Islam is a pagan cult. It is NOT a religion. But not only some Infidels have identified this truism. The 'Red Sheik' and other Moslems have also recorded the pagan nature of Islam. Sheikh Karim is a 'liberalized' Egyptian Moslem who writes about the reality of Islamic development. As such he is anathema within the Moslem world. In 1998 the Sheikh's books were banned in his native land of Egypt. Apparently opening up Islam to scrutiny was a political impossibility for the 'secular' regime of Mubarak, now deposed and awaiting his just punishment:

The Cairo Times, an English-language biweekly, was recently banned for carrying an interview with the “Red Sheikh,” Khalil Abdel Karim, who advocates a liberal, apolitical interpretation of Islam. The fact that the Arabic press has also interviewed the sheikh, several of whose books have been banned by the Islamic Research Academy of Al-Azhar, apparently made no difference. The previous issue ran a biting, first-person account by one of the newspaper’s reporters of his arrest and interrogation by police.

Islam and Arab culture are notable by their intolerance to inquiry. A fact lost on Western Marxists and 'intellectuals'. The Red Sheik depicts Islamic development as it really was, a melding of pre-Muhammadan Arab paganism and totalitarian theology:

“The Arab in the pre-Islam paganism epoch was the origin of many rules, rituals, regulations and legislations that Islam had founded, so we can say with great certainty that Islam had inherited from the paganism lot of worshiping and ritualistic aspects.”[p. 1208]

This statement by the Moslem Karim whose full name means, Servant of the Great, Revered One, is simply common-sense and historically validated. Certainly it offends Moslems and their cultural Marxist friends. Moslemophiles whine that the Koran appeared 'uncreated' and magically fell into Muhammad's lap through a series of revelations – pure, uncorrupted, previously unknown, superior, and supreme. The fact that Islam is based on cult practices which long pre-date Muhammad; that many of its verses are badly plagiarized from the Jewish and Christian texts; that the shorter Suras are in fact mostly stolen from poems posted on the Kabaa shrine; and that Muhammad would conveniently obtain revelations which furthered his own secular, political, military and economic well-being are somehow inconsequential for the Moslemophiles. Disregarding reality and facts does not make one 'enlightened'. It just makes you stupid.

The Red Sheikh identifies many rituals which existed long before Muhammad the military-political opportunist arrived on the scene. These include:

1) Glorifying Al-Ka'bah, in page 15 
2) The pilgrimage and its rituals ,in page 16
3) Month of Ramadan, in page 18
4) The prohibition of the sacred months, in page 18 
5) Dignifying Ibrahim and Ismail, in page 18
6) The general congregation in Friday

No Moslem can deny the above. Karim also makes it clear that many holy pagan shrines existed throughout Arabia and had existed for thousands of years before Muhammed. They were called 'Kabaa' or the 'cube'. Karim maintains that some 21 Kabaa's were in operation with the one at Mecca becoming over time, the principal and main site of pilgrimmage. This of course made the city and Muhammad's tribe who ran it, quite wealthy. This historical fact is verified in the Koran:

Table chapter (Surat Al-Ma'idah') 97:" Allah has made the Ka'bah, the sacred house"

Karim identifies that the greatest idol in the Meccan/Quraish pantheon and Kabaa was Ella or the moon deity [El-Lah, Al-Lah, Al-ilah]. 'Ella' means roughly 'the one'.

Karim also questions the historic accuracy of the Moslem re-interpretation of the Kabaa itself. According to Moslem liturgy, initiated of course by the Quraishan Muhammad ibn Abdullah [the slave of Allah], Abraham and Ismael ventured to Mecca and built it. But of course no such trip ever took place. As Karim admits the Bible is quite clear that Abraham never left Palestine except to flee to Egypt and then return. He never travelled further south than Mount Sinai. No other Arab-Semitic culture or writings mention Abraham's journey to Mecca. The entire story is thus a Moslem invention designed to give it legitimacy and equal standing with Judaism. This is especially true since the Sura containing the idea that Abraham built the Kabaa, is found in 'The Cow' 2:127, which was written after Muhammad had fled Mecca, denounced the Jews, and started to war against them. Karim highlights this obvious fact. Another reason why Muhammad attempts to link the Kabaa with Abraham is to enforce newly minted Moslems to continue their duty of pilgrimage to the now not-pagan shrine, but a site with only one idol – the moon deity – to venerate.

As Karim makes clear the Moslem pilgrimage is one of the essential pillars of Islam; but it is clearly derived from the pre-Islam paganism. Even the word "hajj” comes from the pagan Arab word "Hack" meaning 'friction', since there was a pagan ritual performed at the time of Hajj, in which women were creating friction by rubbing part of the black stone against their vagina's to enhance their breeding capabilities. Bizarre but true. I wonder how many Moslems understand that the Hajj is actually the act of rubbing a stone against female genitalia? As well in pre-Muhammad Mecca, the Kabaa market area was infested with prostitutes and part of the pilgrimage would be to engage in sexual orgies and rites, including walking around the shrine naked. The prostitutes were probably used as 'fertility receptacles' and celebratory sexual offerings. Today of course Moslems must circumlocate the shrine and kiss the Black asteroid rock contained in it [which apparently fell from heaven as a gift to Abraham who created the shrine to house it].

The Hajj made Mecca rich. Muhammad certainly wanted his and the El-Lah thing's share of the visitors booty. He enforced the ritualized nature of the Hajj, taking the pre-Islamic rituals [absent the sex orgies and naked walking]; and declared them holy. On page 16 Karim relates:

-“Al-Talbi'h" the Muslims' saying around the Ka'bah" labbik Al-Lahom labbik" while they are doing the circumlocution.
-"Al-Ihram" the wearing of the special pilgrimage clothes
-"Al-Hade” market [pagan Arab name for the same]
-Stopping by "Arafa" 
-Stoning of the 'jamarat' [throwing rocks at little devils or Jinns]
-The slaughtering [animal sacrifice]
-The walking between the "safa" and " the " marwa" [running between 2 hills to illustrate the slave wife of Abraham, Hagar looking for water].
-Kissing of the black stone
-The circumnavigation around Al-Ka'bah seven times [not naked as the pagan Arabs used to do]

It is clear that many aspects of Islamic ritualization are simply those used by the pre-Muhammad Arab pagans. No serious objective observer can possibly deny that obvious fact. But this key element is missing in the analysis of Islam as a 'religion'. Islamic theology is a pagan Fascism, both in its antecedents and mindless ritualization and in the submerging of the individual into a collective which denies rationality, the Golden Rule, free-will and which enslaves the mind and spirit. That is the key point which Sheikh Karim should be making.