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'Proto-Islam' Rocks!The Religion of Mohammed We are getting good and sick of the religion of Mohammed. Calling it 'Islam,' we believe, compliments it too much: Islam means 'submission,' or 'submission to God'; 'Muslim' means 'one who submits' - 'one who submits to God.' But we, Jews and Noahides, who follow HaShem, think of ourselves that way too: as God's servants - His slaves, even. We try with all our might to faithfully serve Allah - IF by Allah they mean HaShem. We have some doubts about that - is Allah, "The God," HaShem? The Allah of Muhammed, as depicted in the Koran, is not much like HaShem [See 'El, God of Abraham,' in the January 2008 Covenant Connection, Vol 3.2] - Mohammed, who never learned to read or write, dictated or recited the Koran, 'the Recitation,' at least in part. The Koran itself claims that it's all Mohammed, reciting what he hears from God's angel, Gabriel. In fact, it was never finished in his lifetime but assembled from bits and pieces, written and unwritten, edited and re-edited, and fixed in its final form some years after his death. It's a collection of Arabic-language sermons, meant to be sung. It's his religion's founding text, its central text: its 'Bible.' Koran Holy? A little shorter than the Christian Scriptures, Matthew thru Revelation, the Koran is a work that caused Maimonides, the great Torah genius Rambam, to call Mohammed, its putative author, ha-mishuganna, "the Crazy" or "the Nut." According to the Koran, Mohammed didn't create or invent anything and neither did the angel Gabriel. "The Prophet's" new religion wasn't new, supposedly, but basically just the 'primitive Islam,' 'Proto-Islam,' or traditional original religion of the ancient 'Peoples of the Book': Adam, Eve and Noah, Shem, Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Deborah, etc., and, as Mohammed said, Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist. The Koran claims that Mohammed was just 'the seal of the prophets,' like the cap on a bottle, but the best and greatest prophet - and by far the most important human being of all time. But all Mohammed did, supposedly, was take the Ancient Way of God, purify it, and bring it to full flower. In truth, Mohammed made his new religion respectable by back-dating it, essentially. Instead of appearing to be the invention of one man, a new creation like Scientology, say, or Kwanza, it claimed to be "the original religion," the immediate successor and the natural culmination of - literally - all that is holy! La ilaha illa Allah - there is no God but God (Allah) - which Mohammed's followers are supposed to recite several times a day, sounds good when sung. The Koran generally sounds nice when sung. But that doesn't improve the unsoundness of its message. Even by ignoring or removing all the Koran's repeated calls to violent imperialism (which remain untempered by its oral tradition, the hadith) - to butcher people who don't follow Mohammed, to roast any who resist Mohammed, to drown them in blood and "slay the idolators [anyone who resists Mohammed] wherever you find them" (Chapter/Sura 9:5) - and focus only on Mohammed's spiritual and moral teachings, the Koran still attacks true Islam, the "proto-Islam" of Adam, Noah, Abraham and Moses. It defames the God of Israel. Just for instance, contrary to the concept of Mohammed-as-true-religious- 1) The Jews do not regard the prophet Ezra ("Uzair," in Arabic) as "the Son of God" (Sura 9:30) - any more than any man can be called God's son. To the apologists for Mohammed, who claim that he was just describing the contemporary Jews of Arabia (whom he clearly passionately hated), that bizarre claim about Ezra and the Jews is just ridiculous. No one else on earth, to our knowledge, has EVER charged ANY group or clan of Jewish people with EVER committing the sin of Ezra-worship [!], and certainly not some thousand years after Ezra's death, in Mohammed's time. But Mohammed's followers, or at least the leading teachers, still insist that the Jews of this and every era are Allah-damned idolators - guilty of the capital crime of "shirk," or falsely claiming that God is not one - because we still supposedly worship Ezra! 2) God, the God of Israel, grants people free will, the power to choose between good and evil, but the Koran repeatedly insists otherwise - that Allah decides who will do good and who will do evil (Suras 2:6-7, 6:25, 7:179, 24:40, 36:9, etc., etc. - and then punishes people, with constant torment for all eternity, for doing what He makes them do! (Muslim scholars who reject this view of Allah and free will are usually called heretics; many have been executed.) Allah, the "all-merciful and compassionate," promises quite a lot of torment - the Koran has a thing, an obsession, with hell, Satan, and torture - to every non-Mohammedan, and to every Mohammadan who strays in any way from Mohammad's doctrine. 3) Jews and Christians are not actually "swine and monkeys," nor the direct descendants, nor direct progenitors, of swine and monkeys - despite Mohammed's several assertions to that effect (Suras 2:63, 5:59, 7:166). To Mohammed's apologists, who claim that he only meant a few contemporary secular-minded Jews, Jews and Christians are still commonly called apes and pigs throughout the star and crescent countries, and - thanks to Saudi-funded "religious" charities - even in Mohammedan schools and textbooks in the West. |
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Every religion gets tested, eventually, by history and logic. And, even by its own standards, the religion of Mohammed does not work. This goes beyond the myriad self-contradictions in the Koran and the many obvious historical mistakes (Miriam, e.g., was not the sister of Moses as well as the mother of Jesus.) It promises that it's the best religion - particularly, the most materially rewarding, the best for "crops and cattle." |
The evidence, 1,400 years post- Mohammed, contradicts that promise. Mohammed's Arabs aren't the sons of the desert, as they say, but the fathers of deserts. Poverty, illiteracy, cruelty, injustice, tribalism, racism, disease, sexual immorality, sexual oppression, joblessness, drug abuse, fatalism, violence and thievery aren't the unique property of the Mohammedan world but it has more of them than almost anyone. Meanwhile, Judaism and Jews are damnable and damned, according to Mohammed: the Jews' aim everywhere is to "spread mischief through the earth" and destroy crops and cattle. The Koran seethes with Jew hatred. So do Mohammed's followers, to the extent that they know what the Koran has to say on the subject - many do not, due to illiteracy, apathy, or because they don't understand Arabic - and accept it. As the Arab petro-sheikhs keep commanding the distribution of more Koran-translations in all the languages of mankind (along withThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion), we can expect that anti-Semitism - and fierce hatred of Christians and the West in general - to spread. This is a pity, particularly for anyone with any real regard for the people who have grown up believing that to follow Mohammed is to follow Allah. Many of them - the vast majority (there is 500 times more good in the world than bad, the Torah teaches) - are better and more moral people than the religion they inherited. How do they improve themselves by cursing the West, which they envy? More particularly, how do they improve themselves by cursing Israel, and the People of Israel? Here we see an unwelcome fulfillment of clear Torah prophecy - as the Psalmist predicted, tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of so-called Muslims now speak about the Jews in exactly these terms: "Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance." [Psalms 83:5] In other words, they don't just want to destroy Israel: they hope to erase even the memory of Israel's name! Hailing from Ishmael (Ishmael, whom the Torah identifies as the father of the Arab nation) and Edom(descendants of Esau), Ammon (the Ammonites gave their name to the present-day capital of Jordan, Amman), Philistia (today's "Filistin," or Palestinians, claim to be the heirs of the ancient Philistines) and Tyre (in Lebanon), Assyria (Iraq? Eastern Turkey? Kurdistan? Iran?) and, of course, Amalek (the Torah's Anti-Israel, fierce Jew-haters of every age), as the Psalm says,
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Clearly, if they continue on this course they are doomed. And they will inflict a lot of misery on the rest of us in the meantime. But, despite their idea that all is determined, that free will is a myth, they can still choose life and God and goodness. They just need to open their eyes. Someday they will recognize that the Torah-religion that they hate is not a threat to their prosperity, a destroyer of crops and cattle, but the contrary; someday they will recognize that it's the religion of Mohammed that's the mischief-maker, that makes the world poorer and more violent. We wouldn't have so much hope for this except that we know that there is indeed a better Islam. |
One often sees so-called Muslims condemning other so-called Muslims as "false Muslims," insisting that "it isn't Islam" to commit mass murder or other ghastly atrocities. They are thirsting, even dying, so they say, for "true Islam." And we keep hearing from people seeking "authentic Islam," or "proto-Islam," in Noahism and the Seven Universal Laws. They wonder if we can lead them to "true Islam." And the truth is that, yes, we can. We know what Proto-Islam really is. Mohammed didn't have this knowledge available to him. Neither did most of Israel, for that matter: in fact, the Jewish people and even many of its scholars are still pretty vague about what it means to be a Noahide! Proto-Islam: the Seven Law System Revealed! |
This is Proto-Islam, the Universal Religion: 1) To learn and try to keep the Seven Noahide Laws, including the obligation of establishing and maintaining a sane society, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
To the extent that any particular community requires more detailed or narrowly tailored laws, it is up to that community or society to promulgate them: laws and ordinances regulating the professions, for instance, or business transactions, or even fundamental constitutional principles. But all laws and ordinances need to follow the Noahide principle, the Divine principle, of equal justice, honesty, transparency and fairness. A. Government exists, in large part, to defend private property, to keep it from being stolen. Defending private property is a Noahide value, a Divine principle. The people who get the most benefit from the defense of private property are the people who own the most property. Since the government, the chief defender of private property, needs funding from somewhere, it makes sense that those members of the community who benefit most from government should pay the most, in taxes, as both a fraction of one's income and in absolute terms, to support it. The obligation to pay taxes doesn't violate people's private property rights, it sustains them. Paying taxes is part of the price of civilization. Refusing to pay taxes, or expecting the benefits of government and the protection of private property without having to pay taxes, is to reject the Noahide "government and laws" commandment, the anti-anarchy commandment. 2) Doing the opposite of what the Noahide Law forbids: not just refraining from murder, for instance, but acting to save the life in danger; not just refraining from larceny but giving charity. And, speaking religiously, not just refraining from defaming God or refraining from worshipping atrocious, grotesque idols, but honoring, exalting, and glorifying God alone. A. Naturally, disputes exist as to what the Law really says. But we have finally reached the point in Torah scholarship where even ordinary people can easily access the lion's share of the accumulated wisdom of the Sages of Israel over millennia, and a critical mass of scholars to examine everything that pertains to the Seven Law system. We can now speak about the Law with real confidence, based on the reconciled wisdom of the Torah giants of the past - Rambam, Rashi, Ramban, and, e.g., the Yad Rama (Abarbanel), as well as "modern" sages like the Netziv (Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin) and Kook - as well as logic, history, and the general drift of Torah. 3) Studying the Torah, the testimonies, the ordinances, and the statutes of the Torah. Jews and Noahides can and should apply themselves to the story of the Divine on earth and how God expresses Himself through history. But the nations also need to learn about the inherently mysterious statutes [chukim] of the Torah, such as circumcision, and the laws of kosher eating, and the rabbinic elaboration and refinement of those laws, to fulfill the Torah prophecy that not just Jews but Noahides will behold these Torah statutes - the "strange" Divine ordinances, not just the logical, Noahide laws and principles like justice and kindness, mercy and charity - and recognize their holiness. [Deuteronomy 4:6] 4) Coming to appreciate God, His Way in the world, the wisdom of His Torah, the holiness - together with the less than holy characteristics of any congregation of mere mortals - of Israel, and the great goodness of His Torah, as well as the larger Torah-system. 5) Defending the system, and participating in it at the level of a truly devoted follower of HaShem. This means, eventually, keeping the holy days and customs that have the potential to uplift all men, studying the Torah as a truly devoted friend of Israel, God and Torah, and doing what one can to protect and defend both the land of Israel and People Israel. This includes the obligation of bringing the good news of God's salvation, His forgiveness and His holiness, to all one's fellow men who may benefit therefrom. That this also happens to be a good part of the recipe for messianic redemption should be regarded as a bonus. Soon (perhaps even in our own time), ordinary human beings will come to live intimately connected to HaShem. The Bible guarantees it. God will pour out His spirit upon humankind (Joel 3:1). Familiarity with HaShem and knowledge of HaShem will "cover the earth as the waters cover the sea" (Habbakuk 2:14). American Freedom: the First
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