A WORD IS ENOUGH FOR THE WISE
(Refuting the wrong perception of the word “JIHAD” to the Non muslims and against ascribing the whole Muslim community as terrorist)
The Bible said In Hosea 4:6 that my people(christians) are destroyed due to the lack of knowledge. After Reading this , I believe many will go back to study Islam not Muslims.
The word Jihad which is now misunderstood by the Non Muslims, means to strive or struggle, never mean fighting or killing. Let me give you an example , when you read hard day and Night to pass your exams .That struggle and all the striving you are doing to make sure you pass that your exam is called JIHAD in Arabic. That is working hard or struggling or striving, when one strive to give his Son good moral upbringing is also Jihad, but never mean any holy war, The term Holy War that the person refered to as Jihad, its obviously wrong , rather the word Holy war in Arabic is termed “HARBUN MUKADDASA” which is no where to be found in the Quran or any thing of my Noble prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H)
Jihad never means to fight anybody, I can see the word the Christian brother used was Holy war which he also said means Jihad ,that is to fight the Non Muslins for the sake of Allah. That is totally wrong perception and I believe after reading this short Writeup , the misconceptions will be cleared away.
This is not a fight or a debate but just to Let you know that we Muslims are wise and all the moves done by the media to tarnish the image of Islam will never be successful. In one of your paragraphs you said Allah commands to kill the christians while your Jesus tells you to Love everybody, Im telling you now that Jesus was never your own and will never be your own, Jesus was never a Christian but a Muslim, because Jesus Christ submit Him self to the Almighty God and he believes in Almighty God alone not 3 in 1, (Mark 12:29, Deutronomy 6:4, Luke 4:8,John 5:30), Jesus said you should love everybody, but you shouldn’t be quoting short verses, if you are talking of your peaceful side why not dropping verses like Exodus 2:20, Deutronomy 13:12-19, 1st Samuel 13:1)
The Quran never tells anyone to kill anybody, Infact the right to Religion that the Quran gave to People is no were to be found in order religious Books. The Quran said in Chapter 6 verse 108 “And do not insult those they invoke other than AllOEh” Also the Quran makes it clear in Quran chapter 5 verse 32 “Who ever kills a soul ,its as if he has killed the whole of man kind and also who ever save a soul it is as if he has save the whole of Mankind” further More the Quran gives the right to religion in Quran chapter 109 verse 6 “For you is your religion, and for me is my religion” Also in Quran chapter 2 verse 256 it says “No compulsion in Religion” in summary of the above paragraph ISLAM DID NOT TEACH ANYONE TO KILL ANYBODY, AND ALSO ISLAMS CONDEMNS ALL SORT OF TERRORISM. IF YOU SEE ANYBODY GOING AGAINST THE ABOVE VERSES( BY KILLING OR BY FORCING ONE TO FOLLOW A RELIGION OR BY INSULTING SOMEONE THAT FOLLOW A PARTICULAR RELIGION) IS NOT A GOOD MUSLIM AND DON’T KNOW WHAT ISLAM IS ALL ABOUT.
We are all aware that in every community there are black sheep, what the media do is to pick the activities of the black sheep of the Muslim community and ascribe it to the whole Muslims in general which is totally not fair to us the Muslims.
I wonder how the Christian brother think that the Muslims were asked to kill for the sake of Allah and im pretty sure the Environment that me and Him are in now, have a greater percentage of Muslims than the Christians,because Islam is the world fastest Growing Religion in the World with Millions of followers everyday, So my brother should think it in these way , If my Religion Islam commands Me to kill the Non Muslims, Did the Christian brother think he will be alive by now to wrote this thing he wrote against Islam,
Allah never says Kill the innocent and go to heaven rather Allah says Who ever killed the innocent it is as if he has killed the whole nation and he is going to Hell as a reward for his bad deeds. Just Imagine, How Sweet and freedom wise these statements are.
In Refuting your second to the Last paragraph that you said you exposed the naked truth about the Evil in Muslims belief, All I did was to laugh because you did not expose anything because there was nothing bad to expose in Islam, and as you can see Everyday the thousands of People running away from your faith and coming to my own, why because they have seen the light and the peace in it. You also said it already that the Religion is growing day by day, How do you think Thousands of People will leave your own which is peaceful and come to my own which is EVIL.
All I urge you is to seek and study the Islam religion not to stay from a far distance and portraying Islam, Even your Bible says you are destroyed due to the lack of Knowledge (Hosea 4:6)
I do wonder when the issue of the crisis in the north east Nigeria arise,we the Muslims are being killed and displaced and a Christian that is not affected in anyway will be saying that they are affecting him, Actually im just wondering . Why not do the analysis of the crisis and bring forth the result lets see who are affected most. Boko Haram are depopulating the Muslims not the Christians , go to the IDPs and be a witness,but that doesn’t stop the Religion from growing.
Refuting the Non Muslim misconception of the word "jihad"
Birthday Islamic Analysis Debunked
In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
In the world today, we are quick to start copying and pasting stories or publications even without verifying the content.
This scenerio is not just talking about the Christians alone or the Muslim Ummah alone, these goes to everybody so far he/she originates from Prophet Adam (PBUH).
However, as a Muslimeen, Islam condemns sharing news without verification;
Allah says; “O you who believe! If a Fasiq (liar – evil person) comes to you with any news, verify it, lest you should harm people in ignorance, and afterwards you become regretful for what you have done.” – Quran 49:6
Narrated Abu Hurairah : The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “It is enough sin for a man to speak of everything that he hears.” (Al Silsilah al-Saheehah, 2025).
The information below is going viral day by day, time to time and it is spreading like wildfire.
———————-
“The manifest truth Christian will always denied is Islam….
ALLAU AKBAR
INCREDIBLE PROOF
Al Quran has 114 chapters, subtract your age from it then add 1903,you will get your year of birth.
Can anyone prove me wrong?
Islam is a sweet religion
————————
This information is false and it should not be used as an argument to prove the authenticity of Islam.
If you subtract your age from 113 then add it to 1904, you also get your year of birth, so why then must we refer to 114 or even mention the Quran itself?
Islam is complete and doesn’t need any cheap and uneducated point to defend its authenticity.
Allah says; ………”This day, I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.” Quran 5:3
May Allah grant us the understanding of the deen….. Ameen
Author : Knowislam.com.ng Team
Knowislam.com.ng : Know Islam, Know Paradise.
…….Telling the Muslim story.
Worldly delusion
What is wide
In this whole world,
Where there is no peace
Even in the smallest piece,
We wake up from our dreams,
To find ourselves in the drain.
What we do is to strive hard and try,
At the end, all we do is to cry.
Our tears is meaningless,
As they tear all means apart.
We sleep everyday thinking we are insane,
And we wake everyday feeling the same.
We found solace,
In lacing up our shoes,
Trekking the whole place,
In search of a plate.
We begged for peace,
And we could only gather our pieces
What is the worldly life,
Except the enjoyment of delusion? (Q 57:20)
…..~aaminah~…..
A Mother's Letter to her child
My dear brothers and sisters, today I have a beautiful question for all of us and that question is, what is our relationship with our parents right now, I want you to ask yourself this question, what is your relationship with our parents, are we diligent children with genuinely happy parents? Are there days in our parent’s life when and they wished we would be different children from what we are.
Ask yourself this question especially our mothers because Rasulullah [sall Allahu alaihi wa sallam] told us about how the mother has a presence in our lives over the father. To make us understand this better.
I want you to imagine a mother who write a letter to her child, what do you think this mother will say in her letter would she not say;My dear son a long time ago, I received the best news a mother can receive and that was the news that Informed me I was pregnant with you, my dear child. I can’t express how happy I was on that day. Weeks passed and my body started changing, I became scared because I could not eat except I vomit what I ate and I felt so weak and my body started expanding as you grew in me. Even though all these were happening to u me, I was loving you more with everyday that passed. The day I held you become even more dearer to me.
Dear child those weeks became months and I became much heavier to such an extent I couldn’t even stand for long, I couldn’t walk for long and then a time came when I couldn’t even sleep on my back because the weight of carrying you will cause immense pain on my chest so I would sleep on my side with the fear that I may roll onto my stomach and harm you. Dear child, while I nursed my fears and tried my very best with each seconds that pass, my love for you keeps growing, and my desire to hold you even waxed stronger.
Until a day when I felt a pain which I have never ever felt before in my life, a pain I thought would kill me. ‘Wallahi [I swear to GOD]’ I thought I was going to die, a pain that I wouldn’t wish for my enemy. That day was the day you were going to be welcomed into this Dunya [world], it lasted for so long, pain after pain, contraction after contraction, second after second, minute after minute and it felt like a life time I thought I wouldn’t survive. But dear child there was never a moment that I hated you or said an evil word to you. Rather, my desire to hold you, see you grow your first teeth, take your first step and grow in love kept me persevering.
I never said “woe to you, woe to you” or utter words of execration and hatred towards you. As I suffer the pains that felt like pangs of death, I heard the similar cry of a baby, and “here you are”. My heart raced of anxiety, my pains disappeared, tears that wouldn’t stop became that of joy, as I brought you towards my chest with broad smile saying ‘’Subhana lirabbiyal a’ala’’ Allah has blessed us with a great blessing. Dear child it didn’t stop there, as sleepless nights keep rolling over sleepless days, just because I couldn’t tolerate your discomfort.
I would be so tired looking after you, during the day that when I finally got some sleep and you made one sound it would wake me up immediately because it would hurt me that you would be uncomfortable and I got up and say rather I be uncomfortable than you be uncomfortable.” Allahu Akbar.
That is probably what she will write really
I will pick you up and rub your back to make sure you’re fine and ensure your body is within the normal temperature range, so that you can experience atmospheric comfort. Dear child, as you grew up, I saw you walking and before that crawling. Then a difficult day came by, it was your first day in school. Hands locked, I took you to school, and you cried so much, I held my tears, knowing it was the best thing to do. I held back my emotions and left you in the class.
Dear child, you learnt well, and soon developed independence and did things for yourself until a day came when I had extreme feelings of sadness and joy. It was the day you were getting married, you found your heart rob and was so happy. My mixed feelings for you was because those few things I love to do for you, would become the duty of another. Still my joy on this day, knew no bound. Allahu Akbar [Allah is Greatest], Subhanall Allah [Glory be to Allah].
We will say all these are chores, but they say No!. it was their happiness to wake up and make breakfast, do the laundry, make your room, ensure you are happy, and ask every now and then, dear child, are you okay? How was your day? Have you eaten? Etc. even if the had the toughest of days and no time to taste food.
LOVE YOUR MOM, YOUR MOM IS HERO.
Snake Pastor exposes TB JOSHUA
Snake Pastor’ Makes U-turn, Claims He Was Tricked By TB Joshua
After seeking deliverance from prophet T.B Joshua, Controversial Penuel Mnguni of End Times Disciples Ministries a.k.a ‘snake pastor’ has made a U-turn since his appearance on Emmanuel TV on Sunday. Mnguni visited TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of all Nations in Nigeria on Sunday, and explained why he had fed his congregants live snakes. Mnguni, who described himself as an “overseer” of his church, said he had misinterpreted the Bible, and did what he thought was scriptural at the time.
Snake pastor Penuel Mnguni
It was after watching TB Joshua on TV that he realised what he was doing was wrong. He said he went to Nigeria to seek deliverance from the prophet.
Now he has come out saying he had to say all of that because he feared for his safety in Nigeria.
He told Daily Sun he did not know he would be “forced” to speak in front of people. Mnguni claimed he was invited to the church, and only went there for “worship” and not deliverance, but was shocked when on arrival, “those people” took his passport and ID and threatened not to give them back unless he did whatever they wanted.
snake pastor Penuel Mnguni said
“It was as if everything was planned before I even got there. If you listen to the video, I am not the one saying those words. There is a woman next to me who is forcefully telling me what to say,” Daily Sun quoted him as saying.
While watching and listening to the video, a woman’s voice can be heard telling the pastor what to say in front of the congregation…..
Watch Video
MY CASE AGAINST YAHWEH!!!
“Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth. There went up a smoke out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet. And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.” (Psalms 18:7-11)
Salam alaekum everyone.
I hope you are not too surprised reading the verse you see here. This is a verse of the Bible where Yahweh is described whenever he gets angry. In Nigeria, we have 2 gods having similar features; Sango and Amadioha. This devilish entity sounds like a description of Satan, but believe it or not, actually comes from the Bible as describing Yahweh. I am still wondering how Yahweh would make darkness his secret place as illustrated in that exert.
This is just a tip of the iceberg.
I would like to take exerts from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
Yahweh (/ˈjɑːhweɪ/, or often /ˈjɑːweɪ/ in English; Hebrew: יהוה) was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel (Samaria) and Judah.[3] His exact origins are disputed,[4] although they reach back to the early Iron Age and even the Late Bronze:[5] his name may have begun as an epithet of El, head of the Bronze Age Canaanite pantheon,[6] but the earliest plausible mentions are in Egyptian texts that place him among the nomads of the southern Transjordan.[7] In the oldest biblical literature he is a typical ancient Near Eastern “divine warrior” who leads the heavenly army against Israel’s enemies;[8] he later became the main god of the Kingdom of Israel (Samaria) and of Judah,[9] and over time the royal court and temple promoted Yahweh as the god of the entire cosmos, possessing all the positive qualities previously attributed to the other gods and goddesses.[10][11] By the end of the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), the very existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos and the true god of all the world.[11]
Hmnn..This is getting interesting!!!
Who is Yahweh really? Throughout history various minor groups have recognized that the biblical god of Judaism and Christianity is the true deceiver of man. Before the christianization of Europe and the birth of Islam in the Middle East the various Gnostic esoteric schools such as the Ophites in Syria and Egypt and the Naasenes in Palestine understood that Yahweh was a malevolent impostor who had ensnared man in a system of deception whereas the rebellious Serpent of Eden in Genesis was the true benefactor of humanity whose illuminating knowledge liberated us from the slavery of the evil demiurgic god of the Jews. The Gnostics called him ‘Yaldabaoth’ or ‘false god of this world’ and recognized his evil deeds. The Ophite sects knew the great secret: the god of the Jews was the true devil who had claimed from himself the title of ‘creator god’ and inverted the roles of good and evil through deception presenting himself as the ‘benevolent father’ of mankind and slandering the Serpent of wisdom as ‘the devil’ and ‘enemy of man’. This accusatory inversion began with the creation of the Christian Bible at the end of the 1st century and would deceive many generations throughout millennia.
Why did the Gnostics believe that Yahweh was a false and malevolent god? Unlike the medieval people who were subjected to the theocracy of the Catholic Church and were unable to read the Bible by themselves, the Gnostic intellectuals of the first centuries of the Christian Era did have access to all the biblical scriptures and were able to study them freely. They knew that the Hebrew Bible is chock-full of cruel acts of evil, ruthless genocides, demands of gruesome sacrifices, barbaric deeds and behaviors of tyranny attributed to Yahweh. In other words, the Gnostics knew that the biblical god was a real devil and his religions were brutal, bloodthirsty, misanthropic and obscurantist. The truth is that the Bible itself bears ample testimony that the supposed loving father of the Jews and Christians has a sadistic and evil nature and his numerous deeds documented in the so-called Sacred Scriptures are so abhorrent that most people today would believe that they were typical of a demonic entity. Upon reading the Bible objectively, it is evident that the Hebrew god Yahweh is a warlike, murderous and depraved character and it is clear that he has a great resentment for mankind. The biblical texts themselves put in doubt the morality and benevolence of the Judeochristian deity and do nothing more than confirm that Yahweh is the true adversary of humanity.
Today it is no longer a secret that the god of the Bible is a bloodthirsty and vengeful character. Since the Renaissance many enlightened thinkers have began to question the despicable immorality, depravity, cruelty, blood lust, misanthropy and xenophobia of Yahweh. Therefore, many philosophers of the modern age would abandon the Judeochristian religion and favor more humanistic worldviews such as Deism and Naturalism. For example, the American intellectual Thomas Paine, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, rejected the biblical god writing in The Age of Reason (1794) that ‘the belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man’ and advocated a Deistic theology whose deity was the god of nature. In the present age of science and the Internet now it is no news that the god of the Old Testament is an abominable nightmare (simply very few people have a complete knowledge of the content of the Bible and very few believers are honest enough to analyze their faith and the moral standard of their god in an objective manner). However, the fact that the history of the divine personage of Yahweh goes back to the Sumerian epoch of the third millennium BCE is something very novel for most readers. In this article I intend to delve into the history of the ancient cults and expose the true origin of that sinister god. In the end we will see what is the true identity of that great cosmic tyrant and decode the great secret of the millennia.
“And the evil spirit from the LORD was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand: and David played with his hand.” (I Samuel 19:9)
Is this not a laughable situation? God who we regard as the Holy One has an evil spirit. Consider that many modern Judeo-Christians consider God the opposite of evil, yet here we have, again, the clear Biblical wording of evil coming from the LORD.
In early Christian history, several Gnostic cults believed that the orthodox Church as well as the Old Testament, came from Satan. The Church, of course, labeled these Gnostics as heretics and burned their books as well as the heretics themselves.
Reading the Old Testament appears to affirm the observation that God and Satan, if not one in the same, at least work as a team.
(See also I Samuel 16:23)
The Bible exposes clearly that Yahweh is a wrathful and intolerant god (Psalm 78), warlike and militaristic (Exodus 13:3; Psalm 2:1-12; Deuteronomy 7:23-24), murderous (2 Kings 2:23-24), genocidal (Exodus 32:27-28; Deuteronomy 20:11-17), unmerciful and cruel (1 Samuel 15:2-3), treacherous (Ezekiel 20:25-26), infanticidal (Psalms 135:8; 137:9; Exodus 12:29) and drunken with his lust for gruesome sacrifice (Leviticus 1:5-9).
Have we ever wondered why Jesus never spoke the word YAHWEH although he lived and died as a Jew and the word Yahweh never appeared anywhere in the New Testament? What conspiracy theory is the Bible hiding?. I thought this was a joke until I researched these links
https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/jehovah-new-testament.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton_in_the_New_Testament
https://carm.org/old-testament-manuscripts-and-jehovahs-name-in-the-new-testament
http://jwfacts.mobi/does-jehovah-belong-in-the-new-testament/
Are you surprised?!
I am surprised how the Old Testament is filled with how Yahweh orders the killing of innocent people even after the 10 Commandments said “Thou shall not kill”. For example, Yahweh kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21). Yahweh also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there(Yahweh favours only the land of Israel and no one else; Is there not even a righteous man or baby in any land apart from Israel?) . He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3). He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6). In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, Yahweh told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! Just about every other page in the Old Testament has Yahweh killing somebody! In 2 Kings 10:18-27, Yahweh orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own temple! In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered. Subhanallah!
Is Yahweh God or Satan himself?!
Yahweh of the Old Testament also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9).
This type of criminal behavior should shock any moral person. Murder, rape, pillage, plunder, slavery, and child abuse can not be justified by saying that some god says it’s OK.
In fact, the Bible explains openly that Yahweh finds great delight in the gruesome and morbid sacrifices (Genesis 8:20-21; Leviticus 1:5-9; Numbers 18:17-19). It is as if he were fascinated by the immolation of innocent life. It is evident that the god of the Jews is a carnivorous entity of a predatory nature given that in Genesis he rejects the vegetable offering of Cain and takes delight in the animal sacrifice of Abel (Genesis 4:3-5). What is more, at times the ritual jehovitic sacrifices become huge bloodbaths of carnage. The first Book of Kings recounts that the jehovitic monarch Solomon and his royal priesthood sacrificed more than 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep in the temple of Yahweh in a time-frame of only two weeks (1 Kings 8:62-64). The Hebrew god has always had a thirst for immolated blood.
It is amazing now that some pastors now share my view on who Yahweh is. I would copy out exerts from the Chapter 27 of a book of a pastor I am presently studying his works. For proper examination of the book, please click: http://intothefathersheart.com/chapter-27-a-study-on-the-contrasting-personalities-of-the-two-lords-of-the-bible/
A CONTRAST AND CONTRADICTION OF
THE TWO DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES
BOTH CLAIMING TO BE “THE LORD.”
PERSONALITY 1
“And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which was with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people, that I may know the number of the people.” 2 Samuel 24:1-2
PERSONALITY 2
“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel. And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.” 1 Chronicles 21:1-2
PERSONALITY 1
“And Elijah answered and said to the captain of fifty, If I be a man of God, then let fire come down from heaven, and consume thee and thy fifty. And there came down fire from heaven, and consumed him and his fifty.” 2 Kings 1:10 KJV.
PERSONALITY 2
“And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. And they went to another village.” Luke 9: 54-56 KJV.
PERSONALITY 1
“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord (Jesus) sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. And above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:1-5. Note: There are three heavens and there are two thrones. The true Lord (Father & Son) sits on His throne in the third heaven, in the center of the universe surrounded by the two thirds faithful angels who remain loyal to their Creator. The false lord (Satan) sits on his throne in the first heaven (atmospheric heavens of this planet, earth) surrounded by the one third of the fallen angels who rebelled with him and left heaven. Here is a text which reveals him sitting on his throne.
PERSONALITY 2
“And he (the true prophet Micaiah) said ‘Hear thou therefore the word of the (true) Lord (Jesus) I saw the lord (Satan) sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And lord (satan) said, ‘Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, (angel or demon)and stood before the lord (satan), and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ And the lord (satan) said unto him, ‘Wherewith? (how?)’ And he (evil angel) said, ‘I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he (lord satan) said Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do so.’ Now therefore, behold, the lord (satan) hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the lordhath spoken evil concerning thee.” Commentary: How do we know that this is the false lord sitting on his throne? Because the true Lord does not lie. “That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:” Hebrews 6:18; Numbers 23:19. And this “lord” is sending forth this evil angel to become a “lying spirit” in the mouth of ‘all these prophets who belong to you.’ Micaiah was the only true prophet of the true Lord. The rest were prophets of Satan. If a person cannot see this then what would ever persuade them? “And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” Luke 16:31. And so Jesus rose from the dead but how many believe Him today?
WHO TOLD ABRAHAM TO OFFER UP ISAAC AS A HUMAN SACRIFICE?
“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; (In Hebrew Moriah means, Jehovah provides) and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” Gen. 22;1, 2. Let us take the Scriptures as our guide as we seek to unravel this mystery. “Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:16,17.
Would it be logical and fair to ask, “WAS THIS COMMAND TO OFFER ISAAC AS A HUMAN SACRIFICE A ‘GOOD GIFT? Was it even a gift?” The answer has to be, “NO.” An unqualified and unequivocal, “NO.” Secondly, “DOES GOD TEMPT PEOPLE?” What does the Bible say? “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man:” James 1:13. If God does not tempt us, who then does tempt us? I Cor. 7:5; Matt. 4:1; Mark 1:13; Luke 4;2, all tell us that Satan is the one who tempts us, not God. In Gen. 20, we find that Abraham lied about his wife in order to save his life. He broke the law. This would naturally give Satan, the accuser of the brethren, a chance to accuse Abraham before the heavenly council, just as he did Job. He probably said to God before the council, “Abraham is not fit to become the Father of many nations. He isn’t even fit to live period, for he has broken your law. He deserves to die. He lied down in Egypt about his wife. The Messiah cannot come through his seed or line. He has disbarred himself by breaking your law.” But, Abraham must have repented of his sin, for God would not have blessed Sarah with baby Isaac if they had not repented.
The last and perhaps the most important point to consider in this story is the fact that it was Yahweh who told Abraham not to kill Isaac, Gen. 22:12. We know that God never changes, Mal. 3:6. It would be impossible for God to have told Abraham to kill Isaac and then for him to contradict himself by saying, “I changed my mind. Don’t do it, Abraham.” So, here again the Hebrew writer, Moses, under the inspiration of the Spirit put the blame on God for tempting Abraham. The command to sacrifice Isaac probably was given to Abraham in a dream or vision of the night, since God had spoken to Abraham before in visions, Gen. 15:1. The message apparently came that very night, as “Abraham arose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass and went unto the place of which God had told him.” Gen. 22:3. Abraham did not seem to question or doubt that the message was from God, for he promptly obeyed. Paul says Abraham believed God could raise Isaac from the dead, Heb. 11:19, which suggests that Abraham did have an inner struggle over this great sacrifice he was commanded to make, even though human sacrifice was a common ceremony in Abraham’s day.
Abraham probably did not question if the command to kill his own son was in accordance with God’s character, because most old testament characters thought of Jehovah as a God who demanded sacrifice and blood in order to appease his wrath. Remember that Abraham was straight out of paganism. But, he probably wondered how God’s promise to make Him a great nation could be fulfilled if Isaac was killed. But His loyalty to God was greater than his doubts and fears and this is what vindicated God’s faith in Abraham before the heavenly council, just as Job’s faith and loyalty had vindicated God before the same, council. Job 1 and 2. Abraham did not question God, but promptly obeyed. But whose idea was it? It was Satan’s idea for Satan, not God, is the killer. Jn. 8:44. Nevertheless, God took the blame and permitted this satanic idea to be communicated to Abraham. The voice sounded familiar. Could Satan, as an Angel of Light, been permitted to speak to Abraham? Yes, the very fact that a “horror of great darkness fell upon him” is proof enough since Satan is the ruler of Darkness, Ephesians 6:12.
The main issue here is: “WHOSE IDEA WAS IT ORIGINALLY TO KILL ISAAC?” THIS IS THE QUESTION WE ARE SEEKING TO ANSWER. We know the true Lord would never make such a suggestion, nevertheless, God took the blame for it before the universe to cover up for Lucifer just as He did in the case of Job. And remember that it was Satan who suggested that Job be tested, not the true Lord.
Hmnnn…Is Yahweh still God?!
The most shocking example of the practice of jehovitic blood sacrifice, however, is found in the Book of Judges according to which the Israelite judge Jephthah, after being instigated by the spirit of Yahweh, made a vow to his god promising that he would sacrifice in holocaust the first person to come out of his house in exchange for the victory in the war against the enemies of Israel (Judges 11:29-31). Yahweh fulfilled his promise and Jephthah came home victorious. However, unfortunately the first person who came out of his house was none other than his beloved daughter and the poor Jephthah, full of sadness, saw himself obliged to offer his own human offspring in holocaust to his depraved god (Judges 11:34-40).
In Nigeria, Ogun is a god that desires blood sacrifices. I am wondering what is the difference between Yahweh and this Ogun. Yet I see a lot of Christians here in Nigeria preach against Ogun worshippers whereas they love Yahweh who loves blood sacrifices and dwells in darkness.
The True Identity of Yahweh: A Shocking Revelation
Who is Yahweh really? Without doubt, the origin and identity of the god of the Jews are topics shrouded in mystery. According to the Bible, Yahweh is the only god who created heaven and earth and nobody else is like him. However, contrary to the claims of traditional Judeochristian theology, modern biblical scholarship reveals another story. In reality, jehovitic monotheism was quite a late invention in the history of the Hebrew people and has its origin in the 7th century BCE according to the academic consensus. What are the implications of this revelation? The original religion of the western Semites, the Hebrews included, recognized a polytheistic theology and the entity known as Yahweh in the later biblical religion was originally just one of many gods in the ancient pantheon. Therefore, the god of Judaism has his origin among the ancient deities of the polytheistic cultures of the Middle East and the Levantine Mediterranean.
Although the tetragrammaton YHWH, vocalized as Yahweh, is the most well known name of the god of the Hebrews, it is by no means his original name in the biblical tradition. In fact, the biblical deity begins his life in the Hebrew Bible under the name El and sometimes its plural form Elohim, and later adopts the epithet Yahweh when he presents himself to Moses for the first time on Mount Horeb. In other words, Yahweh is not a personal name but rather a divine title which can be translated as ‘he who makes exist’ or ‘he who creates’.
What is the origin of the ancient deity known as El in many passages of the Bible? In the second millennium BCE way before the redaction of the Pentateuch and the birth of absolute jehovitic monotheism, El was regarded as the highest deity of the ancient semitic pantheon and revered as the Father of all the Elohim together with his consort Asherah. His divine sons, known as the Bene ha Elohim or ‘sons of the gods’, included semitic gods such as Baal, Kothar-wa-Khasis, Ashtarte and Mot. These sons of the divine couple of El and Asherah would later be turned into fallen angels, the Sons of God, in Genesis 6:2 and also in the apocryphal Enochian literature in accordance with the new monotheistic theology (Day, 2002iv; Smith, 2003v). In the pre-Israelite Canaanite religion El was known by the divine title El dū yahwī ṣaba’ôt whose meaning is ‘El who creates the hosts (armies)’ (Miller, 2000vi). Let’s bear in mind that the biblical theonym Yahweh appears on many occasions as an abbreviation of Yahweh Sebaot, a Hebrew epithet which can be translated as ‘he who creates the hosts (armies)’. In other words, Yahweh was always an epithet associated with the primordial deity El in the pre-biblical semitic religion. Therefore, Yahweh and El have always been the same entity.
How was El according to the primitive semitic religion? El was recognized as the king of heaven, the head of the assembly of the Elohim, the great divine judge, the ‘Father of all the gods’ and the main deity of harvest and agriculture. Moreover, he was associated with the bull as a symbol of his male potency and known as the ‘Father of Years’, which means he was the god of time. In the Levantine regions of the Iron Age, El was worshiped as the Supreme Father and the Most High by the Phoenicians, the Philistines and the Canaanites among other semitic peoples, and his cult was characterized by sacrifice, both animal and human, and in particular the offering of firstborn sons in holocaust (Olyan, 1988vii). What is certain is that El was a warlike and bloodthirsty god who lusted after sacrificial blood. Interestingly the same pre-Israelite deity was represented by a winged solar disk with a star in its center.
Let’s take a moment to revise the numerous similarities between the biblical El-Yahweh and his pre-Israelite semitic precursor. First, both were known by the epithet Yahweh Sebaot (yahwī ṣaba’ôt), both being ‘creators of the hosts (armies)’. They were gods of war. Second, both presented themselves as the Supreme Father and were worshiped as the Most High. The pre-biblical Canaanite version was revered as the Father of all the Elohim and his biblical successor is presented as the Father of the angels (Bene ha Elohim) (Genesis 6:2). Third, both are the chief who presides over the assembly of the gods. In Psalm 82:1 El-Yahweh presents himself as the president of the council of the gods and judges in the midst of his heavenly colleagues. According to the Canaanite texts, El presided over the divine assembly along with his son Baal, but he always maintained his status as the highest god (Smith, 2009viii). Fourth, both were blood-lusting gods whose cult demanded human sacrifice and the holocaust of firstborn males. The Hebrews would inherit their sacrificial practices from the Canaanite cult directly (Smith, 2002ix). Fifth, both had as an epithet Father of Years and were described as aged gods. The references to Yahweh in the Bible such as Ancient of Days whose hair was as white as pure wool (Daniel 7:9) and the great god (El in the original Hebrew text) whose years are unsearchable (Job 36:26) are identical to the descriptions of El in the Ugaritic texts (Day, 2002x). Sixth, El was represented by a pointed star inside a solar disk with wings in the Canaanite religion and the god whom the Jews worshiped was associated with the star in the Bible (Amos 5:26). Presently the main symbol of Judaism is the Star of David or the Seal of Solomon. The Cult of Yahweh in Judaism has its roots in the Cult of El of the polytheistic semitic peoples such as the Canaanites and the Phoenicians.
Where did the Cult of El of the Levantine Semites come from? It is already known that the western semitic pantheon like all the other pantheons of the ancient Middle East such as the Babylonian ultimately has its origin in the very ancient pantheon of the Sumerians (Kramer, 1998xi). Therefore, the pantheons of the Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Levantine Semitic (Canaanite) cultures and even that of the Hellenic civilization all have a common ancestor and many of their divine members are identical in all the different cultures mentioned above. The semitic god El, the precursory version of the biblical El-Yahweh, has his inception in the more ancient Sumero-Akkadian religion in which he was known by his original name: Anu, the god of heaven.
Very akin to his semitic equivalent El, the Sumerian god Anu was the king of heaven, the highest of the Mesopotamian pantheon, a feared great judge, the president of the Divine Council and the Progenitor of all the Anunnaki. He engendered the lineage of the great Sumero-Akkadian gods such as Enlil, Enki (Ea), Inanna (Ishtar) and Nergal (Erra). These are the Sumerian equivalents of the semitic gods Baal, Kothar-wa-Khasis, Ashtarte and Mot respectively. Besides, just like El, Anu was represented by the bull as a symbol of his masculinity and in the Sumerian religion it was believed that he had created the hosts of heaven as his soldiers for the destruction of his enemies. Likewise, in the Hebrew Bible Yahweh is known as the Lord of the Heavenly Hosts. Anu was a powerful and warlike god. Similarly his symbol was a star inside a disk. According to the Sumero-Akkadian texts, all much more ancient than the Hebrew Bible by millennia, Anu was the god who was opposed to Enki revealing to Adapa (Adam) the science of the design of heaven and earth (Kramer & Maier, 1989xii), denied him the Bread and Water of Life (Legend of Adapa) and was the first to swear the oath to destroy mankind by the flood (Sumerian Deluge of Nippur). It is true to say that in the Mesopotamian mythology Anu was a violent usurper who rose in combat against the previous king Alalu and defeated him in a fight for the throne of heaven (Van Der Toorn, 1996xiii).
El and Anu were the same deity in the region of Mesopotamia (Blásquez, 2001xiv). In fact, the semitic root el/il/ilu from which the Canaanite and Hebrew theonym El is derived is of Sumero-Akkadian origin. In Akkadian, the ancestor of all the semitic languages, the cuneiform ideogram for the deity Anu had two phonetic values and could be read as Anu or Ilu. Here we find a direct etymological link between the theonyms El and Anu. Besides, as we have just seen, almost all of the fundamental characteristics of the two are so identical as to conclude that El and Anu are the same deity. The only difference is that in we still haven’t found in the pre-Israelite Canaanite texts any explicit reference that El was an usurper of the throne of heaven, although he was considered the son of the primordial deities Elyon and Beruth just as Anu in the Mesopotamian mythology was engendered by the pre-pantheonic gods Anshar and Kishar. However, in the most primitive Hebrew texts which underlie some parts of the Pentateuch, we can in fact find some subtle references to an ascension to power and even to an usurpation of the heavenly throne by El-Yahweh thanks to his great military skill (Stark, 2011xv). In the Song of Moses of the pre-biblical manuscript 4QDeut we see that Yahweh first inherits the land of Israel from his superior Elyon, the Most High, and then rises to the top of the pantheon after defeating his divine rivals. We encounter a parallel scene in Psalm 82 in which Yahweh, the god of Israel, judges the other gods in the middle of the Divine Council, condemns the other divine sons of Elyon to die like men and declares that he himself will inherit all the nations (Smith, 2001xvi). In the end, in the most primitive texts of the Hebrew Bible there is conserved a vestige of the primordial Mesopotamian myth of the usurpation of the throne of heaven by Anu (El).
We now understand that the semitic deity El, known also as Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, has his origin in the very ancient Sumerian pantheon and is identical to the sky god Anu. However, the revelation doesn’t end there. The following is much more surprising and shocking. In ancient times the same El of the western Semites was identified with Kronos in the Hellenic religion (Smith, 2002xvii). For the Levantine peoples, El and Kronos were identical. Who was Kronos? Kronos was the Greek name of none other than the violent and bloodthirsty Roman god Saturn. Just like Anu-El in the Middle East, Saturn-Kronos in the Mediterranean mythology was the highest titan of the pantheon, the lord of the throne of heaven, a violent usurper who had defeated his own father for supremacy and a ruthless tyrant. Identical to El in the semitic religion, Saturn-Kronos was a god of harvest and agriculture and was also considered the Father of Time just as El was known as ‘Father of Years’ and ‘Ancient of Days’ in the pre-Israelite semitic texts and in some books of the Hebrew Bible. Besides, Saturn-Kronos was an infanticidal god who devoured children and his cult was characterized by human sacrifice and the offering of firstborn sons in holocaust. This would explain why we find some vestiges of the practice of human sacrifice and ritual infanticide in the jehovitic cult in the texts of the primary history of the Hebrew Bible. The main symbols of Saturn-Kronos were the scythe, the cross and the waning moon.
The Hebrews were always Saturn worshipers from the beginning. Although the Jews would like to conceal it, Judaism has always been a saturnic cult whose god is none other than El/Kronos and therefore Anu. Everybody knows that the sacred day of the Hebrew god is Saturday. Saturday is intrinsically liked to the ancient deity Saturn-Kronos. Although languages such as Spanish and Modern Greek have adopted the word sábado/sábbato whose most well known meaning is ‘day of rest’, the seventh day of the week (Saturday) was called Diēs Saturnī or ‘Day of Saturn’ in Latin and Kronía in honor of Kronos in Classical Greek. Many people know that Saturday in Hebrew is Shabbath, the day of rest or Sabbath of Judaism; however, few people know the true origin of this semitic term. Shabbath shares its etymological root with the word Shabbathai, the name for the god and the planet Saturn in the Hebrew language. Besides, in pre-Israelite antiquity the planet Saturn, the judge of all the planets, was associated with El. Likewise, his Sumerian precursor Anu was associated with a set of celestial bodies which included the warlike planets Mars and Saturn in Mesopotamian mythology (Evans, 1998xviii). Moreover, in the Kabbala, Jewish esotericism, Yahweh Elohim is associated with the sephira Binah and by extension with the planet Saturn (Guiley, 2009xix).
In brief, the true identity of the Hebrew god Yahweh is a bone-chilling revelation. Yahweh is El, Saturn, Kronos and Anu. All of these are the various facets of the same entity: the evil king of heaven of the Sumerian pantheon. The Hebrews were always the people of Saturn. At the start of their history, the Jewish people worshiped Saturn openly. However, since the exile of the Hebrews in Babylonia (6th century BCE), they would begin to conceal the true nature of their deity and the post-exile Judaism would develop as a crypto-saturnic cult. Since then their Saturn worship has been the most shocking secret of the elite of the Jewish people.
The Crypto-Saturnism of Judaism
We have already established that the Hebrew god Yahweh was El, the pre-Israelite deity associated with Saturn; the Jewish people have always sanctified the day of Shabbathai (Saturn) and in the primitive Hebrew religion saturnic practices such as human sacrifice and the holocaust of firstborn males were commonplace customs in the jehovitic cult. It remains clear that the true deity of the Jewish religion has always been Saturn. In fact, the name of the Hebrew fatherland Israel can mean ‘El (Saturn) fights’ or ‘El (Saturn) rules’. However, since the age of the post-exile prophets, the elite of the priesthood has always wanted to conceal the saturnic aspect of Judaism and present Yahweh as a unique god completely separated from his saturnic history.
The Judaism of the post-exile prophets is a front designed by the elite of Jewry with the purpose of hiding the Saturnism of the Hebrew religion. At that time the Hebrews were exiled abroad and it is most likely that the Jewish priesthood wanted their cult to appear more respectable before the eyes of outsiders. Let’s bear in mind that the main objective of Judaism has always been Zionism and of course the Jews would begin to infiltrate the Gentile nations after the Babylonian exile. Therefore it was necessary for them to conceal the true intentions of their dark sect, sever their ties with their shameful past and begin to operate in a surreptitious manner.
The Book of Amos is a good example of the building of a religious façade in order to hide the saturnic practices of the Hebrew cult. In Amos 5:26 we see that the prophet admonishes the house of Israel and berates the Jews for bearing images dedicated to Moloch and Chiun.
‘But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.’
This verse is very important. Here we can see that the Hebrews worshiped a god known as Chiun and represented by a star. Who was Chiun? The theonym Chiun was a hebraized form of the Paleo-Babylonian word Kewan/Kayawanu, a Mesopotamian name for the planet Saturn. In the Greek Septuagint Chiun was translated as Remphan, another name for Saturn. The star of Chiun is linked to the so-called Star of David or the Seal of Solomon, the saturnic symbol of the Jewish cult. In the end, this passage of Amos confirms that the Hebrews were Saturn worshipers.
However, here the elites of the Hebrew priesthood were well cunning. Despite the fact that the saturnic cult had been a practice typical of the Hebrews from the beginning under the Cult of El, the priestly redactors of Amos aimed to present Saturn as a foreign god deceptively, using his Babylonian name on purpose even though there already existed the saturnic terms El and Shabbathai in their own language. In other words, the Jewish priests sought to misrepresent their own shameful god as a god of the Babylonians, portray his cult among the Hebrews as a foreign heresy adopted by the Jewish people in exile and disassociate Yahweh from his elian/saturnic past presenting him as a unique and distinct god.
Reflections
We have just seen that the god of the biblical religion is not and has never been a great loving father as the religious elites have wanted us to believe, but in fact he has been an utterly sadistic and immoral entity from the beginning. The holy book of Judaism itself, the Hebrew Bible, portrays Yahweh as a depraved monster whose blood lust is insatiable and a cruel and warlike tyrant.
Therefore, the myth of the so-called benevolence of the Judeochristian god is nothing more than a shameless lie of dishonest priests, pastors and Christian apologists and just like many of the church doctrines it has no real foundation in the biblical scriptures. In fact, the Bible itself says that the Hebrew god not only ordered his people to offer daily animal sacrifices and commit ruthless acts of genocide against the non-Jewish peoples, but also demanded that Jews immolated their own sons in holocaust and murdered foreign children by the blade of the sword and then admitted that he himself had given the Hebrew unsound statutes on purpose so that they would sacrifice their own sons in the jehovitic cult as a punishment for their sins.
The god of Israel is not a god of love; he is a true demonic entity! That is proven in the very texts of the Bible. Therefore, the teaching that Yahweh is a benevolent god is roundly debunked and turns out to be nothing more than a naive fantasy and a pious lie of the blind, chauvinistic and deceitful fanatics of the religion.
The true identity of Yahweh also turns out to be a rather shocking surprise. Our studies show that the Hebrew god Yahweh, whose biblical theonym is in fact an abbreviation of the epithet Yahweh Sebaot or ‘he who creates the hosts (armies)’, is identical to the ancient pre-Israelite Canaanite deity El, a bloodthirsty and warlike god whose cult demanded the holocaust of firstborn males and whose epithets included El dū yahwī ṣaba’ôt (El who creates the hosts) and Father of Years just like the biblical Yahweh. What is most terrifying is that in antiquity the same semitic El was identical to the infamous and deranged infanticidal deity Kronos whose western name is Saturn. In fact, the Jews have always been worshipers of El-Saturn since the inception of their history and they have always sanctified the day of Shabbathai (Saturn) as a part of their cult. In the end, Saturnism has always constituted the essential lifeblood of the Jewish religion.
References
iTuraiev, B.A. (1911) El Oriente Clásico.
iiOlyan, S. (1988) Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel. Atlanta (p. 12, pp. 62-68)
iiiSmith, M.S. (2002) The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. Michigan (pp. 172-178)
ivDay, J. (2002) Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. New York (pp. 13-41, 232)
vSmith, M.S. (2003) The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York (pp. 140-141)
viMiller, P.D. (2000) The Religion of Ancient Israel. Westminster (p. 2)
viiOlyan, S. (1988) Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel. Atlanta (p. 12, pp. 62-68)
viii Smith, M.S. (2009) The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Leiden (pp. 46; 289)
ixSmith, M.S. (2002) The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. Michigan (pp. 172-178)
xDay, J. (2002) Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. New York (p. 18)
xiKramer, S.N. (1998) Sumerian Mythology: Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. Pennsylvania (pp. 28-29)
xiiKramer, S.N. & Maier, J. (1989) Myths of Enki, the Crafty God. New York & Oxford. (p. 116)
xiiiVan Der Toorn, K. (1996) Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel: Continuity and Changes in the Form of Religious Life. Leiden (p. 159)
xivBlázquez. J.M. (2001) Dioses, mitos y rituales de los semitas occidentales en la antigüedad. (pp. 29-30)
xvStark, T. (2011) The Human Faces of God: What Scripture Reveals When It Gets God Wrong (And Why Inerrancy Tries To Hide It). Oregan (pp. 70-71; 74-76)
xvi Smith, M.S. (2001) The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York (pp. 156-157, 64)
xvii Smith, M.S. (2002) The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. Michigan (pp. 172-178; 78)
xviiiEvans, J. (1998) The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy. New York (pp. 8.9)
xixGuiley, R.E. (2009) The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology. New York (p. 139)
Funsho Animashaun @ knowislam.com.ng
Feeling Demotivated this Ramadān? Remember the Supplication of Jibrīl
We are nearly half way through the blessed month of Ramadān and many of us are unfortunately still only warming up in our worship and righteous acts. A common excuse for this is that due to the long hours of fasting in the heat, coupled with having to go to work and look after one’s family, it is difficult to strive towards supplementary voluntary acts of worship beyond the tarāwīh prayers. The mantra of ‘I am tired’ is probably the most frequent form of dhikr on the tongues of many Muslims today.
As a way of motivating us to hasten towards ihsān (excellence) in our worship so that we get the best out of Ramadān, rather than the bare minimum, it is worth pondering on the following hadīth.
It was narrated that Abū Hurayrah (may Allāh be pleased with him) said:
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) ascended the minbar and said: “Āmīn, āmīn, āmīn.” It was said: “O Messenger of Allāh, you ascended the minbar and said, ‘Āmīn, āmīn, āmīn’.” He said: “Jibrīl (peace be upon him) came to me and said: “If Ramadān comes and a person is not forgiven, he will enter Hell and Allāh will cast him far away. Say Āmīn.” So I said Āmīn. He said: “O Muhammad, if both or one of a person’s parents are alive and he does not honour them and he dies, he will enter Hell and Allāh will cast him far away. Say Āmīn.” So I said Āmīn. He said: “If you are mentioned in a person’s presence and he does not send blessings upon you and he dies, he will enter Hell and Allāh will cast him far away. Say Āmīn.” So I said Āmīn.”
Although there are three supplications being made in this hadīth it is only the first which is the focus of this article. Before studying the content of the supplication itself, let us examine the circumstances surrounding the supplication.
Firstly, who is making the supplication? None other than the Archangel Jibrīl (peace be upon him), the greatest, most virtuous and most honourable of all the angels, who has a high rank with Allāh and the one whom Allāh chose to entrust with revelation revealed to His Prophets.
Secondly, who is saying āmīn? The Noble Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) – the last Prophet, the Imām of the Messengers, and the one who will intercede with Allāh on the Day of Resurrection. In short, the best of creation.
Thirdly, what is ‘āmīn’? It itself is a supplication calling upon Allāh to answer what has been requested.
Fourthly, where is the supplication being made? On the minbar of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) in his mosque in Madīnah, the next holiest place in the world after Makkah.
In light of the above four points, it is clear that whatever supplication is being made here is of significant importance. How powerful a supplication must it be if it is uttered by Jibrīl (peace be upon him) on the minbar of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him), who is himself asking Allāh to accept the supplication? Knowing the above, we would be foolish to ignore a supplication of such magnitude.
In this hadīth, Jibrīl (peace be upon him) is essentially supplicating against someone who witnesses Ramadān but is not forgiven in it. So severe is such a failing according to Jibrīl (peace be upon him) that such a person should be thrown into the Hellfire and distanced from Allāh’s infinite mercy. Note that the du’ā does not mention the sins of this individual, but speaks of them in a general sense such that it is applicable to all – those with many major sins as well as those with few minor ones. Yet, the du’ā is mercilessly calling for such a person to be thrown into the Hellfire and distanced from Allāh’s mercy which envelopes all things.
The reason for this is that anyone who fails to be forgiven in the month of Ramadān must indeed be a wretched individual. For this is the month in which the shayātīn are chained up, and the month in which the gates of Paradise are flung open and people emancipated from the Fire nightly. It is a month therefore in which Allāh facilitates us to do good deeds and to avoid committing sins. If this is not enough, Allāh motivates us further by promising to multiply the reward for our deeds.
On the last day of Sha’bān, the Prophet (peace be upon him) gave a sermon and said,
“O people! A great and blessed month has approached you, a month containing a night better than a thousand months. Allāh has made fasting in its days an obligation and prayer in its nights a (recommended) voluntary act. Anyone who seeks nearness to Allāh in this month through any virtuous act will be like one who carried out an obligatory act at another time (outside of Ramadān), and whoever performs an obligatory act in this month will be like one who performed seventy such acts at another time. It is the month of patience, and the reward for patience is Paradise. It is the month of equality, the month in which the wealth of the believer is increased.”
It is a time when the mosques are overflowing with worshippers, when entire families who may not offer prayers during the rest of the year, pray obligatory and voluntary prayers in the mosque, when all around you, believers are completing a recitation of the Qur’ān, when purses are being emptied to give charity in the way of Allāh, and when the tongues are restrained. Indeed it is a time when the believers are united in worshipping Allāh. If in such a month someone is unable to obtain Allāh’s forgiveness, then wretched indeed is he, and thus, deserving of Allāh’s punishment as supplicated for by Jibrīl (peace be upon him) and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him).
We must not be complacent and think that just because we are fasting, we will be forgiven. Only the foolish would remain content with their actions and gamble with their destiny in such a fashion. Instead, we must remember the du’ā of Jibrīl (peace be upon him) and use these precious days which remain of this blessed month to hasten to good deeds and righteous actions and actively strive for Allāh’s forgiveness and mercy so that we can abide in the Gardens of Paradise forever.
Turkish parliament approves troop deployment to Qatar
Turkish parliament approves legislation allowing Turkish troops to be deployed in Qatar.
Turkey’s parliament has approved a legislation allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar.
The bill, first drafted in May, passed with 240 votes in favour, largely with support from the ruling AK party and nationalist opposition MHP.
Wednesday’s decision is a show of support for Qatar as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.
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Turkey is a key ally of Qatar and is setting up a military base in the country which also hosts the largest US airbase in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain severed relations with Qatar and closed their airspace to commercial flights on Monday, accusing it with financing “extremist” groups.
Qatar vehemently denies the accusations. This is the worst split between powerful Arab states in decades.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised the Arab states’ move, saying isolating Qatar and imposing sanctions will not resolve any problems and adding that Ankara will do everything in its power to help end the crisis.
Turkey has maintained good relations with Qatar as well as several of its Gulf Arab neighbours.
Turkey set up a military base in Qatar, its first such installation in the Middle East, as part of an agreement signed in 2014. In 2016 Ahmet Davutoglu, then Turkish prime minister, visited the base where 150 troops were already stationed, the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported.
In an interview with Reuters in late 2015, Ahmet Demirok, Turkey’s ambassador to Qatar at the time, said 3,000 ground troops would eventually be deployed at the base, which was planned to serve primarily as a venue for joint training exercises.
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Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
Questions raised over $110bn arms deal to Saudi Arabia
Donald Trump green-lighting weapon sales that Obama withheld because of concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
Washington DC – President Donald Trump’s highly touted deal to sell Saudi Arabia $110bn in American weapons is coming under new scrutiny in Washington where politicians are increasingly concerned about the kingdom’s conduct of the war in Yemen and, now, the sudden blockade of Qatar.
As details have emerged about the arms sale, it’s become clear the $110bn value Trump claimed is exaggerated. The new sales are actually just proposed offers and most of the underlying weapons systems were previously organised under former president Barack Obama.
Congress is poised to vote in coming days on a resolution of disapproval of a portion of the announced deal. US law provides Congress an opportunity to veto arms sales to foreign countries. While Republican lawmakers are likely to support their president, the resolution will draw more than 40 supporters in the Senate, more than previous measures and a sign of trouble for Riyadh.
“The $110 billion is definitely inflated, but it’s not zero,” said William Hartung, an arms trade analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington.
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“It’s very hard to evaluate. They haven’t been very specific about some of the categories they are talking about,” Hartung told Al Jazeera.
What’s new is Trump’s offer to the Saudis of the US’ high-tech THAAD missile defense system, now being deployed in South Korea, and the proposed future sale of 150 Blackhawk combat helicopters, as well as new cyber-warfare capabilities. These are all future propositions, analysts say.
More practically and immediately, Trump is green-lighting sales of precision-guided, air-to-ground missiles that Obama had withheld because of concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Yemen and civilian casualties.
In addition, Trump is moving forward to replenish and expand the Saudi’s supply of battle tanks and armoured vehicles, replacing equipment damaged in the Yemen conflict.
“The Saudis are in a war in Yemen and they need weapons. You want to win, you need weapons,” Senator John McCain, a Republican, told Al Jazeera. “We are in a war.”
Separately, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon both announced major sales in connection with Trump’s trip. But “this seems more in the nature of a promise than a finished deal”, Hartung said.
READ MORE: Qatar diplomatic crisis: All the latest updates
Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow and foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, published a blog post earlier this week saying Trump’s announced weapons deal with the Saudi’s was “fake news”.
“There is no $110bn deal,” Riedel said. “Instead there are a bunch of letters of intent, but not contracts.”
About $24bn of the claimed $110bn in Trump’s deal are weapons sales that were already in the pipeline, analysts say. Obama had offered the Saudis and other Gulf states new military assistance to gain acquiescence to the Iran nuclear deal in 2015.
Trump attempted to score political points at home with the agreement, announced during his visit to Riyadh, by touting the economic value to US defense contractors. He claimed it would create “many thousands of jobs”.
Previously announced sales included more than $7bn in munitions and support for the war in Yemen, $3.5bn in Chinook cargo helicopters, and $1.15bn in tanks and armoured vehicles, according to a fact sheetput out May 20 by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.
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“That $110 billion is a mix of old sales and future prospective sales that have not been announced or signed,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, told Al Jazeera.
Four US senators led by Murphy are demanding a Senate vote disapproving of that portion of the arms sales related to guided missiles that Obama would not have approved. A companion measure is pending in the House of Representatives.
Citing the suffering of civilians in Yemen’s war, US Senator Ben Cardin said on Wednesday he would oppose arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
He noted the “catastrophic” humanitarian crisis with millions of Yemenis on the brink of famine, and hundreds of thousands at risk from a cholera outbreak.
“Given this deplorable context, I am disappointed that we have yet to learn of the administration’s strategy to support a political process, or any statement from the administration that more military action in Yemen is counterproductive, will disproportionally affect civilians, and will likely generate conditions for expanded activities by Al Qaeda and Iran, as well as Russian influence. Instead, this administration’s approach appears to be more weapons sales,” Cardin said in a statement.
With the Saudis’ surprise moves against Qatar, positions of senators on Murphy’s resolution are “shifting hour to hour”, said Trevor Thrall, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think-tank.
“It means something different to vote against this resolution now than it did a few days ago. Now a vote against it looks like it is more of a blank check to Saudi Arabia,” Thrall told Al Jazeera.
READ MORE: US and Saudi Arabia sign arms deals worth almost $110bn
Trump’s speech to a gathering of Muslim leaders in Riyadh on May 21 was widely interpreted as a signal the new American president would not raise human rights issues. Instead the US will focus on combating “terrorism”, for which Trump placed primary blame on Iran in the speech.
Middle East experts in Washington were scrambling to understand what prompted the Saudi move and how Trump’s conduct may have encouraged it. Qatar is a US ally and host of a major military air base, the biggest in the Middle East.
“It’s possible just his blanket endorsement of the Saudis may have emboldened them to do something they’ve been wanting to do for a while. And they are certainly hoping to escalate the tensions with Iran. I don’t think they thought Qatar was on board with that,” Hartung said.
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Source: Al Jazeera News
WHO OWNS THE BIBLE
The statement is commonly made, even by those who
should know better, that the Christians owe a debt to the Jews, for they got their Bible and their religion from
them.
While many people have been deceived into believing this, it is completely false. Part of the mistake comes from the complete confusion in the minds of nearly all people as to just what they mean by Jew. Are they referring to people of a
certain race, or referring to a people of a certain religion, for the two are not the same.
There are in Africa today, some people who are Jews by religion; in India today there are some Indians who are Jews, and there are in China today, some who practice Judaism.
Likewise, there are some people today who are racially of the stock we know as Jews, but who have been converted to other
religions.
First let’s consider the claim the Christians got their Bible and their religion from the Jews, as meaning Jews by religion. It is certain they didn’t get the New Testament from them, for it condemns the Jewish religion throughout all the
New Testament.
But did they got the Old Testament from them? No, for several
reasons: in the first place, no Jew by religion existed before the return from the Babylonian captivity,
shortly after 536 B.C.
Jewish great historian Josephus writes, “So the Jews prepared the work. Jew is the name they are called by from the day that they came up from Babylon.”
The only books of the Old Testament that were written after the return from Babylon are, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah (all of them historical, rather than doctrinal) Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
The late Rabbi Stephen F. Wise, formerly the Chief Rabbi of the United States said, “The return from Babylon and the introduction of the Babylonian Talmud mark the end of Hebrewism and the beginning of Judaism.”
The learned Rabbi was correct in distinguishing the true religion of the Old Testament as Hebrewism for it was the religion of the real Hebrews, who were not Jews at all.
Judaism, the religion of the Jews, is as the learned Rabbi says, based upon the
Babylonian TALMUD, which contains the supposed oral law. It was never reduced to writing as part of the Bible. This oral law
gradually gained greater force among the Jews than the written law in the Bible, with which it often conflicted in Jesus’ day, the Babylonian Talmud was known as the Tradition of the Elders.
This is why Jesus told the Jews: “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the Commandments of men.
For laying aside the
commandments of God that ye may keep your own tradition, ye make the Word of God of none effect through your tradition which ye have delivered”
(Mark 7:6-13).
“Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God”
(Matthew 22:29).
“Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites! for ye pay tithes of mint, anise and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,judgement, mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23).
This was the religion of the Jews. As the learned Rabbi Stephen F. Wise said, Judaism was distinguished
from Hebrewism, the real religion of the Old
Testament.
Certainly Christianity took nothing from any Jewish religion for they have never taken
any part of Christianity from the Talmud.
Well then, can it be said that they got their Bible or their religion of Christianity from men of the Jewish race? No, it cannot.
“Antiquities of the Jews,” tells that the Jews were a people distinct and separate from Yahweh’s people Israel, although living among them. The Jew
were the Canaanite people who lived in Palestine, before Israel entered the promised land and who were not driven out.
These Canaanite people, and the mixed offspring from intermarriage with the
Israelites, were allowed to remain in the land while paying heavy tribute taxes.
The prophets who wrote the books of the Old Testament were all of pure Israelite stock, from one or another of the 12 tribes of israel,Moses, Jeremiah,Ezekiel, Habakkuk, Haggai and Zechariah were of the tribe of Levi. Joshua and Samuel were of the tribe of Ephraim. Isaiah, Daniel and Zephaniah were of the
house of David, Jonah was of the tribe of Zebulun. Hosea was of the tribe of Edomite.
Judas came from the village of Kerioth in southern Judea Iscariot is a corruption of Ish
Kerioth, man of Kerioth.
Paul tells us that he was of the tribe of Benjamin and that the other apostles
except Judas Iscariot were from Galilee where the tribe of Benjamin settled
after the return from
Babylon.
This is confirmed by Jesus.
In Matthew 15:24 He said,
“I am not sent but unto the sheep of the house of Israel.”
In John chapter 10
Jesus tells the Jews, “I am the good Shepherd and i know My sheep and am known of Mine. Bye believe not because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me.”
Christianity and Judaism are completely and irreconcilably inconsistent.
Whichever way, Judging with the perspective of Islam, both (Christianity and Judaism) are wrong
because Islam mutually repudiate with them.
Supplementary Notes : Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser
wrote, “This is not an uncommon impression and one finds it sometimes among Jews as well as Christians—that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, a
fallacious impression . . .
Judaism is not the religion of the Bible” (Judaism and the Christian Predicament,
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967, p. 59).
Rabbi Moshe M. Maggal,
President, National Jewish Information Service wrote: “. . . you will notice the great difference between
the Jewish and Christian
religions. But these are not all. We consider the two religions so different that one excludes the other, we emphasized that there is no such thing as a Judeo- Christian religion.
There is not any similarity between the two concepts” (Letter of August 21, 1961).
The London Jewish World March 15, 1923 declared: “Fundamentally, Judaism is anti-Christian.”
Rabbi Martin Siegel: “I am devoting my lecture in this seminar to a discussion of the possibility that we are
now entering a Jewish century, a time when the spirit of the community, the non-idealogical blend of the emotional and rational and the resistance to categories and forms will emerge through the forces of anti-nationalism to provide us with a new
kind of society. I call this process the Judaization of christianity because
Christianity will be the
vehicle through which this society becomes
Jewish” (New York
Magazine, January 18, 1972, p. 32).
Johnson Abdul Azeez Ayomide
(A collective research work)
English