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To: browardchad
Muslims, Tarot, and statements of "I am God."

It would be a mistake to assume that a muslim couldn't use tarot cards, or write "I am God" across it.

My wife is from the middle east and insists that it is full of superstition and occultism, including the "evil eye" and all sorts of fascination with "jinn" or "spirits." I don't know of any particular link with Tarot, but on its face, it would not be in contradiction to Islam as practiced by ordinary people.

Also, there have been times when religious fanatics in the muslim world have tried to identify themselves as God or spirits of God and managed to get away with it. Ismail, grandson of the great Safavid leader Junnayid (in Iran) was designated "mahdi" (Messiah) and went on from there to be called "The Living One" and wrote the following poem, and others like it:

I am Very God, Very God, Very God!
Come now, O blind man who has lost the path,
behold the Truth!"
I am that absolute agent of whom they speak"

It was Ismail that finally declared that Shiism would be the path for Persians (Iranians) to follow. According to Mackey ("Persia, Islam, and the Soul of a Nation"),
"..Ismail and the "qizilbash" (warrior class) won converts and imposed their creed though example, zeal, massacre, pillage and torture. In Khorasan, Ismail freed the city from Sunni control by personally killing the Uzbek king...Taking the skull, he ordered it set in gold to create a drinking cup for the sultan of the Ottoman empire, a gruesome statement of rising Safavid power."

275 posted on 10/11/2002 5:57:14 PM PDT by cookcounty
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To: cookcounty
Muslims, Tarot, and statements of "I am God."

Thank you for the insight. Very interesting.

315 posted on 10/11/2002 8:22:54 PM PDT by browardchad
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