Understanding Islam
Understanding Islam – Notes
“I have been made victorious through terror.”
-Muhammad
Islam Debunked In 56 Seconds
“This group of scholars also said: Allah said:
Humble suggestion when discussing Islam…tell them to look at the rocks and coins:
1. Mecca – zero evidence, zero water. They ripping apart the ground to build the towers and there is no archeological evidence. Koran falls apart if Mecca doesn’t exist. Muslims can’t answer this.
2. Umayyad dynasty was issuing Christian coins until 692 ! I have these coins and you can still buy them on eBay for a few dollars. Why is the universally acknowledged empire to “Mohammad” issuing Christian coins ? Muslims can’t answer this
3. Similar to the word JEW being invented work, same is Mohammad… there were no vowels originally, it was MKHD the praised one, literally meaning Christ. This is what is written on done of the rock. The same builders of this also issued the Christian coins until 692
Compared to Christianity:
Brutal, Slavish, Rapey – Focused on Conquest by Force, Rather than Reason.
Dr. Jay Smith – The Truth About Islam’s Origins
Deceptive
The Daughters & Children of Islam : Brutalized
Evil Doctrines
Allah is yet another of the many names of King Nimrod, Baal.
Do Muslims REALLY Worship Baal AKA Satan? SHOCKING Evidence ONSCREEN! | @shamounian
Baal (Allah) and Ashtaroth (Easter) in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
Did Catholicism Create Islam? The True Origins of the Islam Revealed | The Islamic Connection
Allah
Arabic and Aramaic (along with Hebrew and a bunch of other languages) are Semitic languages, and have lots of similarities. One similarity that pops up across Semitics languages is their words for “god.” There tends to be “el” or “il” somehow related to the word for god in Semitic languages; some examples include ʾil in Ugaritic, ʾl in Phoenician, and ilu in Akkadian.
Aramaic is the language that Jesus spoke, and it’s also used in 269 verses in the Old Testament.2 As a Semitic language, Aramaic has similarities to both Hebrew and Arabic. In Aramaic, the word for God is elahh (אֱלָהּ). One of the quirky things about Aramaic is that instead of having an article like “the” in front of a word, Aramaic will put “a” (the letter, alef, א) at the end of a word, so that “the god” would be elaha3 (אֱלָהָ֖א). To be more precise, let’s talk about the Aramaic letter, alef (א). It’s the first letter in elahh, and has those five dots below it (אֱלָהּ). Alef is what we call a glottal stop. It restricts the airflow when you speak it. It’s like the hyphen in “uh-oh!” Those five dots below the aleph (אֱ) are called Hateph Seghol, and tell us that after the glottal stop, we make a sound like the “e” in “metallic.”4 With the article, there is an “a” with a sudden stop at the end, “elaha-” (the God), but without the article, the “h” just breaths away at the end, “elahh” (God or “a god”).
The Arabic word, allah, is actually a combination of two words: al ilah (الله, “the god”). Arabic articles come before the word, unlike the Aramaic suffixed article, so al is the first word, and it means “the.” The first letter in al is the Arabic letter, alif (ا), which is quite similar to the glottal stop in Hebrew and Aramaic, alef. After the glottal stop, the word, allah opens into an “a” sound (like in “father”) as opposed to elahh, which goes from glottal stop to reduced “e” sound (like in “metallic”). This is the first difference.
As noted earlier, articles are in the beginning of Arabic words and at the end of Aramaic words. What are Aramaic and Arabic speakers communicating as they pronounce “the god?” In Aramaic, it’s “elah (god)” “-a (the)” but in Arabic, it’s “al (the)” “lah (god).” Even the syllables carry different meanings. As one says “el,” he means “God,” while the other says “al” and means “the.” Not to mention Aramaic has a third syllable, “-a,” at the end.
If the Arabic word for God was taken without the article, then it would be ilah (إله), which would actually be closer to the Aramaic elah (אֱלָהּ), but they still sound different. More importantly, neither ilah nor elah (nor Allah, for that matter) is the proper name for God. His Name is YHWH (יְהֹוָה).
The virgin born resurrected Son of God, Yahshuah Jesus didn’t pronounce it as alãhã that was syric. “Jesus was Galatian, which means he pronounced it as Eli or elãhã.” it’s pronounced Elāhā. And God has a name, and names never change in any language. Transliteration. When a Muslim tells us that Allah is just the Arabic word for God, then Allah doesn’t belong to a specific religion anyways and you could be Hindu and use the word Allah to describe one of your many Gods…
~No, Jesus did not call God, ‘Allah.’
Baal (Allah) and Ashtaroth (Easter) in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
The Origin of the Name “Allah” – A Livestream with Sam Shamoun
You will be BLOWN AWAY when you hear “MUHAMMAD’S” IDENTITY!
Mirror
Do Muslims REALLY Worship Baal AKA Satan? SHOCKING Evidence ONSCREEN! | @shamounian
Do Muslims REALLY Worship Baal AKA Satan? SHOCKING Evidence ONSCREEN! | @shamounian
Muhammad
You will be BLOWN AWAY when you hear “MUHAMMAD’S” IDENTITY!
Uncovering the Truth About Muhammad’s Existence – Jay Smith
Muhammad Prayed to Edom’s Petra – A Jew!
Petra is located where Edom was.
Muhammad was a Pedophile.
Hadith and Sira
Sahih Muslim (8:3309) – Muhammad consummated his marriage to Aisha when she was only nine. (See also Sahih Bukhari 58:234 and many other places). No where in the reliable Hadith or Sira is there any other age given. Other references are Sahih Bukhari 3896, 5158 and 3311.
Sahih Bukhari (62:18) – Aisha’s father, Abu Bakr, wasn’t on board at first, but Muhammad explained how the rules of their religion made it possible. This is similar to the way that present-day cult leaders manipulate their followers into similar concessions.
Sahih Muslim (8:3311) – The girl took her dolls with her to Muhammad’s house (something to play with when the “prophet” was not having sex with her).
Sahih Bukhari (6:298) – Muhammad would take a bath with the little girl and fondle her.
Sahih Muslim (8:3460) – “Why didn’t you marry a young girl so that you could sport with her and she sport with you, or you could amuse with her and she could amuse with you?” Muhammad posed this question to one of his followers who had married an “older woman” instead of opting to fondle a child.
Sahih Bukhari (4:232) – Muhammad’s wives would wash semen stains out of his clothes, which were still wet from the spot-cleaning even when he went to the mosque for prayers. Between copulation and prayer, it’s a wonder he found the time to slay pagans.
Sahih Bukhari (6:300) – Muhammad’s wives had to be available for the prophet’s fondling even when they were having their menstrual period.
Sahih Bukhari (93:639) – The Prophet of Islam would recite the ‘Holy Quran’ with his head in Aisha’s lap, when she was menstruating.
Sahih Bukhari (62:6) – “The Prophet used to go round (have sexual relations with) all his wives in one night, and he had nine wives.” Muhammad also said that it was impossible to treat all wives equally – and it isn’t hard to guess why.
Sahih Bukhari (5:268) – “The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number.” I asked Anas, ‘Had the Prophet the strength for it?’ Anas replied, ‘We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty men.’ ”
Sahih Bukhari (60:311) – “I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires.” These words were spoken by Aisha within the context of her husband having been given ‘Allah’s permission’ to fulfill his sexual desires with a large number of women in whatever order he chooses. (It has been suggested that Aisha may have been speaking somewhat wryly).
Sahih Muslim (8:3424) – One of several narrations in which a leering Muhammad orders a clearly startled woman to suckle a grown man with her breast so that he will become “unlawful” to her – meaning that they can live under the same roof together.
Tabari IX:137 – “Allah granted Rayhana of the Qurayza to Muhammad as booty.” Muhammad considered the women that he captured and enslaved to be God’s gift to him.
Tabari VIII:117 – “Dihyah had asked the Messenger for Safiyah when the Prophet chose her for himself… the Apostle traded for Safiyah by giving Dihyah her two cousins. The women of Khaybar were distributed among the Muslims.” He sometimes pulled rank to reserve the most beautiful captured women for himself.
Tabari IX:139 – “You are a self-respecting girl, but the prophet is a womanizer.” Words spoken by the disappointed parents of a girl who had ‘offered’ herself to Muhammad (he accepted).
How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War – Defeating Jihadist Terrorism
by Raymond Ibrahim
Middle East Quarterly
Winter 2010, pp. 3-13
Islam must seem a paradoxical religion to non-Muslims. On the one hand, it is constantly being portrayed as the religion of peace; on the other, its adherents are responsible for the majority of terror attacks around the world. Apologists for Islam emphasize that it is a faith built upon high ethical standards; others stress that it is a religion of the law. Islam’s dual notions of truth and falsehood further reveal its paradoxical nature: While the Qur’an is against believers deceiving other believers—for “surely God guides not him who is prodigal and a liar”[1]—deception directed at non-Muslims, generally known in Arabic as taqiyya, also has Qur’anic support and falls within the legal category of things that are permissible for Muslims.
Taqiyya offers two basic uses. The better known revolves around dissembling over one’s religious identity when in fear of persecution. Such has been the historical usage of taqiyya among Shi’i communities whenever and wherever their Sunni rivals have outnumbered and thus threatened them. Conversely, Sunni Muslims, far from suffering persecution have, whenever capability allowed, waged jihad against the realm of unbelief; and it is here that they have deployed taqiyya—not as dissimulation but as active deceit. In fact, deceit, which is doctrinally grounded in Islam, is often depicted as being equal—sometimes superior—to other universal military virtues, such as courage, fortitude, or self-sacrifice.
Yet if Muslims are exhorted to be truthful, how can deceit not only be prevalent but have divine sanction? What exactly is taqiyya? How is it justified by scholars and those who make use of it? How does it fit into a broader conception of Islam’s code of ethics, especially in relation to the non-Muslim? More to the point, what ramifications does the doctrine of taqiyya have for all interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims?
The Doctrine of Taqiyya
According to Shari’a—the body of legal rulings that defines how a Muslim should behave in all circumstances—deception is not only permitted in certain situations but may be deemed obligatory in others. Contrary to early Christian tradition, for instance, Muslims who were forced to choose between recanting Islam or suffering persecution were permitted to lie and feign apostasy. Other jurists have decreed that Muslims are obligated to lie in order to preserve themselves,[2] based on Qur’anic verses forbidding Muslims from being instrumental in their own deaths.[3]
This is the classic definition of the doctrine of taqiyya. Based on an Arabic word denoting fear, taqiyya has long been understood, especially by Western academics, as something to resort to in times of religious persecution and, for the most part, used in this sense by minority Shi’i groups living among hostile Sunni majorities.[4] Taqiyya allowed the Shi’a to dissemble their religious affiliation in front of the Sunnis on a regular basis, not merely by keeping clandestine about their own beliefs but by actively praying and behaving as if they were Sunnis.
However, one of the few books devoted to the subject, At-Taqiyya fi’l-Islam (Dissimulation in Islam) makes it clear that taqiyya is not limited to Shi’a dissimulating in fear of persecution. Written by Sami Mukaram, a former Islamic studies professor at the American University of Beirut and author of some twenty-five books on Islam, the book clearly demonstrates the ubiquity and broad applicability of taqiyya:
Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.[5]
Taqiyya is, therefore, not, as is often supposed, an exclusively Shi’i phenomenon. Of course, as a minority group interspersed among their Sunni enemies, the Shi’a have historically had more reason to dissemble. Conversely, Sunni Islam rapidly dominated vast empires from Spain to China. As a result, its followers were beholden to no one, had nothing to apologize for, and had no need to hide from the infidel nonbeliever (rare exceptions include Spain and Portugal during the Reconquista when Sunnis did dissimulate over their religious identity[6]). Ironically, however, Sunnis living in the West today find themselves in the place of the Shi’a: Now they are the minority surrounded by their traditional enemies—Christian infidels—even if the latter, as opposed to their Reconquista predecessors, rarely act on, let alone acknowledge, this historic enmity. In short, Sunnis are currently experiencing the general circumstances that made taqiyya integral to Shi’ism although without the physical threat that had so necessitated it.
The Articulation of Taqiyya
Qur’anic verse 3:28 is often seen as the primary verse that sanctions deception towards non-Muslims: “Let believers [Muslims] not take infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God—unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.”[7]
Muhammad ibn Jarir at-Tabari (d. 923), author of a standard and authoritative Qur’an commentary, explains verse 3:28 as follows:
If you [Muslims] are under their [non-Muslims’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them with your tongue while harboring inner animosity for them … [know that] God has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels rather than other believers—except when infidels are above them [in authority]. Should that be the case, let them act friendly towards them while preserving their religion.[8]
Regarding Qur’an 3:28, Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), another prime authority on the Qur’an, writes, “Whoever at any time or place fears … evil [from non-Muslims] may protect himself through outward show.” As proof of this, he quotes Muhammad’s close companion Abu Darda, who said, “Let us grin in the face of some people while our hearts curse them.” Another companion, simply known as Al-Hasan, said, “Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the Day of Judgment [i.e., in perpetuity].”[9]
Other prominent scholars, such as Abu ‘Abdullah al-Qurtubi (1214-73) and Muhyi ‘d-Din ibn al-Arabi (1165-1240), have extended taqiyya to cover deeds. In other words, Muslims can behave like infidels and worse—for example, by bowing down and worshiping idols and crosses, offering false testimony, and even exposing the weaknesses of their fellow Muslims to the infidel enemy—anything short of actually killing a Muslim: “Taqiyya, even if committed without duress, does not lead to a state of infidelity—even if it leads to sin deserving of hellfire.”[10]
Deceit in Muhammad’s Military Exploits
Muhammad—whose example as the “most perfect human” is to be followed in every detail—took an expedient view on lying. It is well known, for instance, that he permitted lying in three situations: to reconcile two or more quarreling parties, to placate one’s wife, and in war.[11] According to one Arabic legal manual devoted to jihad as defined by the four schools of law, “The ulema agree that deception during warfare is legitimate … deception is a form of art in war.”[12] Moreover, according to Mukaram, this deception is classified as taqiyya: “Taqiyya in order to dupe the enemy is permissible.”[13]
Several ulema believe deceit is integral to the waging of war: Ibn al-‘Arabi declares that “in the Hadith [sayings and actions of Muhammad], practicing deceit in war is well demonstrated. Indeed, its need is more stressed than the need for courage.” Ibn al-Munir (d. 1333) writes, “War is deceit, i.e., the most complete and perfect war waged by a holy warrior is a war of deception, not confrontation, due to the latter’s inherent danger, and the fact that one can attain victory through treachery without harm [to oneself].” And Ibn Hajar (d. 1448) counsels Muslims “to take great caution in war, while [publicly] lamenting and mourning in order to dupe the infidels.”[14]
This Muslim notion that war is deceit goes back to the Battle of the Trench (627), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes known as Al-Ahzab. One of the Ahzab, Na’im ibn Mas’ud, went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered that the Ahzab were unaware of their co-tribalist’s conversion, he counseled Mas’ud to return and try to get the pagan forces to abandon the siege. It was then that Muhammad memorably declared, “For war is deceit.” Mas’ud returned to the Ahzab without their knowing that he had switched sides and intentionally began to give his former kin and allies bad advice. He also went to great lengths to instigate quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded, lifted the siege from the Muslims, and saved Islam from destruction in an embryonic period.[15] Most recently, 9/11 accomplices, such as Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, rationalized their conspiratorial role in their defendant response by evoking their prophet’s assertion that “war is deceit.”
A more compelling expression of the legitimacy of deceiving infidels is the following anecdote. A poet, Ka’b ibn Ashraf, offended Muhammad, prompting the latter to exclaim, “Who will kill this man who has hurt God and his prophet?” A young Muslim named Muhammad ibn Maslama volunteered on condition that in order to get close enough to Ka’b to assassinate him, he be allowed to lie to the poet. Muhammad agreed. Ibn Maslama traveled to Ka’b and began to denigrate Islam and Muhammad. He carried on in this way till his disaffection became so convincing that Ka’b took him into his confidence. Soon thereafter, Ibn Maslama appeared with another Muslim and, while Ka’b’s guard was down, killed him.[16]
Muhammad said other things that cast deception in a positive light, such as “God has commanded me to equivocate among the people just as he has commanded me to establish [religious] obligations”; and “I have been sent with obfuscation”; and “whoever lives his life in dissimulation dies a martyr.”[17]
In short, the earliest historical records of Islam clearly attest to the prevalence of taqiyya as a form of Islamic warfare. Furthermore, early Muslims are often depicted as lying their way out of binds—usually by denying or insulting Islam or Muhammad—often to the approval of the latter, his only criterion being that their intentions (niya) be pure.[18] During wars with Christians, whenever the latter were in authority, the practice of taqiyya became even more integral. Mukaram states, “Taqiyya was used as a way to fend off danger from the Muslims, especially in critical times and when their borders were exposed to wars with the Byzantines and, afterwards, to the raids [crusades] of the Franks and others.”[19]
Taqiyya in Qur’anic Revelation
The Qur’an itself is further testimony to taqiyya. Since God is believed to be the revealer of these verses, he is by default seen as the ultimate perpetrator of deceit—which is not surprising since he is described in the Qur’an as the best makar, that is, the best deceiver or schemer (e.g., 3:54, 8:30, 10:21).
While other scriptures contain contradictions, the Qur’an is the only holy book whose commentators have evolved a doctrine to account for the very visible shifts which occur from one injunction to another. No careful reader will remain unaware of the many contradictory verses in the Qur’an, most specifically the way in which peaceful and tolerant verses lie almost side by side with violent and intolerant ones. The ulema were initially baffled as to which verses to codify into the Shari’a worldview—the one that states there is no coercion in religion (2:256), or the ones that command believers to fight all non-Muslims till they either convert, or at least submit, to Islam (8:39, 9:5, 9:29). To get out of this quandary, the commentators developed the doctrine of abrogation, which essentially maintains that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career take precedence over earlier ones whenever there is a discrepancy. In order to document which verses abrogated which, a religious science devoted to the chronology of the Qur’an’s verses evolved (known as an-Nasikh wa’l Mansukh, the abrogater and the abrogated).
But why the contradiction in the first place? The standard view is that in the early years of Islam, since Muhammad and his community were far outnumbered by their infidel competitors while living next to them in Mecca, a message of peace and coexistence was in order. However, after the Muslims migrated to Medina in 622 and grew in military strength, verses inciting them to go on the offensive were slowly “revealed”—in principle, sent down from God—always commensurate with Islam’s growing capabilities. In juridical texts, these are categorized in stages: passivity vis-á-vis aggression; permission to fight back against aggressors; commands to fight aggressors; commands to fight all non-Muslims, whether the latter begin aggressions or not.[20] Growing Muslim might is the only variable that explains this progressive change in policy.
Other scholars put a gloss on this by arguing that over a twenty-two year period, the Qur’an was revealed piecemeal, from passive and spiritual verses to legal prescriptions and injunctions to spread the faith through jihad and conquest, simply to acclimate early Muslim converts to the duties of Islam, lest they be discouraged at the outset by the dramatic obligations that would appear in later verses.[21] Verses revealed towards the end of Muhammad’s career—such as, “Warfare is prescribed for you though you hate it”[22]—would have been out of place when warfare was actually out of the question.
However interpreted, the standard view on Qur’anic abrogation concerning war and peace verses is that when Muslims are weak and in a minority position, they should preach and behave according to the ethos of the Meccan verses (peace and tolerance); when strong, however, they should go on the offensive on the basis of what is commanded in the Medinan verses (war and conquest). The vicissitudes of Islamic history are a testimony to this dichotomy, best captured by the popular Muslim notion, based on a hadith, that, if possible, jihad should be performed by the hand (force), if not, then by the tongue (through preaching); and, if that is not possible, then with the heart or one’s intentions.[23]
War Is Eternal
That Islam legitimizes deceit during war is, of course, not all that astonishing; after all, as the Elizabethan writer John Lyly put it, “All’s fair in love and war.”[24] Other non-Muslim philosophers and strategists—such as Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes—justified deceit in warfare. Deception of the enemy during war is only common sense. The crucial difference in Islam, however, is that war against the infidel is a perpetual affair—until, in the words of the Qur’an, “all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[25] In his entry on jihad from the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Emile Tyan states: “The duty of the jihad exists as long as the universal domination of Islam has not been attained. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the chance of circumstances alone can justify it temporarily.”[26]
Moreover, going back to the doctrine of abrogation, Muslim scholars such as Ibn Salama (d. 1020) agree that Qur’an 9:5, known as ayat as-sayf or the sword verse, has abrogated some 124 of the more peaceful Meccan verses, including “every other verse in the Qur’an, which commands or implies anything less than a total offensive against the nonbelievers.”[27] In fact, all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence agree that “jihad is when Muslims wage war on infidels, after having called on them to embrace Islam or at least pay tribute [jizya] and live in submission, and the infidels refuse.”[28]
Obligatory jihad is best expressed by Islam’s dichotomized worldview that pits the realm of Islam against the realm of war. The first, dar al-Islam, is the “realm of submission,” the world where Shari’a governs; the second, dar al-Harb (the realm of war), is the non-Islamic world. A struggle continues until the realm of Islam subsumes the non-Islamic world—a perpetual affair that continues to the present day. The renowned Muslim historian and philosopher Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) clearly articulates this division:
In the Muslim community, jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the jihad was not a religious duty for them, save only for purposes of defense. But Islam is under obligation to gain power over other nations.[29]
Finally and all evidence aside, lest it still appear unreasonable for a faith with over one billion adherents to obligate unprovoked warfare in its name, it is worth noting that the expansionist jihad is seen as an altruistic endeavor, not unlike the nineteenth century ideology of “the white man’s burden.” The logic is that the world, whether under democracy, socialism, communism, or any other system of governance, is inevitably living in bondage—a great sin, since the good of all humanity is found in living in accordance to God’s law. In this context, Muslim deception can be viewed as a slightly less than noble means to a glorious end—Islamic hegemony under Shari’a rule, which is seen as good for both Muslims and non-Muslims.
This view has an ancient pedigree: Soon after the death of Muhammad (634), as the jihad fighters burst out of the Arabian peninsula, a soon-to-be conquered Persian commander asked the invading Muslims what they wanted. They memorably replied as follows:
God has sent us and brought us here so that we may free those who desire from servitude to earthly rulers and make them servants of God, that we may change their poverty into wealth and free them from the tyranny and chaos of [false] religions and bring them to the justice of Islam. He has sent us to bring his religion to all his creatures and call them to Islam. Whoever accepts it from us will be safe, and we shall leave him alone; but whoever refuses, we shall fight until we fulfill the promise of God.[30]
Fourteen hundred years later— in March 2009—Saudi legal expert Basem Alem publicly echoed this view:
As a member of the true religion, I have a greater right to invade [others] in order to impose a certain way of life [according to Shari’a], which history has proven to be the best and most just of all civilizations. This is the true meaning of offensive jihad. When we wage jihad, it is not in order to convert people to Islam, but in order to liberate them from the dark slavery in which they live.[31]
And it should go without saying that taqiyya in the service of altruism is permissible. For example, only recently, after publicly recounting a story where a Muslim tricked a Jew into converting to Islam—warning him that if he tried to abandon Islam, Muslims would kill him as an apostate—Muslim cleric Mahmoud al-Masri called it a “beautiful trick.”[32] After all, from an Islamic point of view, it was the Jew who, in the end, benefitted from the deception, which brought him to Islam.
Treaties and Truces
The perpetual nature of jihad is highlighted by the fact that, based on the 10-year treaty of Hudaybiya (628), ratified between Muhammad and his Quraysh opponents in Mecca, most jurists are agreed that ten years is the maximum amount of time Muslims can be at peace with infidels; once the treaty has expired, the situation needs to be reappraised. Based on Muhammad’s example of breaking the treaty after two years (by claiming a Quraysh infraction), the sole function of the truce is to buy weakened Muslims time to regroup before renewing the offensive:[33] “By their very nature, treaties must be of temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory, the normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are not peaceful, but warlike.”[34] Hence “the fuqaha [jurists] are agreed that open-ended truces are illegitimate if Muslims have the strength to renew the war against them [non-Muslims].”[35]
Even though Shari’a mandates Muslims to abide by treaties, they have a way out, one open to abuse: If Muslims believe—even without solid evidence—that their opponents are about to break the treaty, they can preempt by breaking it first. Moreover, some Islamic schools of law, such as the Hanafi, assert that Muslim leaders may abrogate treaties merely if it seems advantageous for Islam.[36] This is reminiscent of the following canonical hadith: “If you ever take an oath to do something and later on you find that something else is better, then you should expiate your oath and do what is better.”[37] And what is better, what is more altruistic, than to make God’s word supreme by launching the jihad anew whenever possible? Traditionally, Muslim rulers held to a commitment to launch a jihad at least once every year. This ritual is most noted with the Ottoman sultans, who spent half their lives in the field.[38] So important was the duty of jihad that the sultans were not permitted to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, an individual duty for each Muslim. Their leadership of the jihad allowed this communal duty to continue; without them, it would have fallen into desuetude.[39]
In short, the prerequisite for peace or reconciliation is Muslim advantage. This is made clear in an authoritative Sunni legal text, Umdat as-Salik, written by a fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar, Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri: “There must be some benefit [maslaha] served in making a truce other than the status quo: ‘So do not be fainthearted and call for peace when it is you who are uppermost [Qur’an 47:35].'”[40]
More recently, and of great significance for Western leaders advocating cooperation with Islamists, Yasser Arafat, soon after negotiating a peace treaty criticized as conceding too much to Israel, addressed an assembly of Muslims in a mosque in Johannesburg where he justified his actions: “I see this agreement as being no more than the agreement signed between our Prophet Muhammad and the Quraysh in Mecca.”[41] In other words, like Muhammad, Arafat gave his word only to annul it once “something better” came along—that is, once the Palestinians became strong enough to renew the offensive and continue on the road to Jerusalem. Elsewhere, Hudaybiya has appeared as a keyword for radical Islamists. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front had three training camps within the Camp Abu Bakar complex in the Philippines, one of which was named Camp Hudaybiya.[42]
Hostility Disguised As Grievance
In their statements directed at European or American audiences, Islamists maintain that the terrorism they direct against the West is merely reciprocal treatment for decades of Western and Israeli oppression. Yet in writings directed to their fellow Muslims, this animus is presented, not as a reaction to military or political provocation but as a product of religious obligation.
For instance, when addressing Western audiences, Osama bin Laden lists any number of grievances as motivating his war on the West—from the oppression of the Palestinians to the Western exploitation of women, and even U.S. failure to sign the environmental Kyoto protocol—all things intelligible from a Western perspective. Never once, however, does he justify Al-Qaeda’s attacks on Western targets simply because non-Muslim countries are infidel entities that must be subjugated. Indeed, he often initiates his messages to the West by saying, “Reciprocal treatment is part of justice” or “Peace to whoever follows guidance”[43]—though he means something entirely different than what his Western listeners understand by words such as “peace,” “justice,” or “guidance.”
It is when bin Laden speaks to fellow Muslims that the truth comes out. When a group of prominent Muslims wrote an open letter to the American people soon after the strikes of 9/11, saying that Islam seeks to peacefully coexist,[44] bin Laden wrote to castigate them:
As to the relationship between Muslims and infidels, this is summarized by the Most High’s Word: “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate shall forever reign between us—till you believe in God alone” [Qur’an 60:4]. So there is an enmity, evidenced by fierce hostility from the heart. And this fierce hostility—that is, battle—ceases only if the infidel submits to the authority of Islam, or if his blood is forbidden from being shed [i.e., a dhimmi, or protected minority], or if Muslims are at that point in time weak and incapable. But if the hate at any time extinguishes from the heart, this is great apostasy! … Such then is the basis and foundation of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion. And we consider this a justice and kindness to them.[45]
Mainstream Islam’s four schools of jurisprudence lend their support to this hostile Weltanschauung by speaking of the infidel in similar terms. Bin Laden’s addresses to the West with his talk of justice and peace are clear instances of taqiyya. He is not only waging a physical jihad but a propaganda war, that is, a war of deceit. If he can convince the West that the current conflict is entirely its fault, he garners greater sympathy for his cause. At the same time, he knows that if Americans were to realize that nothing short of their submission can ever bring peace, his propaganda campaign would be quickly compromised. Hence the constant need to dissemble and to cite grievances, for, as bin Laden’s prophet asserted, “War is deceit.”
Implications
Taqiyya presents a range of ethical dilemmas. Anyone who truly believes that God justifies and, through his prophet’s example, even encourages deception will not experience any ethical qualms over lying. Consider the case of ‘Ali Mohammad, bin Laden’s first “trainer” and long-time Al-Qaeda operative. An Egyptian, he was initially a member of Islamic Jihad and had served in the Egyptian army’s military intelligence unit. After 1984, he worked for a time with the CIA in Germany. Though considered untrustworthy, he managed to get to California where he enlisted in the U.S. Army. It seems likely that he continued to work in some capacity for the CIA. He later trained jihadists in the United States and Afghanistan and was behind several terror attacks in Africa. People who knew him regarded him with “fear and awe for his incredible self-confidence, his inability to be intimidated, absolute ruthless determination to destroy the enemies of Islam, and his zealous belief in the tenets of militant Islamic fundamentalism.”[46] Indeed, this sentence sums it all up: For a zealous belief in Islam’s tenets, which legitimize deception in order to make God’s word supreme, will certainly go a long way in creating “incredible self-confidence” when lying.[47]
Yet most Westerners continue to think that Muslim mores, laws, and ethical constraints are near identical to those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Naively or arrogantly, today’s multiculturalist leaders project their own worldview onto Islamists, thinking a handshake and smiles across a cup of coffee, as well as numerous concessions, are enough to dismantle the power of God’s word and centuries of unchanging tradition. The fact remains: Right and wrong in Islam have little to do with universal standards but only with what Islam itself teaches—much of which is antithetical to Western norms.
It must, therefore, be accepted that, contrary to long-held academic assumptions, the doctrine of taqiyya goes far beyond Muslims engaging in religious dissimulation in the interest of self-preservation and encompasses deception of the infidel enemy in general. This phenomenon should provide a context for Shi’i Iran’s zeal—taqiyya being especially second nature to Shi’ism—to acquire nuclear power while insisting that its motives are entirely peaceful.
Nor is taqiyya confined to overseas affairs. Walid Phares of the National Defense University has lamented that homegrown Islamists are operating unfettered on American soil due to their use of taqiyya: “Does our government know what this doctrine is all about and, more importantly, are authorities educating the body of our defense apparatus regarding this stealthy threat dormant among us?”[48] After the Fort Hood massacre, when Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-Muslim who exhibited numerous Islamist signs which were ignored, killed thirteen fellow servicemen and women, one is compelled to respond in the negative.
This, then, is the dilemma: Islamic law unambiguously splits the world into two perpetually warring halves—the Islamic world versus the non-Islamic—and holds it to be God’s will for the former to subsume the latter. Yet if war with the infidel is a perpetual affair, if war is deceit, and if deeds are justified by intentions—any number of Muslims will naturally conclude that they have a divinely sanctioned right to deceive, so long as they believe their deception serves to aid Islam “until all chaos ceases, and all religion belongs to God.”[49] Such deception will further be seen as a means to an altruistic end. Muslim overtures for peace, dialogue, or even temporary truces must be seen in this light, evoking the practical observations of philosopher James Lorimer, uttered over a century ago: “So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem.”[50]
In closing, whereas it may be more appropriate to talk of “war and peace” as natural corollaries in a Western context, when discussing Islam, it is more accurate to talk of “war and deceit.” For, from an Islamic point of view, times of peace—that is, whenever Islam is significantly weaker than its infidel rivals—are times of feigned peace and pretense, in a word, taqiyya.
Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum.
[1] Qur’an 40:28.
[2] Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi, At-Tafsir al-Kabir (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiya, 2000), vol. 10, p. 98.
[3] Qur’an 2:195, 4:29.
[4] Paul E. Walker, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam in the Modern World, John Esposito, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), vol. 4, s.v. “Taqiyah,” pp. 186-7; Ibn Babuyah, A Shi’ite Creed, A. A. A. Fyzee, trans. (London: n.p., 1942), pp. 110-2; Etan Kohlberg, “Some Imami-Shi’i Views on Taqiyya,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 95 (1975): 395-402.
[5] Sami Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam (London: Mu’assisat at-Turath ad-Druzi, 2004), p. 7, author’s translation.
[6] Devin Stewart, “Islam in Spain after the Reconquista,” Emory University, p. 2, accessed Nov. 27, 2009.
[7] See also Quran 2:173, 2:185, 4:29, 16:106, 22:78, 40:28, verses cited by Muslim jurisprudents as legitimating taqiyya.
[8] Abu Ja’far Muhammad at-Tabari, Jami’ al-Bayan ‘an ta’wil ayi’l-Qur’an al-Ma’ruf: Tafsir at-Tabari (Beirut: Dar Ihya’ at-Turath al-‘Arabi, 2001), vol. 3, p. 267, author’s translation.
[9] ‘Imad ad-Din Isma’il Ibn Kathir, Tafsir al-Qur’an al-Karim (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiya, 2001), vol. 1, p. 350, author’s translation.
[10] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, pp. 30-7.
[11] Imam Muslim, “Kitab al-Birr wa’s-Salat, Bab Tahrim al-Kidhb wa Bayan al-Mubih Minhu,” Sahih Muslim, rev. ed., Abdul Hamid Siddiqi, trans. (New Delhi: Kitab Bhavan, 2000).
[12] Ahmad Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina (Cairo: Al-Azhar, 2003), p. 304, author’s translation.
[13] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, p. 32.
[14] Raymond Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader (New York: Doubleday, 2007), pp. 142-3.
[15] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, pp. 32-3.
[16] Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 367-8.
[17] Shihab ad-Din Muhammad al-Alusi al-Baghdadi, Ruh al-Ma’ani fi Tafsir al-Qur’an al-‘Azim wa’ l-Saba’ al-Mithani (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiya, 2001), vol. 2, p. 118, author’s translation.
[18] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, pp. 11-2.
[19] Ibid., pp. 41-2.
[20] Ibn Qayyim, Tafsir, in Abd al-‘Aziz bin Nasir al-Jalil, At-Tarbiya al-Jihadiya fi Daw’ al-Kitab wa ‘s-Sunna (Riyahd: n.p., 2003), pp. 36-43.
[21] Mukaram, At-Taqiyya fi ‘l-Islam, p. 20.
[22] Qur’an 2: 216.
[23] Yahya bin Sharaf ad-Din an-Nawawi, An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths, p. 16, accessed Aug. 1, 2009.
[24] John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (London, 1578), p. 236.
[25] Qur’an 8:39.
[26] Emile Tyan, The Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden: Brill, 1960), vol. 2, s.v. “Djihad,” pp. 538-40.
[27] David Bukay, “Peace or Jihad? Abrogation in Islam,” Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 3-11, f.n. 58; David S. Powers, “The Exegetical Genre nasikh al-Qur’an wa-mansukhuhu,” in Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qur’an, Andrew Rippin, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 130-1.
[28] Jalil, At-Tarbiya al-Jihadiya fi Daw’ al-Kitab wa ‘ s-Sunna, p. 7.
[29] Ibn Khaldun, The Muqadimmah. An Introduction to History, Franz Rosenthal, trans. (New York: Pantheon, 1958), vol. 1, p. 473.
[30] Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests (Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2007), p. 112.
[31] “Saudi Legal Expert Basem Alem: We Have the Right to Wage Offensive Jihad to Impose Our Way of Life,” TV Monitor, clip 2108, Middle East Media Research Institute, trans., Mar. 26, 2009.
[32] “Egyptian Cleric Mahmoud Al-Masri Recommends Tricking Jews into Becoming Muslims,” TV Monitor, clip 2268, Middle East Media Research Institute, trans., Aug. 10, 2009.
[33] Denis MacEoin, “Tactical Hudna and Islamist Intolerance,” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2008, pp. 39-48.
[34] Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 220.
[35] Ahmad Mahmud Karima, Al-Jihad fi’l Islam: Dirasa Fiqhiya Muqarina, p. 461, author’s translation.
[36] Ibid., p. 469.
[37] Muhammad al-Bukhari, “Judgements (Ahkaam),” Sahih al-Bukhari, book 89, M. Muhsin Khan, trans., accessed July 22, 2009.
[38] Michael Bonner, Jihad in Islamic History: Doctrines and Practice (Princeton: Woodstock Publishers, 2006), p. 148.
[39] Ahmed Akgündüz, “Why Did the Ottoman Sultans Not Make Hajj (Pilgrimage)?” accessed Nov. 9, 2009.
[40] Ahmad Ibn Naqib al-Misri, Reliance of the Traveller: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law (Beltsville: Amana Publications, 1994), p. 605.
[41] Daniel Pipes, “Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad’s Diplomacy,” Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1999, pp. 65-72.
[42] Arabinda Acharya, “Training in Terror,” IDSS Commentaries, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, May 2, 2003.
[43] “Does hypocrite have a past tense?” for clip of Osama bin Laden, accessed Aug. 1, 2009.
[44] Ibrahim b. Muhammad al-Shahwan, et al, “Correspondence with Saudis: How We Can Coexist,” AmericanValues.org, accessed July 28, 2009.
[45] Ibrahim, The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 43.
[46] Steven Emerson, “Osama bin Laden’s Special Operations Man,” Journal of Counterterrorism and Security International, Sept. 1, 1998.
[47] For lists of other infiltrators of U. S. organizations, see Daniel Pipes, “Islamists Penetrate Western Security,” Mar. 9, 2008.
[48] Walid Phares, “North Carolina: Meet Taqiyya Jihad,” International Analyst Network, July 30, 2009.
[49] Qur’an 8:39.
[50] James Lorimer, The Institutes of the Law of Nations: A Treatise of the Jural Relations of Separate Political Communities (Clark, N.J.: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 2005), p. 124.
The Jewish Origins of Islam
February 01, 2018/ Anne B. Gardiner
In his groundbreaking book, Le messie et son prophète: Aux origines de l’Islam, Edouard-Marie Gallez lifts the veil and lets us see the historical roots of Islam. He shows it originating in a vast movement of messianic Jews called “Ebionites” or “Nazareens.” These non-rabbinical Jews accepted Jesus as the messiah, but not as the divine Logos. Gallez shows how the scrolls and fragments found in the Qumram caves by the Dead Sea and in the vicinity of Massada illuminate the ideology behind this movement of Jews, who were eager and willing to follow the messiah into holy war, believing they would thereby save the world. Unlike rabbinical Jews, who looked to the past, these men looked forward to an earthly utopia that would come only after mass exterminations. Like the later Muslims, they believed that the messiah had not died on the Cross but had been taken up alive into heaven and was ready, whenever the conditions were right (i.e., when Palestine was no longer in the hands of the impious and the Temple had been rebuilt), to return to the Mount of Olives and lead them to the subjugation of the entire world. The Nazareens, like the Muslims, forbade pork and wine
The first tome of this magisterial work of about a thousand pages deals with the Essenes, the Qumram documents, and the Jewish Messianic movement from its rise in the 2nd-century B.C. to its culmination in 7th-century Islam. The second tome is devoted in large part to the birth of Islam, the attempt to erase the Nazareen legacy, and the traces of it that remain in the Qur’an, which started as a compilation of Nazareen lectionaries (“qery’n,” to which the Arab word qur’an corresponds). These lectionaries were initially given to the Arab Qorechites to indoctrinate them into the messianic ideology and engage them in the conquest of Palestine.
The Muhammad of History
The last chapter of the second tome is entitled “The Historical Muhammad: a Portrait” and based on sources dating from the 7thcentury. Let me start with this extraordinary chapter and then return to survey how the two tomes lead up to this “Portrait.” Gallezstates that Muhammad’s first wife Hadija, a rich widow who was older than he, was a cousin of the Nazareen priest Waraqa ibn Nawfal, so she was probably a Nazareen herself. Waraqa was also a distant cousin of Muhammad’s and played an important role in their marriage. (This leads me to wonder whether Muhammad himself was not part Jewish, but Gallez does not raise this question.) Waraqa had indoctrinated the Arab tribe of the Qorechites, who were previously Christian, into joining the Nazareencause, which was to regain Jerusalem by force of arms and bring about the messiah’s prompt return. When Chosroes led a Persian expedition into Palestine in 614, thousands of rabbinical Jews gave him assistance (one Jewish encyclopedia cited by Gallez puts their number at 24,000), and so the Persian general, in return for his easy victory, gave them control over Jerusalem. In the same expedition, Muhammad (a surname which in the Nazareen language meant “one who desires to please God”) probably led his Qorechite warriors into Jerusalem, but the rabbinical Jews, who had been installed as masters there, expelled him and his Qorechites, as well as the Nazareens. Even so, Muhammad had now seen that it was possible to conquer Jerusalem.
The Byzantine Emperor began his re-conquest of the region in the early 620s, so the Persians abandoned Jerusalem in 622. Gallezthinks it likely that Muhammad’s emigration or hegira towards the oasis of Yatrib (Medina) was the result of this Christian re-conquest. The Chronicle of Sebeos (660) reports that in Yatrib, Muhammad—as a Nazareen follower of the Torah—prohibited wine and had a Jewish woman and her lover stoned to death for adultery. In Yatrib he won over the surrounding Arab tribes by preaching to them that God had promised Palestine to Abraham’s descendants and, since they themselves were the descendants of Abraham, they would inherit that promise if they returned to the worship of the one God of Abraham and of him alone. This preaching was intended to make them abandon their Christian religion. Contrary to what Muslims say, the conversion of the Arabs had started three centuries earlier, and Maximus the Confessor had written about them in 632, that among them “the error of polytheism had disappeared.”
Muhammad’s success is confirmed by the Chronicle of Jacob of Edessa (before 692) and also by Doctrina Jacobi (before 640). In the latter we learn that some rabbinical Jews arriving in Yatrib in 625 or 627 found the Arabs there already impregnated with the Nazareen ideology and their chieftain Muhammad “proclaiming the coming of the messiah” with such charism that they were all united firmly under his authority. The Chronography of Theophane (who died in 817) states that in 622 some rabbinical Jews known to the Byzantines attached themselves to Muhammad: they saw him as one of “their prophets,” the one who, as Malachy 3:23 foretold, would precede the messiah. In the 8th-century Secrets of Rabbi ben Yohay, a Jewish apocalypse, there is a passage going back to 650 where a rabbinical Jew still believes the Messiah will come if Umar rebuilds the Temple. (Would rabbinical Jews, I wonder, have attached themselves to a “prophet” who wasn’t at least part Jewish? Again, Gallez does not raise this question.)
Muhammad and his Arab troops soon began making incursions into Palestine to “liberate” it and restore “the House of God.” He and his followers called themselves “muhajirun” or “emigrants” living out a new Exodus. Others called them “Hagarenes” and “Saracens,” but they themselves kept this unique name of “muhajirun” for at least three generations. This was the name they used in official documents, such as the Charter of Medina (Yatrib), a pact which included Jews (the Nazareens) in their “Umma,” or confraternity of war. Gallez explains that “muhajirun” meant “those who have left their country or emigrated in order to fight for God.” It is only in 775 that they start calling themselves “muslimun” and that “islam” replaces “hijra.” In 629 Muhammad led an attempt to conquer Jerusalem, but was defeated by the Byzantines at Muta, southeast of the Jordan. He died a few years later, probably in 634, the same year that Sophrone, Patriarch of Jerusalem, reported that the Arabs were boasting about “conquering the world.”
Jerusalem would finally be taken in 637 by his successor Umar. Gallez observes that no one knows how Muhammad would have reacted had he lived to see the non-arrival of the messiah. That non-arrival changed everything. At first the Arabs allowed the Nazareens to build a place of prayer right where the Holy of Holies had once stood, but they later drove them off and made it their own place of prayer. Interestingly, the Dome of the Rock, which Caliph Al-Malik began to construct in 691, was originally called the Dome of Abraham, because it was believed to lie on Mount Moriah, where Abraham had almost sacrificed Isaac. Its name was changed because it was later said to contain the rock from which Muhammad had ascended on his nocturnal journey to Heaven.
The Non-Existent Essenes
In the first section of his work, Gallez cuts down the “tree” of the Essenes, so that the “forest” of a vast messianic movement can finally be seen. I can only give a simplified version of his learned arguments. The Essenes were supposed to have lived in Qumran until the year 68 and then have disappeared, but it is likely they never existed at all, though thousands of articles and books have been written about them as if they had. In the first hundred pages, Gallez shows that, strange to say, they are never even named in the Qumran scrolls and there is no reference to them in the Talmudic tradition. Yet as soon as the Qumram scrolls began to be deciphered in the 1950s, it became a “dogma” that these scrolls had all belonged to the Essenes, who supposedly had a monastery near the Dead Sea and a team of scribes busily copying documents.
In the 1st century, the Essenes were initially mentioned, but not actually seen, by Pliny the Elder, Philo of Alexandria, and Flavius Josephus. First, Pliny, whose Natural History is full of fantastic stuff, called them a unique “race” of Jews living for thousands of years without women and money. As in the myth of the Phoenix, whenever individual Essenes died they were always replaced by an equal number of Jews weary of the world. Gallez sees Pliny as winking here, especially since there were Greek priests of Artemis in Ephesus who were already called Essenes. Secondly, Philo, who used a slightly different word, Esseens, saw them as virtuous but not necessarily celibate and said in one account that they numbered four thousand, and in another, dozens of thousands. Thirdly, there is a long passage on the Essenes in Flavius Josephus, but as Gallez shows, this passage was clearly an interpolation by a 3rd-century Roman pagan, who made ridiculous claims, such as that these Jews worshiped the sun and believed in the preexistence of souls. All later references to the Essenes were built on these three sources. They climaxed in the 19th century with Renan’s charge that Christianity was just a continuation of Essenism.
The archeology of the Qumram ruins, which is far from being complete, has shown that only a limited number of people could have lived there: no more than fifteen, according to one author, and no more than fifty, according to another. There was nothing monastic about the objects found there. Instead, they showed it as a place producing perfume and balm, perhaps for burials. Pious Jews would not have lived surrounded by cemeteries, one of them only 50 meters away. Even so, some still defend the Essene hypothesis.
The Rise of the Nazareens
The corruption of the Jewish priesthood in the 2nd century B.C. gave rise to an anti-Temple movement that led to the Pharisees and eventually to the Nazareens. Gallez gives credit to Jacqueline Genot for having interpreted a number of Qumran scrolls as being related to the followers of the “master of justice” Yose ben Yo’ezer, a priest from Zerada whom the high priest Alcimeordered to be killed on Yom Kippur, in 159 B.C. After his brutal killing his followers were filled with eschatological fervor, looking forward to a new Temple and a new priesthood to be instituted by God through his messiah. In fact, they looked forward to two messiahs: the first, a priest of the tribe of Levi, the second, a warrior king of the tribe of Juda who would soak the earth with the blood of the impious and conquer the world.
In the 1st century, another major strand was woven into the web of apocalyptic Jewish messianism: the followers of James the Just — who was not an apostle but the blood cousin of Jesus and the first bishop in Jerusalem — exalted him above the apostles and even claimed that the destruction of the Temple was the result of his being stoned to death by zealots in 62 AD. After James’s death, some of his followers reinterpreted Christianity in a radically Judeocentric way, one that led to the Nazareen ideology.
Gallez shows that the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are a key to understanding the evolution of this messianic movement from the 1st to the 7th century of our era. The Testaments were well known before they were found in the Qumran caves, for they were popular works of eschatological inspiration repeatedly adapted to the times. Scholars have found supposedly Christian interpolations in these texts, but Gallez carefully analyzes the passages and shows them to be Nazareen, not Christian. For one thing, they show the Almighty taking possession of an adult man, rather than the Logos becoming incarnate. This is precisely what the Nazareens believed, that God had taken possession of Jesus at his Baptism in the Jordan and had subsequently used him as messianic tool.
Moreover, the name Jesus is completely absent from these Nazareen interpolations, a name which, as Christians taught, reveals the divinity of Jesus. Likewise in the Qur’an, Jesus is professed nine times as messiah, but his real name is never given; rather he is called Isa, which is a form of Esau. Gallez points out that the Talmud also calls Christians the “sons of Esau.” Curiously, the Nazareens had an anti-Trinitarian saying, “There is no God but God; No associate for him.” Similarly the primitive “sabada” of the Muslims was “There is no God but God: No associate for him.” Fifty years later, they added, “Muhammad is his messenger” (or “rasul Allah”). The first mention of him as God’s messenger was on a Persian coin minted in 685.
It is also telling that while these supposedly Christian interpolations refer to the messiah as crucified, they never speak of him dying on the Cross. This coincides with the Nazareen belief (and later Muslim belief) that the messiah did not shed his blood on Calvary. For this reason, their Eucharist was celebrated with water, not wine. In their ideology, too, it was not a question of man being delivered by repentance, but of man being delivered by great exterminations. Like the Muslims after them, they did not believe in original sin, nor in personal sin. For them, man sins only by opposing God’s designs (which they thought they could discern). In addition, they believed that God does not sanctify man but, as long as he is a believer, He covers him with the mantle of justice. The Nazareens followed only the Gospel of the Hebrews (also called the Gospel of the Nazareens), a mutilated and radically revised version of Matthew’s Gospel. It is no longer extant, but we have quotations from it in the Church Fathers’ writings on heretics. At the same time, the Nazareens observed all the Jewish rituals, so Jerome called them “semi-Jews.”
The Church Fathers, from Irenaeus to Jerome, speak of the Ebionites or Nazareens as heretics, and they are alluding to them when they warn against “Judaizers.” They knew that the Nazareens denied the divinity of Christ while accepting the Virgin Birth, that they practiced circumcision, that they reproached rabbinical Jews for altering the texts of the Bible to hide the fact that Jesus was the messiah, and that they prayed toward Jerusalem. All these things the Muslims would do after them, except that they eventually changed their quibla and prayed toward Mecca. Origen says that the Nazareens refused to drink wine, but not out of asceticism, only to reserve it for the day when the messiah would inaugurate his earthly kingdom. Interestingly, when Jerome describes the fleshly pleasures anticipated by the Nazareens in that kingdom, they sound a lot like the pleasures Muslims believe await them in paradise.
In the last part of the first tome, Gallez gives a survey of all the Jewish insurrections that happened in the Roman Empire between the 1st and the 7th centuries and descries an eschatological zeal at the root of them. Those who had rejected Jesus as messiah, he says, were trying to replace him by another. This is plainly seen in the insurrection of 135, where Rabbi Aqiba served as the “prophet” announcing Bar Koseba was the messiah. Gallez is not surprised that the historiography of the Judeonazareens (his usual name for them) has escaped the notice of the West, for until the withdrawal of the Byzantine Empire from the Near East, their presence could be ignored. Then, however, it was suddenly imposed on the world and on history in the form of Islam.
Erasing the Nazareen Legacy
In Sura 5:82, we are told that those who are closest to the true believers are not Jews or Christians but the ones who say, “we are Nazareens” (“nasara”). In other suras, however, the term “nasara” changes to mean Christians, who are said to be the enemies of the true believers. Gallez takes note of the “slippage” here and of a number of other terms that change in meaning from the most primitive Qur’anic verses to the later ones. Umar started to collect and destroy the Arab lectionaries (qur’ans) which the Nazareens had used to indoctrinate the Qorechites. After him Utman carried out a policy of systematic destruction. Gallez thinks it is unlikely that one of these lectionaries will ever be found. Yet they formed the first strata of the Qur’an, and he shows us that we can still glimpse traces of them in the suras (a Hebrew word meaning elements in a scroll).
The only certain fact known about Muhammad is that he made an attempt to conquer Jerusalem in 629 and failed. Yet this is precisely the fact that has been erased from his story. It is claimed that he spent his youth in Mecca, but as the Swedish scholar Patricia Crone found, there is no mention of Mecca in any ancient source before the Arab conquests. She sees this silence as striking and significant. Mecca was far too poor in natural resources for caravans to stop there, and it was never a religious center before the rise of Islam. This was a city created from scratch by the caliphs. Muhammad grew up more than a thousand kilometers from there, and there is no reason to think he ever visited the place. The city is not even mentioned in the Charter of Medina. In fact, the area of commerce for the Qorechite Arabs was near Gaza and Bosra. However, the caliphs needed to erase the Jewish-Nazareen past and create an Arab past, so they invented a city of supposedly ancient Abrahamic origin.
The city of Mecca was not the only creation of the caliphs. Specialists say that the formative stage of Islam lasted for about two centuries. Sources available to historians date from 150 to 300 years after the period they describe. However, there is a document Gallez cites as “reliable” from the year 644, an exchange between John I, the Jacobite Patriarch, and Said ibn ‘Amir, the Arab Emir of Homs. The exchange was recorded in a letter by the patriarch shortly after it took place. The Emir attacked the divinity of Christ by referring to the Torah and calling on a “Jewish” scribe to assist him (very likely a Nazareen, Gallez says). Then he invited Christians to embrace the Law of the Muhajirun (Emigrants). At this meeting it is unlikely the emir would have failed to mention Muhammad and the Qur’an if he could have done it, since he had in fact been a companion of Muhammad.
There is no complete Qur’an earlier than the 9th century, and the earliest fragments, which were found in San’a, come from the first part of the 8th century. Yemenite authorities will not give access to these fragments, but photos of them show a text washed away under the visible text. Besides the absence of early records, Muslim tradition speaks of the systematic and repeated destruction of manuscripts by order of the caliphs. Gallez mentions a letter sent by Emperor Leo III in 719 to Caliph Umar II, mentioning the destruction by Hajjaj of the old writings in Mesopotamia and the composition of new ones.
The basis for the divinization of the Qur’an is this: the nocturnal voyage of Muhammad to Heaven. He is said to have traveled 1200 km on a flying horse from Mecca to Jerusalem and, once there, to have ascended from the esplanade of the Temple into Heaven. God revealed the Qur’an to him, but after his return to earth Muhammad did not remember it. Therefore, the Angel Gabriel later had to refresh his memory by dictating it to him in a grotto, verse by verse. On the 1200 km trip back to Mecca the same night, Muhammad, from the vantage point of his flying horse, observed a caravan approaching Mecca and announced its arrival. His “prophecy” was confirmed.
Gallez speaks of the “implacable logic” of this story, which is a “closed circle” without an exit. Here the Qur’an authenticates itself. All the details of the nocturnal voyage are geared to making the book literally divine. Based on this account it became officially the “uncreated Word of God.” At first, the Mutazelites insisted it was “created,” but they were soon silenced.
It is not certain when the caliphs decreed that Muhammad had made a nocturnal journey to Heaven, but it must have been after the building of the Dome of the Rock in the 690s, because the inscriptions on this building completely ignore the idea. This is strange since it was from this place that Muhammad was supposed to have ascended. In the middle of the 8th century St. John of Damascus, who frequented the caliph’s court before becoming a monk and was well informed about Islam, stated that Muhammad was reported to have received information from an angel in a dream. By the end of the same century, however, Muhammad was said to have received it directly from God in Heaven. Thus the Qur’an became the “uncreated Word of God.” Interestingly, the Jews (including the Nazareens) said something similar about the Torah, namely, that there was a copy of it in the hands of God, so it was both earthly and heavenly. At the feast of Shavu’ot, too, some Jews read a text about Moses going to Heaven and receiving the Torah from the hand of God.
After being called “messenger of Allah,” Muhammad was given the added title, “Seal of the Prophets.” Some Muslim commentators noted that the Manicheans had given the same title to their prophet Mani (216-74). They also noted that Mani, like Muhammad, had been called the Paraclete predicted in John’s Gospel and had received a revelation from an angel in a grotto. In addition, the Muslim Ramadan is close to the 30-day Manichean fast, which also used to end each day at sunset.
While erasing most of the Nazareen legacy, the caliphs also carried it forward in the Qur’an by their hostility to Trinitarian Christianity. In Sura 5 of the Qur’an, God takes Isa (Jesus) as a witness against the Christian belief in the Trinity. In the same SuraJesus and his mother Mary are said to be two extra “divinities” whom Christians worship along with God in the Trinity. Christians are therefore “associators” who associate two more gods with God. This is something that merits punishment, so in sura 72, 18-20, the true believers are welcome to confiscate the churches of these damnable “associators.”
It is not easy for a Christian to argue against this gross misunderstanding of the Trinity when the Qur’an is supposed to be the “uncreated Word of God”! Gallez points out that one possible source of the misunderstanding was the Gospel of the Nazareens, where the Holy Spirit was called “our mother.” Origen and Jerome reported that Jesus in this heretical Gospel called the Holy Spirit “my mother” and that the Holy Spirit addressed him, after his Baptism, as “my first-born Son who reigns forever.”
This book is a treasure trove of knowledge about the hidden Jewish origins of Islam. One can only hope that it will soon be available in an English translation.
Related:
The NAKBA – The Genocide of Palestinians by JEWS (Update: Nakba 2.0 Has Begun)
Sons of Ishmael – Modern Arabs
The Pre-Islamic World And The Destruction of Classical Civilization
Zionism, Not Islam, Is America’s Biggest Threat
Did Catholicism Create Islam? The True Origins of the Islam Revealed | The Islamic Connection
Understanding Islam – How Taqiyya Alters Islam’s Rules of War
In case you missed it:
Primordial Truth: Mapping the Rabbit Holes – Know Everything!
TheSerapeum.com is 100% listener funded. Thank you for your support in our mission to Break the Cycle of Fake News.
If you value our work please consider supporting us with our vetted patriot sponsors!
Sponsors:
RedPillLiving.com - Health & Beauty - Value Holistics & Quality CarbonShield60 - Doubled Lifespan in Mammal Studies! TimeStop - The Worlds Premier Beauty Cream! With CarbonShield60!
TheGreatAwakeningCoffee.com - Gourmet Coffee for Patriots!
Other Links:
Join our Telegram chat: TheSerapeum.com/chat!