Monday, April 20, 2009
Suffering through the Koran – Sura 7 named 'The Heights'
A copy of the previous Suras – madness repeating itself.
by Ferdinand III
Sura 7 is a copy of the previous Suras with some rearrangement and added gibberish as a benefit. This chapter of course makes no sense in its totality, but than again that is not the purpose of the Koran. The Koran is about as subtle as Joseph Goebbels and just as honest as a Leninist screed. The Koranic writers are confused and enthused with the need to impress, propagandize, demand, demean, and threaten. This verse, simply reinforces what Sura 6 proclaimed – Jews and Christians serve devils, they rejected the true faith of the mysterious Allah; they need to be punished, and Muslims will rule the world, if they obey the unlettered Messenger and follow Allah. And this is holy ? Or is it insanity ?
[Note: This sura is taken from 'The Holy Quran', translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, reprinted in 1995, Goodword Books. Regarded as one of the best translations from Arabic to English of the Koran.]
Sura 7 – the Heights. One supposes that 'Heights' means from on high. It could include Muslim leaders speaking from their 'mounts'; the power of the Arab Allah coming down from on high; or the commanding heights of religious-social organisation. Who knows, the Koran never bothers to explain the title though in Sura 48 we are given a clue:
“The men on the Heights will call to certain men whom they will know from their marks, saying: “Of what profit to you were your hoards and your arrogant ways ?”
These men are of course Muslims – and their leaders in particular who are standing on the Mount – a religious symbol one assumes. The men with 'marks' are circumcised Jews. The Arabs are calling down from their holy Mount, to what one supposes would be bound and imprisoned Jews, scorning them for their earthly riches and monies, which avail them nothing in the face of Allah's wrath. Thus the Heights – commanded by Muslims – dominate the Jews and one assumes all the 'others', who are down below, weak and gagged, awaiting Allah's judgment.
Copying Jewish Liturgy
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Verses 11 to 43 are Allah's confrontation with Adam and Eve and the fall of man. It is of course a re-written Biblical passage suffused with an excitable Muslim color. The end result is the banishment of Adam and Eve and Allah's admonition that Hell awaits those who don't submit:
44. The Companions of the Garden will call out to the Companions of the Fire: “We have indeed found the promises of our Lord to us true: have you also found your Lord's promises true ?” They shall say “Yes”, but a Crier shall proclaim between them: “The curse of Allah is on the wrong-doers;-
Notes; 'Companions' was a Muslim term to denote the early followers of Mohammed. Those condemned to Hell or the 'Fire' were cursed by Allah for their mis-deeds or for the crime of not being Islamic. Not submitting to Allah means an eternity of agony.
But the Koran does not stop with Adam. It appropriates all the great leaders of Judeo-Christianity as Muslim:
59. We sent Noah to his people. He said: “O my people! worship Allah! you have no other God but him!
Jews and Christians might beg to differ with this idea. Now the 'God' who saved Noah by instructing him to build the Ark, as the earth was swept clean by the Seas of God's wrath, is now Allah. How convenient. It is hard to imagine Noah invoking Allah or ali-ilah, the Meccan male moon deity, as his sturdy Ark was tossed about on the boiling oceans of divine punishment. The intent is clear however, and this is done throughout the Koran – take all of the leaders with Judeo-Christianity – all of them – and make them pay homage, bow and beg to Allah. This gives Islam a long pedigree and credibility.
This is repeated from verses 60 to 156 as the Koranic writers declare that Allah's messengers including Moses, had been sent to various tribes and peoples to inform them to follow Allah. Verse 128 is an example of the Koran Arabicizing Moses, taking him away from the Jews [who worship evil] and making him a firm supporter of Islam and Allah:
128. Moses said to his people: “Pray for help from Allah, and (wait) in patience and constancy: for the earth is Allah's, to give as a heritage to such of His servants as He pleases; and the end is (best) for the righteous.
The objective is to de-legitimise the Jewish experience through the infamous lie that Jewish prophets, including Christ, are really Muslims, who were trying to convince their people to follow Allah. Even the Hebrew exodus is reworked in this Sura to be a deliverance 'across the sea' made by Allah. The Koran is filled with such claims. The intention is to de-humanise or at the very least, mark as inferior, Jews and Christians in comparison to the followers of Allah [the pure ones, who understand 'true faith'.]. This allows Muslims to then follow up with the idea that the unbelievers need to be violently opposed for rejecting the true path or Sharia of the Islamic way.
Don't reject the 'signs' of Islam or Allah
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One key reason to violently hunt down and exterminate the unbelievers is their constant rejection of Allah's signs. The Koran – from start to finish on every page – makes the claim that the Jews and others have foresworn Allah and that any punishment for this divine offense is warranted. Yet, only Muslims, and Islamic believers recognise the signs, and have the authority to tell what is a sign from Allah and what is not. Thus anything might be a sign or any event can be used as an excuse to punish someone or a tribe, because they rejected something that they would not recognise anyways, and certainly would never understand as a signal from 'Allah'.
37. Who is more unjust than one who invents a lie against Allah or rejects His Sign ? ....until when Our messengers (of death) arrive and take their souls....
40. To those who reject Our Signs and treat them with arrogance, no opening will there be of the gates of heaven, nor will they enter the Garden, until the camel can pass through the eye of the needle: such is Our reward for those in sin.
Christ's comment that the rich have about as much chance of getting into Heaven as a camel has of passing through they eye of a needle, is now plagiarised and Arabicized. Muslims probably believe that Allah or Mohammed created this saying but it has existed in Christian commentaries since Mark's gospel circa 70 A.D. This is just one example out of literally dozens in which sayings from the Bible are changed from Christian or Jewish artifacts to Bedouin attestations. In other words, Allah and Islam somehow pre-date and suffuse Judeo-Christianity.
This would appear to make the writers and the believers of such gibberish, somewhat deranged.
182. Those who reject Our Signs, We shall gradually visit with punishment, in ways they perceive not;
'They', the Jew, will be destroyed
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A central theme of the Koran is the destruction of the Jew and indeed of any who don't follow the Islamic path. This obsession is covered with divine approval. What divine grace targets a group of people or peoples, for eradication ? Why would a divine being choose Arabs over Jews ? Or for that matter Hindus, Sinos, Africans or Christians ?
4. How many towns have We destroyed (for their sins)? Our punishment took them on a sudden by night or while they slept for their afternoon rest.
160. We divided them into twelve Tribes or nations.
162. But the transgressors among them changed the word from that which had been given to them so We sent on them a plague from heaven. For that they repeatedly transgressed.
164. When some of them said: “Why do you preach to a people whom Allah will destroy or visit with a terrible punishment ?”
Verses 160 to about 170 are focused on Moses trying to get the Jews to follow Allah. It is a hopeless task. Many Jews have rejected the true faith [of Allah] and are pre-destined as 164 states, to annihilation or agony.
Allah and Pre-destination
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The individual in the Koran, and one assumes within Islam, is completely irrelevant. There is no free will, no individual responsibility, and no focus on the person. Allah determines all. Fundamentalist Christianity has such beliefs – embedded in the bizarre doctrines of Calvin for example, and such ideals do not promote human progress, innovation or social welfare.
10. It is We Who have placed you with authority on earth, and provided you therein with means for the fulfillment of your life: small are the thanks you give !
188. Say: “I have no power over any good or harm to myself except as Allah wills.
196. “For my Protector is Allah, Who revealed the Book (from time to time), and He will choose and befriend the righteous.
The Koran is based on mystical pre-destination. It is suffused with anti-humanism. You are worthless, you can do nothing without Allah's sanction. You have no power. Allah will choose who is good and who is not. Allah will punish or reward those as He sees fit.
The male Allah, is not given form or substance. It is just a 'He' – a reminder of 'his' origins as ali-ilah or the male Meccan moon deity.
Obey Mohammed
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157. Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, whom they find mentioned in their own (Scriptures), - in the Law and the Gospel; - for he commands them what is just and forbids them what is evil; ......it is they, who will prosper.
158. Say: “O men! I am sent to you all, as the Messenger of Allah, to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth: there is no god but He: it is He that gives both life and death. So believe in Allah and His Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, ...
Well at least the Koranic writers admit that Mohammed was an illiterate. It is fascinating indeed that God would speak Arabic to a Meccan political usurper who could neither read nor write. One assumes that a 'God' would have found a more convenient and learned human vessel.
Summary:
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Sura 7 is a painful read. It is unorganised, not very lucid, and plagiarises vast tracts of Judeo-Christian heritage while maintaining that Islam somehow, is the legitimate owner of such ideas, and the only heir to a 'God's' divine authority.
Question.
Maybe the brilliance of the post modern world can elucidate what the magical percentage of anti-humanist, anti-spiritual sentences and verses, which would nullify the word 'Holy' or 'Sacred' in a supposed Holy book ? What academically inspired threshold of written words, is the 'normative and socially acceptable mean', wherein unholy declarations as a share of total words, are to be taken as part of a so-called 'faith' ? It is 25, 50 or 75 % ? How about intolerance combined with nonsense ? How to calculate that [oh that is tricky, combining two ideas] ? Is there a diversity-multi-cultural formula available, developed by some post-modern social scientist which can derive the level in which a supremacist tract infused with gibberish and plagiarism, fulfills its obligations to appear Holy ? Pray tell.
This Sura is yet more proof that the Koran is not a holy book of faith and hope and redemption; it is simply a creed of supremacism, racism, and domination.