayer in midday, in parallel with the Jewish customs. He borrowed certain prohibitions about consuming pig flesh, blood, and the flesh of an animal died a normal death or killed by another animal.

He has ordered his followers to turn to Yerushalim/Al Kuds while praying.

As reported by Ibn Ishak (Sira) in those early days of the Hagarene doctrines, Jews used to assemble in the mosque and listen to the stories of the mu’minûn (the early believers who were not yet called ‘Muslims’) and laughed and scoffed at their religion.

In his book titled Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam Robert G. Hoyland has published the background, commentary, and evaluation of over a hundred sources that date between 630 A.D. and 780 A.D., which is accepted as the formative period of Islam. Here are some excerpts from this book:

 

The above excerpts from Joannes Damascenus are extremely valuable in showing us what the Messenger was thinking about and what he was doing. These notes also show the bits and pieces he has borrowed from others to form his own collection of doctrines. Let us carry on with more excerpts:

Robert G. Hoyland has this section on Theophilus of Edessa (d. 785 A.D.):

In his notes Joannes Damascenus has this to say about the Hagarene Messenger: “A false prophet…surnamed Mamed…put together his own heresy.” The author of these notes is a Christian. The Church claimed to have the sole authority to determine and teach the fundamental dogmas of faith, and condemned as heresy any deviation from the set principles. Therefore, one might tend to think that the above statement by Joannes Damascenus is indicative of a deviation from Christianity. The Messenger’s teaching (Sabian faith, Abraham-Ibrahim’s religion) was initiated by the Gnostic sects of the 1st century A.D., which were seen as heretic groups. Therefore, it is correct to say that a new ‘individual’ has entered the stage with a new teaching. This act by its nature is a ‘heresy’ for the existing belief systems. In the memoirs of Joannes Damascenus the founder of this ‘religious heresy’ is depicted as follows:

[(*) Arian/Aryan is the name given to the followers of Arius in those days. According to Catholics the ‘Word’ (Yshua) was a true god like his father. But according to Arius and his followers Yshua was a secondary and dependent god, in other words he was not a real supreme being with no beginning and end. Arius was a priest in a church in Alexandria in 323 A.D. When he insisted on his views, he was excommunicated and thrown out of Church. He departed from Egypt and went to Palestine, and continued preaching. He managed to build a large following. Upon his success a Council met in Nicea/Nikaia (Iznik in present day Turkey) in 325 A.D., condemned Arianism and published a book of principles describing Catholicism. But Arius’ views continued to spread and cause disputes.]

 

The impression we get from here is that a person surnamed Mamed has founded a ‘religious heresy’ of his own and declared a teaching presumably based on but different from Christianity. The Messenger’s faith was a Gnostic teaching based on the Sabian faith, and enhanced by the material borrowed from the books of Moses and from Christianity, Zoroastrianism and other local cultures. From this angle the Messenger’s teaching may also be seen as a deviation from the Mosaic faith. The Messenger’s revelations addressed both the Jews and Christians.

On the claim that the Messenger had a tutor/storyteller, the Nestorian(**) tradition has maintained that the tutor of the Messenger was a Nestorian monk named Sergius Bhira (Arabs call him Bahira).

[(**) Nestorianism is another religious grouping caused by the differences of understanding related to Yshua. This sect was accused of heresy. Nestorianism argues that Yshua is not god, but a human with god-like characteristics. Nestorianism claimed that Mary also should not be called ‘theotekos’, which means the ‘mother of god,’ because Mary is not the mother of a god, but khristostekos, which means the ‘mother of Yshua who is a human.’ Nestorianism was widespread in Arabia. It is recorded that the Messenger was not totally against the Nestorians, and those Nestorians who did establish good relations with the Messenger have continued to preach their views.]

According to what has been told Sergius Bhira was an excommunicated Nestorian monk, who helped the Messenger in his literary, political and religious activities. When Bhira died a Jewish rabbi called Ka’b has reportedly taken over the position of tutor-storyteller. The Sergius Bhira story is so deep rooted and strong that some scholars of our day have gone so far as to argue that in order to understand Kuran rightly the Sergius Bhira story should be known in depth. Certain verses of Kuran have been presented as indicating the existence of Sergius. Here is Kuran 9:83:

One would immediately realize that the source of this command (‘say’) is not the supreme being. For the sentence ‘From now on when Allah cause you to meet with a group of theirs’ to be a command by god (with god speaking) the beginning should have been: ‘When I cause you to meet...’ Therefore, the ‘say’ command belongs to the tutor-advisor. Bhira or someone else, would it make a difference? What matters is that there has been a tutor or tutors.

A. Sprenger and T. Noldeke have collected the Islamic traditions related to this subject, and Francois Nau has studied the Byzantine sources.

The parallelism between Arianism and Nestorianism seem to corroborate the account by Joannes Damascenus and the Nestorian claims about a ‘tutor’. Kuran also rejects the godhead of Yshua. In a nutshell this claim about a Nestorian ‘tutor’ sounds acceptable.

Let us deal with this claim that the Messenger ‘...as a pretence adopts the appearance of being religious toward the people.’ Why would he do that?

This is the heart of the matter!

 

THE HAGARENE MESSENGER ANNOUNCES THE KIBLA

Kuran 3:96-97 must be the declaration made by the Hagarene Messenger who adopted the faith of Ibrahim (Bahram the Mandaî) when he announced the kıbla: “The first Beyt (house of god) established to be a source of abundance for the realms and a guide for the people is the one in Bakka. There are clear signs, Ibrahim’s stone (Makam-ı Ibrahim) is there. Those who enter the place will be secure. Pilgrimage there by those who can afford the journey is a duty men owe to Allah.”

In the beginning the Hagarenes have turned towards north while praying. They have built and aligned their mosques accordingly. They have turned to north, but where in the north? There must have been an actual place there.

The Hagarene Messenger’s self-proclaimed Abrahamic-Ismaelite connection with the Jews made everyone jump to the conclusion;

The following points are what we get if we break down the announcement in Kuran 3:96, which established the first kıbla:

Yerushalim has never been called Bakka. There is no ‘place’ in Yerushalim with that name. We cannot solve this problem if we follow Torah and Judaism. Therefore, we have to look to the Samaritan Torah for the solution.

Now some crucial points to remember:

There’s no need to extend this list. What we have is sufficient to show that the orientation of the movement was north, towards Palestine, both physically and spiritually. Yerushalim and Palestine was the land promised to the Hebrews (later Jews) who were the brothers of the Arabs. Therefore, if one brother had a right on Palestine and Yerushalim, the other brother also had the same right, which could easily be described as a ‘family affair’.

The Messenger and the Hagarenes had never had Makka in their scope. The Makka orientated ideology was born as a result of the intervention by the desert Arabs after the death of the Messenger.

But Yerushalim was much more desirable and suitable for the desert Arabs. Yerushalim was much more important and in the forefront. Yerushalim was also ideal to conceal the first and real kıbla, Bakka. Pushing Bakka to the background, and erasing it from the memory meant cutting the ties of the transformed teaching with the northern Arabia, Medyen-Midian-Madian. That is why the only candidate for a kıbla in the north for the nationalist desert Arabs has always been Yerushalim.

The ‘city Kadesh’ (Yerushalim/Al Kuds) was a ready-made candidate. Since the Messenger had declared himself and his followers as the progeny of Abraham through his son Ismail, the ‘rock’/sahra on the Temple Mount is accepted as the place of the attempted sacrifice of I’zak (Ismail for Muslims) by his father Av’ram. Therefore, it must have been thought as the perfect location for the kıbla. Thus sahra (the rock) on mount Moriya was accepted as Ibrahim’s stone (makom Av’ram, ‘makam-ı Ibrahim’), which was established as a feature of the Beyt (house of god) on Zion in Yerushalim. Jews have believed that sahra was the centre of the world. Everything seemed to fall in place. What a gross mistake! No one really thought about what the place called Bakka in Kuran 3:96 had meant, and what an upheaval it would cause in the world of Islam. Moreover, crucial questions have never been asked, and even if they had been asked, we were kept ignorant of the answers:

Here are a few extra questions:

Makka has never been in the sights of the Hagarene movement. They have never developed an interest towards a place called ‘Makka’. That is the reason why there is no Makka in Kuran. There are references only to a ‘sacred shrine’, and a ‘sacred place’.  Following the transformation of the Hagarene teaching into Islam by the desert Arabs, and by their overwhelming influence, Ka’ba has come to be accepted as the ‘sacred shrine.’ But the Messenger and his followers who initiated the Hagarene teaching were Midianites. These Midianites had a sentimental connection not with Makka, but with Palestine. This sentimental connection also has led to the impression that Yerushalim was the first kıbla.  But no one has realized the importance of the place called Bakka in Kuran 3:96, or if they has, they kept it to themselves and did not dare disclose the truth.

The first kıbla was in Bakka as declared in Kuran. But the ‘supposed’ kıbla in Yerushalim (presented wrongly and on purpose as the first kıbla) took its place in the story of Islam. In this progression of kıblas Makka is the last and third kıbla. Yerushalim was a misunderstanding. Desert Arabs have accepted this misconception with gratitude, because it would be instrumental in covering up the truth, which otherwise would have destroyed the tale of Makka.

 

TEMPLE HILL IN YERUSHALIM AND KA’BA THE SUN TEMPLE

The first structure reportedly built for the Messenger is the one in Kuba; it is called the first mascid-mescid (from the root sücud in Arabic which means prostrating and touching the ground with the forehead during prayer). Mescid has its ancient roots in the Nabataean and Syriac word masgeda or mesgad, meaning a place for worship, a place to kneel before the divine entities. This word has also passed to Abyssinian as mesgad.

Almost all of the belief systems have captured the sacred places of the earlier cults and belief systems, built their own temples on those locations and begun performing their own rituals there. The Islamic mythology about Ka’ba shows another example of those attempts throughout the history to take the ownership of a well-established place from another belief system as a place of reverence or worship. The Muslims (after they transformed the Hagarene teaching into Islam) had turned the Sun temple Ka’ba into a sacred Muslim shrine when they overpowered the cults and beliefs in Makka. The Hagarenes earlier had behaved identically when they captured and converted the mount Moriya  (Temple Mount of the Jews) in Yerushalim into a sacred place for the Hagarenes in 636, 637, or 638 A.D.

Here is a testimony by the Armenian Bishop Sebeos (660s A.D.):

A small mascid (prayer house) was reportedly built there immediately, which was enlarged around 670 A.D. to hold 3000 people. This prayer house was turned into the Al Aksa mosque (Grand Larousse Encyclopedique). Another place of veneration (Dome of the Rock=Kubbet-üs Sahra) was built in 691 A.D. This was the place where once stood the Temple of Solomon.

Without failing to remember the absence of either written records or an archaeological evidence of any kind, if Av’ram-Abraham-Ibrahim had built / rebuilt Ka’ba together with his son Ish’mael-Ismail he must have been a Sun worshipper. If he was a Moon and star worshipper we must place him among the Sabians of Harran. In those ages when Av’ram-Abraham is supposed to have lived, Sun, Moon and stars were considered the suitable intermediaries to reach the ‘prime mover’ / supreme being according to the Sabians of Harran.  Their square temples were dedicated  to Sun. Ka’ba was most probably a Sun temple. I believe, it is right to say that the suras of Kuran named after the Sun and Moon and the vows to the stars, Sun and the Moon are the remnants of the days of the Hagarene teaching, the Mandaean-Sabian faith, which is the original form of Islam. Both versions of the Sabian faith were known in the Arabian Peninsula in those days. Do not forget that Umar Ibn al-Khattab had accused the Messenger of being a Sabian and tried to kill him.

The Moon and stars in the flags of the Muslim states are also the remnants of the Sabian faith.

The popular legend has it that, the ancestor of the Kureysh tribe Qusayy/Kuseyy had moved to Makka towards the end of the 5th century A.D. and settled in the Makkan valley beside the sanctuary (supposedly the Ka’ba of our times). On his return from one of his travels to Syria he is said to have brought with him the three goddesses, Al Lat, Al Uzza, and Manat (Menat) to Hicaz and placed the god Hubal in Ka’ba. Lat, Manat and Uzza were represented with standing stones at Taif, Qudayd on the Red Sea coast, and at Nakhla respectively. Later, Kureysh managed to take control of the Ka’ba and expelled Khuza’a, the guardian tribe of Makka and Ka’ba. This ancestor of the Messenger, Kuseyy, is said to have been the leader of a faith called the Makkan religion, which was supposedly a branch of the Abrahamic belief system. Some western scholars claim that the Makkan religion was ancestor worship, but this is doubtful.

The Ka’ba is said to have been a sacred place where all kinds of beliefs and cults were tolerated before the advent of Islam. There were 360 idols and the icons of Maryam-Miryam-Mary and Yshua in this place. This is only natural, is it not? This sacred place belonged to the supreme being. Therefore, all the believers had the right to keep in here their idols, which were looked upon as intermediaries to their gods. Hubel (Hubal), which actually was the Semitic god Baal adapted to the Arabs, was also in the sacred place. The black meteorite Hacar-ul Aswad was also in there. The Muslims continued with the pre-Islamic tradition of venerating this stone, which they believed to have fallen from the Moon (Moon cult?). In principle all the followers of different faiths and cults had the right to enter this sacred place without discrimination, and all kinds of disputes and conflict were banned within a radius of ~10 miles around the sacred place. There were other places of worship dedicated to different divinities and also symbols of different supreme entities. A square stone was the symbol of Al Lat; another stone of a different shape between Taif and Makka belonged to Al Uzza; and a black stone between Makka and Medina was the symbol of Menat (Manathu, Manutu).

The Babylonian and Chaldean astrology and magic had a profound influence on the cults and belief systems of the region, and Arabia wasn’t immune to it. The practice of walking around the Ka’ba seven times, and the 360 images in Ka’ba are reportedly related to the seven planets of the Babylonian system and the 360 days of the Sumerian calendar (which the Hebrews share with their Jubilees Calendar) respectively. Each Arab had his protecting star from amongst the ‘houses of the Moon’. That is why Ka’ba is allegedly aligned also for lunar and stellar observation.

In the beginning Ka’ba most probably was not important for the authors of the codebook of Islam. On the other hand, El Kuds (Yerushalim) had a great importance. Palestine was supposedly the place where Av’ram had settled after leaving Ur. Palestine was also the Promised Land given by YHVH (also the god of the Hagarenes) to the Hebrews. According to the story in Torah Yerushalim was a sacred city in the centre of Palestine.

Av’ram was supposedly the forefather of the Hebrews, who were considered the predecessors of the Jews. Av’ram had a wife Saray and a slave named Hagar. Saray had a son named I’zak and Hagar had a son named Ish’mael. Jews claim to have descended from I’zak. The Hagarenes believe that they are the descendants of Ish’mael. Therefore, Jews and the Ismaelites are supposedly half-brothers, which means that the Hagarenes had a birthright on Palestine like their half-brothers, In other words the Palestine question was a family affair for them. If we keep all this in mind we could easily say the Hagarene movement had Palestine in its scope from the beginning. According to the scholars and researchers who thought likewise, hicra was not a movement from Makka to Medina as told in the story, but it was the beginning of a drive northward towards Palestine. This is also what I believe.

 

 THE MESSENGER, MU’MINÛN-JEWISH ALLIANCE, HANIFS, AND IBRAHIM

Now, let us look into the claims that the Jews and the mu’minûn (followers of the Messenger) were acting together in those early years. From what is written in Kuran we get the impression that it was the Messenger who had severed relations with the Jews in 624 A.D. (or soon after the Hicra in 622 A.D.), and changed the direction of prayer from Yerushalim to Makka. The early non-Muslim sources, however, describe a good relationship between the ‘Muslims’ and Jews at the time of the first conquests in late 620s A.D., and even later. The Doctrina Jacobi, written in Palestine between 634-640 A.D., (presented also as a Greek anti-Jewish tract) warns of “the Jews who mix with the Saracens, and the danger to life and limb of falling into the hands of these Jews and Saracens” (N. Bonwetsch; M. Cook).

This relationship seems to have carried right on into the conquests. A proof of this could be found in bishop Sebeos’ (early Armenian), who wrote that the governor of Jerusalem in the aftermath of the conquest was a Jew (Patkanean; Sebeos). The possibility that Jews and Arabs (Ismaelite-Hagarenes, Saracens, Muhammadans) have been allies during the time of the conquest of Palestine (in 637 or 638 A.D.) and even for some time after (P. Crone-M. Cook) is significant. If the witness is correct (there is no reason to think not) then Jews and the Hagarenes were still allies as late as 639-640 A.D.

In the Doctrina Jacobi the Judeo-Arab intimacy is reportedly evidenced again by the indications of a marked hostility towards Christianity on the part of the co-invaders. According to N. Bonwetsch, Doctrina Jacobi mentions a converted Jew who protests that he will not deny Christ as the Son of god even if the Jews and Saracens caught him and cut him to pieces. Apparently, the author has believed that the mu’minûn (Hagarenes) and Jews were in alliance with each other well into the conquests.

This theory seems to be authenticated by the document known as the Constitution of Medina. In this document, Jews appear as forming one community (‘umma’) with the believers despite the retention of their own religion and are distributed nameless among a number of Arab tribes (Gottingen; Guillaume; Crone-Cook). Since, “the Constitution of Medina is plausibly one of the most archaic elements of the Islamic tradition, its agreement with the earliest external accounts of the origins of Islam is highly significant” (Crone-Cook). On the other hand, according to Kuran, the Messenger had severed his ties with the Jews as early as 624 A.D., more than 15 years earlier than the evidence indicated. Who is telling the truth?

At this point we should remember again the Doctrina Jacobi. This oldest text related to our subject matter reports that a messenger who appeared amongst the Saracens has declared the coming of the messiah. The messenger here could be no one but the Ismaelite-Hagarene Messenger, and the expected messiah is a mixture of the political messiah of the Jews and the messiah of the Christians. This claim is confirmed in a Jewish apocalypse (an  8th century document in which there is an earlier apocalypse which seems to be contemporary with the conquests).

Some of the things written by the Palestinian Christian historian Salamanes Hermeias Sozomenos (5th century A.D.) are extremely important for the developments that would lead eventually to an alliance between the Ismaelite mu’minûn and the Jews in the 7th century A.D. Sozomenos recorded, “The Ismaelite monotheism which was identical with the Hebrew beliefs until the time of Moses is re-emerging.” Moreover, observing the situation in his era he stated “The laws of Ish’mael must have been distorted due to the passage of time and the influence of the neighbouring irreligious peoples.” Sozomenos has also told how some Arab tribes, upon learning their  Ismaelite history from the Jews, have adopted the Jewish faith. The statement by Sozomenos’ that “the Ismaelite monotheism that was identical with the Hebrew beliefs until the time of Moses” is extremely important. Hebrews were polytheists. Av’ram was a polytheist. Ish’mael supposedly was the son of Av’ram, which makes Ish’mael a polytheist as well. Do not forget that the Gnostic Sabians (Haemerobaptists, Mandaeans) were considered as pagans and polytheists. But they were the keepers of the ‘secret’ knowledge (dated to Sumer) and they believed in the Prime Mover.

According to the Messenger and to the desert Arabs who transformed the original Hagarene teaching Ibrahim (Av’ram) was a monotheist hanif. If that is so, we must ask some questions:

We are unable to know more than what is told here. I would like to address those of you who are lost about what to think after the revelation related to Ebrum in the Ebla texts (1000 years before Av’ram) and the character called Bahram in the Mandaean folk tales (2000 years after the time of Av’ram): Picture yourself as listening to a fairy tale created by the collected elements from sources like the Ebla texts and the Mandaean folk tales. You are in the realm of irrational and fabricated narratives.

 

WHERE DID MAKKA STAND IF YERUSHALIM WAS THE ‘SACRED CITY’?

According to the ‘official’ story of Islam, the Messenger ordered his followers to turn to Yerushalim for prayers. This implies that Yerushalim was the first kıbla, the ‘sacred place’ of the earlier period, Then we learn that a rift has appeared between the Messenger and the Jews, and a new order was given: The new kıbla is the Ka’ba in Makka. But this change of direction must have taken place after the death of the Messenger and not when he was alive as told in the story. Because this quarrel and the subsequent falling out with the Jews has appeared simultaneously with the advent of the nationalist ideology of the desert Arabs, while they transformed the Hagarene teaching into Islam. Thus, Makka has become the second ‘sacred place’, kıbla, in the process of evolution from the Ismaelite teaching to Islam.

This fact is made clear by Kuran 3:96. But the story by the ideology of the Arab nationalism presents a narration centred on Ka’ba and Makka.

Here is the passage where Sebeos describes the appearance of the Messenger (‘Muhammad’) in 660 A.D.:

In order to understand fully the significance of this quote I have to explain some points:

The chronicler, who is believed to be bishop Sebeos, describes how the Ismaelite Messenger had established a community with the Jews. The Messenger had persuaded them that their common platform was their common descent from Av’ram-Abraham: Arabs via Ish’mael, and the Jews via I’zak (Sebeos; P. Crone-M. Cook; M. Cook). The chronicler believed the Messenger had endowed both communities with a birthright on the Holy Land, while simultaneously providing them with a monotheist genealogy (P. Crone-M. Cook). According to Crone and Cook this is not without precedent, as the idea of an Ismaelite birthright on the Holy Land was discussed and rejected earlier in the Genesis Rabba (61:7) in the Babylonian Talmud and in the Book of Jubilees. But now the Messenger, as the final messenger of the sole god, was laying claim to that birthright once again.

The Constitution of Medina seems to authenticate what is written in the Sebeos’ account. In this document Jews appear as forming one community (‘umma’) with the mu’minûn (Ismaelites) despite the retention of their own religion, and are distributed nameless among a number of Arab tribes (A. Guillaume; P. Crone-M. Cook). Since, “the Constitution of Medina is plausibly one of the most archaic elements of the Islamic tradition, its agreement with the earliest external accounts of the origins of Islam is highly significant” (P. Crone-M. Cook).

According to the accepted tradition, the earliest believers of the Messenger’s teaching, mu’minûn, are believed to have accepted Yerushalim as the first kıbla. This tradition is still valid. Here we should ask some crucial questions:

The picture revealed by the answers to these questions would have a meaning only if the following conditions were present:

Now it is about time we dealt with the Dome of the Rock=Kubbet-üs Sahra on the Temple Mount in Old Yerushalim. Sahra means the ‘rock’. Sahra is the supposedly sacred rock under the Dome. Here is the first question that comes to mind:

The person who had this structure built in 691 A.D. on the place where the Temple of the Jews stood once was the Omayyad caliph Abd al Malik bin Mervan. Structure is not a mosque. It has no mihrab turned towards kıbla. Its eight sides suggest that it was built as a structure for circumambulation. In short it is a sanctuary.

Now the second question:

Kubbet-üs Sahra is third in the line of sacred places for Islam, after Makka and Medina. According to the ideology of Islam it was built to honour the night when the Messenger has ascended to the heaven to discuss the number of daily prayers with Moses and Allah. This story must definitely be a later addition by the desert Arabs after they transformed the original teaching.

There are more questions. When the believers were ordered to turn supposedly to Yerushalim for prayers there was no Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount. Moreover the Temple of the Jews were destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. Therefore, there was no sacred structure on the mount of Zion when the Messenger was alive.

The Dome of the Rock may not have been sacred for the Arabs, but the ‘Rock’=Sahra was there. Jews have considered Sahra as the ‘centre of the world’. They have also believed that this ‘Rock’ was the actual place where Av’ram had supposedly brought his son I’zak to offer to his god. Besides, Solomon’s Temple stood there once upon a time.

According to another proposition the Omayyad caliph had the Dome built where it stands because Abdullah Ibn-ül Zübeyr in Makka had challenged the Omayyad authority in Palestine. In response to this challenge the Omayyad caliph Abd al Malik had decided to change the yearly Hajj/Hac from Makka and Medina to Yerushalim. Consequently, he had the Dome built in 691 A.D. as a sanctuary on the ‘Rock’ that is connected with Ibrahim (Av’ram).

In the inscriptions on the walls of the Dome of the Rock there is no mention of mi’rac, the ascent to heaven (Van Berchem; Y. Nevo). These inscriptions are understood to be quotations from Kuran addressing especially the Christians.

Now let us look into the reasons why the Arabs may have called Yerushalim ‘El Kuds’. Yerushalim is called ‘a place kadesh’ in the Old Testament. Here are some examples:

The Egyptian inscriptions also call this land as God’s Land and Kadesh.

Therefore, this city was kadesh for all the peoples of the region. Kadesh in Hebrew is holy, sacred; kuds in Arabic means also holy, sacred. The words, kadesh and kuds have the same root letters: ‘k’, ‘d’, ‘s’. Based on the popular understanding that the Hagarenes were the ‘brothers’ of the Jews, no one had thought of questioning the Ismaelites’ (proto Muslims’) supposed choice of the holy city Al Kuds as their kıbla. Do not forget that a great majority of the elements of the Hagarene teaching was borrowed from the Mosaic scriptures.

Why did caliph Abd al Malik had the Dome of the Rock built there? According to Dr. Hawting, who quotes the Islamic tradition, caliph Suleyman (715-717 A.D.) went to Makka to ask about the Hac. He was not satisfied with the response he had received there. Abdullah Ibn-ul Zubayr the caliph in Makka was challenging the Omayyad rule in Palestine. Upon which caliph Abd al Malik (of the Omayyads) attempted to divert the annual pilgrimage from Makka and Medina to Yerushalim; as a consequence he’d had the Dome erected over the sacred stone sahra in 691 A.D. In the end caliph Suleyman chose to follow Abd al Malik’s choice and visited the Dome of the Rock. This may be taken as an indication again of the inherent tension between the desert Arabs and the northern Arabs. Caliph Suleyman’s action might have contributed also to the confusion as to the location of the sanctuary as late as the early 8th century A.D. Furthermore, Caliph Suleyman’s trip to Makka may be taken as an indication that at long last this city had started assuming the role of the religious centre of Islam decades after the Messenger’s death. It also shows that the desert Arabs have somehow managed to change the place of the sacred shrine from Bakka in the north to Makka.

 

WHICH WAS THE REAL KIBLA (IN THE NORTH) OF THE HAGARENES?

The predecessors of Muslims, the Hagarene mu’minûn, were turning towards north in their prayers, but where in the north. Yerushalim (Al Kuds) has always been thought as the first kıbla. But the first kıbla was in Bakka. Now let us remember again the points I have made:

 

MOSQUES WERE ALIGNED TOWARDS THE DECLARED KIBLA

Those who evaluate the importance of Yerushalim from the angle of Islam have assumed that firstly the mu’minûn (Hagarenes) then the believers of Islam turned to Yerushalim-Al Kuds when praying. In other words, they thought that kıbla was either Yerushalim or a certain locality in the city. The story on the changing of the kıbla wants us to believe the Messenger ordered this change when he realized that the Jews were rejecting him. For this reason he is believed to have ordered the believers around him to turn not to Yerushalim but to Makka while praying. We will see that this narration of the Arab nationalist ideology is wrong.

First, we have to look into this in a historical perspective. According to the existing opinion, the alignment of the supposedly earliest two mosques demonstrates that the direction to turn to in the early days was Yerushalim-Al kuds. The archaeological evidence obtained from these mosques (built in the 7th century A.D. when the Messenger was still alive) indicates clearly the direction of the first kıbla. The archaeological research done by K. A. C. Creswell and G. Fehervari on ancient mosques in the Middle East shows that the floor plans of the two Umayyad mosques in Irak also show this direction clearly. One of the mosques was built at the beginning of the 8th century A.D. by the governor Haccac in Wasit, which Creswell notes as ‘the oldest mosque in Islam of which remains have come down to us.’ The second one that is attributed roughly to the same period is near Baghdad. Both have kıblas that do not face Makka, but are oriented too far north. The Wasit mosque is said to be off by 33 degrees, and the Baghdad mosque is off by 30 degrees. This agrees with Baladhuri’s testimony (Futuh, edited by de Goeje).

A combination of the archaeological evidence from Irak and literary evidence from Syria and Egypt point unambiguously to a direction of prayer not in the south, but somewhere in northwest Arabia at least till the end of the 7th century A.D. (P. Crone, M. Cook, P. Carlier, Dr. Hawting). I think this direction should be even further north.

According to Dr. Hawting of the School of Oriental and African Studies new archaeological discoveries of mosques in Egypt from the early 700s A.D. also show that until then the ‘Muslims’ (or Hagarenes, Hacirîn, Muhammadans) were indeed praying not towards Makka, but towards north, possibly towards Yerushalim. In fact, Dr. Hawting maintains that no mosques have been found from the 7th century A.D. that faced towards Makka. He cautions, however, that not all of the kıblas faced Yerushalim. Some Jordanian mosques have been uncovered which faced north while there are certain North African mosques, which faced south, implying that there was some confusion as to where the early sanctuary was placed.

Research done by Patricia Carlier on the Umayyad caliphal summer palaces has established that the mosques at these palaces had kıblas pointing towards Yerushalim as well.

The original ground plan of the mosque of Amr bin al-As, located in Fustat (the garrison town outside Cairo), reportedly had its kıbla pointing too far north and had to be corrected later under the governorship of Kurra bin Sharik. Interestingly this agrees with the later Islamic tradition compiled by Ahmad bin al Makrizi that Amr prayed facing ‘slightly south of east’ and not towards south (Al Makrizi; Crone-Cook).

Implication in Kuran is that the direction of the kıbla was changed towards Makka and the break with the Jews had occurred close to 624 A.D., and has remained in that direction until the present! (Kuran 2:144,149-150), but this information is not consistent with the evidence obtained from the mosques built later than 624 A.D.

The mhaggraye (Ismaelites, Hagarenes) in Syria should turn south if they have to face the Ka’ba of today. But according to Ya’kub they turned west. Therefore, the ‘ka’ba’ here could not be the one in Makka. Here the word ‘ka’ba’ needs an explanation. There were many ‘ka’bas’ in existence in those days, usually in market towns. “It was profitable to build a ka’ba in these market towns so that the people coming to market could also do their pilgrimage or penitence to the idols contained within” (P. Crone-M. Cook). Therefore, according to Ya’kub of Edessa as late as 705 A.D. (80 years after the supposed date of change of kıbla quoted in the official accounts), the direction of prayer towards Makka has not yet been canonized.  Bakka, where Av’ram had erected a stone at the ‘house of god’ was still the direction to turn to, but the mu’minûn (the Ismaelite observants) might have thought mistakenly that they were turning to Yerushalim.

Ya’kub of Edessa had also stated that the Ismaelites were turning towards their ‘patriarchal places’. There should be nothing strange in this expression, because the Ismaelites had accepted Av’ram as their patriarch (sharing him with the Jews, and which is also established by an Armenian chronicler as early as 660 A.D. ­- Sebeos; P. Crone-M. Cook). Therefore, Bakka was their ‘patriarchal place’. Bakka was the ‘sacred place’ for the Hagarenes. Bakka was in Shechem near Nablus (Neapolis) in Palestine. Bakka is situated to the west of Syria.

This statement is also correct, because mihrab (kıbla) of the mosque should have been facing west, the direction of Bakka!

When questioned on this confusion about the place of the kıbla the Arabs respond as they do whenever they are cornered and argue “those early Muslims might have been ignorant of the locality of Makka.” How ridiculous an argument could be. Those early Muslims were desert traders; they had caravans travelling to the four corners of their world! They earned their living by travelling the desert, and found their way around in this environment where there are very few landmarks, frequent sandstorms, and no roads. First and foremost, they knew how to follow the stars, because their lives depended on it. They most certainly knew right from left, and north from south, didn't they? So does it sound right that they might have been ignorant of the geographical position of Makka? This could have been possible only if the Makka of those days were an insignificant place. It is not wrong to state that Makka was still unknown, because there are no references to Makka in the records of those days.

Another dimension could be introduced to the belief that the kıbla of the earlier days was Yerushalim. The mu’minûn known with labels like Hacerîn, Hacirîn, Ismaelites, mahgraye, mhaggraye, muhacirîn, saracens were in good relations with the Jews. Therefore, the idea that the Hagarenes have adopted Yerushalim as their kıbla with the aim of winning Jews over to their teaching might have taken root mistakenly.

 

MESSENGER AND HIS FOLLOWERS START RAIDS ON THE BYZANTINE TERRITORIES IN THE NORTH

If the objective of the Messenger in creating an ‘umma’ around his teaching in Medina was not ‘imperialism’ (which is the practice of the nationalist Islam of later epochs), then what was it? If I am right, his objective in the beginning must have been to ‘advance’ towards north, to capture Palestine and reach the ruins of Bakka, where the ‘first house of god’ (the expression in Kuran 3:96) of Av’ram stood once.

Michael Cook wrote that a papyrus dated 643 A.D. spoke of the year ‘twenty two,’ suggesting that something has happened in the Arab world in 622 A.D. The papyrus does not explain actually what has happened. But the year referred to coincides with the year of the hicra/hegira of the official Islamic history. But the unofficial history may have other things in store for us. Here we must remember what I have written about hicra earlier: Hicra actually was the movement to Medina from the land of Midian-Madian-Medyen. The Hicra in 622 A.D. of the official ideology of Islam was actually the initiation of the Hagarene raids towards north. The ‘Muslim’ label is missing in the Greek and Syriac sources of those days, because there were no ‘Muslims’ in those days, the raiders were Hagarene mu’minûn. The official Islamic literature, the Islamic tradition, maintains that hicra is moving from Makka to Medina, but the scholars point out that these official ‘historians’ cannot provide an early source from the 7th century A.D. that would prove the historicity of this ‘exodus’ (P. Crone-M. Cook). One must remember at this point that the earliest manuscript we have is an inner Arabian biography of the Messenger on a papyrus of the late Umayyad period (dated ~750 A.D.), which is 100 years after the death of the Messenger (Avraham Grohman).

We have two Nestorian ecclesiastical documents from 676 A.D. and 680 A.D. that give the starting point (Hicra) not as a movement within the Arabian Peninsula but as the emigration of the Ismaelites from the peninsula to a destination possibly outside of Arabia (P. Crone-M. Cook). We have a clue, which may indicate that this movement was towards the Promised Land. Here is an Islamic tradition compiled by Abu Daud : “There will be Hicra after Hicra, but the best of men are to follow the Hicra of Ibrahim.” The last three words, ‘Hicra of Ibrahim’, seem to be the key to the puzzle. According to some Muslims this statement must be understood theologically to imply Av’ram’s-Ibrahim’s movement from idolatry to monotheism. No way!

The ‘event’ in the year ‘twenty-two’ was taken as the starting point of the Islamic calendar, but;

From that angle, understanding the traditional, ‘official’ Hicra as the push towards north with the aim of conquering lands to the north seems much more likely.

If we go back to the two Nestorian documents of 676 A.D. and 680 A.D., according to which the starting point (Hicra) is not a movement within the Arabian Peninsula but a movement of the Ismaelite-Hagarenes from the Peninsula to a destination outside of Arabia. If that is the case (which I believe it is) then the ‘Hicra’ of the official ideology in fact becomes ‘parting with Medina, the city of the Messenger’ for the Ismaelite- Hagarenes, who were acting together with the Jews living there. The desert Arabs who edited the Ismaelite scriptures must have omitted the ‘real Hicra’ from Midian to Medina from their nationalist story. Moreover they must have altered the content of the ‘movement’ towards north in 622 A.D. and presented it as a movement from Makka to Medina, with the aim of changing the orientation of the movement.

Here is the summary: The initiation of raids by the alliance of Ismaelites and Jews into the Byzantine territories in the north in 622 A.D. has become the starting point of the later nationalist, expansionist conquests of the desert Arabs. Departing from Medina was transformed into a story of ‘exodus’ from the ‘polytheist Makka to monotheist Medina’ and inserted as such into the newly written Islamic literature by the desert Arabs.

Many writers recording the events of that era have believed that the Ismaelite-Jewish alliance was moving not to impose a new teaching but to conquer new territories. Some Christian Arab tribes also are thought to have helped this push.

 

 

 

Islam page 3