Posted on 10/23/2001 8:39:39 AM PDT by spycatcher
Pre-Islamic Arabia's religion was one of superstition. Belief in jinns (genies), curse casting, magic stones, totems was the norm - and it was against this background that Allah arose. Although the Quran is claimed to be a heavenly writing with no earthly source, evidence of these very sorts of cultural influence is found in such places as Suras 55, 72, 113 and 114.
Animism, the belief that spirits inhabit rocks, trees and other elements was also very commonplace. Some of these stones were venerated and used as a focal point for the worship of a particular tribal god. No surprise, Muhammad's family had just such a stone for their own tribe - a black stone, in fact, that they kept at the Kabah (where the tribal idols were set up). The pagan rites of bowing toward Mecca, making a pilgrimage to the Kabah, running around it seven times, kissing it, then running to the river to throw stones at the devil all found there way into Islamic practice.
The final piece of the puzzle was in found in the religion of the Sabeans, an astral religion that worshipped the moon god and planned their religious rites around the lunar calendar. One such rite was fasting from crescent moon to crescent moon, a practice which would also be adopted by Muhammad.
If these things were not present before Muhammad received them from Allah (who himself is the moon god of Muhammad's tribe), why did Muhammad not have to explain what those words meant in the Quran? How would people have known who Allah was? ( or: what a jinn was? what the Kabah was? what the word Islam meant? etc.). Even the word "Islam" which many believe to mean "submission" was not an original word. In Arabic it was a secular term that denoted the strength and bravery of a desert warrior (a definition that accurately reflects the war-like tribes that founded Islam with bloodshed).
The Moon God
"Allah" is from the compound Arabic word "al-ilah" or in english "the god". Allah was known before Muhammad's time without a doubt. His name has been found in pre-islamic writings and other archeological finds. At the Kabah in Mecca over 350 gods were worshipped, but it was built especially for the chief deity - the moon god. Allah was the personal title of the moon god. Allah was married to the sun goddess. They produced three daughters, whose worship Muhammad would later make the mistake of condoning. The crescent moon symbol of Arabia came from this god.
Muhammad's family revered this particular god, and it is this idol that Muhammad declared to be the only true god. So, Allah - far from being the revealed God of the Bible as Muhammad would have us believe - is nothing more than an amplified pagan idol. Muhammad did not re-make the pagan god, he simply removed the lower deities from the rites of worship. That is why he never had to explain who Allah was. By definition, an idol converted in the 7th century into a new god cannot be the sama God revealed thousands of years earlier to Biblical prophets!
Dork.
The seed of Amalek is alive and well...ISLAM is THE ENEMY of our Souls:
"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely eradicate the memory of Amalek from under Heaven."
"Moses built an altar and called it The LORD is my Banner. He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from Generation to Generation."
(S'hmot / Exodus 17:14-16)!
Ah Owk. Ever the moral relativist. It's all the same to Owk. Zionism is evil. Nazism was evil. 9-11 was evil. America is evil. It's all the same to Owk.
And your post demonstrates this very well. Usually the premise comes before the proof, though, not at the end. I didn't read the whole thing, so I might have missed an earlier mention of your topic.
All Buddhists, then, are fundamentalists.
Whiner.
Those who actually comprehend and follow the teachings of Jesus are among the best people I know.
They are however, exceedingly rare.
As well as tyrannical, brutal, contradictory, and foundationally evil.
Sorry toots. I'm a moral absolutist of the first order.
One of the things he is supposed to have created, is an objective moral code.
He violated that moral code with murderous vigor.
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