The Islamic Moon cult – an ideology in search of reform.

Unlike within Islam, Biblical scholars have spent centuries investigating Christianity and updating the historical record of what was once believed to be 'the word of God'. Debates in the Christian world abound about Biblical fallacy, irrationality and contradictory messaging. Arguments too and fro about the Bible are detailed and debated. Archaeology has been used to approve and disprove various elements of the Biblical narrative. Schisms, sects, interpretations and varigated levels of belief are legion in the Christian world – making it richer and more profound.

Yet no such diversity of Islamic investigation into the Koran, the Hadiths which explain Koranic inconsistencies and violence; nor into the core fundamental assumptions of Islam exists. This fundamentalist and intolerant aspect of Islam represents the attitude of a cult – no investigations; no analysis; no rational inquiry. Just accept and submit.

This attitude by Muslims – that Islam is beyond analysis – permeates Western post-modern culture. Criticize any aspect of Islam within the West and you are branded a white-racist-pro Bushitler-imperialist criminal. Most likely a simpleton Human Rights Tribunal somewhere, incited by Muslim sensibility, will indict you on fascist hate-speech laws, designed to curb free speech and impart state-doctrine and multi-cultural intolerance across the width and breadth of society. In spite of this the sapient and glaring reality is that Islam is largely closed to any type of inspection – internal or external. This denotes an ideological cult. Faiths are open to interpretation. Cults are not.

Those of us who have studied and analysed Islam should be free to express our views that Islam is an intolerant ideology in dire need of reform. There is no 'faith' in a ritualised cult, whose handbook was written over a period of hundreds of years in different Arabic idioms and scripts; and which is an incomprehensible, contradictory and rather blood-thirsty read. The Koran, nor any supporting material should be beyond either criticism or investigation. Indeed none of the major fundamentalist propositions held by Muslims, most of whom do not understand Arabic, should be off limits to debate, and even ridicule.

Mohammed for example cannot even been pictured or drawn. How absurd is this ? Mohammed was an illiterate, caravan cum business man, who married a rich and far older widow when he was 25. He was from the Quraysh tribe of Mecca and his family clan had associations with the main Meccan shrine which housed the Kabah or black asteroid rock. Ali-ilah or Allah was the male moon deity in the Meccan polytheistic celestial pantheon of worship. These are just facts. Cannot someone make the linkage between the Meccan moon cult and what eventually became known as Islam ? If not why not ?

You can also ask another obvious question. Was Mohammed even sane ? Like the Biblical writer John [no one knows exactly who John was] who wrote Revelations and other parts of the New Testament, an impartial reader and investigator would declare the writer insane. Read Revelations – a collection of nonsense, gibberish, and sci-fi fantasy replete with Christ riding on a white cloud carrying a sword on judgement day. Why would any sentient human bi-ped believe such a fantasy ?

Why then are we forced to believe what Muslims have to say about Mohammed – and by extension the convoluted and inelegant jumble-mash of the Koran ? Are we now coerced – perhaps by state reeducation camps – to believe that at age 40, whilst retiring to a cave, the illiterate and meditative Mohammed really was visited by the arch-angel Gabriel, who imparted to this one Arab his mission to spread 'Gods' word, and who recited over a period of days to Mohammed the 'Koran' or God's words?

Why do I have to accept this story as factual ? If I don't believe that John's Revelations is relevant; or that the 4 gospels in the New Testament are the 'words' of some God, why am I being forced by Muslims or the post modern Western culture to accept the word of fundamentalist Islam that an ambitious illiterate political-military leader from Mecca, circa 610 A.D was visited by God's messenger ? Isn't more likely that the holder of such a belief was insane ?

Mohammed led 80 odd military expeditions, butchered Jews, Arabs, and atheists in the thousands; raped caravans; was a sensuous sexual debauchee; and established a political over-lordship over Arab tribes which was autocratic. Islam was the philosophical 'glue' which held it all together. Why no investigation by Arabs or Muslims into the real Mohammed ? Why no analysis of his military expeditions, his destruction of Jewish tribes and trading villages; and why no commentary on the thousands he killed, not to mention his profligate sexuality ? Would such a man be chosen by any 'God' to lead mankind into a new world of utopic faith and love ?

Mohammed was in the modern parlance a gang leader. Akin to Hitler and the Nazis, the revelations of Mohammed's were political, cast in the convenient guise of a 'religion'. In 1940 a well known scholar of Arab history at Oxford – Margoliouth – wrote the following on the 'robber' community and criminal gang which Mohammed set up to attain power which summarises perfectly the real world nature of the Mohammedan cult:

“When he was at the head of the Robber community, it is probable that the demoralising influence began to be felt; it was then that men who had never broken an oath learnt that they might evade their obligations, and that men to whom the blood of their clan had been as their own, began to shed it with impunity in the 'cause of God.' And that lying and treachery in the cause of Islam received divine approval.” [Mohammed and the rise of Islam]

This robber community raided caravans from 610 A.D. To 624 A.D. Their depredations were so dramatic and the booty so large, that large segments of the Meccan elite and business community rose up against Mohammed forcing him to flee to Medina. There he took over political control of the city – backed as he was by his lawless band of fighters – and raised an army to eventually retake Mecca. The Meccans realising early on the danger that Mohammed's brand of 'faith' posed in reality to the health and well being of their city and citizens sent an expedition against the Medinians which was defeated at the crucial battle of Badr in 624 A.D.

This victory allowed Mohammed to take Mecca in triumph and he used it as a political and economic springboard to bring to heel the other Arab tribes. It also spelled the end for the rich and vibrant Jewish and Christian presence in the Arabian peninsula – within short order such enclaves were wiped out; enslaved or forced to flee. So much for Islam being an ideology of tolerance and love.

In the Muslim rewriting of history Mohammed's political – military project with power booty, gold, land and women as its main objects, was 'God' inspired. It was 'Allah' or ali-ilah the male Meccan moon deity which allowed the small band of Muslim robber-criminals to take over the Arab peninsula and kill or eject their Jewish and Christian competitors. Hence the Muslim belief that the other 2 religions of the 'book' were inferior and now superseded by 'Gods' latest prophet – an illiterate, military-political butcher, who took thousands of lives.

Why no Muslim inquiry into this history and the fundamentalist inspirations of Islam ? Why don't Muslims discuss the early parts of Islam's development, the hundreds of years of Koranic writing and rewriting; or the relevance in the modern world of a 7th century Meccan-Moon cult ?

There is lots in Christianity which does not make sense. But within the Christian world there is lots of interesting debate and arguments pro and con on each important issue. Not so with Islam. This is a hallmark of a cult. Just shut up and obey. And if you do criticise the ideology you will be punished. So it goes with fascisms – no dissent, just ritualised obedience. One needs to ask – how is such a doctrine and intolerance intelligent or an part of a 'faith' ?