And that doesn't alarm you ?
lol
Posted on 08/29/2011 5:03:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
It needs to be noted that Arabs had been making the pilgrimage to Mecca-to the enormous granite Ka'aba, the old shrine at the center of the city-for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, before Islam to pay tribute to these 360 gods represented inside the Ka'aba's walls. Muhammad destroyed all but two -- that of the Virgin Mary, and that of Christ. However, even those representations would eventually be banned under Islam's subsequent prohibition of images. This prohibition was not endorsed by the Prophet.
Controversies have exploded over images depicting the Prophet Muhammad, namely his depiction as a turbaned terrorist in one of a dozen cartoons by Danish artists. Muslims explicitly prohibit images of God, Muhammad, and other prophets. Islam prohibits the representation of the human figure in art.
But does the Qur'an actually ban representations of Muhammad, or others? The answer is no. There is not a single verse in the Qur'an that explicitly prohibits images of Muhammad-or of ALLAH, or God, for that matter, or any other human figure.
In any event, up until that time, Mecca's most important god was the god Hubal (an idol god worshipped in Arabia), having been placed there by Muhammad's ruling Quraysh tribe. Historians state that the Ka'aba became the repository of these 360 idols and tribal gods from all of Arabia's nomadic tribes, and Hubal was the most senior of these 360 god idols worshipped in the shrine.
(Excerpt) Read more at majorreligions.com ...
So, rust free, stain free ~ sounds like it had some nickel and chrome in it, and probably that Damascene finish.
Since the final part of the Annals are written down just as the Dark Ages begin (circa 535 AD to 541 AD) it's possible we are hearing the news about someone somewhere developing that process ~ but about 200 years earlier than reported from Damascus.
The old boys in Ireland were making well-wearing tooth implants made out of iron in Julius Caesar's day ~ so it's not impossible for them to have had a superior steel technology that continued to develop for another half millenium.
You did know the vastly superior Roman Army never conquered Ireland. They were quite happy to just leave them alone ~ a small trading post was found a few years back that clearly indicated there was something in Ireland the Romans wanted but they would pay for it.
Bet you thought I'd never get around to linking the Roman Conquest of Britain to Mohammad, but there you have it.
Yeah it would. They could practice stuff like Composition, Lighting, Exposure settings, and Shadow effects. And if the bedsheets are different colors -- hopefully not from 'skid marks' ;-) -- it could make for a decent Photograph.
(I see the weirdest things on Photobucket that people enter into the 'Photo contests'. It appears that some have never heard of the word 'Focus')
But then, that religion has always struck me as weird; something a half-civilized tribesman would come up with combining bits and pieces of whatever he'd heard of at the time.
He built a small empire on genocide, polygamy, and pedophilia, and that showed his successors what was possible from pretending to follow the tenets of that phony religion. Islam is profoundly opposed to capital formation (no banking, no charging interest), to free markets (everything is controlled by the despot and his kin), to all personal liberty, while requiring the most abominable acts from its practitioners. The reason there are no moderate Muzzies is that there is only one Islam; it’s not the doctrinal differences that make them different, it’s the common behavior that makes them all the same.
If there’s to be an Arab Spring in Saudi Arabia, it will start during and as a consequence of the Hajj, and Iran will be at the bottom of it.
I’ve never read it, but I’ve heard it said the way the Koran is written it is not open to varying interpretations nor can that religion be reformed, as has been a constant process in the development of Christianity.
The black stone is reputedly a meteorite; since it hasn’t been studied, there’s not really any way to know for sure. It could be a regular stone that has become black from all the human body contact, polished smooth, and of course, coated with dead cells and saliva. :’)
We think alike.
And that doesn't alarm you ?
lol
The structure is a stone cube of sorts, mostly solid masonry, with an exterior somewhat roughened by the passage of time. There is, or perhaps was, a stairway internal to the structure, beginning near one corner, and going up to the roof. There was a large, seated-buddha-lookin’ idol basically covering the top of the kaaba in Greek times and probably for some while thereafter.
I’m not too sure about that thing I posted above (the Hindu origin of the site), but the seven circuits of the kaaba made by pilgrims is indeed a pagan holdover or leftover, and the kaaba itself antedates the big old Mo by 1000 years or more. There are those who believe that the 40 years of wandering by the post-Exodus Hebrew tribes took place in Arabia, rather than in the Sinai and points east, and it’s possible that Mohammed (who was a plagiarist) or one of the anonymous editors that followed came up with the idea that Abraham built the kaaba. It’s unlikely that the Abrahamic origin is anything but a concocted bit of supporting myth.
;’)
One of our fellow FReepers (I know him from elsewhere) recounted a true story about an all-boys class in Saudi Arabia who picked up their instructor and threw him out the window because he mentioned the fact that the Koran had undergone editing and change for centuries after the great big Mo croaked.
:’)
There were a number of Jewish Arabian tribes in the Peninsula back in the good old days and they traveled around with their Torahs ~ which, when they were worn out, were buried in the Earth as is the Jewish custom.
The religious reformer who seems to have become known as Mohammad ALSO traveled to the West bank of the Red Sea ~ so he personally had knowledge of people who professed Coptic Christianity.
Later, after the conquest of Damascus, and a long time after Mohammad had died, the leadership elite of the Arab army met in Damascus (and maybe Mecca as well) and people brought in messages that Mohammad had said ~ one guy might have a small board, one a large board, or someone else just a piece of bark ~ these items were examined by a committee of scholars familiar with the Koran and possibly other ancient religious documents.
These items turned into the Hadiths ~ or stories of Mohammad and his followers ~ and they are evaluated in terms of the number of independent sources that could be found for them.
Obviously much of the Koran is derived from buried Torah scrolls dug up out of the desert by Arabs, and some of it is less clearly derived from OTHER ancient religious texts dug up in Mecca. The most recent discovery is that a great deal of the Koran consists of materials taken from a missionary handbook prepared in Damascus ~ it was to be used by Christian missionaries out to convert the Arabs to Christianity.
Frankly it is no longer possible for Moslems to evaluate the documents underlying Islam. Too many people are ready to cut off the head of any apostate (because critical exegeses is considered heresy).
That leaves it to Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Secularists to provide whatever critical scientific evaluation can be made of the Koran and the Hadiths.
“nor can that religion be reformed”
This is the danger of Qaradawi. He is speaking of Islam as ‘progressing.’ As a Salafist, he embraces an almost mystical perspective on jihad, the ‘greening’ (AGW) version of Islam, social justice (crap), and so on. His fatwas and interpretations of the Qur’an, Hadith, Umma, and jurisprudence make way for the rabid framework of an Al Qaeda perfectly at home in a Sunni or Shi’ite environment. With the purposeful or moronic assistance of the present American Administration, nation states all around the Mediterranean are falling like dominos...to the MB, itself the progenitor of AQ. But we all know this now.
One of these days, we’re going to be up against this hard. It’s not just about Israel. I don’t have much tolerance anymore for those who don’t understand this. (Just a comment. Nothing about anything you’ve said here).
I am beginning, just beginning to think that with Libya, it’s about the money stash. And its oil. With other countries, it’s about the Suez and Gibralter, aka, trade and oil. And the Caliphate, of course.
There could be the makings of an interesting war here.
Mohmad stomping toward Mecca from Medina with a force of around 10,000 had quite a lot to do with Abu Sufyan giving up Mecca without a fight. And, after he surrendered the city, he, of course, converted... as did everyone else in the city... or else, as per usual with Islam even to this day.
The Qurash were the tribe of Mecca and a compliant Qurashi was put in charge of them as a new part of the growing Muslim Empire.
Thanks for the information. Until I read the piece linked above, I had never known that it was supposed to have been created by Abraham and Ishmael. Did you get any archeological dating of the structure, or discussion of that creation legend, in the program you watched?
Starting from that point we have to note that at least one Turkish conqueror probably rebuilt it or repaired and pointed up the mortar. He did that to everything including the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Actually invented what can only be called the modern tradition of archaeological research.
I have it on good authority he had the same thoughts about buried Torahs I had so he had the grounds around the Kaaba dug up and examined thoroughly. Mohammad used a cave. The Sultan had that dug up and examined. He had Medina dug up and examined.
There's absolutely nothing anywhere that's associated with Mohammad and the Koran that has not been disturbed.
So, if someone tells you the Kaaba has to have so and so age because of radio carbon dating, just remember, not after those digs and the visits by tens of millions of folks who circle it on the Haj.
Imagine the grounds around any NAASCAR racetrack TIMES a million!
Now, how do you date something like that? Well, let's look at the Bible. It mentions Ishmael, and ignorning that Jewish/Moslem dispute over who was getting sacrificed a moment, do we have any idea when Abraham lived?
Well, that's about 2001 BC following the internal Biblical timeline. Although there are no cooborating texts that we know of the Sumerians had already invented writing and had passed it on to the Far East and to Egypt. The practice of accountancy was known (remember the Abraham/Isaac/Jacob story involving Joseph where he put a gold cup in the grain, and yet it was detected as missing). So that could actually date some of the material in the accounting of Abraham's part of the world to about 5500 BC, or 7,500 years ago with the rise of the Ubaid culture in Iraq. That, BTW, is a really interesting time ~ the Sahara dried up and drove the people in the interior to the Nile Valley. Most Timelines date the arrival of settlers in the Nile valley at about 5,500 years ago, with the arrival of writing (hieroglyphics) at about 5,100 years ago. Better timelines of more recent vintage date the first settlements at 7,000 years ago ~ with even earlier settlements in the South in Western Sudan.
The Black Sea was formed from the previous Black Lake about 8,000 years back, so stories about events there provide the oldest data we should be able to find associated with Abraham, or any other source ~ even the Sumerian tablets.
We now know, however, that people were working with CUT STONE as far back as 12,500 years ago in Eastern Anatolia ~ which is part of the Mesopotamian cultural complex and quite possibly a place equally accessible from Egypt.
They were doing quite intricate carvings. At some time about 8500 years ago people stopped building at the Turkey site and simply buried their last temple complexes.
So, let's say somebody who knew how to cut stone to build things went to the Oasis at Mecca ~ or actually, not the Oasis but a lake out in the middle of a vast grassland ~ which would not turn into a desert land until about 5500 years ago (in tune with the Sahara.).
Odds are there was little stone construction undertaken in the Arabian peninsula until the Sahara, and Arabia, returned to savannah like conditions, so it is possible people from that Anatolian temple culture could have gone there. That would make the oldest possible date for a stone structure at Mecca about 10,000 years ago give or take a couple of thousand years, but certainly by 8500 years ago.
So, Abraham, if the Koran has a passably correct record, could have well built that building ~ or built an altar that's been there long enough to have fossilized. It is entirely conceivable that the Kaaba is simply the last working temple complex leftover from the culture we've now found active in Eastern Anatolia at the beginning of the Younger Dryas.
This leads everybody to some real problems ~ but fortunately, all you have to do is agree that Abraham built the Kaaba and you leap ahead several thousand years to a time when Saudi is a desolate wilderness where Mecca is a rare oasis with a grassland suitible for herdsmen.
I suspect that eventually somebody is going to get away with doing some more advanced dating tests on a stone or two in the Kaaba and come up with a remarkably earlier date ~ taking it right out of Abraham's time.
You'll never hear about it, of course, because that would dispute the Koran!
You are writing some good stuff, here, And I am enjoying reading it -
But how do you date a rock?
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