The Origins of Islam
by D.M. Murdock/Acharya S

The Islamic World is no longer somewhere else... instead, Chicago, with its 50 mosques and
nearly half a million Muslims, is part of the Islamic world.
The Harvard Pluralism Project
An April 2001 survey by CAIR found 69 percent of Muslims in America saying it is
"absolutely fundamental" or "very important" to have Salafi (similar to radical Wahhabi Islamic ideology) teachings at their mosques (67
percent of respondents also expressed agreement with the statement "America is an immoral, corrupt
society").
Dr. Moorthy Muthuswamy
The Qur'an tells us: "not to make friendship with Jews and Christians" (5:51), "kill the
disbelievers wherever we find them" (2:191), "murder them and treat them harshly" (9:123), "fight and slay the
Pagans, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem" (9:5). The Qur'an demands that
we fight the unbelievers, and promises "If there are twenty amongst you, you will vanquish two hundred: if a
hundred, you will vanquish a thousand of them" (8:65).
Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society
Since Islam is one of the world's fastest growing religions, through conversion but mostly
through reproduction, there is a tremendous need to address this subject, which, because of crazed Islamic
fanatics, strikes fear in the hearts of many non-Muslims. Competing with Christianity, with some
270 million people dead in its name Islam represents one of the bloodiest and most
repressive ideologies that humankind has yet come up with.
This subject is highly important not only because of Islam's expansion and the coming together
of its leaders from around the world, but also because certain Muslim leaders, anxious to rectify Islam's bad rep, are
making statements such as, "There are 1.8 billion Muslims in the world, and 99.9% are peace-loving" (Haitham
Bundakji). Were this statement true, it would be both frightening in its enormity and reassuring in its
docility. However, Islamic doctrine is anything but "peace-loving," as it constantly calls for the slaying of
"idolaters" and "infidels" (e.g.,Q 2:191, 9:5, 9:73), among other harsh commentary in the Koran as well as
other texts such as the hadiths.
While this 1.8 billion figure seems to be high for the present, according to various
predictions and stated Islamist goals Islam will sweep the world, but, contrary to the best wishes of some
of its adherents, this invasion will not be peaceful. It would be safe to say that few non-Muslims would like
to see this world taken over by Islam, which, along with Christianity, represents the worst of Oriental
despotism. Many futurists and visionaries would like to see this planet pry itself free of religions,
especially those stuck in the Dark Ages. Indeed, to those who enjoy the ultimate freedom of expression,
these predictions and predations are chilling, because Islam is a fervid theocracy with little room for
individuality, not to mention that it utterly denigrates the female aspect of creation.
Women Oppression and Cultural Bigotry
This repression of the female is sadly ironic when one considers the roots of Islam, but it
is not unexpected in a world that, for the past several thousand years, has done everything within its power to subjugate women
simply because of physical differences, a male-domination need shared with the apes and other "lesser beasts."
While some may claim that this subjugation and enslavement of women is a cultural tradition, rather than a
religious one, it matters not, for it comes hand-in-hand with religions which teach that there is some
separate outerspace god who is exclusively male. In Islam, this god is interpreted through the minds of
Muslims as being an Arab or Persian man, as opposed to the Jewish man of the Judeo-Christian ideology. This
racist, ethnocentric, culturally bigoted and sexist interpretation of any "infinite" god would appear to
be absolute nonsense. Yet, in what seems to be supreme arrogance and megalomania, many individuals would
like the entire world to believe it is true.
What are the origins of Islam? Well, the Muslim religion is obviously built upon
the Judeo-Christian tradition, but it is also a reaction to said tradition, which excluded and vilified the various
Arab cultures. Like their Jewish brothers and sisters, the Semitic Arabs trace their lineage to the biblical
patriarch Abraham, who is depicted in the Bible as having mated with Hagar the Egyptian, producing the progenitor
of the Arab race, Ishmael. While the Jewish contingent interprets this tale to justify its own ethnocentric
ideology, Muslims interpret it to fit theirs, claiming that "God" would make of Ishmael's people a "great nation"
(Gen 21:18). Typically, instead of searching for the truth about this tale, its proponents have turned it into a
political competition for global domination.
The Fictional Patriarch
Like numerous biblical characters, Abraham is evidently a mythological construct, not a "real
person." As superb independent scholar Barbara G. Walker states in The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and
Secrets (5-6) concerning Abraham:
"This name meaning 'Father Brahm' seems to have been a Semitic version of India's
patriarchal god Brahma; he was also the Islamic Abrama, founder of Mecca. But Islamic legends say Abraham was a
late intruder into the shrine of the Kaaba. He bought it from priestesses of its original Goddess. Sarah, 'the
Queen' was one of the Goddess's titles, which became a name of Abraham's biblical 'wife.' Old Testament writers
pretended Sarah's alliances with Egyptian princes were only love-affairs arranged by Abraham for his own
profit—which unfortunately presented him as a pimp (Genesis 12:16) as well as a would-be murderer of his son
(Genesis 22:10).
"In the tale of Isaac's near-killing, Abraham assumed the role of
sacrificial priest in the druidic style, to wash Jehovah's sacred trees with the Blood of the Son: an
ancient custom, of which the sacrifice of Jesus was only a late variant. Jehovah first appeared to Abraham
at the sacred oak of Shechem, where Abraham built his altar. Later Abraham build an altar to the oak god
of Mamre at Hebron. Even in the 4th century A.D., Constantine said Abraham's home at the Oak of Mamre was
still a shrine: 'It is reported that most damnable idols are set up beside it, and that an altar stands
hard by, and that unclean sacrifices are constantly offered.'"
Allah—Remake of the Moon Goddess
This description of Abraham's origins means that Judaism is built upon hoary myths,
such that neither of its offshoot religions, Christianity and Islam, can truthfully claim to be of divine or
"inspired" origin. As concerns the god of Islam, Allah, Walker (22) has this to say:
"Late Islamic masculinization of the Arabian Goddess, Al-Lat or Al-Ilat—the Allatu of the
Babylonians—formerly worshipped at the Kaaba in Mecca. It has been shown that 'the Allah of Islam' was a male
transformation of 'the primitive lunar deity of Arabia.' Her ancient symbol the crescent moon still appears on
Islamic flags, even though modern Moslems no longer admit any feminine symbolism whatever connected with the
wholly patriarchal Allah."
Indeed, the Koran verifies Allah's lunar or night-sky status: "Remember the name of our Lord
morning and evening; in the night-time worship Him: praise Him all night long." (Q 76:23) And at Q 2:189: "They
question you about the phases of the moon. Say: 'They are seasons fixed for mankind and for the pilgrimage.'"
In Pagan Rites in Judaism (97), Theodor Reik states, in a chapter called "The ancient
Semitic moon-goddess":
"All Semites had once a cult of the moon as supreme power. When Mohammed overthrew the old
religion of Arabia, he did not dare get rid of the moon cult in a radical manner. Only much later was he
powerful enough to forbid prostration before the moon (Koran Sure 4:37). Before Islamic times the moon deity
was the most prominent object of cults in ancient Arabia. Arab women still insist that the moon is the parent
of mankind.
"Sir G. Rawlinson traces the name Chaldeans back to the
designation of the ancient capital Ur (Chur) to be translated as moon-worshipers. The Semitic moon-god was
'the special deity and protector of women.' The Babylonians worshiped the goddess Ishtar, who is identical
with the great Arabian goddess and has the epithet Our Lady... She also has the title Queen
of Heaven, which really means the Queen of the Stars. She was horned and was, as all lunar goddesses,
represented by a heavenly cow.
"The Hebrew tribes, or rather their ancestors, were the latest wave of migrants from
Arabia. The cult of their god was associated with Mount Sinai—the mountain of the moon. The experts assume that
the name Sinai derived from Sin, the name of the Babylonian moon-god. In Exodus (3:1) Sinai is called
the 'mountain of the Elohim. This suggests that it has long been sacred.'
"In the Old Testament, which is a collection of much earlier, often edited writings, the
moon appears as a power of good (Deut. 33:4) or of evil (Ps. 12:16). Traces of ancient moon-worship were
energetically removed from the text by later editors. A few remained, however, and can be recognized in the
prohibitions of Deuteronomy. In 4:19 the Israelites are warned: 'And lest thou lift up thine eyes upon heaven,
and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, and be led astray to
worship them, and serve them,' and in 17:3 the punishment of stoning is prescribed for the person who 'hath
gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven...' The
Lord predicts (Jer. 8:2) that the bones of kings and princes of Judah will not be buried, but spread 'before
the sun, and the moon, and all the hosts of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and whom
they have worshipped.'"
In The Origin of All Religious Worship (25-26), concerning Arab astrotheology, which was a continuation of this ancient Semitic lunar tradition, Charles
Dupuis states:
"The Moon was the great divinity of the Arabs. The Sarazens gave her the epithet of Cabar or the
Great; her Crescent adorns to this day the religious monuments of the Turks. Her elevation under the sign
of the Bull, constituted one of the principal feasts of the Saracens and the sabean Arabs. Each Arab tribe
was under the invocation of a constellation Each one worshipped one of the celestial bodies as its tutelar
genius.
"The Caabah of the Arabs was before the time of Mahomet, a temple dedicated to the Moon. The
black stone which the Musulmans kiss with so much devotion to this day, is, as it is pretended, an ancient
statue of Saturnus. The walls of the great mosque of Kufah, built on the foundation of an ancient Pyrea or
temple of the fire, are filled with figures of planets artistically engraved. The ancient worship of the Arabs
was the Sabismus, a religion universally spread all over the Orient. Heaven and the Stars were the first
objects thereof.
"This religion was that of the ancient Chaldeans, and the Orientals pretend that their
Ibrahim or Abraham was brought up in that doctrine. There is still to be seen at Hella, over the ruins of the
ancient Babylon, a mosque called Mesched Eschams, or the mosque of the Sun. It was in this city, that the
ancient temple of Bel, or the Sun, the great Divinity of the Babylonians, existed; it is the same God, to whom
the Persians erected temples and consecrated images under the name of Mithras."
Astrotheology at Mecca
One of the sites for this Arab worship of the "hosts of heaven" was Mecca. Regarding the Kaaba
of Mecca, that holiest of Muslim holies, Walker (487) writes:
"Shrine of the sacred stone in Mecca, formerly dedicated to the
pre-Islamic Triple Goddess Manat, Al-Lat (Allah), and Al-Uzza, the 'Old Woman' worshipped by Mohammed's
tribesmen the Koreshites. The stone was also called Kubaba, Kuba or Kube, and has been linked with the
name of Cybele (Kybela), the Great Mother of the Gods. The stone bore the emblem of
theyoni, like the Black Stone worshipped by votaries of Artemis. Now it is regarded as
the holy center of patriarchal Islam, and its feminine symbolism has been lost, though priests of the
Kaaba are still known as Sons of the Old Woman."
And a translator of the Koran, N.J. Dawood (1), says:
"Long before Muhammad's call, Arabian paganism was showing signs of decay. At the Ka'bah the
Meccans worshipped not only Allah, the supreme Semitic God, but also a number of female deities whom they
regarded as daughters of Allah. Among these were Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Manat, who represented the Sun, Venus and
Fortune respectively."
Arabian Matriarchy
Concerning the nation of Arabia, Walker asserts that, prior to the encroachment of Islam, it was
a matriarchal culture for over 1,000 years:
"The Annals of Ashurbanipal said Arabia was governed by queens for as long as anyone could
remember....
"Mohammed's legends clearly gave him a matriarchal family background. His parents' marriage
was matrilocal. His mother remained with her own family and received her husband as an occasional
visitor....
"Pre-Islamic Arabia was dominated by the female-centered clans. Marriages were matrilocal,
inheritance matrilineal. Polyandry—several husbands to one wife—was common. Men lived in their wives' homes.
Divorce was initiated by the wife. If she turned her tent to face east for three nights in a row, the husband
was dismissed and forbidden to enter the tent again.
"Doctrines attributed to Mohammed simply re-versed the ancient system
in favor of men. A Moslem husband could dismiss his wife by saying 'I divorce thee' three times. As in
Europe, the change from matriarchate to patriarchate came about only gradually and with much strife.
"...However, the history of early-medieval Arabia is nearly all legend. Like Buddha,
Confucius, Jesus and other founders of patriarchal religions, Mohammed lacks real verification. There is no reliable information about his life or
teachings. Most stories about him are as apocryphal as the story that his coffin hangs forever in mid-air
'between heaven and earth,' like the bodies of ancient sacred kings.
"With or without Mohammed, Islam succeeded in becoming completely male-dominated, making no
place for women except in slavery or in the seclusion of the harem. Islamic mosques still bear signs reading:
'Women and dogs and other impure animals are not permitted to enter.'
"Nevertheless, traces of the Goddess proved ineradicable. Like the virgin Mary, Arabia's
Queen of Heaven received a mortal form and a subordinate position as Fatima, Mohammed's 'daughter.' But she was
no real daughter. She was known as Mother of her Father, and Source of the Sun..."
Who Wrote the Koran?
As concerns the Koran, the Muslim holy book, Walker (513) says:
"Mohammedan scriptures, often erroneously thought to have been written by Mohammed. Moslems
don't believe this. But many don't know the Koran was an enlarged revised version of the ancient Word of the
Goddess Kore, revered by Mohammed's tribe, the Koreshites (Children of Kore), who guarded her shrine at
Mecca.
"The original writing was done long before Mohammed's time by holy imams, a word
related to Semitic ima, 'mother.' Like the original mahatmas or 'great mothers' of India, the
original imams were probably priestesses of the old Arabian matriarchate. It was said they took the
scripture from a prototype that existed in heaven from the beginning of eternity, 'Mother of the Book'—i.e., the Goddess herself, wearing the
Book of Fate on her breast as Mother Tiamat wore the Tablets of Destiny. Sometimes the celestial Koran was
called the Preserved Tablet. There was some resemblance between this and other legendary books of divine
origin, such as the Ur-text, the Book of Thoth, and the Emerald Tablet of Hermes.
"As in the case of the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Koran was much rewritten to support new
patriarchal laws and to obliterate the figures of the Goddess and her priestesses."
In The Great Religious Leaders, Charles Frances Potter says of Mohammed, "It is very
doubtful that he read any of the Bible: indeed, it has not been proved that he ever read anything, or wrote
anything. He called himself 'the illiterate prophet.'" Of course, much of the Koran is based on the Bible, both Old
and New Testaments, combined with pre-Islamic Arab and other traditions.
Regarding the unoriginality of the Koran, Islam expert Dr. Daniel Pipes says (The Jerusalem
Post, 5/12/00):
"The Koran is a not 'a product of Muhammad or even of Arabia,' but a collection of earlier
Judeo-Christian liturgical materials stitched together to meet the needs of a later age."
Biblical scholar Dr. Robert M. Price likewise concurs as to the pre-Islamic nature
of various koranic texts:
"The Koran was assembled from a variety of prior Hagarene texts (hence the contradictions
re Jesus' death) in order to provide the Moses-like Muhammad with a Torah of his own...."
Islamic expert Dr. Gerd-R. Puin concludes:
"My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even
at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within Islamic
traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian
substrate...."
Thus, the Koran was not written by Mohammed.
The Yemeni Koran
Adding significantly to this important scholarship was the discovery in 1972 at Sana'a, Yemen, of thousands of parchment fragments
from the Koran, consisting of possibly the oldest extant quranic manuscript ever found, dating to the 7th-8th
centuries. Regarding these fragments, the professor who photographed them, Dr. Puin, remarks:
"So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is
just God’s unaltered word. They like to quote the textual work that shows the Bible has a history and did not
fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break
through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana’a fragments will help us do that."
Concerning the texts and Puin's conclusions, The Atlantic Monthly's Toby Lester
states:
"...some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the stand Koranic
text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox
Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging
Word of God.... What the Yemeni Korans seems to suggest, Puin began to feel, was an evolving text rather than
simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century A.D."
Others weighing in on the value of the Yemeni discovery have included Dr. Andrew Rippin, a professor
of Islamic Studies:
"The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt. Their variant
readings and verse orders are all very significant. Everybody agrees on that. These manuscripts say that
the early history of the Koranic texts is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text
was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed."
In this same regard, Islamic history professor Dr. R. Stephen Humphreys summarizes the
importance of the study of how the Koran was created and the Yemeni hoard in this quest:
"To historicize the Koran would in effect delegitimize the whole historical experience of
the Muslim community. The Koran is the charter for the community, the document that called it into existence.
And ideally though obviously not always in reality Islamic history has been the effort to pursue and work out
the commandments of the Koran in human life. If the Koran is a historical document, then the whole Islamic
struggle of fourteen centuries is effectively meaningless."
The evidence reveals that the Koran was created over a period of decades, if not centuries,
by a number of hands, rather than representing a single, divine "revelation" from the Almighty to
Mohammed.
Like that of Buddha, Jesus, Moses, et al., Mohammed's historicity is questionable. He seems to be yet another religious figurehead
invented to create a "state" religion. His "history" is full of fantastic legends, but even if we were to find a
"historical person" there, it would not be one of very high or affable character. As Potter says:
"Of women, his taste ran to widows with a temper... For recreation he delighted in cobbling
shoes. Perhaps his greatest joy was when he beheld the severed heads of his enemies.
"His dislikes were just as varied. He detested silk-lined clothes, interest charges, dogs,
others' lies, Jews and Christians. He hated poets, and said, 'Every painter will be in hell.'
"He was inordinately vain. A clever woman poet satirized him. She was slain when asleep with
her child at her breast, and the vengeful Muhammad praised her murderer. Once he tortured a Jew to find the
location of hidden treasure and then had him killed and added the widow to his harem. Strange indeed was the
character of the prophet. How could such a person inspire such reverence and devotion? It is one of the puzzles
of history.
"It was not that he developed a great theology, either, for what little theology Islam has,
worthy of the name, was built up after Muhammad had long been dead."
According to the hadiths or hadees—records of the purported sayings and acts of Mohammed and his companions—the
Prophet was indeed of a character that would repulse any decent human being. One after another of the hadiths discuss Mohammed's insatiable sexual appetite, which included
having sex with his "wife" 'Aisha, who was 9 years old and had not even reached puberty. Various
Islamic authorities have also claimed that Mohammed began "thighing" 'Aisha when he married her at the age of six.
As to how such a character could inspire such reverence and devotion, we
would submit that it was because Mohammed and Islam were created by yet another faction of "the brotherhood"
for purposes of competition with Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and other religions. As N.A Morozov says:
"...until the Crusades Islam was indistinguishable from Judaism and...only then did it
receive its independent character, while Muhammad and the first Caliphs are mythical figures."
Behind the creation of such ideologies are usually those who benefit the most, particularly
"third-party" weapons manufacturers, since these divisive creeds are forever setting one culture against
another.
'Let My People Go!'
Despite the unconvincing attempts by well-meaning individuals to assert the pacificism of Islam,
the fact is that it is a desert warrior's religion and was not spread by peaceful means. As Gerald Berry says, in
Religions of the World (62):
"Partly because he needed funds and partly because his followers were not skilled in
agriculture as were the natives of Yathrib, [Mohammed] organized fighting bands to raid caravans. Having no
ties with the older religions, he sent them out even in the peace months. This started Arabia's Holy War.
Mohammed's whole movement took on the character of religious militarism. He made the Moslem fanatic fighters by
teaching that admission to Paradise was assured for all those who died fighting in the cause of Allah."
In the end, Islam, which means "submission," is built upon older myths and traditions and
was designed to usurp the power of Christians, Jews and women. While we have no quarrel with all Arabian culture,
we do have a big problem with ideologies that are filled with half-truths and lies. Because of arrogance
and bigotry, ancient cultures, along with their variety, justice and beauty, have become nearly obliterated.
In effect, the Western monolithic religions represent a massive degradation of culture.
If this planet's inhabitants would simply become educated to the origins of their traditions in
full, we could live in a world of tremendous beauty and knowledge, as opposed to ugly, superstitious and repressive
ideologies that are exclusionary and bigoted. Islam arose because of the repression of Christianity and Judaism, as
well as an unbalanced female-oriented culture. Like those traditions, Islam is utterly out of balance, and we
may all suffer for it, particularly if the predictions come true that Islam will be the most dominant religion in
the world in the next decades.
As previously stated, there are few non-Muslim women or men who would wish to live in such a
world. Because of this aversion, we would expect to see in the future innumerable ghastly battles and wars waged in
the name of one god or another, as has happened far too often in the past, especially with these monotheistic
Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All told, these three are responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of millions of people, so why are they deemed "Great religions?" The "greatest"
thing about them is their death toll.
If this world is to survive into the coming age, we will need as many people as possible to drop
all of these divisive doctrines. What we need on this planet, right now, are honest, caring and whole human beings
who are motivated not by potential favors and rewards from sadistic and ethnocentric deities in the sky but by
innate decency and integrity. Only in this way can we all live in peace rather than fear, which is the weapon
wielded by religion to convert the "faithful."
Sources & Further Reading
Berry, Gerald. Religions of the Word. Barnes & Noble, 1955.
Dawood, N.J. The Koran. London: Penguin Books, 1995.
Dupuis, Charles. The Origins of All Religious Worship.
Glazov, Jamie. "The Yemeni Koran." FrontpageMag.com
Potter, Charles Francis. The Great Religious Leaders. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1958.
Reik, Theodor. Pagan Rites in Judaism. New York: Farrar, Strauss, 1964.
Walker, Barbara G. The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. HarperSanFrancisco,
1983.
Quotes from the Koran
A Call to the Muslims of the World
The Massacres of the Khilafah
'Islam is a Religion of Peace'
Allah the Moon God
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