WHAT IS A PROPHET? by
Anwar Shaikh
ISLAM: The Arab Imperialism
by Anwar Shaikh
Chapter One
WHAT IS A PROPHET?
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) tops all national heroes
of the world in greatness, glory and grandeur.
We have heard the tales of Solomon's wisdom, which has done
nothing to raise the stature of his nation; whatever, the Jews
have achieved, they have done through their own efforts, and at a
very high cost, indeed. But, so great has been sagacity of the
Prophet Muhammad that, whereas other power-seekers resorted to
coercion and bloodshed for controlling the destiny of foreign
nations, he devised a self- perpetuating form of Arab Imperialism,
which requires no swords, artillery or bombers. This majestic,
marvellous and mighty Arabian instrument is called
"Islam." In theory, it means "surrender to
Allah" but in practice, it is a force of self-subjugation to
the soil of Arabia and its cultural institutions!
Is it not amazing that a modern super power like the United States
of America, despite showering billions of dollars in the world's
depressed, deprived and derided people, cannot win their
gratitude, but one thousand million Muslims of this planet, who
mostly suffer from pangs of poverty, will save every penny to
perform the annual Hajj ceremony, which has been the mainstay of
the Saudi Arabian economy for centuries. This is appreciation of
what the Prophet may do for them in the next world!
Even more amazing is the fact that the genius of the Prophet has
made the Islamic Imperialism so baffling through a stunningly
beautiful coat of reverence that nobody has ever dared fathom its
depth. This is what gives it the mystique of heavenly success,
splendour and superiority.
Islam has become the conqueror of hearts and minds of the
depressed, the distracted and the decimated. It is really
spectacular how, through a process of brainwashing, it acts as the
tranquilliser for those, who have been ravaged by hunger,
ignorance and injustice. It provides tranquility through the hoax
of paradise, which is a place of bliss, blessedness and beatitude,
where there is no pain, toil or death. Instead, every man shall be
endowed with an everlasting age of 30 irrespective of how old he
was when he died; his virility shall be increased a hundredfold,
and the Munificent Allah shall bestow upon him no fewer than
seventy-two most beautiful virgins, eager to gratify his lust.
There is only one condition for the fulfilment of this promise:
people must believe in Muhammad and the spiritual supremacy of
Arabia, his motherland; they must adore all the Arab heroes, and
crave for the introduction of the Koranic Law in their countries
to demonstrate allegiance to the superiority of the Arab cultural
values.
The net result of this faith is that every non-Arab Muslim has
been turned into a moth, restless to cremate itself on the flame
of Arab Imperialism. Therefore, it is not surprising that, whereas
other dominant nations require guns, tanks and atom bombs to
subdue foreign countries, the Arabs need nothing of the sort.
Islam does it all for them through a dazzling process of
brainwashing.
It may look a miracle but, in fact, it is a specimen of a rare
political skill. As Muhammad claimed to be a Prophet, people have
come to believe that a Prophet is Divine i.e. a part of Godhead,
though apparently, they refer to him as a human.
Since influence of Prophethood has become a major source of mental
retardation through its uncanny grip on its believers, it is
imperative to establish that a Prophet is just a human, though
distinguished by a sense of self-importance and sharp political
skills, which he uses to bestow divinity upon himself by creating
a heroic image in people's minds. Therefore, it is vital to ask,
"What is a Prophet?"
The Koran declares:
"Perfect are the Words of thy Lord in Truth and
justice. No man can change His words. He is
All-Hearing, The All-knowing." (Cattle, VI: 116)
According to the Koran (Counsel, XLII: 10), the Bible i.e. the Old
Testament and the New Testament, or in the Islamic language,
Taurat, Zabur and Anjeel are the words of God. Therefore, they
cannot be tampered with, and one can rely upon the truthfulness of
the stories that have been narrated therein.
However, it should also be pointed out that the Koran has blamed
the Jews and the Christians for interpolating their Holy Books. It
is therefore, a self-contradiction of high magnitude, which
undermines authority of the Koran itself. But when we bear in mind
that the Jews and the Christians adore their Prophets and
Patriarchs, one finds no reason to disbelieve the Biblical
stories, which are an integral part of the Jewish-Christian faith
and tradition. Why should they denigrate their own religious
heroes, whom they admire to the tune of worship?
After these introductory remarks, I may add that a Prophet is
considered a Divine appointee, who serves as the sole medium of
godly instructions to humankind and thus ranks as the pillar of
innocence, piety and virtue. So great is his moral stature that he
can commit no wrong. The doctrine of prophethood holds him as the
ambassador, and model of morality.
To support this Semitic tradition, its followers have devised
tales which lend the most virtuous, vivacious and vibrant
character to a prophet, making him the manifestation of God, who
is held as the supreme example of righteousness. Since the concept
of prophethood has been a great barrier to free thinking and unity
of mankind owing to its supernatural and devisive character, one
is inclined to examine it with a view to sifting facts from
fiction and truth from triviality. For explaining this puzzle with
fairness and an acceptable degree of credibility, I intend to
review the lives of more than one prophet so that nobody can say
that I have picked on one particular prophet to distort the truth.
Having given my reasons for honouring the veracity of Biblical
accounts, now I may proceed to describe lives of the following
prophets to show that they were human, subject to the law of
error, but their followers have made them Divine for seeking
refuge in them:
1. Noah,
2. Abraham,
3. Lot,
4. David,
5. Solomon and
6. Muhammad.
1. NOAH
Noah is considered a model of morality owing to his goodness of
conduct, greatness of piety and grandeur of virtue. The Holy Koran
vouches for Noah's character:
"God chose Adam and Noah .."
(The House of Imran: 30)
"And Noah We guided before, and of his seed David
and Solomon, Job and Joseph, Moses and Aaron .."
( Cattle: 80 )
"And We sent Noah to his people:
'I am for you a warner, and a
bearer of good tidings.'" (Hood: 25)
The Prophet Muhammad treats Noah as a model, a warner and bearer
of good tidings. This shows the moral dignity of Noah.
One should also note that there is hardly any annotation of the
Koran, which has been possible without referring to the contents
of the Bible itself. Further, the Biblical traditions have exerted
a tremendous influence on the understanding of the Koran despite
all the blames of interpolation and corruption that the Moslem
scholars have forged against the Bible.
Noah is a Semitic name; it means Rest or Comfort. According to the
Jewish mythology, Adam was the ancestor of mankind but his progeny
met near extinction when Noah was about 601 years old.
What did go wrong with mankind? According to the Bible (Genesis 9:
5-6), man became so wicked that it grieved God, who repented for
having created him. So, He decided to cause the heaviest flooding
by incessant rain; its only purpose was to destroy mankind for
purging this planet of sin. In His zeal for morality, God
destroyed the bird and the beast without specifying how they might
have offended His grace. However, as a reward for Noah's piety,
the Good Lord commanded him to build an ark of gopher wood of a
particular shape and size for himself, his sons, his wife and his
sons' wives along with pairs of fowl and cattle. (Genesis 6:
14-22)
Since every living thing perished except what Noah was able to
save as a reward for his virtues, he ranks as the Hero of the
Flood, the second progenitor of mankind and saviour of the fowl
and the beast.
Again, as the present race of man comes from the loins of his
three sons, namely Shem, Ham and Japheth, all of us happen to be
Jews! Obviously, this is the reward of God's moral sense. To show
His pleasure for Noah's morality, God established a covenant with
him (Genesis 9: 10-17). It is a part of this covenant that He will
never again flood the earth. So great was God's resolve to keep
this stipulation that He made the rainbow as a permanent symbol of
the divine contract for reminding Him to keep it.
After this eulogy, one ought to look at the practical life of Noah
to assess his moral magnitude objectively. According to the Bible,
he was a husbandman and the inventor of the vineyard culture. He
made grape wine; drank it to his heart's content, and indulged in
intoxication. One day, when he suffered from the intensity of
drunkenness, he lay naked on the floor. Ham just happened to go
into his father's room and accidentally noticed his nakedness. He
told his brothers, Shem and Japheth, about it. They respectfully
covered their father without looking at him.
Having risen from his drunken torpor, Noah realised what had
happened. His behaviour towards his own son, Ham, does not glorify
his moral sense at all because he became spiteful towards him
though he (Ham) was totally innocent by any standard of good
conduct. He cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, for his father's
innocent mistake. He said that Canaan would be the servant of Shem
and Japheth, who would be blessed by the Lord God. Whereas they
and their children would prosper, the progeny of Canaan would live
to serve them.
The details of this episode are to be found in chapter 19 of
Genesis. Noah lived 950 years. His curse, if believed in, does not
vouch for his moral excellence as depicted by the Bible. Fancy
cursing Canaan for the "sin" of his father. Canaanites,
the modern Palestinians are the descendants of Canaan. Thus the
cause of eternal Judeo- Palestinian strife is rooted in the moral
sense of Noah, yet God chose him to be the second ancestor of
mankind!
2. ABRAHAM
He was the Jewish patriarch, who came to be acknowledged as the
father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He is believed to be
the prototype of the faithful man, tested and proven by God. The
Koran says:
1. Allah made Abraham, the leader of mankind.
( The Cow: 115 )
2. The best religion has he who follows the creed of
Abraham, a man of pure faith, and a FRIEND of
God. (Women: 12 )
3. The Koran tells its followers that Islam is "the
creed of your father Abraham, who named you
Muslims:" (The Pilgrimage: 75)
Abraham, the glorious prophet of God, the prototype of divine
morality, was a native of Ur in Mesopotamia. He was told by Yahwe,
the Jewish God, to leave his country and people in search of an
undesignated land where he would become the father of a new
nation. This land turned out to be Canaan (between Syria and
Egypt). God promised him that his progeny destined to be a huge
nation, would inherit the land.
The Bible tells us that Abraham was one hundred years old and
Sarah, his wife, ninety-nine, when she bore Isaac, their first
son. History bears testimony to the fact that, until dawn of the
20th century, the first birth carried a message of death to a
forty-year-old woman. How a ninety-nine year old woman gave birth
to her first child and yet survived, is certainly against the law
of nature. Belief in such a birth during that age, cannot be
anything but wishful thinking. Faith has got to be scientific or
nearly scientific; this is the message of human advancement and
moral thinking. Chaining human mind with superstition is an insult
to the moral dignity of man.
It appears that Abraham was less concerned with morality and more
with seeking the pleasure of God. This speculation is strengthened
by the event narrated in chapter 22 of Genesis; the second verse
states that God commanded Abraham to take Isaac "into the
land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one
of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
He prepared an altar of wood, tied up Isaac and laid him on it. He
actually took out a knife to slay his son but a miracle saved him!
Just think about the moral aspect of this happening:
1. Murder is the most heinous thing and a detestable crime against
morality. What kind of God could have tried a man with such an
abomination?
2. If it was an act of trial, God surely did not know how Abraham
would react to such a test. If He did, He was playing a furtive
game, which is far below the dignity of God, who claims to be the
Creator of this most wonderful world.
3. If God believes in morality, He must hate murder and all those
who do this act in the name of God. This event also shows
Abraham's "standard of perfection." Fancy the craze for
salvation, by killing one's own son! Is it really an act of high
morality or selfishness? Moral standards require of a father to
give his own life to protect his children, and not the other way
round.
There is yet another event which gives us an insight into the
morality of Abraham. I am referring to his treatment of Ishmael,
his other son, from Sarah's maidservant, called Hagar. It is
stunning to note that it was Sarah who persuaded Abraham to have
carnal relationship with Hagar. Having sexual intercourse with
one's wife is a blessing but with someone else, be it a concubine
or maidservant, is a sin and a crime. It is only the act of
marriage which sanctifies the sensual rights of the spouses. Thus,
marital philosophy of Islam, which allows physical intercourse
with a concubine becomes enigmatic, and loses its dignity. How a
perfect man like Abraham could fall for it? The result was birth
of a son called Ishmael, who became the ancestor of the Arabs. The
same Sarah who wanted to be a mother through Hagar, became jealous
of Hagar and Ishmael. Her pleasure lay in turning them both out of
her house and making Abraham abandon them in a desert. Sarah was
once a beautiful woman. Abraham could not annoy her because her
displeasure would have upset him. God, the Almighty, chose to side
with Sarah in this episode! He took the baby Ishmael and Hagar
into the wilderness of Beer-Sheba and left them there to die.
Again, a miracle saved them. This episode is narrated in chapter
21 of Genesis, and shows both God's and Abraham's total
indifference to morality.
There is yet another event which shows that Abraham behaved like
an ordinary human. He was as much afraid of death as anyone else.
As he sojourned in Gerar, Abimelech, the king of Gerar, took over
Sarah. Because she was beautiful, he was sure that the king would
slay him to possess her. (Genesis 20: 11 ) Abraham told them that
Sarah was not his wife but sister. One should also note that at a
previous occasion (Genesis 12: 11-20) when Abraham entered Egypt,
he told a similar lie for the same reason. He was even more afraid
of dying on that occasion. Sarah had to join in the mendacity to
save him.
Fancy "the friend of God," telling lies to escape death!
Imagine God saying to Abraham: "Walk before me, and be thou
perfect." (Genesis 17: 1). If this is the character of the
Perfect man chosen by God, what can He expect of ordinary mortals?
And can He deny them salvation when His own concept of morality is
inferior to that of what humans usually practise?
3. LOT
Once upon a time, c. 1900 B.C. there roamed Lot, preaching in the
cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are now believed to lie under
the shallow water south of Al- Lisan, a peninsula situated close
to the southern end of the Dead Sea in Israel.
The evil habits of the inhabitants of these cities gave birth to
an infamous word i.e. sodomy, which needs no explanation. These
cities enjoyed the same reputation in wicked gaiety as some modern
metropolises do for gambling and sexual perversions. The
extraordinary vice of these conurbations attracted the wrath of
the Lord with complete vehemence. The faithful believe, as the
Bible says: "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from out of heaven," (Genesis 19:
24-25), thus causing their total destruction. The legendary
wickedness and the fate of these gay cities has been the subject
of dramas, plays, novels and paintings over the centuries. Yet the
waters of sodomy, instead of subsiding, have been rising steadily
to become the whipping waves in modern times for assuming the form
of a privileged homosexuality under the umbrella of
"humanism."
We are tolerant and keep our grudges to ourselves, but Lot lashed
out against it. The degree of disgust, displeasure and distraction
is demonstrated by his devastating stand that he took against it.
What gave him the courage to preach against sodomy was the fact
that he was the appointed Prophet of God, charged with the mission
to deplore, deprecate and destroy the evil without fear of
discomfort, distress or death. According to the Koran, "God
admitted Lot into His mercy; gave him judgement and knowledge, and
he was one of the righteous" (The Prophets 70-75). He had the
courage to address his people bluntly: "Why do you come to
male beings, leaving your wives that your Lord created for you?
Nay, but you are a people of transgressors" (The Poets: 165).
They did not like his divine warnings of chastisement and told him
that if he did not stop preaching against sodomy, he would be
expelled from the locality.
Lot, the nephew of Abraham, though admirably daring, did not
triumph in his mission. The Good Lord himself became impatient
with these people. Having decided to annihilate them, He sent two
angels for carrying out the Divine punishment. Mistaking them for
ordinary males, men of the locality tried to seize them for lewd
purposes. As they had stayed with Lot, he tried to save their
honour by offering the agitators his two virgin daughters, whom
they refused and persisted in their evil attempt.
Next morning brought the day of reckoning in the form of brimstone
and fire (Genesis 19: 24-25). It levelled completely the cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah. The only people who survived were Lot, his
wife and his two daughters. However, his wife was turned into a
pillar of salt (Genesis 19: 26) for "looking back"
against the express command of God. So, there were really only
three survivors - Lot and his two daughters. After the total
destruction, there was only one place where they could dwell, and
that was a cave.
It is at this junction that the Bible says something different
about Lot, the prophet of God, a righteous and exalted man. The
event is recorded in verses 31-38 of chapter 19 of Genesis. It
says that to preserve the seed of their father, first, it was the
elder daughter of Lot who had sexual intercourse with him, and the
next night came the turn of the younger daughter to seduce her
father. They both used the same method of seduction, that is, made
him drunk to the extent that in each case: "he perceived not
when she lay down, nor when she arose." The result was that
they both became pregnant by their own father. One bore Moab who
grew up to become the father of the Moabites, and the younger
daughter also gave birth to a son called Ben-Ammi who fathered the
tribe which came to be known as Ammon.
Giving judgement on the moral perfection of Lot is a delicate
matter but one ought to remember two things; firstly, Lot was used
to drinking like Noah. Otherwise, he would not have accepted wine.
The fact that he also received it from his other daughter, proves
his drinking habit.
Secondly, he took no action against his daughters. Instead, he
raised his sons himself. It expresses his approval of the whole
affair.
One can raise several other points on the issue but it ought to be
enough for the thinking mind.
4. DAVID
Plain-speaking is one of the distinguishing features of the Bible.
Many a time, has it. revealed the psychological truths, which men
infested with vainglory and an exaggerated sense of self-piety,
may like to conceal from their fellow- beings. 1 Kings 2: 1-4,
speaks openly about David and expresses a fact about male psyche.
I may state it in my own words:
As he lay on his death-bed through longevity and physical
exhaustion, he shivered with cold and uncertainty. More than his
body, it was his enfeebled spirit - once used to a tonant life of
toils, tussels and tornadoes, that needed heat to restore his
tempestuous tempo of existence. In a flash of sagacious thinking,
someone thought of the rejuvinating power of feminine touch.
The royal court immediately ordered the despatch of horsemen
"throughout all the coast of Israel" to find a young
virgin of exquisite beauty who should fondle the dying David by
cuddling him and lying on his chest with a view to stirring up his
benumbed desire, and thus release him from the clutches of
imminent death by giving him a new will to enjoy a vivacious,
vigorous and virile life, once his privilege, practice and
priority.
It was not a futile mission because the searchers did return with
a young virgin of statuesque charm and elegance; her name as
mentioned in the Bible was Abishag, a Shunammite. Despite all this
effort, the magic of her youth and beauty failed to revive David
because she arrived too late to perform the miracle. David had
lost his intellectual and physical capacities to feel her
presence.
Who was David? He was the youngest son of Jesse and grandson of
Boaz and Ruth. He was born in Bethlehem. As a warrior, he was the
Jewish hero who humbled Goliath, a soldier of gigantic
proportions, when he was only a stripling. This gallantry brought
him the reward of appointment as an aid to the court of Saul, the
first king of Israel.
Of much greater stature is David's religious leadership, which has
served as the nucleus of Jewish nationhood and the secret of its
survival. The ideal king, as the Jewish tradition treats him, has
become the pivot of the messianic expectations. Being the
standard-bearer of the Jewish hope, he has always loomed as a
promise of fulfilment throughout the heartbreaking fiascos,
failures and frustrations of the Jewish history. It is this lofty
national stature of David, which prompted the writers of the New
Testament to treat him as the progenitor of Jesus. The boundaries
of his esteem extend far beyond the realm of Judaism, and cover
the kingdoms of Christianity and Islam.
The Koran says: ".... David the man of might, he
was penitent. With him We subjected the mountains
to give glory at evening and sunrise, and the birds,
duly mustered, every one to him reverting ......We
gave him wisdom and a sagacious speech ....."(SAD:15-25)
Stated simply, according to the Koran, David was an exalted
prophet of God who had been given command by his Lord over the
mountains, birds and the phenomena of mornings and evenings. He
was appointed as viceroy by God to rule people justly.
A prophet is supposed to be the model of innocence and moral
piety. What does the Bible say about David? It narrates his
character in 2 Samuel, and the first Book of Kings. The amazing
narrative it contains, shows that a prophet is human, and his
exalted moral status is more a matter of faith than fact:
David, one late afternoon, as he "arose from off his
bed" and strolled on the roof-top of his palace, felt his
gaze arrested by a beautiful young woman, who was bathing in the
privacy of her own home. The sexual temptation that her naked body
generated proved irresistable to David; every inch of the damsel
reflected the pink hues of the setting sun. David, the slayer of
Goliath, fell victim to the fascination of the bathing beauty,
bubbling with desire, devastation and dalliance.
Who was she? Her name was Bathsheba. She was the daughter of Elia,
and wife of Uriah, the Hittite, a general in David's army. David's
approach towards Bathsheba, as demonstrated by the Bible (2 Samuel
11: 4), is quite different from that of a Western knight, who
begged favour of his lady love. The humbled monarch, though
destined to be the genitor of Jesus Christ, used his eastern
privilege to get her. The lady surrendered, yet David retained his
piety! Instead of offering himself for the punishment that the Old
Testament prescribes for adultery, he felt entitled to carnal
indulgence indefinitely. However, the prophet Nathan, had the
courage to address David on the subject through a parable. The
divine David, first flared up with anger, and then realising the
enormity of his sin, he repented but decided to cleanse his guilt
in a novel way. He slept with her again; she conceived for the
second time and became the mother of immortal Solomon, the Wise.
What happened to Bathsheba's first conception by David? Yahwe, the
Jewish God, in His wisdom, did not allow the child to live as a
punishment to David. But, what did the child do to deserve
extinction? What an example of Divine morality!
The faithful hold that it was a way of purifying David. However,
this divine process went a bit too far: he sent for Uriah,
Bathsheba's husband, and gave him a sealed letter and ordered him
to take it to Joab, the army- commander. The letter contained
David's command to expose Uriah to the maximum danger at the
battle front. It was, in fact, a conspiracy to murder him. To be
able to marry his widow, David the prophet of God, not only caused
Uriah's death through this stratagem but many other Israelite
soldiers lost their lives in its execution.
Yet God forgave David, the Prophet! Both the Bible and the Koran
testify to this fact.
5. SOLOMON
Solomon, the Wise, has been given the dignity of a prophet by the
Koran.
Islam does not claim to be the religion proclaimed by the Prophet
Muhammad of Arabia but the continuation of the faith that God
revealed to Noah and "the prophets after him such as Abraham,
Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Job, Jonah and Aaron and Solomon
.." (Women: 160)
Obviously, Solomon was a significant prophet for being a link in
the chain of prophethood. How important was he? The Koran has
endowed him with supernatural gifts: as God had subjected
mountains and birds to the will of David, He gave Solomon command
over the wind (The prophet: 80) and made him ruler of Jinns
(giants). Besides, the Good Lord gave him an extraordinary gift of
understanding the speech of birds and animals right down to ants,
and thus, he could converse with them in their own tongue.
The Bible, however, presents him differently - a sumptuous king,
having ample wisdom and deep understanding, not dimmed by the
flashes of royal gaiety, which usually restrict the vision of
rulers. He was a man of tremendous sexual appetite and, as stated
by the Biblical scholars, enjoyed the novel hobby of
concubine-collecting. As a result, he came to possess a harem of
three hundred concubines and seven hundred wives, and thus
required 1000 female beauties to gratify his erotic desires.
The Bible clearly demonstrates that, when it came to choosing
between God and women, he usually opted for the latter. Chapter 11
of 1 Kings gives a clear indication of Solomon's fallibility to
the female charm. Yahwe, the Jewish God, who is jealous and
demands exclusive love and devotion for Himself, has forbidden a
Jew to marry a non-Jew; marriage with a gentile is likely to
estrange him from Yahwe. Yet Solomon "loved many strange
women" because his harem consisted of, not only Pharaoh's
daughter, but also women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites,
Zidonians and Hittites.
His love of non-Jewish women made him discard God and openly rebel
against Him; "his wives turned away his heart after other
gods," and he built temples to Chemosh and Molech, the
foreign deities to please his wives and concubines. Solomon, the
prophet, was in fact, a practising idolator. This truth is
well-attested by the fact that Yahwe, Himself appeared to Solomon
twice (1 Kings 11: 9) and warned him that, as he had not kept His
covenant and statutes, he would be punished, though retribution
would be held in abeyance during his life-time as a mark of favour
to David, his father, but it would be unleashed on his progeny,
who would lose most of the empire.
The song of Solomon gives us a glimpse of his romantic nature:
"O my dove, that are in the clefts of the rock ..."
( Chapter 1: 14 )
In verse 3 of chapter 4, he likens his beloved's lips to a scarlet
thread and her temples to a piece of pomegranate.
Again, he says: "Thy two breasts are like two young
roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies."
(Chapter 4: 5)
One may call it a mystical style of expression to give it a divine
construction, but then mystics are known for their erotic
passions.
Solomon's disregard for God is revealed by his distracted
disposition for women; it arouses his desires and he admires them
as if he were an inhabitant of a dreamland dwelt in by darlings of
excessive desirability. The Queen of Sheba's story proves this
point. She was enthralled by his tales of wisdom, and "she
came to prove him with hard questions" (1 Kings 10: 1). As
she was determined to discover whether Solomon's reputation was
based on truth or triviality, "she communed with him of all
that was in her heart" ( 1 Kings 10: 2 ).
This is a true Biblical account of the event because history has
recorded some riddles of the Queen of Sheba to portray the
joviality of the occasion. She asked Solomon:
"What has ten holes; when one is open, nine are closed; when
one closes, nine are open."
"Man" whose navel closes at birth, is said to be the
answer to this riddle. So charmed was she with the prolific and
piercing wisdom of Solomon that she burst into an accolade:
"Happy are thy men ..who hear thy wisdom."
(1 Kings 10: 8)
To influence wisdom with the magic of worldly riches, she gave
Solomon a lot of gold, precious stones and great stores of spices.
In return, "Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her
desire whatsoever she asked .."
(1 Kings 10: 13)
The amorous Queen, infatuated with Solomon's intellect and body,
conceived to celebrate the erotic hilarity of this occasion, and
gave birth to a son known to history as Menelik 2; he fathered a
small African tribe of Jews known as Falasha, whose existence
remained a mystery until 1867.
6. MUHAMMAD
The character of the prophet Muhammad has been drummed up out of
all proportions by those, whose selfish interests are conveniently
served by such an exercise. So important is the issue under
discussion that I shall be failing in my duty to humankind if I
gloss it over for fear of consequences. Equally, honesty demands
that my narrative must be nothing but the whole truth. In view of
the significance of the subject, I may examine it in a separate
chapter.
If
you enjoyed this article, please visit: http://www.hinduunity.org
|
|
