Pre-Islamic Allah

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- ElToro
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OP - January 19, 2015, 09:38 PM

I don’t know if this has been discussed here before, but I wanted to share one article which was one of the main reasons for me to become an atheist. In the Turkish website of Turan Dursun, a former Iman, later atheists, there is a page called “Did you know?”.

http://www.turandursun.com/bilgi-arsivi/biliyormuydunuz/673-islam-oncesi-arabistaninda-allah-inanisi

One of the articles is about the Pre-Islamic Allah believe.

I tried to translate it to English, but please excuse any mistakes.

Al-Ilah (ALLAH) believe before Islam.

The Arabic word “ilah” for Gods has been turned into “Allah” with the Islam (Southern Arabia, Carleton S. Coon, Washington, D.C. Smithsonian, 1944, p.399). The moon god Al-ilah was seen as male and married to the female sun god. They had three children. Their names were Al-lat, Al-Uzzat and Al-Menat.

Muhammad once praised the gods Lat, Uzza and Menat, but regret it later and claimed that the devil told him these verses. This verses are now known as “satanic verses”.

The different Arabian intertrables gave the moon god different names, such as Sin, Hubal and Kureyste Al-ilah. Linguistics claim that the word “Allah” comes from “Al-ilah” (İslam Muhammed and His Religion, Arthur Jeffery, 1958, p 85, Muhammad at Mecca, W. Montgomery Watt, 1953, p 23-29).

The name of Muhammad’s father was Abdullah, which means “servant of Allah”. (abd = server / slave; ullah = allah).

Muhammad just took the name of the moon god, who was the strongest god out of the 360 different pagan gods, and claimed that he was the only one. So he announced that Al-Ilah was the only god and prohibited to pray to the other gods.

Even before Islam the Arabian pagans had interesting rituals. One of them was to fast in a month called Ramadan, others were to pilgrim to Mecca and turn around Kaaba seven times, and to kiss the black stone. Others were to prey four or five times a day, or to stone the devil. (Is Allah the Same God as The God of Bible?, M. J. Afshari, p 6, 8-9, İslam, Beliefs And Observances, Caesar E. Farah)

Even Abdest was taken before the prayers, by drawing water into their noses and washing their hands up to the elbow. This rituals did not exist in Christianity or Judaism. Fasting was known in Christianity, but fasting in a specific month came from the Arabian pagans.

Although Islamists claim that Islam existed before Muhammad, so that it’s normal to see Islamic elements in ancient pagan societies, they have no historical evidences to support their claims except the Quran.

Actually I always wondered why we had to pray five times a day. But praying to the five different gods from sunset to moon gives a perfect explanation.
I wonder what Muslims make out of it. Do they deny it or accept it and say it’s normal, because Islam existed before Muhammad, as it’s written in the text.
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Reply #1 - January 19, 2015, 10:32 PM

Praying 5 times a day is not in the qu'ran (3), it is in the hadith (5). The Zoroastrians I believe prayed 5 times per day.
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Reply #2 - January 20, 2015, 12:07 AM

Quote from: ElToro on January 19, 2015, 09:38 PM

Even Abdest was taken before the prayers, by drawing water into their noses and washing their hands up to the elbow. This rituals did not exist in Christianity or Judaism. Fasting was known in Christianity, but fasting in a specific month came from the Arabian pagans.

That's not true, almost identical practices existed in Judaism, but less concerned about the face, more about the hands and feet. This is probably because it's less dusty where Judaism was created, and so you had less stuff flying in your face.

There are two steps to being clean, ritual purity from major causes of defilement (like sex or your period), which requires immersion in the mikvah, and physical cleanliness: the washing of your hands, feet, and at least in some texts, face. The mikvah is has a complex set of laws surrounding it, for starters it must be at least 40 baths (ancient unit of measurement in the area), which ends up being approximately 200 gallons, and it must be built into the ground and not something you can move. The complex, myriad laws of the mikvah are here:
http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm

This video shows different aspects of Temani worship, including the washing of face, hands, and feet. It also shows their prostration in prayer, which the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews living under Christian rule stopped practicing at some point, probably because of pressure by Christian authorities. Kind of like how the Christians forced them to stop allowing polygamy, and a phrase was added to Ashkenazi weddings (cherem rabeinu gershom) that prohibited polygamy for a thousand years after Rabbi Gershom ruled that it was something that would only bring harm to Jews. Interestingly, this 1,000 year ban has recently expired. My cousin who got married a few years back did not include it in his wedding vows, and I'm not really sure why, whether it's because he wants to be polygamous, he doesn't view Rabbi Gershom as "egalitarian," his wife isn't Ashkenazi, or he just isn't observant enough to have even heard of it in the first place (the wedding was conducted by a female rabbi, after all). I never really knew him well enough to be comfortable with asking. The video also includes the sources of personal hygiene practices in Jewish law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeKFkoFFjBI

The (sometimes mythical) history of the contraption for getting clean in the Temple is here: https://www.templeinstitute.org/laver.htm

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #3 - January 20, 2015, 11:36 AM

Quote from: ElToro on January 19, 2015, 09:38 PM
Fasting was known in Christianity, but fasting in a specific month came from the Arabian pagans.

don't Christians fast for for 40 days for lent tho?

"we stand firm calling to allah all the time,
we let them know - bang! bang! - coz it's dawah time!"
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Reply #4 - January 20, 2015, 01:53 PM

Yes, you're right. They are fasting in eastern.

Maybe the Turkish authors didn't not explicitly look on the specifics of other religions.

But fasting in Christianity is different, as they do drink water or even a very strong beer in Germany to get energy.
I know a friend who just abstains from eating sweets during eastern.
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Reply #5 - January 20, 2015, 02:20 PM

Quote from: ElToro on January 20, 2015, 01:53 PM
Yes, you're right. They are fasting in eastern.

Maybe the Turkish authors didn't not explicitly look on the specifics of other religions.

But fasting in Christianity is different, as they do drink water or even a very strong beer in Germany to get energy.
I know a friend who just abstains from eating sweets during eastern.

I think that the whole "giving up candy" etc types of fasting among Christians today is a modern invention. I bet that in 6-7th century Arabia/Levant/Mesopotamia, the Christians then would've definitely followed stricter fastings on lent.

anyway I remember a sahih hadith where Muhammad adapted fasting on ashura just because the jews did it. the story goes that it was ashura, and he saw the jews fasting. he then asked the jews why, whom replied that they were fasting because it's Passover. so Muhammad then tells his followers to fast too.

"we stand firm calling to allah all the time,
we let them know - bang! bang! - coz it's dawah time!"
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Reply #6 - January 20, 2015, 05:47 PM

kephas: That's interesting. I'm not sure what to make of it in a historical context, tho, because Jews don't fast during passover, they just refrain from eating bread with yeast.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #7 - January 21, 2015, 10:46 AM

galfromusa, yeah, when I heard that hadith, I thought it was bull too. since the jews don't fast on Passover, and jews don't use the Arabic calendar, they have their own religious calendar. they do have a fast called the fast of the firstborn, and it's done by only the firstborn of jewish families, not all jews, and it's done one the day before Passover, not on Passover itself. the hadith also stated that moses also fasted, but moses was the younger brother of aaron, so moses wouldn't partake in the fast according to jewish tradition. also if Muhammad saw the jews fasted, they wouldn't use the 10 of muharram as the occasion, but the 14th of nisan.

but hey, it's sahih, with multiple sahaba as narrators. recorded in both bukhari and muslim.
http://searchtruth.com/searchHadith.php?keyword=jews+fasting&translator=1&search=1&book=&start=0
http://www.searchtruth.com/book_display.php?book=006&translator=2&start=154&number=2514

"we stand firm calling to allah all the time,
we let them know - bang! bang! - coz it's dawah time!"
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Reply #8 - January 21, 2015, 04:36 PM

While I'm sure Islam does borrow heavily from pre-Islamic arabian traditions, I've never bought the whole ''Allah is the moon god'' thing. After all, Arab Christians used the word way before Islam. Were they worshipping the moon god. ''Allah'' is simply the arabic word for a single, monotheistic god.

Incidentally, I always found it pointless that non-arabic speaking muslims would use the word ''Allah'' in reference to God. Obviously the word was used in arabia because it was the most appropriate word in that language, but surely if you're speaking another language than the most appropriate word in that language should be used, rather than one which doesn't exist in that language.
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Reply #9 - January 21, 2015, 05:11 PM

Fasting in Christianity, as far as I know at least according to the Orthodox tradition I'm familiar with (as well as Protestant if I remember correctly), is a "vegan fast". Meaning you are not allowed to consume anything from the animal kingdom (including eggs and or milk and such). Anything besides that, you are allowed to eat any hour of the day. Abstaining completely from food and water during daylight and stuffing your face with whatever (yeah yeah about the "recommendation" for moderation and whatever but let's face it. There is no text that explicitly commands Muslims to eat in any specific way while fasting, after the fast is broken) during the night is not found in Christianity (nor Judaism, maybe galfromusa knows more about that).

Remember that Judaism and Christianity are all religions that have their origins in the Middle East. That the Abrahamic religions share similarities with other "pagan" religions is a given. Looking at Islam, it shares a lot with the pagan traditions, in the same way as Judaism and Christianity share similarities with other pagan religions from the same region. Just that Islam has some more specific and explicitly pagan origins (like the pilgrimage, Kabah and other traditions that stem from the culture that is described in the hadeeth and seerah)

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Reply #10 - January 21, 2015, 08:20 PM

Quote from: Cornflower on January 21, 2015, 05:11 PM
There is no text that explicitly commands Muslims to eat in any specific way while fasting, after the fast is broken) during the night is not found in Christianity (nor Judaism, maybe galfromusa knows more about that).

*adjusts glasses which apparently makes you look more intellectual according to movies*

In Judaism, the day begins at dusk, not at midnight. This is based on Genesis where it says "There was evening and there was morning: the first day." (Hebrew doesn't have punctuation, which makes it hard to figure out what punctuation is appropriate.) So the day begins when evening begins. However, the exact time when evening begins isn't specified in the text, so there's a lot of debate about it. It is either sunset or when three stars appear. The time in between sunset and when three stars appear is treated as unknown and so is treated with whatever restrictions happen on the two days it is happening between.

So when Jews fast, like on Yom Kippur, or as my friend who thinks the Temani dialect is the only correct dialect and God can't hear you if you pray in any other says, "Yaum ha-Kippurim", they fast from sunset until three stars are visible or if you're in a city where you can't see stars--a very modern problem--72 minutes after sundown (just to be sure that it's actually the next day; the custom of torturing yourself more than is actually necessary is called "building a fence around the Torah"). I don't really know why the rabbis of old didn't just select a time somewhere in that period and declare that it was the definitive time, but since they didn't have very accurate time keeping technology or information about how long it takes light to travel to earth or the refraction of light by the atmosphere or anything, I guess they couldn't.

And even though we have that technology now, we don't have any rabbis in the actual sense of the word who could make that determination. Rabbi doesn't actually historically mean your local neighborhood scholar or the colloquial "my teacher", like the canonical gospels say. It means a member of the Sanhedrin, or in rare circumstances, their protege who was being trained with the expectation that they would one day be a member of the Sanhedrin. Usually that protege would need to be in an advanced level of training and murdered for their faith to earn the title of rabbi. The passage of the title of rabbi and seat on the Sanhedrin to each sitting member's most promising student was called the line of semikha. It died out under the Romans, who banned it under pain of you, your students, and all the Jews in the city where the ordination took place being slaughtered, in the 4th or 5th century CE.

There is a set of rules for setting up a new Sanhedrin and a new line of semikha laid out by Rambam, but it has never been done. So there are no rabbis in the true sense of the word. I can call myself a rabbi and that's technically just as valid as some guy who spent 15 years in a yeshiva. Without a new, valid Sanhedrin, rules essential to the practice of Judaism affecting the entirety of the Jewish population can't be changed. So, they're stuck with stupid, nonsensical rules.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #11 - January 21, 2015, 08:59 PM

If that's not what rabbi historically meant, why do the Gospels say that Jesus was called rabbi? It seems odd that the term allegedly had such an extremely restricted political-type proper use; that superficially (knowing nothing about it) sounds like a sort of wishful later orthodox proclamation rather than reflecting actual historical linguistic practice.
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Reply #12 - January 21, 2015, 09:32 PM

The answer is part of the theological narrative. John the Baptist was seen as a prophet and a rabbi. He acknowledged Jesus as a prophet, Son of God and a teacher in person. This happened with Moses and Aaron passing on s’mikah to the priesthood and elders. This creates a line of s’mikah being passed on to each new generation of elders and rabbis. The NT narrative of Jesus fulfilling prophecy of the OT shows these OT prophets are endorsing Jesus, messiah, as a prophet and rabbi as per the example of Moses and Aaron. Jesus was not ordained by the religious intuition of his time but strictly through a narrative. Of course one needs to accept the narrative in order to put forward this view. Likewise s’mikah was pass on to his followers in the form of "laying of hands" which is common in Christianity today.
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Reply #13 - January 22, 2015, 02:45 AM

Good answer bogart! That sounds convincing to me.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #14 - January 22, 2015, 04:18 AM

Quote from: Lilyesque on January 19, 2015, 10:32 PM
Praying 5 times a day is not in the qu'ran (3), it is in the hadith (5). The Zoroastrians I believe prayed 5 times per day.

YES !

Tom Holland mentions the zoroastrian prayers in his book shadow of the sword.

I definitely recommend the book eve though I'm less than halfway into it.

In my opinion a life without curiosity is not a life worth living
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Reply #15 - January 22, 2015, 05:56 AM

Quote from: bogart on January 21, 2015, 09:32 PM
The answer is part of the theological narrative. John the Baptist was seen as a prophet and a rabbi. He acknowledged Jesus as a prophet, Son of God and a teacher in person. This happened with Moses and Aaron passing on s’mikah to the priesthood and elders. This creates a line of s’mikah being passed on to each new generation of elders and rabbis. The NT narrative of Jesus fulfilling prophecy of the OT shows these OT prophets are endorsing Jesus, messiah, as a prophet and rabbi as per the example of Moses and Aaron. Jesus was not ordained by the religious intuition of his time but strictly through a narrative. Of course one needs to accept the narrative in order to put forward this view. Likewise s’mikah was pass on to his followers in the form of "laying of hands" which is common in Christianity today.

I looked briefly at this fascinating issue on the interwebz, and the problem is that the Jews around the time of Jesus didn't seem to use Rabb in the formally ordained sense. The Gospels used the term way earlier than the Jewish sources, and it's in the Mishnah (200 CE) that you really start seeing the term 'Rabbi' used by the Judaic literature to designate sages, largely after the Second Temple's destruction. There's apparently a raging scholarly debate about whether the Gospels' use of "rabbi" to describe Jesus is anachronistic (meaning it was not used at the time of Jesus's life himself), but it seems likely that the orthodox Jewish account later given in the Talmud and later Jewish literature (Rabbi as a sage officially ordained by the Sanhedrin) is even more anachronistic and secondary. It certainly seems doubtful that it was used in such a capacity before the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), although that naturally raises the question of why the Gospels use the term so much. Good book I found online that goes into these issues at great length:

https://books.google.com/books?id=bKMkEVSvCoUC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=rabbi+gospels+anachronism&source=bl&ots=f_FtDTQ3-5&sig=mWqQ_8MTIO4NOQIKC13IjAvVB2k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uo_AVI37Fo_aoAT78IHoDw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=rabbi%20gospels%20anachronism&f=false

From that discussion, it seems that much of the later orthodox Jewish view was designed to create a picture of a defined innovation of "Rabbis" who were ordained formally by the Sanhedrin, but this is the anachronism of later centuries -- the actual linguistic usage in the 1st century Levant was probably vastly more unconstrained and informal, as reflected by the Gospels, which are the earliest (by far) literary sources to use the term, and were probably written over the time period when the term was first coming into major prominence.
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Reply #16 - January 22, 2015, 07:45 AM

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Sanhedrin.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Rabbis.html
http://studybible.info/strongs/G4461
http://studybible.info/strongs/H7227

Wiki isn't the best source for this sort of thing. Most people will look at the word as master and teacher before any of the above. The word existed before it's development into the word we know in the present. However as I said it is part of a theological narrative not a historical one. The Gospels flip back and forth between master, teach and rabbi with easy. This is to be expected given the Greek nature of the NT as Mark is the closest source there is to a primary source which strictly follows a Greek methodology of written poetry at the time. The author of Mark was no Hebrew. Keep in mind the only authority Jesus had is found in the NT. Reject the narrative and the authority vanishes with it. The narrative is anachronistic by it's nature. Jesus and the events surrounding him are always displayed as reduced symbolism of both the event and the prophecy it supposedly fulfills. The Suffering Servant is a primary example of this. The prophecy is vague so is reduced to it's primary symbolism of pain, suffering, and servitude for a purpose. For the NT this is spun out with Jesus primary purpose as the saviour along with his the event leading to his death. For modern Judaism this is the people which is just the reduced symbolism of the events since the destruction of the temple. Keep in mind I did say theological answer. From a historical perspective the word existed and could be applied to Jesus. He fulfilled the simple terminology of the word just any of the ordained uses within a strict context from Judaism.

The title was never intended as a real title linking Jesus with Judaism of the time. It was symbolizing a link with the New Covenant via the Old. Not the institutions which the Old has spawned. Beside the writers of the NT never hesitated with lapping titles for symbolic emphasis upon Jesus. He was no King but people still call him a King. All for the sake of a narrative.
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Reply #17 - January 22, 2015, 07:44 PM

Yeah, I entirely agree it is anachronistic as used in the gospels, as you say, my only point is that the way it is defined in the even later texts of orthodox Judaism (as a title granted through formal ordination by the Sanhedrin) looks even more anachronistic still. It looks like the sort of classic later theological redefinition of earlier linguistic terms that you see pervading all of the Semitic religions. Three centuries later, somebody is writing what amounts to theological linguistics about how a Semitic language was allegedly used centuries before. But the actual historical use tends to have been very different, and commonly far more variable, than the narrow theological redefinitions that priests and scholars later try to impose on the text.
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Reply #18 - January 22, 2015, 08:26 PM

From what I've been able to pick up about the actual history, instead of the made-up history that exists in most of the narratives, Judaism was more or less invented around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. A school of scribes who wanted to gain recognition from the Persian government took disparate, sometimes contradictory, often polytheistic texts from other local religions and wove them together to make a single, cohesive narrative to support their claim of being an ancient religion that should be given official recognition. They got recognition and permission to "rebuild" a temple, which had probably in the past been some sort of pagan pantheon temple or some other building. Then they set up a governing committee of 70 guys who agreed with them to make sure that this new religion didn't disappear like the ones they'd usurped. A sort of Judaism Preservation Committee.

Then that continued to pretty much be the status quo for the next few centuries. Invading armies came and went, setting up a succession of local rulers who all pretty much ignored the local religion as long as they didn't view it as a threat. Eventually the Romans came through, and they had some pretty hostile conflicts with the locals. One of these conflicts ended with the destruction of the Temple. This sent the governing committee, who had previously been relegated to menial judging of inter-personal conflicts, into a tailspin. They suddenly became the first line of defense of the religion that had, for its entire existence, had its practice wrapped up in a single building.

They now had to scramble to determine how to practice their religion without this building, with the growing realization that it would not be rebuilt within their lifetimes. Suddenly they needed to legitimize themselves in the eyes of the people, determine what the people could and couldn't do without the Temple, how the people should worship, and how to handle any future problems that the people might face.

So they wrote a prayer book. They wrote stories of how walls would cave, rivers would change the direction of their flow, a voice would speak from heaven, and all the elements were under their command. They wrote about medicine and law. They wrote about science. They wrote about anything and everything they could. For four centuries, they debated, wrote, rewrote, canonized, interpreted, extrapolated, everything they could do to make sure their religion would not fade into oblivion. By this time none of them remembered who had founded their religion or why, but they wanted to make sure the religion would not be forgotten.

There had always been breakoff cults, small groups of people mixing texts like the original creators of Judaism. Some of these were mystics, some were political extremists, some wanted to raise armies or gain power. They came and went. The newly important Sanhedrin deemed them heretical, although no one had ever cared about heresy before, because they wanted to make sure their group and their followers stayed in power and force others to give up their alternate, competing identities.

Polytheism was finally decisively banned. People could no longer worship their other local gods or the gods of the invading armies and still call themselves Jews. Jewish life became strictly regulated, and it had to be practiced in a group setting. The requirement of the minyan appeared. Individuals left to their own devices were more likely to explore other options, peer pressure could be used to control that urge. Studying the sacred texts became important for not just the officials, but for the lay people as well. The entire face of Judaism changed.

But the changes were successful. The Judaism Preservation Committee did its job, and even after they were stopped, the religion they'd pretty much founded survived. It continues to survive, even after several centuries.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #19 - January 23, 2015, 12:19 AM

Quote from: TheDarkRebel on January 22, 2015, 04:18 AM

YES !

Tom Holland mentions the zoroastrian prayers in his book shadow of the sword.

I definitely recommend the book eve though I'm less than halfway into it.

Thanks for the book tip I'll also read it if I find time.

I'm just reading the Wiki article about Zoroastrianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

You can see the similarities with Islam:
"Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the "Wise Lord"."
"A Zarathustri is enjoined to cover his head at all times."
"In Zoroastrianism, water (apo, aban) and fire (atar, azar) are agents of ritual purity, and the associated purification ceremonies are considered the basis of ritual life."
"In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is the beginning and the end, the creator of everything that can and cannot be seen, the Eternal, the Pure and the only Truth."
"Achaemenid era (648–330 BCE) Zoroastrianism developed the abstract concepts of heaven and hell, as well as personal and final judgment, all of which are only alluded to in the Gathas."
"Yasna 19, which has only survived in a Sassanid era ([–650 CE] Zend commentary on the Ahuna Vairya invocation), prescribes a Path to Judgment known as the Chinvat Peretum or Chinvat bridge (cf: As-Sirāt in Islam), which all souls had to cross, and judgment (over thoughts, words, and deeds performed during a lifetime) was passed as they were doing so."
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Reply #20 - January 23, 2015, 12:51 AM

Quote from: Lilyesque on January 19, 2015, 10:32 PM
Praying 5 times a day is not in the qu'ran (3), it is in the hadith (5). The Zoroastrians I believe prayed 5 times per day.

Well, there is this book (or better document) I have read, which is in Turkish. It says that even the Arab pagans used to pray five times a day. Here is a copy of the chapter in original and then my poor translation. My parents are Turkish, but I'm born and raised in Germany. So my Turkish is not the best.

https://turandursunkutuphanesi.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bayrak-islamin-gercekleri.pdf

2-Namaz

Putperest ibadetlerinden biri namazdır. Namaz, güneş kültünün ritüellerinden biridir ve Hint kökenli bir ibadettir. İslam öncesi Araplar da namaz kılarlardı. Günümüzde Hindular da namaz ritüellerini devam ettirirler. Sansktitçe ''Surya'' Güneş, ''Namaskara'' ise Selamlama veya Bağlantı demektir. Böylece "Surya Namaskara" ''Güneşle Bağlantı'' anlamına gelmektedir. Surya Namaskara, bedende akan güneş enerjisinin canlandırma tekniğidir. Arap putperestlerinin namaz kıldığı Kur'an'da yazılıdır.

Enfal-35 “Onların Kabedeki namazları, ıslık çalmak ve el çırpmaktan başka bir şey değildir. Küfrünüzden dolayı azabı tadın.”

Bilindiği üzere Arapça'da “salat” namaz demektir. Genelde meallerde dua olarak çevrilmektedir. Bu ayette putperestlerin kıldığı namazın şekli eleştirilmektedir.
Putperestler de günde 5 vakit namaz kılarlardı.

Şaharit namazı - Sabah namazı
Musaf namazı - Öğle namazı
Minha namazı - İkindi namazı
Neilat Şerarim namazı - Akşamüstü namazı
Maarib namazı - Akşam namazı

Kaynak; Hayrullah örs, Musa Ve Yahudilik, s.399-405; Doç.Dr. Ali Osman Ateş, Asr-ı
Saadette İslam; Şaban Kuzgun, Hz. İbrahim Ve Hanifilik, s.117; Epstein, Judaism.

Kuran'da geçen namaz vakit sayısı 3 olmasına rağmen 5 vakit kılınıyor olması zamanla putperest
döneme dönüldüğü şüphesi taşımaktadır. Aynı şekilde abdest de putperestlerde vardı. Cünup olunca
boy abdesti alırlardı. (İbn-i habib, Muhabber)

Ok, now my poor translation:

Prayers

One of the pagan rituals was to pray. The prayers were a ritual of the sun culture and came from India. Even before Islam Arabs used to pray. Nowadays Hindus continue their praying rituals. Sansktitçe (I have never heard this word before) "Surya" sun, "Namaskara" means connection. So "Surya Namaskara" means "Connection with the sun". Surya Namaskara represents the sun energy flowing over our bodies.
That the Arab pagans used to pray is even written in the Quran:

Enfal-35: "The prayers they are doing in Kabaa are not more then whistling and hand shaking. Feel the pain for your insultings."
(Ok, that's probaly the worst Quran translation ever )

"Salat" means pray in Arabian. Usually it is translated with praying. This verse criticizes the way the pagans are praying.

Pagans used to pray 5 times a day: (sorry I can't translate this)
Şaharit namazı - Moring prayer
Musaf namazı - Noon prayer
Minha namazı - Afternoon prayer
Neilat Şerarim namazı - Evening prayer
Maarib namazı - Night prayer

Sources: Hayrullah örs, Musa Ve Yahudilik (Moses and Judaism), s.399-405; Ali Osman Ateş, Asr-ı Saadette İslam; Şaban Kuzgun, Hz. İbrahim Ve Hanifilik, s.117; Epstein, Judaism.

Even though the Quran only mentions 3 prayers a day it is assumed that praying 5 times comes from a pagan ritual. The same as washing rituals (abdest) comes from pagans. After getting unclean (e.g. having sex) they had to take a body abdest, same as in Islam. (İbn-i habib, Muhabber)
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Reply #21 - January 23, 2015, 01:22 AM

Quote from: galfromusa on January 20, 2015, 12:07 AM
That's not true, almost identical practices existed in Judaism, but less concerned about the face, more about the hands and feet. This is probably because it's less dusty where Judaism was created, and so you had less stuff flying in your face.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeKFkoFFjBI

This is quite interesting, as I found this link when searching the word "Şaharit"
http://www.turandursun.com/forumlar/showthread.php?t=30880
The first video is the same that you linked. The other one shows Jew praying alone. It looks similar to the prayers in Islam.

Now I'm confused

Did the author I translated mixed up something and assigned the prayers to Arab pagans although it was originally the Jews who prayed 5 times a day. The sources also link to Judaism.
On the other hand the verse in the Quran confirms that the Arab pagans used to pray in Kabaa.

Quote from: galfromusa on January 20, 2015, 12:07 AM
This video shows different aspects of Temani worship, including the washing of face, hands, and feet. It also shows their prostration in prayer, which the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews living under Christian rule stopped practicing at some point, probably because of pressure by Christian authorities. Kind of like how the Christians forced them to stop allowing polygamy, and a phrase was added to Ashkenazi weddings.

So they did this rituals way before Islam. Or did they copy it from Islam? Washing, polygamy and praying is all very similar. Who was first?
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Reply #22 - January 23, 2015, 01:45 AM

Quote from: ElToro on January 23, 2015, 01:22 AM
This is quite interesting, as I found this link when searching the word "Şaharit"
http://www.turandursun.com/forumlar/showthread.php?t=30880
The first video is the same that you linked. The other one shows Jew praying alone. It looks similar to the prayers in Islam.

Now I'm confused

Did the author I translated mixed up something and assigned the prayers to Arab pagans although it was originally the Jews who prayed 5 times a day. The sources also link to Judaism.
On the other hand the verse in the Quran confirms that the Arab pagans used to pray in Kabaa.

So they did this rituals way before Islam. Or did they copy it from Islam? Washing, polygamy and praying is all very similar. Who was first?

lol I'm going to private message you about the guy in the second video. Basically, he's slightly insane. He is more sensitive towards Islam than most other Jews. But he's got a lot of good points, and I'm pretty sure that ancient Jewish prayer was somewhere in between the two videos.

"Did the author I translated mixed up something and assigned the prayers to Arab pagans although it was originally the Jews who prayed 5 times a day." No the Jews only prayed three times a day, including the guy in the second video. It's just the method of prayer that's being disputed. There is a lot of confusion as to whether it was as similar to what the guy in the second video does as it seems. I'm almost certain he actually learned what he does from the guy in the first video. I know that the guy in the first video is/was his rabbi (he doesn't call him a rabbi tho, for the reasons above), and I believe the reason the guy in the first video doesn't show all the prostration and stuff is because he's living in Israel, and Temani Jews are persecuted by the Ashkenazi majority.

The washing, polygamy and prayer rules that the Jews have almost all existed before the advent of Islam. A few prayers were added later, but the major ones--all the ones in that particular video--were already codified. The washing was already codified, at least of the hands and feet; the face may or may not have been added later--it was definitely included in Rambam, but I'm not sure if it was in the Talmud. Polygamy, complete with the four wives rule, was definitely already codified.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for I have a sonic screwdriver, a tricorder, and a Type 2 phaser.
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Reply #23 - January 23, 2015, 02:44 AM

This is OT, but y'all are fascinating. I had a long day and this is very welcome reading.

Don't let Hitler have the street.
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Reply #24 - January 23, 2015, 06:05 PM

Quote from: Zaotar on January 22, 2015, 07:44 PM
Yeah, I entirely agree it is anachronistic as used in the gospels, as you say, my only point is that the way it is defined in the even later texts of orthodox Judaism (as a title granted through formal ordination by the Sanhedrin) looks even more anachronistic still. It looks like the sort of classic later theological redefinition of earlier linguistic terms that you see pervading all of the Semitic religions. Three centuries later, somebody is writing what amounts to theological linguistics about how a Semitic language was allegedly used centuries before. But the actual historical use tends to have been very different, and commonly far more variable, than the narrow theological redefinitions that priests and scholars later try to impose on the text.

I think a lot of these loses links to Judaism were made so Jesus appears less like a political rebel in the eyes of Rome. To the uninitiated Jesus would be seen as a religious reformer rather than both religious and political. One only needs to look at the messianic prophecies, verses about the end times, etc, to see it is only facade.

It is similar to how Islam uses many ideas from Judaism, Christianity and Arabia polytheism so appears cooperative, or willing to co-exist. Yet in reality Islam was to replace both the religious and political system so any co-existence is under the umbrella of Islam.
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Reply #25 - January 23, 2015, 06:48 PM

The purification rituals within Judaism existed before Islam. Ancient Egypt had a number of rituals involving water purification, it had a form of baptism and other temple rights very similar to Judaism. Judaism is a mix of Egyptian and Zoroastrian rituals. However it really is not unusual for cultural to have an affinity towards water especially in in arid regions which all 3 religions evolved in. The Talmud has the most extensive collection of material on ritual purity but was written centuries before Islam. However between the similarity between these concepts and Islam is very weak.

While Judaism had polygamy it was not in the form of wives found in Islam. It was a developed form of concubinage which was only done for a purpose. A barren wife for example. While Islam allows additional wives for a number of reasons. From my point of view it seems as if Mo only had passing knowledge of Judaism and didn't understand the reasons why popular figures had multiple wives. He also failed to see the results of Solomon and David having multiple wives. For David his sons fought and killed each other during his life and after his death. Solomon's successor saw the collapse of his father's kingdom. Solomon's wives in particular were seen as a negative not a positive since all but one was seen as leading him away from God.

If you think about it polygamy and marriage ties in Islam was a factor in the first civil war. On one side there is Fatima and Ali, on the other are those that gained power by marriage and Aisha.
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