(01-20-2020, 04:05 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: What is amazing is just how much of Islam is based on the moon-god cult which came before it.
There is an extensive academic body of work that shows this. I have it somewhere.
I'll look and post it.
BTW, Google "Dagon, the fish god" .... see his fish lips hat. Now look at the pope.
You got it. Fish lips. (I wonder if the know ?)
There was an article published by a wacko in the 1990's (Morey) who talked about moon-god theory. Some Islamists attribute the moon-god theory to him. He did not start it. He referenced it. There are mountains of evidence for the moon god theory, which FAR predate the Morey article.
Originally, Allah had 3 divine daughters, and Muslims were commanded they be worshiped. Later it was said to be a mistake. Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat. ->
http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-allahs-daughters.htm Later the Prophet was said to have rejected these, as work of the devil, (see the Satanic Verses).
Yahweh had no daughters. Sin had THE SAME 3 daughters. The god Sin is spoken of in the OT and is the Babylonian brother of Yahweh. Sin morphed into Allah. Technically it is not correct to say they are both "Abrahamic religions" as the gods are different, even though they do both talk about an Abram.
Many stories in the Qur'an were "borrowed" from surrounding cultures, and well known circulating myths, and cultural historians know exactly where they came from :
1. Moses and the Fish, (came from Babylon/Ugarit/the El myths),
2. Solomon listening to the ants, common fairy tales, existing all over the Ancient Near East,
3. Jinns, (genies) working for Solomon, both common fairy tales, existing all over the Ancient Near East,
4. Mary in the temple, (stolen from one of the proto gospels),
5. Jesus talking in the crib, (from the known Proto Gospel after Jacob)
6. The Egyptian child stories, (from the Arab Child Gospel, and The Thomas' Child Gospel), both just made up fairy stories.
7. Jesus making birds from clay, (known source, .."The Child Gospel after Thomas vs 1-4),
8. Mary and the Palm, was taken from the Proto Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 20.
9. Mo's Night Journey to Heaven, taken from either the Hebrew Merebah, or the well known Gnostic "Enoc's Journey to Heaven", which is identical to to Ibn Ishaq’s story after Abu Said al-Chudri)
10. The Sleepers in the Cave, straight from the fairy story from Ephesus, (Mo got the dates wrong, but the story is right),
11. Alexander the Great, (Surah 18), (straight plagiarism), AND there was NO place in the world with enough iron blocks to close off a whole valley in 330 BC.
12. The myth about Ad. Straight from Arab folk tales.
13. Thamud – same as 12.
14. Median – copied from Arab folk tales.
There is no "unique" element in any scripture which is unknown, or original, or completely "other" from, or new, or contains prior "unknowns", from the culture in which it originates. It all flows organically. ALL the laws and proscriptions existed already in each culture, in some form, as did every major cultural theme. Nothing was "received" as unique as "revelation" from a god, which cannot be traced to prior, known cultural ideas, ALREADY in place, in that culture. THAT alone, is evidence for human origins, and any divine claim has a HUGE mountain to overcome. For example, the god Sin, the moon god, was the primary god, and the sun god was his consort, with the stars as the children, because that's what they look like to someone without a knowledge of distance, size, and composition. If, somehow, the reality of the STARS or galaxies as larger had been "revealed", then we'd have to stop and wonder. The moon looks biggest, the sun next, and the stars small. That's what the myth system was. But the fact is, there is nothing original about any "revelation". If Muhammad was actually illiterate, and he likely was, in terms of reading and writing, it really says nothing, as he could have dictated from oral traditions. We don't know all his sources, but, it had to come from somewhere, just as all of the Bible did. Surely you know of the historical kernels of truth in the "Satanic Verses" ? If Muhammad's companions could have memorized the work, entire, and complete, without error, there is no reason to think he could not have done the same from things he already knew about, (or are you saying he was LESS skilled than his companions ?) If the companions were able to be an "hafiz", (one who memorizes the Qur'an), then certainly your great prophet is up to memorizing the elements he used to assemble it.
We know from two entirely separate lines of inquiry the claim that Yahweh, originally is the same as Allah, is false.
1. Yahweh Sabaoth came from the Sumerian myth system. He was originally one of the 70 sons of El Elyon, in the Enuma Elish, and was, in a polytheistic environment, selected as the "Elohim", (chief god among many), of the Hebrews, as they wanted a war god to assist them in battle. That is why he was called the "Lord of Hosts", (an assembled army, in battle array, and formation). The major archaeological discoveries which led to this understanding, were done at the ancient city of Nineveh, and the Royal Library of Ashurbanipal, in the 1850's. The city of Nineveh was the ancient capital of Assyria, in Northern Mesopotamia, which is modern day Iraq. Yahweh, in Ancient Sumer, or Sumeria, was NOT the Moon god, Sin. No archaeologist disputes that. They are two entirely separate deities, and have separate developmental histories.
Sin was one of the other sons of Enlil, a BROTHER of Yahweh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_%28mythology%29 , whose seat was Ur, in the Sumerian system.
There were two main library contents, in the mound site, at the archaeological discovery of Ancient Nineveh ... the North site, (Ashurbanipal) and the South site, (King Senn-acher-ib's library...BTW, note, name has the phonetic "senn" ... it was later changed to the name of the god "Sin"), which, over the course of excavation, were tragically jumbled, and mixed with each other. To this day, scholars are still trying to work out the mess. The contents of the excavations are now in the British Museum.
2. The point in common which Islam has with Judaism, in fact, is not Yahweh, historically, but another god in the Sumerian pantheon, called "Sin". The god Sin, had many iterations, and there are hundreds of archaeological confirmations of this fact. The god Sin was a moon god, and was, and still is, in it's present iteration, (Allah), associated with the symbol of the Crescent Moon. Sin is ubiquitous in parts of the Ancient Near East.
BTW, the word "sin" in the West came from the old English word from archery, which meant to "miss the mark".
The name of the god, and the Western concept are in no way related.
The name "Sin" translates to "Controller of the Night", (ie the moon).
Over and over, in Hebrew culture, they were instructed, in the Bible texts, to STOP their worship of the moon-god, which was a constant recurring "falling from grace" theme, and return to the sole worship of Yahweh. The Old Testament constantly rebuked the worship of the Moon-god (Deut 4:19;17:3; II Kings 21:3,5; 23:5; Jeremiah 8:2; 19:13; Zeph. 1:5, etc.) This is PROOF that the god Sin, the moon-god, (and the god concept from which Allah developed), was NOT Yahweh. Sin is not Yahweh. So we're partway there. Now I just have to prove that Sin is Allah.
We know from archaeology, that camels were not domesticated until 1000 BCE, thus regular cultural exchange between Canaan, and Arabia did not occur before that, and reached it zenith, around 700 BCE. BOTH the worship of Sin, and the worship of Yahweh were flourishing LONG before that. They had diverged many centuries before. Yahweh was not worshiped in Arabia, (however, there are some who think some elements of the Southern Javeh god's characteristics may come from an Arabian rain god, which would make sense, as it's closer to Egypt, and the Moses traditions). Sin was worshiped all over the ancient Near East.
If what moon god "deniers" is true, then what would have to NOT have been true, is :
a. Yahweh would not have existed as a separate worshiped deity, (there are mountains of evidence for this, and his wife Ashera)
b. the Sin god would NOT have existed as a separate worshiped deity (there are mountains of evidence for this god, and his consort, the sun god),
c. Allah, as a separate worshiped deity, apart from Sin, AND Yahweh, would have also have to have NOT existed, (and there would have to be evidence for that),
d. there would need to be NO evidence that Allah was worshiped ALONGSIDE, and APART from Sin, as a separate worshiped deity, at least in one location.
(That is, there would have to be evidence that Sin existed at the same time and place, but separate from, Allah.)
That would be 3 different gods, if Allah is not Sin. (We know from the Bible, Yahweh is not Sin). There is evidence for only 2 gods, at any time and place. So where does that leave us ?
Unfortunately, "c" and "d" are not true. There are only two gods at any given time, and place, and they are identifiable, and not the same.
Sin turns into Allah, at the hands of Muhammad, which is perfectly reasonable, as he was born into a family which revered the moon god.
At this point, moon god deniers would have to prove that Allah did not come from Sin.
So where did the Sin god come from, and how do we know that Sin developed into, and actually was Allah ?
From the mountains of Turkey, in the North, to the banks of the Nile, in the South, archaeologists have uncovered proof that people in the Ancient Near East worshiped a moon god. As shown by Drs. Sjoberg and Hall, the ancient Sumerians worshiped a Moon-god who was called many different names. The most popular names were Nanna, Suen and Asimbabbar. His symbol was the crescent moon. Just owing simply to the amount of artifacts unearthed, the worship of Sin, was clearly the dominant cult in ancient Sumer. The cult of the Moon-god was also the most popular religion throughout ancient Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Akkadians took the word "Suen", which was one of the names of the Moon god, and transformed it into the word Sin as their favorite name for the Moon-god. As Prof. D.T. Potts pointed out, "Sin is a name essentially Sumerian in origin which had been borrowed by the Semites". ("Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur", D.T. Pots et all).
The Moon-god Sin was usually represented by the moon in its crescent phase. The sun-goddess was the wife of Sin, (and the stars were their daughters). For example, Ishtar was a daughter of Sin. Sacrifices to the Moon-god are described in the Pas Shamra texts. In the Ugaritic texts, the Moon-god was sometimes called Kusuh. In Persia, as well as in Egypt, the Moon-god is depicted on wall murals and on the heads of statues. He was the Judge of men and gods. In the ancient world, the symbol of the crescent moon can be found on seal impressions, steles, pottery, amulets, clay tablets, cylinders, weights, earrings, necklaces, wall murals, etc. In Tell-el-Obeid, a copper calf was found with a crescent moon on its forehead. An idol with the body of a bull and the head of man has a crescent moon in its forehead. In Ur, the Stela of Ur-Nammu has the crescent symbol placed at the top of the register of gods because the Moon-god was the head of the gods. Even bread was baked in the form of a crescent as an act of devotion to the Moon-god. The Ur of the Chaldees was so devoted to the Moon-god that it was sometimes called Nannar in tablets from that time period, (reflecting one of Sin's names).
A temple of the Moon-god has been excavated in Ur by Sir Leonard Woolley. He dug up many examples of moon worship in Ur and these are in the British Museum. Harran was likewise noted for its devotion to the Moon-god. In the 1950's a major temple to the Moon-god was excavated at Hazer in Palestine. Two idols of the moon god were found. Each was a stature of a man sitting upon a throne with a crescent moon carved on his chest . The accompanying inscriptions make it clear that these were idols of the Moon-god. Several smaller statues were also found which were identified by their inscriptions as the "daughters" of the Moon-god. As pointed out by Prof. Carlton S. Coon, "Muslims are notoriously loath to preserve traditions of earlier paganism and like to garble what pre-Islamic history they permit to survive in anachronistic terms". (Carleton S. Coon, Southern Arabia, Washington DC, Smithsonian, 1944, p.398)
During the nineteenth century, Amaud, Halevy and Glaser went to Southern Arabia and dug up thousands of Sabean, Minaean, and Qatabanian inscriptions which were subsequently translated. In the 1940's, the archeologists G. Caton Thompson and Dr. Carleton S. Coon made some amazing discoveries in Arabia. During the 1950's, Wendell Phillips, William Foxwel Albright, Richard Bower and others excavated sites at Qataban, Timna, and Marib (the ancient capital of Sheba). Thousands of inscriptions from walls and rocks in Northern Arabia have also been collected. Reliefs and votive bowls used in worship of the "daughters of Allah" have also been discovered. This is proof that Allah predated any possible connection with the Hebrew god Yahweh, and they could not possibly be the same deity. The three daughters, al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat are sometimes depicted together with Allah the Moon-god represented by a crescent moon above them. The archeological evidence demonstrates the dominant religion of Arabia was the cult of the Moon god. This moon god bore absolutely no relationship, whatsoever, to the Yahweh god, and his wife, (Ahsera). They were simply two different deities. How do we know that ?
1. Archaeology and location. The cult of Yahweh flourished to the North and West, of the sites where the Sin was prevalent.The artifacts are different. The "consorts", (wives) are different. Sin had mythological children. Yahweh did not. They cannot be the same god.
2. Scholarly consensus.
"Allah is found ... in Arabic inscriptions prior to Islam" (Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643)
"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshiped, a supreme god called allah" (Encyclopedia of Islam, eds. Houtsma, Arnold, Basset, Hartman; Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1913, I:302)
"Allah was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" (Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. Gibb, I:406)
"Ilah ... appears in pre-Islamic poetry ... By frequency of usage, al-ilah was contracted to allah, frequently attested to in pre-Islamic poetry" (Encyclopedia of Islam, eds. Lewis, Menage, Pellat, Schacht; Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1971, III:1093)
"The name Allah goes back before Muhammed" (Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, "The Facts on File", ed. Anthony Mercatante, New York, 1983, I:41)
The origin of this (Allah) goes back to pre-Muslim times. Allah is not a common name meaning "God" (or a "god"), and the Muslim must use another word or form if he wishes to indicate any other than his own peculiar deity" (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1908, I:326)
Scholar Henry Preserved Smith of Harvard University stated:
"Allah was already known by name to the Arabs" (The Bible and Islam: or, the Influence of the Old and New Testament on the Religion of Mohammed, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897, p.102)
Dr. Kenneth Cragg, former editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Muslim World and an outstanding modern Western Islamic scholar, whose works were generally published by Oxford University, comments: The name Allah is also evident in archaeological and literary remains of pre-Islamic Arabia" (The Call of the Minaret, New York: OUP, 1956, p.31)
Dr. W. Montgomery Watt, who was Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies at College de France, Georgetown University, and the University of Toronto, has done extensive work on the pre-Islamic concept of Allah. He concludes:
"In recent years I have become increasingly convinced that for an adequate understanding of the career of Muhammad and the origins of Islam great importance must be attached to the existence in Mecca of belief in Allah as a "high god". In a sense this is a form of paganism, but it is so different from paganism as commonly understood that it deserves separate treatment" (Mohammad's Mecca, p.vii. See also his article, "Belief in a High God in pre-Islamic Mecca", Journal of Scientific Semitic Studies, vol.16, 1971, pp.35-40)
Caesar Farah in his book on Islam concludes his discussion of the pre-Islamic meaning of Allah by saying:
"There is no reason, therefore, to accept the idea that Allah passed to the Muslims from the Christians and Jews" (Islam: Beliefs and Observations, New York: Barrons, 1987, p.28)
According to Middle East scholar E.M.Wherry, whose translation of the Qur'an is still used today, in pre-Islamic times Allah-worship, as well as the worship of Baal, were both astral religions in that they involved the worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars (A Comprehensive Commentary on the Quran, Osnabrück: Otto Zeller Verlag, 1973, p.36).
"In ancient Arabia, the sun-god was viewed as a female goddess and the moon as the male god. As has been pointed out by many scholars as Alfred Guilluame, the moon god was called by various names, one of which was Allah (op.cit., Islam, p.7)
"The name Allah was used as the personal name of the moon god, in addition to the other titles that could be given to him.
"Allah, the moon god, was married to the sun goddess. Together they produced three goddesses who were called 'the daughters of Allah'. These three goddesses were called Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat.
"The daughters of Allah, along with Allah and the sun goddess were viewed as "high" gods. That is, they were viewed as being at the top of the pantheon of Arabian deities" (Robert Morey, The Islamic Invasion, Eugene, Oregon, Harvest House Publishers, 1977, pp.50-51).
The Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend records:
"Along with Allah, however, they worshiped a host of lesser gods and "daughters of Allah" (op.cit., I:61).
The Encyclopedia of Religion says: "'Allah' is a pre-Islamic name ... corresponding to the Babylonian Bel" (ed. James Hastings, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1908, I:326).
It is a well known fact archaeologically speaking that the crescent moon was the symbol of worship of the moon god both in Arabia and throughout the Middle East in pre-Islamic times. Archaeologists have excavated numerous statues and hieroglyphic inscriptions in which a crescent moon was seated on the top of the head of the deity to symbolize the worship of the moon-god. Interestingly, whilst the moon was generally worshiped as a female deity in the Ancient Near East, the Arabs viewed it as a male deity.
In Mesopotamia the Sumerian god Nanna, named Sîn by the Akkadians, was worshiped in particular in Ur, where he was the chief god of the city, and also in the city of Harran in Syria, which had close religious links with Ur. The Ugaritic texts have shown that there a moon deity was worshiped under the name yrh. On the monuments the god is represented by the symbol of the crescent moon. At Hazor in Palestine a small Canaanite shrine of the late Bronze Age was discovered which contained a basalt stele depicting two hands lifted as if in prayer to a crescent moon, indicating that the shrine was dedicated to the moon god.
The worship of stellar deities, instead of Yahweh, was always a temptation faced by the Israelites (Dt.4:19; Jer.7:18; Am.5:26; Ac.7:43). But Yahweh is at the zenith of the heavens (Job 22:12).
"The Quraysh tribe into which Mohammad was born was particularly devoted to Allah, the moon god, and especially to Allah's three daughters who were viewed as intercessors between the people and Allah.
"The worship of the three goddesses, Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Manat, played a significant rôle in the worship at the Kabah in Mecca. The first two daughters of Allah had names which were feminine forms of Allah."The literal Arabic name of Muhammad's father was Abd-Allah. His uncle's name was Obied-Allah. These names reveal the personal devotion that Muhammad's pagan family had to the worship of Allah, the moon god" ( Morey, p.51).
History proves conclusively that before Islam came into existence, the Sabbeans in Arabia worshiped the moon-god Allah who was married to the sun-goddess. We have also seen that it was a matter of common practice to use the name of the moon-god in personal names in Muhammad's tribe. That Allah was a pagan deity in pre-Islamic times is incontestable. And so we must ask ourselves the question: why was Muhammad's God named after a pagan deity in his own tribe?
It is an undeniable fact that an Allah idol was set up at the Kabah along with all the other idols of the time. The pagans prayed towards Mecca and the Kabah because that is where their gods were stationed. It made sense to them to face in the direction of their god and pray since that is where he was. Since the idol of their moon god, Allah, was at Mecca, they prayed towards Mecca.
As we have seen, and as is acknowledged amongst all scholars of Middle Eastern religious history, the worship of the moon-god extended far beyond Allah-worship in Arabia. The entire fertile crescent was involved in moon-worship. The data falls neatly in place and we are able therefore to understand, in part, the early success Islam had amongst Arab groups that had traditionally worshiped Allah, the moon-god. We can also understand that the use of the crescent moon as the symbol of Islam, and which appears on dozens of flags of Islamic nations in Asia and Africa, and surmounts minarets and mosque roofs, is a throwback to the days when Allah was worshiped as the moon-god in Mecca.
Nabonidus (555-539 BC), was the last king of Babylon, and he built Tayma, Arabia as a center of Moon-god worship. Segall stated, "South Arabia's "stellar religion" has always been dominated by the Moon-god in various forms" (Some scholars have also noticed that the Moon-god's name "Sin" is a part of such Arabic words as "Sin-ai," the "wilderness of Sin," etc.) Mecca was built as a shrine for the Moon-god. This is what made it the most sacred site of Arabian paganism. In 1944, G. Caton Thompson revealed in her book, "The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidha", that she had uncovered a temple of the Moon-god in southern Arabia. The symbols of the crescent moon and no less than twenty-one inscriptions with the name Sin were found in this temple. An idol which may be the Moon-god himself was also discovered. This was confirmed by other well-known archeologists.
In 1944, G. Caton Thompson revealed in her book, The Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidah, that she had uncovered a temple of the moon-god in southern Arabia. The symbols of the crescent moon and no less than 21 inscriptions with the name Sîn were found in this temple (see above left). An idol which is probably the moon-god himself was also discovered (see above right). This was later confirmed by other well-known archaeologists (See Richard Le Baron Bower Jr. and Frank P. Albright, Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1958, p.78ff; Ray Cleveland, An Ancient South Arabian Necropolis, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1965; Nelson Gleuck, Deities and Dolphins, New York, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1965).
Worship of the Moon god continued in the Christian era. Evidence gathered from both North and South Arabia demonstrate that Moon-god worship was clearly active even in Muhammad's day and was still the dominant cult. According to numerous inscriptions, while the name of the Moon-god was Sin, his title was al-ilah, i.e. "the deity," meaning that he was the chief or high god among the gods. As Dr. Coon pointed out, "The god Il or Ilah was originally a phase of the Moon God." The Moon-god was called al-ilah, i.e. the god, which was shortened to Allah in pre-Islamic times. The pagan Arabs even used Allah in the names they gave to their children. For example, both Muhammad's father and uncle had Allah as part of their names. The fact that they were given such names by their pagan parents proves that Allah was the title for the Moon-god even in Muhammad's day. Prof. Coon goes on to say, "Similarly, under Mohammed's tutelage, the relatively anonymous Ilah, became Al-Ilah, The God, or Allah, the Supreme Being."
The word "Allah" comes from the compound Arabic word, al-ilah. Al is the definite article "the" and ilah is an Arabic word for "god", i.e. the god. We see immediately that (a) this is not a proper name but a generic name rather like the Hebrew El (which as we have seen was used of any deity; and (b) that Allah is not a foreign word (as it would have been if it had been borrowed from the Hebrew Bible) but a purely Arabic one. It would also be wrong to compare "Allah" with the Hebrew or Greek for God (El and Theos, respectively), because "Allah" is purely an Arabic term used exclusively in reference to an Arabic deity.
The Arabs worshiped the Moon-god Allah by praying toward Mecca several times a day; making a pilgrimage to Mecca; running around the temple of the Moon-god called the Kabah; kissing the black stone; killing an animal in sacrifice to the Moon-god; throwing stones at the devil; fasting for the month which begins and ends with the crescent moon; giving alms to the poor, etc. The Muslim's claim that Allah is Yahweh and that Islam arose from the religion of the prophets and apostles is refuted by solid, overwhelming archeological evidence, and even if true, in the extreme off chance that ALL the archaeology is wrong, then it's false anyway, as we know full well where Yahweh came from, and his mythological origns. Islam is nothing more than an extension of an ancient Moon-god cult. It has taken the symbols, the rites, the ceremonies, and even the name of its god from the ancient religion of the Moon-god.
Well developed Arabic poetry was flourishing well before the Qur'an was assembled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_poetry ,
http://www.islamicedfoundation.com/material.htm , and the poetry of Muhammad exists within the context of a well developed poetry of the time. There is no "giant leap forward" in the poetry of Islam. As poetry, the Qur'an is not a unique work of poetry.
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