Selim I, Ismail I, and Babur

Pre-publication of chapter XIX of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XXVII to XXXII form Part Eleven (How and why the Ottomans, the Safavids and the Mughals failed) of the book, which is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. Chapters XXVII and XXVIII have already been pre-published.

Until now, 21 chapters have been uploaded as partly pre-publication of the present book; this chapter is therefore the 22nd (out of 33) to be uploaded. At the end of the text, the entire Table of Contents is made available. Pre-published chapters are marked in blue color, and the present chapter is highlighted in gray color. 

In addition, a list of all the already pre-published chapters (with the related links) is made available at the very end, after the Table of Contents.

The book is written for the general readership with the intention to briefly highlight numerous distortions made by the racist, colonial academics of Western Europe and North America only with the help of absurd conceptualization and preposterous contextualization.

References made to entries of the Wikipedia offer average readers a starting point for their research; they do not signify acceptance and approval of their contents.

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Certainly, the Safavid Empire was not the first Islamic state established by a mystical order; but earlier states launched by mystical orders were either set up in small and remote territories as form of local resistance against the Islamic Caliphate like the Babakiyah (Khurramites) or organized as a secret subversive movement coordinated from mysterious, faraway, unreachable and impregnable headquarters, like those of the Hashashin Isma’ilis (known as Assassins in Western literature). In this regard, at the level of governance, the main difference between the Safavids and the Isma’ilis was the fact that the latter did not try or even plan to proclaim an empire, whereas the former, even before solemnly announcing their empire, felt that they had the task to entirely reshape the Islamic world.

Selim I

Ismail I Safavi

Babur

The Safavid Order had the apocalyptic, eschatological and messianic feeling that their task would be the only way to save the Islamic world; they felt that they had the divinely bestowed obligation to institute a secular empire across the Islamic world, which would be based on spiritual values, moral virtues, cultural traditions, and epic revival. The name of the empire was no lees imperial than the following expression: “the Realm of the Outspread Universe of Iran” (ملک وسیع‌الفضای ایران /Molk-e vasi-ye fezaye Eran); one understands automatically the importance of Ferdowsi’s epic narrative and the cosmological dimension that Safavid spirituality gave to the state that the venerable members of the Order launched. The term ‘Iran’ does not denote either the territory of a nation/ethnic group or the land controlled by a state; all these divisive, nonsensical, modern notions were nonexistent at the time. In the very beginning of the Safavid times, the term ‘Iran’ was not even used.

Prof. Ali Anooshahr, speaking at the symposium “The Idea of Iran: The Safavid Era” (https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis/events/idea-of-iran/27oct2018-the-idea-of-iran-the-safavid-era.html; Center for Iranian Studies, SOAS; 27 October 2018) about the topic “Historiographical perceptions of the transmission from Timurid to Safavid Iran”, explained how historians of the early 16th c. dealt with the transition from the Timurid to the Safavid period. His speech is available here (from 8:10 until 46:19): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkvUfU2ruKM

The most important historians of the early Safavid times were Ghiyath ad-Din Muhammad Khwandamir (Habib al-Siyar; Khulasatu-l Akhbar; Dasturu-l Wuzra), Abdallah Hatefi (Khamsa), Amini Haravi (Futuhat-e shahi), Fazli Khuzani Esfahani (Afzal al-tawarih), and Fazl-Allah Khonji Esfahani (Tarih-e alamara-ye amini).

It is interesting to herewith include selected excerpts from Prof. Anooshahr’s well-founded speech, notably (11:30 onwards/no editing involved):

“There was no idea of something called Iran in this transition period”.

“The word ‘Iran’ only shows in Amini’s book twice; once is paired with Turan; and then immediately afterward, when the Rumi (: Roman) envoy shows up on behalf of the Ottoman Emperors”.

“As far as the people of the time were concerned, the actual participants in these events, they had no idea of Iran, and this was not because they were alien or unpatriotic, in fact they were non-patriotic, because there is no patriotism; this was because they had a radically different idea of territory than we do today. So, in our modern conception, people are defined as a nation, they own the land that they live on, and this land has a particular characteristic that is shared between it and all the people”.

“When Amini writes about territory, he sublimates it by using the Quran and comparing it to heaven; he does not connect it to any kind of territorial identity at all”.

“The establishment of Twelver Shi’ism, based on this text, does not seem to be that important. And then the establishment of a kind of Ancient Persian Empire is actually not on their agenda”.

As a matter of fact, Safavid Iran was the entire universe for the members of the Safavid Order, and as such it had no ethnic/national dimension or character and no religious identity. Spirituality was all that mattered. Even more importantly, it was not proclaimed only to encompass the territories that the Safavid emperors finally controlled, as Western Iranologists perniciously suggest, perversely viewing the Safavid empire’s territory as simply a larger ‘version’ of the modern pseudo-state of Iran. For the members of the Safavid Order, “Molk-e vasi-ye fezaye Eran” had the divinely entrusted task to contain the entire circumference of the Islamic world.   

Four major monarchs between Rome and China

Between Rome and China, four persons, who played a determinant role in the final formation of major empires and in the final delineation of their borders, were born between 1450 and 1487.  In chronological order they are as per below:

i. Muhammad Shaybani (Muhammad Shaybani Khan or Abul-Fath Shaybani Khan; 1451-1510), grandson of Abu’l-Khayr Khan, and Genghisid founder of the Khanate of Bukhara (1500), one of the empires that were formed after the split of the Golden Horde and demise of the precarious Uzbek Khanate; he evidently did not make any distinction between a) Turanians and Iranians (which shows the extent of the completed ethnic Turanization of Iran) and b) those who are fallaciously called today ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’ by colonial Orientalists, diplomats or statesmen and Islamic terrorists and extremists alike.

Muhammad Shaybani; 16th c. portrait painted by the famous Iranian artist Kemaleddin Behzad

The fight between Shah Ismail I and Muhammad Shaybani (1510); from the manuscript Tarikh-i alam-aray-i Shah Ismail (the world adorning History of Shah Ismail)

Bukhara; Chor-Bakr burial place constructed under Muhammad Shaybani (1505-1510)

The state of Muhammad Shaybani

ii. Selim I (سليم اول / Yavuz Sultan Selim; 1470-1520), grandson of Mehmed II and son of Bayezid II; he ruled the Eastern Roman Empire only for eight years (1512-1520), but he was by far the most important sultan of the 600-year long dynasty for having expanded the Ottoman territories more than any other. Then, there was no ‘Ottoman Empire’; not one man used that term at the time. The term ‘State of the Ottoman family’ (دولت عليه عثمانیه‎ / Devlet-i ‘Alīye-i Osmaniyeh) was introduced centuries later. Selim I was the Padishah (پادشاه‎), i.e. the ‘Great King’, thus bearing an Iranian title that goes back to the early Achaemenids who antedated him by two millennia. Selim I was also (βασιλεύς Ρωμαίων / Imperator Romanorum / قیصر روم‎ / Qaysar-i Rum, lit. “Caesar of the Romans”) like his father and grandfather after 1453, because Mehmed II claimed the title after conquering Constantinople, George of Trebizond endorsed the claim, considering Mehmed II as emperor of the world, and Gennadius Scholarius, Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, fully recognized the title.

The state of Selim I was also viewed by others as the Roman Empire (in the sense of the Eastern Roman Empire, because the Western Roman Empire ceased to exist in 476 CE). From the aforementioned speech of Prof. Ali Anooshahr, I quote another excerpt here (exactly after 12:07 in the above mentioned video and link):

“I am referring to what we call ‘the Ottoman Empire’; but if the topic today is to look at how people perceived their own territoriality, then we shouldn’t call it ‘the Ottoman Empire’, because they didn’t call it that way; they called it ‘the Roman Empire’ (ruled by the Ottoman family)”.

Selim I was not styled “Commander of the Faithful” (أَمِير ٱلْمُؤْمِنِين‎ / ‘Amir al-Mu’minin) for most of his reign, and when he could claim the title, the majority of his subjects rejected it for him. The same concerns the later and minor title “Servant of The Two Holy Cities” (خَادِمُ الْحَرَمَيْن‎ / Hadimü’l-Haremeyn), which is somewhat a historical novelty introduced only as late as the 12th – 13th c. Last, it is only after 1517 that Selim I was accepted as ‘Caliph’ throughout his realm and dependencies.

Selim I (Yavuz Sultan Selim); portrait painted by the Ottoman artist Nakkaş Osman (16th c.)

The territorial expansion of the Ottoman Sultanate (focus on Anatolia and the Balkans)

Portrait (end of 18th-beginning of 19th c.) painted by the Christian Orthodox Eastern Roman artist Konstantin Kapıdağlı (Κωνσταντῖνος Κυζικηνός; Konstantinos Kyzikinos)

Ottoman Empire around 1520

Miniature from the 16th c. manuscript Hüner-nāme; I, Library of the Topkapi Palace Museum

The Ottoman Empire in 1875

Sultan Selim I and the Grand Vizier Piri Mehmed Paşa

Selim I portrait painted by Aşık Çelebi

Painting showing Selim I during the Egypt campaign, Army Museum, Istanbul

Portrait of Selim I painted by Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari); Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Staatsgalerie in der Residenz Würzburg

From the personal belongings of Shah Ismail that were captured by Selim during and after the Battle of Chaldiran. Topkapi Museum, Istanbul

iii. Babur (ظَهير اَلَدّين مُحَمَّد – Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad; 1483-1530) was the eldest son of Umar Sheikh Mirza, the Timurid governor of Ferghana who was the son of Abu Sa’id Mirza; consequently, Babur was the great grandson of Abu Sa’id Mirza’s father, Sultan Muhammad Mirza, governor of Samarqand for some time, whom due to an unknown reason Babur did not even mention in historical boon Babur-nameh. This implies that Babur was the great-great grandson of the father of Sultan Muhammad Mirza, Miran Shah, who was the third of Timur’s four sons. So, Babur was the great-great-great-grandson of Timur.

If he is basically known through his nickname (‘tiger’), this happens because he truly deserved it. Babur became the ruler of Ferghana at the age of 11 (in 1494), and he was an outstanding and exceptional adolescent in every sense. In his rather brief but most eventful life that had unprecedented ups and downs, Babur had to incessantly fight hard for long and in a most adventurous and often thunderous manner, undertaking campaigns, laying sieges, and winning battles, but also losing his capitals. He was defeated by Muhammad Shaybani, and he spent years in humiliation and poverty without a real shelter.

However, he managed to capture Kabul (1504) and to control parts of today’s Afghanistan; he then benefited from Ismail I’s victory over Muhammad Shaybani (1510), recaptured Samarqand, and prepared his army for the major campaign and the greatest success of his life, namely the invasion of the Indus River and the Ganges River valleys, the demolition of the Delhi Sultanate, and the foundation (1524-1526) of the Mughal Empire (1526-1858). So, triumph came at last to this intellectual soldier and philosopher-conqueror. By all means, Babur would have made -in a terrible historical irony- the perfect son to Timur himself!

iv. Ismail I Safavi (1487-1524) was none other than the son of Shaykh Haydar, the Grandmaster of the Safavid Order and the founder of the Qizilbash military order. It is noteworthy that his maternal grandmother was none other than Despina Hatun, i.e. Theodora Megale Komnene, of John IV of Trebizond, who became Muslim to get married (1458) with Uzun Hassan, the Aq Qoyunlu sultan, whose daughter Martha (mainly known as Alamshah Halime Begum) -in very young age- got married (1471) with Shaykh Haydar.

However, tribally and imperially, Ismail I’s lineage was not as important as the ancestry of Muhammad Shaybani, Selim I, and Babur, but his spiritual-mystical backing was incommensurately stronger; people of different origin, occupation and location could instantly rush to his support and give their lives personally for him. And his great military advantage was his unpredictability, which was due exactly to his spiritual-mystical backing. His opponents would never know from where his fighters would surface to protect him and defend his cause. 

Contrarily to Muhammad Shaybani who had the youth of a regular soldier, and to Selim I who spent years in palatial intrigues as he was his father’s third son, Ismail I was an exceptional youngster like Babur; but his father’s spiritual potency made an enormous difference. This is difficult to assess properly today, but in the circle of the Anatolian-Caucasus-Iranian-Central Asiatic members of the Safavid Order and the Qizilbash fighters, Shaykh Haydar was believed to be God Incarnate (elah) – in the spiritual (not theological) connotation of the word. This meant nothing less than an absolute faith as per which the infant Ismail, long before establishing the Empire of the Safavid Order, was believed to be ‘ebn Allah’ (Son of God).

Western colonial historians and Orientalist forgers, in their incessant effort to distort the historical reality of the Safavid times, select deliberately anti-Safavid authors of those days, like Fazl-Allah Khonji Esfahani, take their premeditated narratives at face value, attach to them several fake, pseudo-Islamic theological concepts, such as the ‘ghulat’, and portray the Safavids as ‘Shia extremists’ or ‘antinomians’ (another fake term), which is absolutely absurd. As said in the previous chapter, there cannot be religious evaluation of spiritual matters; this means that every attempt of theological interpretation of a spiritual term or expression is a failure already before it is stated. In fact, there are no ‘ghulat’ at all.

This term is a neologism, which is attributed by modern scholars to various mystics and spiritual masters (of different Islamic periods), who were misunderstood in their times by their theological critics. The perverse colonial interest in promoting the ‘ghulat’ bogus-literature and in using the fake term for people, who were not called ‘ghulat’ in their times, is due first, to the Western academics’ distortive effort to generate the nonexistent ‘Sunni vs. Shia’ divide, and second, to the Western intellectuals’ vicious attempt to portray several Muslim mystics and spiritual grandmasters as ‘heretics’, whereas the difference between Islam and Christianity hinges exactly on this point, namely that there cannot be ‘heresy’ within Islam.

Ismail I was undoubtedly an extraordinary youngster who lived in strict mystical seclusion for five years (from 7 to 12), before appearing as almost the Islamic Messiah (Mahdi). It is necessary to straightforwardly clarify at this point that this term has a totally different meaning in spirituality and in religion (or theology). Meanwhile, the bright and exceptional apprentice was communicating with several members of the Safavid Order and the Qizilbash army though a sophisticated network of agents that was too difficult for others to identify, let alone put under control.

For Ismail I Safavi’s early stage of life (during those five years), there were certainly several parallels between his concealed existence and that of Muhammad ibn al-Askari, the Twelfth Imam (who was born in 869 and finally disappeared in his Major Occultation in 941). However, only theological misinterpretation of spiritual activities and narratives could lead to the wrong assumption about an eventual identification of Ismail I with Muhammad ibn al-Askari. Not one member of the Safavid Order was confused in this regard.  

After having lived his childhood in the forests of Gilan, he appeared to his brethren and followers at 12 (in 1499), he achieved an unexpected, great victory over the Shirvanshah ruler Farrukh Yassar two years later (1501), and he was crowned king at 14. Thus, he was catapulted to power in the most exulting terms, whereas his merry, exuberant and legendary entry to Tabriz was followed by endless feasts, imperial banquets, endless consumption of wine, and fabulous erotic delights.

He who says that wine (or alcoholic drinks in general) is prohibited in Islam is either a conniving Westerner (diplomat, statesman, agent or academic) strongly motivated by his vicious hatred of the true, historical Islam or an idiotic puppet of the Western powers, i.e. an ignorant and idiotic, fanatic and extremist, Islamist sheikh, who – as per the Satanic orders of his Western masters – believes that “Islam is the Quran and the Hadith”. Quite contrarily to this fallacy, the extensively misinterpreted and calamitously misunderstood sacred texts of Islam do not represent even 0.001% of the existing voluminous literature (in classical Islamic languages, namely Arabic, Farsi, various Turkic languages, and Urdu), which has to be first studied, then correctly perceived and plainly comprehended before one attempts to read the Quran and the Hadith. No holy text exists without exact conceptualization and comprehensive contextualization. 

The sacred texts of Islam (similarly with those of every other religion) cannot be accurately and succinctly understood per se except in the light of literary, spiritual, historical, theoretical and scientific texts of the Golden Era of Islam. The same occurs in Christianity; without the Patristic Literature (Patristics or Patrology, i.e. the texts written by the Fathers of the Christian Church) no one can possibly understand correctly the New Testament, the Old Testament, and the true, historical Christianity. The fallacy, as per which anyone today can understand the Gospels and the other sacred texts of Christianity without the Patristic Literature, is a deviate, Protestant – Evangelical distortion.

The aforementioned four Muslim emperors were all authors, poets and highly educated and cultured monarchs. Muhammad Shaybani composed his Bahr ul Huda, a theological, moral treatise, being widely known as a consummate polymath and an erudite scholar who highly valued books, manuscripts, epics and arts. Selim I wrote poetry in Farsi and Turkish under the penname Mahlas Selimi. Babur excelled in prose; he elaborated his own biography in Chagatai Turkic; the legendary Babur nameh (Book of Babur) is a major historical source for the History of Asia during the 15th and 16th c.

Ismail I Safavi composed spiritual poetry in Turkish and Farsi under the penname Khatai, i.e. ‘the one who makes mistakes’; in and by itself, this fact constitutes the complete confirmation of the aforementioned statement, namely that there cannot be religious evaluation of spiritual matters. Confessing one’s own mistakes -by selecting a name that makes this reality so explicitly known- is full indication of humanity; a perfect human accepts that he/she makes mistakes. By using this penname, Ismail I fully demonstrated that the term ‘ebn Allah’ (Son of God) attributed to him was not meant in a rationalistic theological way but in terms of spiritual symbolism, which is absolutely unfathomable to juristic, rationalistic and materialistic theologians.

In the existing manuscripts (preserved in Tashkent and Paris) of Ismail I Safavi’s poetry, there are ca. 260 qasidas and ghazals, quatrains, morabbas, mosaddas, and three mathnawis (different types of Islamic poetry); two of his mathnawis are quite lengthy, namely the Dah nameh and the Nasihat nameh. Bektashis in Anatolia and the Balkans, as well as the Shabaks in Mesopotamia, extensively recite Ismail I Safavi’s poetry in their spiritual sessions down to our days.

The interaction of those four great emperors was not trouble-free, peaceful and bloodless; at times, it even took a dimension of extreme monstrosity. During the period 1497-1504, Babur and Muhammad Shaybani were repeatedly engaged in battles against one another, particularly for the control of Samarqand. Muhammad Shaybani proved to be Babur’s real nemesis, but both of them captured, lost and recaptured Samarqand several times. As Babur had a small basis of support in Central Asia, he undertook a most adventurous campaign in 1504, and with few men he captured Kabul, making of the area his new base. He made an alliance with a distant relative, namely the ruler of Herat Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqarah; but Muhammad Shaybani chased him from there too.     

As Muhammad Shaybani was an ally of the Ottoman family and of Bayezid II, the father of Selim I, he concentrated his efforts in the East and Southeast, against the Hazara Turanian nomads in Khorasan (currently located in central Afghanistan) and the Kazakhs. In fact, his campaign against the Hazaras was a disaster, because first his cavalry had many casualties and second the war against the Hazaras produced a major reaction among the Qizilbash, because many members of the military order were of Hazara origin. Then, Ismail I Safavi, who had spent many years, invading and dismantling the Akkoyunlu state and its last remaining forces in Iran, Caucasus, Eastern Anatolia, and Mesopotamia, turned against Muhammad Shaybani. Then, in the Battle of Merv, the Qizilbash army, after devising a trick (i.e. a feigned retreat), ambushed and slaughtered an almost double Uzbek force.

The excesses after the Qizilbash victory were exorbitant; Muhammad Shaybani’s corpse was cut to pieces and parts were sent to be in public display in many cities; his skull ended up as a gold-plated cup for Ismail I. The cup was later sent to Babur himself, and the same occurred to one of Muhammad Shaybani’s wives, namely Khanzada Begum, who was Babur’s elder sister. These gestures started an era of cooperation between Ismail I, who had just risen to prominence, and Babur whose army and the Qizilbash fought side by side against the Uzbeks at the Battle of Ghazdewan (1512); however they were defeated there, and this event marked the end of Babur’s dream of recovering his father’s kingdom at Ferghana. For some time, Babur accepted Ismail I as his own emperor, while he was struggling to impose his rule in the mountains between Central Asia and the Indus River valley.

Opposing Ottoman allies at the Battle of Ghazdewan, Babur (today portrayed as a ‘Sunni’ by colonial Orientalists) became an ally of Ismail I Safavi (currently labeled as a ‘Shia’ by European and American historical forgers) and therefore an enemy of Selim I (nowadays described as a ‘Sunni’ by Western academics). The reality is totally different: Ismail I was a spiritual mystic, who became the ruler of a secular empire controlled by the army (Qizilbash) of his mystical order (Safavid), whereas Selim I was a palatial intrigue man controlled by evil theological circles and people who caused divisions, civil wars, internal strives and terrible bloodshed in the Eastern Roman Empire (of the Ottoman family). Then, in striking opposition with both, Babur was an intrepid, intelligent and opportunist, yet formidable, soldier entirely motivated by the dream to create an empire greater than his father’s and Timur’s.

The spread of Qizilbash force, movement, worldview, mentality, and lifestyle among Anatolian pastoralists was overwhelming in the 1500s. It triggered its own dynamics, which was not controlled anymore by the Safavid Order and the newly established Safavid Empire. The mystical order of Şahkulu was the perfect continuation of many long centuries of Anatolian Islamic spirituality and mysticism; it was energized by the introduction of the Qizilbash concept (an army for a mystical order that would establish a secular universal empire).

Ismail I Safavi in an incident from his campaign against Shirvan; he is charging down a mountain in pursuit of the King of Shirvan; miniature from the manuscript Shahnama-i-Ismail (Tabriz style), ca. 1540 (MS Add. 7784, f.46v. British Museum, London); his distinctive turban has twelve folds representing the twelve Imams of whom Ali ibn Abi Taleb was the first.

The Aq Qoyunlu tribal khanate (1378-1503) around 1475, i.e. 25-30 years before it was defeated and incorporated with the Safavid Empire

Miniature from a 17th c. manuscript with mystical representation of Sheikh Safi ad-din Ardabili (1252-1334) blessing the young Shah Ismail I; gouache heightened with gold on paper. The historic mystic is depicted at the top of a minbar in the mosque holding a Qur’an and blessing Shah Isma’il (identified in small brown script) who stands on a lower step of the same minbar, surrounded by courtiers and elders.

Ismail I Safavi offers an audience to the Qizilbash, after they have defeated his opponent Shirvanshah Farrukh in 1500; miniature from Bijan’s Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Khaqan Sahibqiran (A History of Shah Ismail I), which was written in Isfahan in the late 1680s. The painting was created by Muin Musawwir, a famous artist who also illustrated six editions of the Shahnameh.

Ismail I Safavi and his soldiers cross Kura River in the Caucasus region

Ismail I Safavi defeats Sultan Murad, the last ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu, near Hamadan in 1503.

Miniature from a manuscript of Bijan’s Tarikh-i Jahangusha-yi Khaqan Sahibqiran (A History of Shah Ismail I), which was written in Isfahan in the late 1680s. It was painted by or in the style of Mu’in Musavvir; gouache heightened with gold on paper. Ismail and his courtiers are depicted on horseback while hunting.

The fight of Ismail I Safavi against the Dulkadiroğulları in Southeastern Anatolia

Ismail I Safavi watches his soldiers defeat the Musha’sha (المشعشعية) messianic leader Sultan Fayyad in Khuzestan; from the miniature of a manuscript of the late 1680s.

Representation of the Battle of Merv between Shah Ismail and Shaybani Khan; fresco in the Chehel Sotun Palace in Isfahan

Ismail I Safavi’s envoy Ganbar Agha appears before the last Aq Qoyunlu ruler Sultan Murad; miniature from a manuscript of the 1670s

Representation of the Battle of Chaldiran (1514); fresco in the Chehel Sotun Palace in Isfahan

The helmet of Ismail I Safavi

The Şahkulu Spiritual Movement

However, the Anatolian mystical order was not stricto sensu created by the Safavid Qizilbash. Many Western Orientalists totally misinterpret the role, the scope, the targets and the motivations of the founder and grandmaster of the eponymous order; Şahkulu (also known as Shah Qoli Baba or Shah Kulu or Shah Quli or Karabıyıkoğlu, i.e. the son of the man with black moustache) was certainly not a Safavid puppet who attempted to subvert or infiltrate the Ottoman state; this misinterpretation is absurd. Şahkulu was an Anatolian original.

In this regard, colonial academics totally distort everything, even the real meaning of Şahkulu’s name! It is true that in Turkish, this word means ‘the servant of the Shah’; however, this is not meant in a theological and rationalist manner, but with a purely spiritual connotation. Şahkulu was indeed the ‘servant’ of the ‘Shah’, but according to the terminology of an Islamic mystical order, ‘Shah’ is God. In fact, even worse lies and incredible distortions are published by Western colonial historians as regards the bloodshed, the persecution and the oppression of the Anatolian Qizilbash by the usurper of the Ottoman throne Selim I. The reason for these lies is evident: on the misrepresentation of the historical events that took place in Anatolia during the dramatic period 1510-1512 hinge both, the entire falsification of the Ottoman History and the fallacious theory that “the Ottomans were Sunni and the Safavid Iranians were Shia”. In addition, Western historians tried systematically to obscure the fact that the Ottoman ruling class followed Maturidi theology, whereas the uncontrolled but intentionally tolerated majority of the madrasas and the imams were impacted by Ash’ari concepts.

As a matter of fact, the so-called Şahkulu İsyanı (rebellion), which was not an uprising but a messianic fervor, and the subsequent events, namely the battle of Chaldiran (1514) between Selim I and Ismail I, bear witness to the gradual rise of a pseudo-Islamic theological school at Istanbul (under the Hanafi madhhab coverage). Those indoctrinated and ignorant sheikhs progressively destroyed the Ottoman Empire with their absurd inhumanity and obdurate idiocy, which invariably took the form of nonsensical argumentation, strict anachronism, theological rigidity, verbal rationalism, worldly materialism, and nonsensical involvement in the governance of the expanding empire. Their worst and most catastrophic trait however was their explicit revilement and utmost hatred of Islamic spirituality (Batin/ باطن; Batiniyya/ باطنية; these terms literally means ‘inner’ and ‘esotericism’, but they have nothing to do with Western esotericism/mysticism).

These Istanbulite theological circles were not powerful at the time, but gradually, during the 16th c., they managed to prevail within the Ottoman court; their achievement was the destruction of Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma’ruf’s Islamic Observatory of Istanbul in 1580 – an event that marks the irrevocable death of the Islamic Civilization. In 1510-1512, the same theological circles plunged Anatolia in terrible bloodshed; this was due to their determination to oppose the prevalence of Şahkulu Qizilbash spirituality. That’s why these pseudo-Muslim theological circles always represented the ‘enfant gâté’ of Western academics: they constituted indeed the perfect guarantee for the destruction and the disappearance of Islam, because they could be (and they were) easily induced by Western colonial agents to trigger interminable divisions and fratricidal wars among the Muslims.

Selim I was not predestined to become a sultan, as he was the fourth among the eight sons of Bayezid II. Şehzade Abdullah was the first among Bayezid II’s eight sons, but he died young in 1483; Şehzade Şehinşah was the Ottoman sultan’s fifth son and he was very well educated and militarily strong, but he never gained the support of the Ottoman bureaucracy, administration and theological nomenklatura. Although governor of big cities and loved by the people of Karaman, he died in 1511 for unknown reasons, possibly poisoned by some vicious Ottoman theologians. Born in 1465, Ahmet (known as Şehzade Ahmet; 1465-1513) was the second son of Bayezid II; born in 1467, Korkut (known as Şehzade Korkut; 1467-1513) was the third son of Bayezid II. Şehzade Mahmud (1475-1507), the younger brother of Şehzade Ahmet, died in 1507 for undefined reasons. Seventh son of Bayezid II was Şehzade Alemşah (1477-1502) who also died in 1502 or 1503 for unspecified reasons.

Compared to Şehzade Ahmet and to Şehzade Korkut, Selim I (born in 1470) was a far cry and an unimportant prince, even more so since Bayezid II’s favorite candidate to his succession was Ahmet. However, the Ottoman court had always been a matter of Istanbulite palatial intrigues, intra-family fights, and endless fratricides, pretty much like those occurred during the Eastern Roman times in God-damned Constantinople. Bayezid II (1447-1512; his reign started in 1481) had to fight to secure his succession, because Cem Sultan (1459-1495), his younger brother, laid claim to the throne. Selim I was an insubordinate, rebellious, idiotic and absolutely unworthy son, who was manipulated by the evil Istanbulite theologians as to how to plot, cheat and connive against his own father. This is what the pseudo-Islamic madhhab (jurisprudential schools) and theological schools were reduced to at those days – and ever since down to our days.

Selim I rebelled against his father not for any other reason, but because the vicious theological circles of Istanbul, which are nowadays mistakenly called ‘Sunni’, wanted to use him against the spread and the rise of the Şahkulu Anatolian spirituality. The succession to the throne of Bayezid II was only the pretext. In fact, Ahmet (Şehzade Ahmet) did not only have the right of primogeniture, but also his father’s consent and favor; that’s why the disloyal son and puppet of Istanbul’s evil theologians Selim I had to ceaselessly plot against his father.

In addition, there was a confusing and disastrous tradition in the Ottoman family, as per which among the dying sultan’s sons, whoever reached the dead monarch’s bed first would (or could eventually) become his father’s successor. A clear sign of the chaotic situation that prevailed in the Istanbulite palace of the disorderly, lawless and faithless family was the disastrous fact that, in order to make sure that the eventually insubordinate crown princes and the other princes would not fuel a rebellion against the sultan, the Ottoman rulers used to send their sons to faraway provinces in order to serve there as local governors – which in turn reduced their chances to successfully plot. This meant that distance mattered greatly at those days!

Ahmet was the governor of Amasya in Northern Cappadocia (675 km from Istanbul), Korkut was the governor of Antalya (then called Teke, in Pamphylia) in the southern coast (640 km from the capital), and Selim was the governor of Trabzon (1060 km from his father’s palace). In that ridiculous situation, everyone was preparing for the forthcoming confrontation; it was therefore normal that Ahmet rejected his father’s appointment of Suleyman (son of Selim I, who became later known as Suleyman the Magnificent) as governor of Bolu, because of the small distance that separated the tiny and insignificant city from the Ottoman capital (only 260 km). Suleyman was then sent to the Ottoman Crimea (Kefe or Kaffa or Caffa; today’s Feodosia).

Incessantly plotting, Selim asked his father to appoint him as governor in a sanjak in Rumeli (: Balkans). Bayezid II rejected this bizarre demand because the Ottoman sanjaks in the European territory of the empire were smaller, more recently acquired, and unfit for princes. This fact shows that Anatolia was always the central and most important part of the Ottoman state, as it was of the Eastern Roman Empire in earlier periods.

Involving foreigners in acts against his father’s decisions and affairs, Selim asked the help of the Tatar Khan of Crimea and he was finally appointed as governor of the pashalik of Belgrade (then named in Turkish as ‘Semendire Sancağı’, i.e. Sanjak of Smederevo), which is located at a distance of 900 km from Istanbul. However, instead of staying at the headquarters of his administrative province, the disloyal, immoral and faithless Selim approached Istanbul, and then Bayezid II had to fight against him and defeat him in August 1511. Selim escaped to his Tatar friends in Crimea, but at the same time, the Şahkulu spiritual movement and the ensuing messianic fervor took disproportionate eschatological dimensions in Anatolia, and the sultan tasked Ahmed to impose order and discipline through the Ottoman Empire’s eastern provinces.

As a matter of fact, there was never a Şahkulu rebellion, contrarily to what most of the historians claim nowadays. There was instead a passionate messianic fervor and the Ottoman attempt to suppress the spiritual movement was met with resistance. This situation cannot be termed as ‘rebellion’, because there was no intention for rebellion among the members and the followers of the Şahkulu mystical order. They did not want to overthrow any authority or to impose themselves as the rulers. As every spiritual movement brings forth liberation and salvation, a large number of people across Anatolia viewed in the Şahkulu movement and in their Qizilbash army the promise and the perspective of a better life free from the Ottoman family’s incompetence and incessant butchery and bloodletting; but this was not tantamount to public disobedience or disorder.

As spirituality enables the faithful to understand the real purpose of this life and of the Hereafter, the Şahkulu members, followers and army knew quite well that the Ottoman princes had absolutely no legitimacy to possess the wealth they garnered and to hold the positions they had. In terms of spirituality, states do not exist or are not needed; these evil social structures have absolutely no value and no authority for any spiritual mystic and any spiritually-awakened person.

Şahkulu Qizilbash army raids on cities, on Ottoman treasures, on imperial caravans, and on regional administration centers started therefore becoming very frequent around 1510. It is essential for both, experienced historians and erudite readership, not to evaluate those developments with today’s average Western mentality and approach; there was nothing illegal in those acts. They were absolutely just, moral and lawful; even more importantly, they were viewed as such by the outright majority of the Anatolian populations. In any case, ‘lawful’ is only the ‘just’ and the ‘moral’, in striking contrast to the modern Western societies and their lawless laws, criminal nature, and evil states that are all doomed to perish.

The historical reality was as simple as that: the Qizilbash soldiers were not thieves; quite contrarily, the Ottoman princes, administrators and theologians were crooks. Şehzade Korkut’s caravan was attacked once, whereas the beylerbey of Anatolia (Anadolu) was defeated, when he tried to engage the Şahkulu forces in battle. Then, Bayezid II realized that his empire was about to crumble in Anatolia; he therefore sent Şehzade Ahmet (1511) and the Grand Vizier Hadım (: eunuch) Ali Pasha in order to protect his, his family’s, and his gang’s lawless interests. I severely criticize the Ottoman sultan because he was ruling his realm as a disgrace; when a ruler is not just, moral and lawful, it is the plain right and duty of every person to take justice in his hands.

The dispatch of Şehzade Ahmet happened at the same time, when Bayezid II was fighting against his lawless, faithless and rebel son Selim; this was a development Şehzade Ahmet had to keep a close eye on. During the battle against the Şahkulu forces (near Kütahya), Şehzade Ahmet tried therefore to close a personal deal and an alliance with Şahkulu Karabıyıkoğlu himself; in other words, he attempted to gain his support, as well as that of his movement and of the Qizilbash army for the succession to the Ottoman throne. This would be an excellent solution for all, namely the local populations, the Anatolian Qizilbash, the messianic mystic, and the heir of the Ottoman throne. 

Şehzade Ahmet’s attempt to ascend to power with the support of the Şahkulu movement, if it brought forth great results, would make of the Ottoman Sultanate {then still called ‘(Eastern) Roman Empire’} a perfect copy of the Safavid Empire: a Turanian Empire ruled by a spiritual order. This would trigger exceptionally positive and truly propitious changes across the Islamic world, entirely revivifying Islamic spirituality and terminating the catastrophic theological indoctrination, which finally prevailed and gradually destroyed the Islamic World totally.

Of course, Şehzade Ahmet was not a mystic and he acted only out of his personal interest. Şahkulu Karabıyıkoğlu tried then to gain him to his own cause; however, the affair was very risky, and unfortunately the news leaked. Then, Şehzade Ahmet had to persuade Hadım Ali Pasha that the scope of the negotiations was other, ask him to continue the battle against the Qizilbash army, and run to major Anatolian cities to gain wider regional support for his ascension to the Ottoman throne. The correct place for this was Konya, the leading center of Anatolian spirituality.

The forces of Hadım Ali Pasha pursued the Şahkulu Qizilbash army and after several minor engagements, in the battle of Çubukova (Eastern Cappadocia), both Şahkulu Karabıyıkoğlu and Hadım Ali Pasha were killed (July 1511). However, the Qizilbash force was not dispersed and remained actively powerful. Having prevailed over his rebellious son Selim in August 1511, the embattled Bayezid II had to deal with the chaotic situation of his empire in Anatolia. As Şehzade Ahmet controlled Konya and disobeyed his father’s order to return to his position, Bayezid II believed that the true reason for the spread of the Şahkulu movement was Ismail I; this was a very wrong conclusion, because the Anatolian Qizilbash force was totally independent from the Safavid state. Actually, in the ensuing exchange of royal correspondence, Ismail I totally rejected any involvement in the Şahkulu events in Anatolia; he even went on to explicitly condemn the Anatolian Qizilbash attitude and practices.

Meanwhile, Şehzade Ahmet attempted to advance to Istanbul and dethrone his father, while Selim was in Crimea; however, he failed to advance, as he was blocked by the imperial guard before Bursa. At the same time, Selim gathered a Tatar force and, relying on the Istanbulite theologians’ and bureaucrats’ timely messages and direct support, returned to Istanbul in April 1512 and dethroned his father; no less than a month later (26 May 1512) Bayezid II died dishonored in shameful exile (in Dimetoka, today’s Didymoteicho/Διδυμότειχο on the Turkish-Greek border).

The confrontation between Şehzade Ahmet, who had gathered Qizilbash support in the meantime, and Selim I took place in April 1513 near Bursa, and after an initially indecisive clash, Şehzade Ahmet was defeated and killed. Although Şehzade Korkut had accepted his younger brother’s reign in 1512, Selim I had him killed too, in 1513. An extraordinary purgatory took then place against all the remaining nephews of Selim I, so that the bloody reign of the Ottoman butcher may not be endangered in any way; this would also concern particularly Şehzade Murad, the son of Şehzade Ahmet, who was viewed by the outright majority of the Anatolian population as the rightful heir to the Ottoman throne. However, Şehzade Murad was clever enough to escape to Eastern Anatolia, which was totally out of Ottoman control, communicate with Ismail I, get his support, and coordinate with other Turkmen and Qizilbash forces in order to oppose and eventually overthrow Selim I.

The terrain of the Şahkulu movement

Full of hatred, rancor and hysteria, Selim I carried out an unprecedented ‘white terror campaign’, killing dozens of thousands of civilians under the fake pretext of supporting the Qizilbash army; numbers vary in several historical sources, but an estimate of 50000 people would not be far from truth. This extraordinary bloodshed took place in only one third of today’s Turkey’s territory, namely Western Anatolia. Subsequently, a great number of captives were sent to Rumeli (European provinces of the Ottoman state) and finally settled in Mora Eyalet (ایالت موره; Eyalet-i Mora, today’s Peloponnese in southern Greece).

After the previous description, it becomes clear why, in today’s absurd, disastrous, anti-Turkish and pseudo-Islamic regime of Turkey, one can find journalists who still remember the illustrious Şahkulu movement, having however shaped a disastrously mistaken opinion about it. The so-called ‘political islam’ was indeed fabricated by the French, English and American Orientalists in order to entirely replace the traditional knowledge of the Muslims about the true historical Islam; for this project, an entirely fake History of the Islamic World was scrupulously written, taught and propagated by thousands of Western Orientalist forgers over the last 200 years.

The Islamic forgery of the Western academics did indeed match the ideological forgery that is known as ‘political islam’: they proved to be the two sides of the same coin. The scope of Western Islamology (or ‘Islamic Studies’) was exactly to come up with narratives, which would offer venues to all the Islamists and to the stupid Muslim followers of ‘political islam’ to misperceive the Şahkulu movement (and generally, the entire History of the Islamic World) and to thus shape a totally distorted idea about this topic (and about thousands of other topics). This was done in order to engulf all the Muslims in a totally false perception of the History of the Islamic World, and in an absolutely compact ignorance of their past and heritage.

The fallacious contextualization of the history of the Şahkulu movement had therefore started long before the English secret services selected the ignorant street seller Erdogan for the position to which they raised him, duly fooling the Turkish military, academics, politicians, and businessmen. As he functioned as the prefab puppet of the worst enemies of the Muslims, a false reading of the History of Islam spread throughout Turkey (as it had already been the case in all the other Muslim countries which, contrarily to Turkey, were colonized). As a matter of fact, nowadays all the worthless theologians and disreputable sheikhs of Diyanet (Turkey’s so-called ‘Directorate of Religious Affairs’) are the equivalent of the uneducated, idiotic and evil theologians of the times of Selim I.

A typical example of historical distortion concerning the Şahkulu movement in today’s Turkey is offered by the shameless villain and crook Murat Çolak who published a ridiculous article in the local newspaper of Kahramanmaraş (formerly Germanikeia) ‘Maraş Gündem’ on the 16th July 2018 under the nonsensical title “FETÖ’nun Tarihsel Kökleri Şahkulu İsyanı ve 15 Temmuz” (The historical roots of FETO organization, the Şahkulu Rebellion, and July 15), which is an allusion to the failed coup of the 15th July 2016. Useless to add that there is no connection at all between the Şahkulu movement (not rebellion) and Fethullah Gülen, the notorious leader of the said organization; https://www.marasgundem.com.tr/makale/fetonun-tarihsel-kokleri-sahkulu-isyani-ve-15-temmuz-16277

The war between the Ottoman state and the Safavid Empire had become inevitable, because the unprecedented killings and the Istanbulite anti-Anatolian malignancy caused an even greater reaction among all the populations of Anatolia, Turanian or not. Selim I and Ismail I exchanged several insulting letters prior to the historic Battle of Chaldiran (August 1514) and some of them have been preserved down to our times. They only bear witness to their reciprocal rejection, without however using the colonially-imposed (starting with the 19th c.) false terms ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’. About: 

Rıza Yıldırım, Turkomans between two empires: the origins of the Qızılbash identity in Anatolia (1447-1514).

Click to access 52925088.pdf

Yasin Arslantaş, Depicting the other: Qizilbash image in the 16th century Ottoman historiography

Click to access 0006379.pdf

Yusuf Küçükdağ, Measures Taken by the Ottoman State against Shah İsmail’s Attempts to Convert Anatolia to Shia

University of Gaziantep Journal of Social Sciences 7(1):1-17 (2008)

https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/223506

https://www fas nus edu sg/hist/eia/documents_archive/selim.php

Click to access 02selimismail.pdf

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/ottoman-persian-relations-i-under-sultan-selim-i-and-shah-esmail-i

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/calderan-battle

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/esmail-i-safawi

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/abul-khayrids-dynasty

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/babor-zahir-al-din

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Shaybani

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Таварих-и_гузида-йи_нусрат-наме

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaybanids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzbek_Khanate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanate_of_Bukhara

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selim_I

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._Selim

https://www.academia.edu/79310004/Masters_of_the_Pen_The_Divans_of_Selimi_and_Muhibbi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babur

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babür

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baburnama

https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/بابر

https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/ظهير_الدين_بابر

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umar_Shaikh_Mirza_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Sa%27id_Mirza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Mirza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miran_Shah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal-Mongol_genealogy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanzada_Begum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ghazdewan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_I

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/I._İsmail

https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/شاه_اسماعیل_یکم

Darius the Great’s Suez Inscriptions: Birth Certificate of the Silk Roads

https://silkroadtexts.wordpress.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ghazdewan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanzada_Begum

Click to access anatm_1297-8094_1997_num_7_1_946.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eahkulu_rebellion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eahkulu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_Islamic_theology#Sh%C4%AB%CA%BFa_schools_of_theology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batin_(Islam)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batiniyya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esoteric_interpretation_of_the_Quran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufi_cosmology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism

https://ottoman.ahya.net/node/100

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/II._Bayezid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayezid_II

https://www.konyapedia.com/makale/3308/sehzade-abdullah-abdullah-bin-bayezit-ii

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eehzade_%C5%9Eehin%C5%9Fah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eehzade_Ahmet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eehzade_Korkut

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eehzade_Korkut

https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eehzade_Mahmud_(II._Bayezid%27in_o%C4%9Flu)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople_Observatory_of_Taqi_ad-Din

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chaldiran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Eehzade_Murad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padishah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)#Ottoman_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror#Conquest_of_Constantinople

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sultans_of_the_Ottoman_Empire#Names

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_al-Mu%27minin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custodian_of_the_Two_Holy_Mosques

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Caliphate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma%27ruf

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/historiography-vi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Khwandamir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habib_al-Siyar

https://www.sid.ir/en/Journal/ViewPaper.aspx?ID=709213

Click to access jaas072001.pdf

https://journals.openedition.org/asiecentrale/2866

https://journals.openedition.org/asiecentrale/499?lang=en

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatefi

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/golat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghulat

Comparative evaluation

An objective assessment of the four Turanian rulers whose Iranian education and culture was evident may lead us to devastating conclusions. Finding themselves in different environments, they failed to go beyond the limits of their ‘worlds’. Still, this was imperative for the survival of their respective realms, taking into account what was happening in the Western confines of Asia, namely the pseudo-continent of Europe, which is Asia’s most worthless, most troublesome, and most barbarian peninsula. Consequently, we have to consider them as the initial reason for the collapse of their states, despite the fact that these empires lasted long and fell after 350-400 years. The sole exception is certainly Babur; but he also failed to effectively convey to his offspring and successors the mindset, the predisposition, the attitude, and the ensuing behavior which undeniably helped him transform his Central Asiatic failure into an Indian triumph.

The really embarrassing part of the conclusion is the ascertainment that all four rulers were very civilized, highly cultured, and impressively educated; it goes without saying that I use these terms with the connotation they had at the time, and not the meaning that they have in our fallen, corrupt and putrefied world. They all failed to assess the serious problems that existed in the Islamic World during their lifetime and they proved to be unable to detect the lethal threats that were mounted against their empires and more generally the entire Muslim World. Again, the only exception is Babur, because the time between his conquest of the Sultanate of Delhi and his death is truly brief.

With the exception of Ismail I Safavi (1501-1524), all the rest experienced a rather brief period of reign. Muhammad Shaybani ruled for 10 years (1500-1510); Selim I reigned for only 8 years (1512-1520). And Babur was the sovereign of an empire only for 4.5 years (April 1526-1530). One can truly be astounded with their narrow horizons, naïve approaches to governance, profane understanding of reign, and simplicity in worldview.

Muhammad Shaybani was the living intersection of all things Iranian and Turanian; from his paternal side, he belonged to the lineage of Shayban (also written as Shiban) who was the fifth son of Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan; Jochi was the ancestor of all rulers of the Golden Horde. This means that Muhammad Shaybani was indeed associated and concerned, one way or another, with all the states that came out of the split of the Ulus Jochi (as the Great Empire of the Golden Horde was named at the time), namely the Kazan khanate, the Crimean Khanate, the Qassim Khanate, the Astrakhan khanate and the Nogais.

Muhammad Shaybani was almost 30 years old at the time of the renowned Ugra standoff (1480), when the emperor of the ailing Great Horde failed to impose his dictates on the formerly tributary statelet of Muscovy; Akhmat Khan of the Great Horde and Ivan III of Muscovy, facing one another from the opposite banks of Ugra River, hesitated to cross the river and start fighting, This rather bizarre event is generally considered as the beginning of Muscovy’s independence from the Golden Horde.  

From his maternal side, Muhammad Shaybani was the cousin of Janibek’s son Kasym Khan (reign: 1511-1521), the great Kazakh ruler, who expanded his khanate at the detriment of the Bukhara Khanate. Furthermore, according to the historical treatise “Tavarikh-i guzida-yi nusrat-namah” (Chagatai: تواریخ گزیده نصرت‌نامه ; Таварих-и гузида-йи нусрат-наме), which was elaborated by Alla Murad Annaboyoglu in the early 16th c. (ed. V. P. Yudin/В. П. Юдин, Alma Ata 1969), Munk Timur, i.e. Muhammad Shaybani’s great-great-great-great grandfather, was married to the daughter of a Turanian descendant of Ismail Samani (849-907; reigned after 892), the founder and first ruler of the Samanid dynasty of Eastern Iran, one of the states that seceded from the Abbasid Caliphate while also recognizing the caliph as the head of all Muslims.   

In spite of the aforementioned, briefly presented, background, Muhammad Shaybani remained always a sectarian and tribal ruler. Despite the fact that he was unbiased in his approach to people, although he did not discriminate among Iranians and Turanians (therefore viewing them as one nation), and in spite of the fact that he was truly tolerant in his stance towards Muslim mystics, theologians, members of various tariqas, and followers of different madhhab, he clearly proved to be a treacherous subordinate (to Sultan Ahmed Mirza, a Timurid), a cruel oppressor of the Kazakhs, a disastrous ally to khanate of Moghulistan, a distant and useless friend to Bayezid II, and a consummate plunderer. His poor judgment relied on tribal lineage, family affairs, and petty calculations; this resulted in vindictive deeds, sheer opportunism, and day-to-day governance. He would not be a match for any strong strategist who intended to create an empire. Hating all the Timurids, he defeated Babur several times, but he did not prevent him from establishing one of the world’s greatest empires of all times.

Muhammad Shaybani’s silly head had a well-deserved end; the skull served as a lovely drinking goblet in the hands of Ismail I Safavi. One can even assume that, although it was graciously bejeweled, the goblet was thrown to the ground many times, during those fabulous feasts and banquets of Tabriz – just for fun!

Among these four monarchs, Ismail I Safavi was certainly the best prepared to reign; but he was still acting as a semi-nomad pleased with what was available in nature around him. During his early years in the throne of Tabriz, he used to spend time, camping in the mountains and hunting for several months; there was no urgency to conquer lands and territories. The expansion of his empire was slow and it took the form of a joyful endeavor instead of a serious state affair, scrupulous programming or a major expansion stratagem. There were certainly many wars, notably against the Shirvan kingdom (in part of today’s Azerbaijan), the Kartli and Kakheti kingdoms of Georgia that became vassal states, and the Aq-Qoyunlu nomadic sultanate that was entirely eclipsed, but there was no methodical undertaking in this regard. Not a care in the world!

Within few years, the empire of Ismail I Safavi replaced the Aq-Qoyunlu tribal confederacy, but there were no second thoughts, no back thoughts, and no serious observations, let alone monitoring, of developments, state affairs, and relations among neighboring states. To offer an example, not one Iranian magistrate in the court of Ismail I Safavi took note that two Kakheti Georgian embassies had been dispatched by Alexander I to Ivan III of Muscovy (in 1483 and 1491) as soon as the tiny statelet stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde.

Ismail I Safavi and his spiritual brethren, namely the members of the most ancient and most venerable Safavid Order and the combatants of the Qizilbash contingent, acted out of free will and spiritual illumination. They did not need to even name their empire; at the beginning; the structures of state were rudimentary, and there was no bureaucracy at all. Ismail I Safavid was indeed closer to Cyrus the Great than Shapur I was. Living the epic moments superbly narrated by Ferdowsi, Nezami Ganjavi and others, performing the spiritual exercises of Saif ad-Din Ardabili, and staying in cities only during the cold winter months of the Iranian plateau, they gave the impression that wars consisted merely in short break times of a peaceful eternity that they enjoyed. Fearless to die in battle, knowledgeable about the Hereafter, and devoted in their vow, they were less envious, possessive and worldly than most of the soldiers of their time. There was no need for a rational plan for war, because this is genuinely evil; there was impulse for war instead – which is genuinely human.

This situation may perhaps appear as confusing and unpromising to many people, but it is not. Of course, it is normal for a mystical fighter to believe that due to the synergy between his soul and body, he is indomitable and invincible; this conviction is basically correct and true. However, it takes a very high degree of moral discipline and of self-restraint for the spiritual potency and the inherent impulse of the fighter to be exacted and exerted. Quite unfortunately, Ismail I Safavi’s spiritual master and mentor, Hossein Beg Laleh Shamlu, tolerated a great degree of self-gratification, self-complacency, and even exuberance; he was lenient with the rising emperor, his brethren, and his guards. This did not bode well for the ruler, his army, and his empire. Compromised moral is tantamount to weakened spirituality and emollient attitude conditions human integrity.

This explains perfectly well why, after his defeat in Chaldiran (1514), Ismail I Safavi collapsed and lived the rest of his life ashamed, in sadness, despair, lamentation and uncontrollable alcoholism; in reality, there was nothing to be sad for. During the battle, the Iranians were about to mark a thunderous victory, being provenly better trained to fight; the Ottomans won only because they started using gunpowder artillery that the Iranians did not have. Even worse, the Ottoman army was about to be cut to two pieces, because the Janissaries did not accept to fight against and kill their Muslim brethren. Actually, the Ottoman soldiers who used the cannons that they had transported with greatly difficulty also murdered Ottoman Janissaries. However, a mystical fighter with compromised moral and self-indulgent attitude certainly collapses after a defeat; quite contrarily, a mystic strongly experienced in ascetic self-denial never feels sorrow, frustration and depression – ever after an extreme adversity.   

Having to fight against monstrous criminals, rancorous establishments, bloodthirsty rulers, rancorous enemies, inhumanely cruel soldiers, professional serial killers, and greedy armies that sailed off to intentionally perpetrate genocide in Mexico and to circumvent Africa by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, the Safavid elite was rather living in a dream that turned out to become a nightmare for Iran and for the almost the entire world. Iran had always been a major empire with long maritime tradition; Achaemenid Iran is credited with the merge of several earlier regional trade routes that had existed for millennia; this was due to the unmatched, royal administrative genius of Darius I the Great (522-486 BCE).

Darius the Great’s contribution to the emergence of the east-west trade network was twofold: a) the establishment of the Royal Iranian Road and b) the circumnavigation of the Arabian Peninsula and the direct maritime connection of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf. Oman was always an Iranian satrapy; and during the Sassanid times, Iran invaded also Yemen, which was a focal land for the world trade between East and West. However, this background was entirely lost and the Safavid elite did not care at all about the maritime presence and strength of their empire despite the fact that in the beginning of the 16th c., Iranians still controlled an important part of the commerce between East and West, having always been an important constituent of the Islamic times’ navigation and trade. But for all the people around Ismail I Safavi, treasures were to be mainly collected from lands conquered and cities pillaged.

For the case of Ismail I Safavi, one is however tempted to think that the historical heritage itself rather than the various individuals and the ruling elite resurrected the Iranian Empire under the Safavid dynasty. The spiritual exercises of the Safavid Order, their ruminations, their cordial illuminations, and their angelic invocations seem to have electrified the Soul of Iran as incantated by Ferdowsi; but their impious self-indulgence confused the serenity of their souls and made it sure that their pledge was predestined to doom.  

Selim I shared the same ideas as Ismail I Safavi and Muhammad Shaybani about a state’s chances to acquire wealth; this was not due to cultural tradition (as in Iran) or to geomorphological impact (as in Central Asia). The state that Selim I -through plots, family disloyalty, treason, and shameful banditry- managed to put under control stretched from Central Anatolia to Belgrade; this had been the usual, typical domain of the Constantinopolitan βασιλείς (basileis; emperors) from the 7th to the 12th c. The official name of the state was invariably ‘Eastern Roman Empire’, and this was the will of all the successors of Mehmet II. But quite unfortunately, the ill-fated Ottoman Sultanate was controlled by a criminal, pseudo-Muslim family, which was manipulated by idiotic theologians, sectarian sheikhs, and a bogus-Islamic authority, the sheikh-ul-Islam (also written as Shaykh al-Islam). The sultans wanted, quite absurdly, to represent the Eastern Roman imperial tradition, while remaining the petty warriors (غازى; ghazi), who relied on worthless and unnecessary razzias (غزية), i.e. military expeditions of greedy barbarians; this meant that they were a 14th c. state in a 16th c. world; this situation could not possibly have a successful exit.

The immediate descendants of Mehmet II continued ruling their realm in a most ineffective manner that included very contradictory elements, practices, concepts and procedures, which produced endless tensions. On one side, the devshirme (دوشیرمه; devshirme; lit. ‘collecting’), i.e. child levy, and the janissary infantry elite (یڭیچری; yeniçeri) gave the Ottoman sultan (and, after 1453, emperor) the real tools to create a formidable empire similar to that of Justinian I. But on the other side, the obscure, nefarious and ominous presence of a body of execrable theologians and their increasing, onerous and catastrophic impact on the sultan gradually turned the Ottoman sultanate to a sort of Papo-Caesarist realm, whereas for the Eastern Roman Empire (of which the Ottomans wanted to make their state the living continuity) the Caesaropapist model of rule had to be the sole, paramount and permanent concept of imperial order.

The existing anachronistic elements, the tensions ensued from the contradictory dynamics, the ruinous hatred unleashed by the blind, dogmatic and cruel sheikhs and sheikh-ul-islams, and the vindictive stance of many sultans (as well as of other members of the Ottoman family) triggered unprecedented reactions. In their outright majority, the populations, either Christian or Muslim, reviled the cursed state of the Ottoman family (دولت عليه عثمانیه; Devlet-i Aliye-i Osmaniye), whereas the wretched family in a vicious and most anti-Islamic manner disrespected the humans that God had entrusted to them. This situation led to real worsening of the living conditions, sheer deterioration of the state structures, and grave decrease of government effectiveness.

The Ottoman Sultanate never managed to acquire a well-structured administration; that’s why it was never a strong empire that could methodically elaborate a program of expansion or Reconquista. Islamic spirituality was besmirched, attacked and later prohibited; the worthless Ottoman bureaucracy was a burden; the wars declared against neighboring empires were due to sectarian or arbitrary motives; and the only sound element in the empire was the janissary elite.

A mere comparison of the Roman and the Ottoman possessions in Africa helps everyone realize how absurd, precarious and inconsequential the rule of the Ottoman sultans was. On the Black Continent, the Ottomans controlled an area more sizeable than the largest Roman dominions there. The Romans never managed to advance successfully south of Egypt and to conquer the Cushitic (i.e. Ancient Ethiopian) Kingdom of Meroe in today’s Sudan; but they controlled the African North up to the coasts of today’s Morocco.

The Ottomans invaded Egypt (1516-1517) to disband the Mamluk state, and then they progressively extended their rule over the entire coast of North Africa, thus including Algiers (1518), Benghazi (1521), Tripoli (1551) and Tunis (1574) in their domain; the Ottomans were invited and acclaimed by the indigenous populations that were mostly Muslim (only according to Western colonial propaganda, the Ottomans ‘colonized’ North Africa), and until the time these lands were incorporated into the Caliphate, the Ottoman Emperor was acknowledged as the caliph – which already made of these lands real dependencies of the Constantinopolitan Muslim ruler. Under Suleiman the Magnificent (1554) and Murat III (1576), two Ottoman military expeditions were undertaken in Morocco, ending with the capture of Fez.

In Eastern Africa, the Ottomans sent detachments and corsairs to defend the Somalis against the Portuguese (in the 1520s-1540s), having excellent relations with all the Somali sultanates, notably Adal and the Ajuuraan Empire. In fact, by recognizing the caliph at Constantinople and by mentioning his name first in the Friday prayer, all Muslim African sultanates and emirates recognized the Ottoman Caliphate, thus becoming effectively mere dependencies of the Caliphate. That’s why there was no real need for an Ottoman invasion of the Western Africa, Sahara (the Songhai, Mali, Hausa-Zaria, Kanem-Bornu, Wadai, Funj, Darfur, and other realms), and Eastern Africa. Located south of the Mısır eyaleti (as the province of Egypt was named in Ottoman Turkish), the Habeş eyaleti (i.e. the province of Abyssinia) comprised the coastal lands of today’s Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, and parts of today’s Somalia and Ethiopia). The Adal Somali sultanate shared therefore borders with the Ottoman Empire.

But exactly because of the highly de-centralized condition of the Muslim African world, it was totally impossible for them to establish a major, functional force ready to repel colonial attacks. Even worse, the Ottoman dominions in North Africa never became a serious matter of governmental concern and there was never a real effort to organize, systematize and standardize the integration of the African vilayets into the Ottoman state. Certainly, the Ottoman Empire controlled vast territories in Africa; but because of the aforementioned problems, these lands were a burden rather than an advantage and an asset. In this regard, Selim I’s attack against the Mamluk state and his subsequent invasion of Syria, Palestine, Arabia and Egypt, after the victory he marked over Ismail I Safavi in Chaldiran, proved to be a complete waste of the Ottoman military resources.

Bayezid II’s disloyal son was not prepared to become an emperor and that’s why he was a miserable opportunist without a clue of strategy; he could not understand what truly makes an empire strong, wealthy and sustainable. With respect to the expansion of a state, he did not know which lands are necessary and which are not; even worse, he did not observe -let alone study- patterns and models of expansion from the History of the Islamic Caliphates and Empires.

Selim I was a blind, indoctrinated idiot, who -after his victory in Chaldiran- lost the unique opportunity to promptly invade Iran, merge the two Turanian and Iranian empires, and then attack the Sultanate of Delhi. I have however to admit that he did not have the correct education, the shrewd mindset, and the accurate perception of the reality to possibly think strategically and act accordingly. The Iranian plateau and the valleys of Hindustan (India) and Bengal were far more important than the sands of Arabia and the waters of the Nile.

Had he attempted to establish one empire from Danube to Ganges, he would have followed the example of Timur (Tamerlane); at the same time, he would have created a uniquely wealthy empire able to possess the inexorable resources and the technical infrastructure needed to oppose and defeat the Western colonial kingdoms.

Babur makes Humayun his successor (1530); miniature from a manuscript of the Akbarnameh (created ca. 1602-3)

Babur treated by doctors during a serious illness, in 1498; while recuperating, Babur had a relapse and his condition became critical; for four days he could only take water dribbled into his mouth from a piece of cotton, and for several days he could barely speak.

In his Baburnama (Book of Babur), the founder of the Mughal Empire describes his struggle first to assert and defend his claim to the throne of Samarkand and the region of the Fergana Valley. After being driven out of Samarkand in 1501, he sought to create his headquarters in Kabul and then in northern India in Delhi. In this miniature from a manuscript of the Baburnama, Babur meets Sultan Ali Mirza near Samarqand.

Scene from Babur’s wars; from a miniature of the Farsi edition of Baburnama (translation by the Mughal courtier Abdul Rahīm in AH 998, i.e. 1589-90)

Babur from the miniature of manuscript of Baburnama currently in the Museum of Oriental Art (Государственный музей Востока), Moscow

Vasily III, ruler of Muscovy (1479-1533; reigned after 1505), son of Ivan III and Sophia Palaiologina, receives the ambassador from Babur; miniature from the 19th volume of the Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible (Лицевой летописный свод Ивана Грозного)

The Mausoleum of Babur (Bagh-e Babur, i.e. Babur Gardens) in Kabul

Khusrau shah swearing loyalty to Babur; miniature from the Baburnama copy in Moscow

Babur receiving Baqi Beg Chaghaniyani, a Turkistani Qipchaq, in his encampment on the banks of the Amu Darya (Oxus); Baqi was a loyal supporter of Babur contrarily to his brother Khusraw shah, whom Baqi brought to pledge allegiance; however, at a later moment, Khusraw shah proved to be a traitor once more. Miniature from a manuscript now in the British Library (Or. 3714, f. 35v); it was painted by the Mughal artist Bhem Gujarati.

Miniature from a Baburnama manuscript now in the National Museum, New Delhi; squirrels, a peacock and peahen, demoiselle cranes and fishes

Babur was exempt of sectarian ideas, tribal mentality, and worthless theological prescriptions; of the Western colonial powers he had minimal knowledge, if any. Deep in his heart and mind he had apparently the wish and the dream to prove himself worthy of his glorious past; for this reason, he needed to establish himself somewhere, i.e. to set up the headquarters of his forthcoming empire. Samarqand was an ideal location; but there he failed repeatedly. Babur’s life was not that of a great emperor, because prior to the invasion of the Delhi Sultanate, his realm was always small and constantly under attack.

Continuously moving from place to place with his few but loyal and devout soldiers, Babur was however an indomitable adventurer, an indefatigable soldier, an excellent tactician, and a great strategist. The greatness of the Mughal Empire, which was far wealthier than the Ottoman Empire, Iran, Russia, Holland, England and even Louis XIV’s France, was basically due to its founder Babur. As it is known, he died rather young (at 47). If he had lived as long as his great ancestor Tamerlane (69), the History of Asia would have certainly been markedly different.

Great rulers are those who prepare well their successors; to do so, they have to endlessly convey to their heirs their way of thinking, their approach to facts, their reaction to developments, their world perception and worldview, and -last but not the least- their method of governance. This is often a long enduring process; it is not always sure that the elder son of a ruler is fit to it. For this reason, we often observe a ruler’s predilection for his second or third son. For Babur this dilemma did not exist; Humayun (همایون/lit. ‘auspicious’ in Farsi; born as Mirza Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad; 1508-1556) was his firstborn (being also son to Babur’s favorite wife Maham Begum), and he proved to be a loyal, shrewd and very knowledgeable heir.

Babur apparently imparted his first son with many of his crucial personal traits and great abilities, notably his mobility, agility, flexibility and adaptability. That’s why Humayun managed to survive, although he was inexperienced at the beginning of his reign, when he faced many challenges, particularly from his half-brother Kamran Mirza and from Sher Shah Suri, a villainous and heinous scoundrel who set up a divisive but temporary rule. All the same, Humayun recaptured his empire with the help of Ismail I Safavi’s son Shah Tahmasp I (طهماسب; 1514-1576), and later consolidated and even expanded his realm. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humayun

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamran_Mirza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahmasp_I

However, Babur did not achieve to pass onto his son and successor a superb quality that was the top trait of Timur’s and Genghis Khan’s idiosyncrasy; this consists in a rare moral expertise and spiritual dexterity to invariably disdain and undervalue material achievements of one’s own and to thus infallibly maintain the original impulse toward a great vision permanently alive. Genghis Khan and Timur were indelibly motivated by their vision to unite the world; Babur was stimulated by his first target to re-establish the great empire of his ancestors, but he did not stay long on the throne of Agra (1526-1530).

With him died the vision of a universal empire. Humayun had to fight all his life long to eliminate threats and challenges and, when everything was put under control, he did not enjoy his throne more than few months before dying at 48, due to an accident. When Akbar I (أكبر; born Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad; 1542-1605; reigned after 1556) was crowned, very little was left from the original vision of his grandfather, Babur. Akbar I expanded greatly his realm and, after a certain moment, he shifted his interest to the North with the intention to extend his borders up to the ancestral lands in Central Asia; but by the end of the 16th c., it had become very clear to Akbar I that it was impossible to incorporate Samarqand and the Ferghana Valley to his empire.

To the early instability of the Mughal Empire and to Akbar I’s effort to expand in Central Asia testify the incessant changes of the Mughal capital: Agra 1526-1540, Agra 1555-1571, Fatehpur Sikri 1571-1585, Lahore 1586-1598 (reflecting Akbar I’s move to the North), Agra 1598-1648 and Delhi 1648-1857. In fact, Akbar’s death marks the end of every Central Asiatic venture of the Mughal rulers.  

The Mughal Empire expanded greatly across the Asiatic South, notably the Deccan; it impacted considerably the formation of Muslim sultanates in Southeastern Asia and the islands of today’s Indonesia. All the same, the Gurkanian (گورکانیان; lit. ‘the sons-in law’), as the Iranians called the Mughal emperors due to an old Turanian tradition, only corroborated the unchangeable verdict of History, namely that from Central Asia, Iran, Mesopotamia and Anatolia great military expeditions to faraway lands have often been and can actually be undertaken successfully; but no ruler has ever launched a campaign and a conquest of major parts of Asia, starting from the Valley of Indus and the Valley of Ganges. (The same is also valid for the Yellow River and the Yangtze River valleys.)

Having a truly complex mindset, a very wealthy, composite and perplex culture, and a spiritual impact on their reasoning, the Mughals, the Safavids and the Ottomans could never understand how simple, low, and profane the intentions, attitudes, and mindsets of the colonial bandits, soldiers, merchants, academics and agents were. Had they perceived accurately the level of the colonial purposes and objectives, they would have early reacted against the Western barbarism, cruelty and monstrosity; but they were not able to lower their intellect in order to deal with petty things. They mistook the Western inhumanity for foolishness; their mistake allowed the Western colonials to achieve their targets. How could it have been otherwise? Occam’s razor, if described to a Mughal, Safavid or Ottoman erudite scholar, would have been considered as totally nonsensical, puerile, absurd, and typical for savages. That’s why English, French, Dutch, and American savagery plunged all these civilized lands to poverty, wars, genocides, and interminable destructions down to our days. About:

The simplicity principle in perception and cognition

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5125387/

Blue Mosque, Istanbul: the most representative Ottoman architectural masterpiece

Masjid-e Shah / The Mosque of Shah, Isfahan: the most representative Safavid Iranian architectural masterpiece

Taj Mahal, Agra: the most representative Mughal architectural masterpiece

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FORTHCOMING

Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey

2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists

By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu

(Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

CONTENTS

PART ONE. INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I: A World held Captive by the Colonial Gangsters: France, England, the US, and the Delusional History Taught in their Deceitful Universities

A. Examples of fake national names

a) Mongolia (or Mughal) and Deccan – Not India!

b) Tataria – Not Russia!

c) Romania (with the accent on the penultimate syllable) – Not Greece!

d) Kemet or Masr – Not Egypt!

e) Khazaria – not Israel!

f) Abyssinia – not Ethiopia!

B. Earlier Exchange of Messages in Turkish

C. The Preamble to My Response

CHAPTER II: Geopolitics does not exist.

CHAPTER III: Politics does not exist.

CHAPTER IV: Turkey and Iran beyond politics and geopolitics: Orientalism, conceptualization, contextualization, concealment

A. Orientalism

B. Conceptualization

C. Contextualization

D. Concealment

PART TWO. EXAMPLE OF ACADEMICALLY CONCEALED, KEY HISTORICAL TEXT

CHAPTER V: Plutarch and the diffusion of Ancient Egyptian and Iranian Religions and Cultures in Ancient Greece

PART THREE. TURKEY AND IRAN BEYOND POLITICS AND GEOPOLITICS: REJECTION OF THE ORIENTALIST, TURKOLOGIST AND IRANOLOGIST FALLACIES ABOUT ACHAEMENID HISTORY

CHAPTER VI:  The fallacy that Turkic nations were not present in the wider Mesopotamia – Anatolia region in pre-Islamic times

CHAPTER VII: The fallacious representation of Achaemenid Iran by Western Orientalists

CHAPTER VIII: The premeditated disconnection of Atropatene / Adhurbadagan from the History of Azerbaijan

CHAPTER IX: Iranian and Turanian nations in Achaemenid Iran

CHAPTER X: Iranian and Turanian Religions in Pre-Islamic Iran 

PART FOUR. FALLACIES ABOUT THE SO-CALLED HELLENISTIC PERIOD, ALEXANDER THE GREAT, AND THE SELEUCID & THE PARTHIAN ARSACID TIMES

CHAPTER XI: Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period

CHAPTER XII: Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty

CHAPTER XIII: Parthian Turan and the Philhellenism of the Arsacids

PART FIVE. FALLACIES ABOUT SASSANID HISTORY, HISTORY OF RELIGIONS, AND THE HISTORY OF MIGRATIONS

CHAPTER XIV: Arsacid & Sassanid Iran, and the wars against the Mithraic – Christian Roman Empire

CHAPTER XV: Sassanid Iran – Turan, Kartir, Roman Empire, Christianity, Mani and Manichaeism

CHAPTER XVI: Iran – Turan, Manichaeism & Islam during the Migration Period and the Early Caliphates

PART SIX. FALLACIES ABOUT THE EARLY EXPANSION OF ISLAM: THE FAKE ARABIZATION OF ISLAM

CHAPTER XVII: Iran – Turan and the Western, Orientalist distortions about the successful, early expansion of Islam during the 7th – 8th c. CE

CHAPTER XVIII: Western Orientalist falsifications of Islamic History: Identification of Islam with only Hejaz at the times of the Prophet

CHAPTER XIX: The fake, Orientalist Arabization of Islam

CHAPTER XX: The systematic dissociation of Islam from the Ancient Oriental History

PART SEVEN. THE FICTIONAL DIVISION OF ISLAM INTO ‘SUNNI’ AND ‘SHIA’

CHAPTER XXI: The fabrication of the fake divide ‘Sunni Islam vs. Shia Islam’

PART EIGHT. THE DISTORTED TERM ‘PERSIANATE’

CHAPTER XXII: The fake Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate

PART NINE. FALLACIES ABOUT THE GOLDEN ERA OF THE ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

CHAPTER XXIII: From Ferdowsi to the Seljuk Turks, Nizam al Mulk, Nizami Ganjavi, Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Haji Bektash

PART TEN. FALLACIES ABOUT THE TIMES OF TURANIAN (MONGOLIAN) SUPREMACY IN TERMS OF SCIENCES, ARTS, LETTERS, SPIRITUALITY AND IMPERIAL UNIVERSALISM

CHAPTER XXIV: From Genghis Khan, Nasir al-Din al Tusi and Hulagu to Timur

CHAPTER XXV: Timur (Tamerlane) as a Turanian Muslim descendant of the Great Hero Manuchehr, his exploits and triumphs, and the slow rise of the Turanian Safavid Order

CHAPTER XXVI: the Timurid Era as Peak of the Islamic Civilization, Shah Rukh, and Ulugh Beg, the Astronomer Emperor

PART ELEVEN. HOW AND WHY THE OTTOMANS, THE SAFAVIDS AND THE MUGHALS FAILED  

CHAPTER XXVII: Ethnically Turanian Safavids & Culturally Iranian Ottomans: two identical empires that mirrored one another

CHAPTER XXVIII: Spirituality, Religion & Theology: the fallacy of the Safavid conversion of Iran to ‘Shia Islam’

CHAPTER XXIX: Selim I, Ismail I, and Babur

CHAPTER XXX: The Battle of Chaldiran (1514), and how it predestined the Fall of the Islamic World

CHAPTER XXXI: Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals: victims of their sectarianism, tribalism, theology, and wrong evaluation of the colonial West

CHAPTER XXXII: Ottomans, Iranians and Mughals from Nader Shah to Kemal Ataturk

PART TWELVE. CONCLUSION

CHAPTER XXXIII: Turkey and Iran beyond politics and geopolitics: whereto?

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List of the already pre-published chapters of the book

Lines separate chapters that belong to different parts of the book.

CHAPTER VII: The Fallacious Representation of Achaemenid Iran by Western Orientalists

https://www.academia.edu/106013407/The_Fallacious_Representation_of_Achaemenid_Iran_by_Western_Orientalists

CHAPTER VIII: The premeditated disconnection of Atropatene / Adhurbadagan from the History of Azerbaijan

https://www.academia.edu/105841665/The_premeditated_disconnection_of_Atropatene_Adhurbadagan_from_the_History_of_Azerbaijan

CHAPTER IX: Iranian and Turanian nations in Achaemenid Iran

https://www.academia.edu/105880180/Iranian_and_Turanian_nations_in_Achaemenid_Iran

CHAPTER X: Iranian and Turanian Religions in Pre-Islamic Iran 

https://www.academia.edu/105664696/Iranian_and_Turanian_Religions_in_Pre_Islamic_Iran

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CHAPTER XI: Alexander the Great as Iranian King of Kings, the fallacy of Hellenism, and the nonexistent Hellenistic Period

https://www.academia.edu/105386978/Alexander_the_Great_as_Iranian_King_of_Kings_the_fallacy_of_Hellenism_and_the_nonexistent_Hellenistic_Period

CHAPTER XII: Parthian Turan: an Anti-Persian dynasty

https://www.academia.edu/52541355/Parthian_Turan_an_Anti_Persian_dynasty

CHAPTER XIII: Parthian Turan and the Philhellenism of the Arsacids

https://www.academia.edu/105539884/Parthian_Turan_and_the_Philhellenism_of_the_Arsacids

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CHAPTER XIV: Arsacid & Sassanid Iran, and the wars against the Mithraic – Christian Roman Empire

https://www.academia.edu/105053815/Arsacid_and_Sassanid_Iran_and_the_wars_against_the_Mithraic_Christian_Roman_Empire

CHAPTER XV: Sassanid Iran – Turan, Kartir, Roman Empire, Christianity, Mani and Manichaeism

https://www.academia.edu/105117675/Sassanid_Iran_Turan_Kartir_Roman_Empire_Christianity_Mani_and_Manichaeism

CHAPTER XVI: Iran – Turan, Manichaeism & Islam during the Migration Period and the Early Caliphates

https://www.academia.edu/96142922/Iran_Turan_Manichaeism_and_Islam_during_the_Migration_Period_and_the_Early_Caliphates

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CHAPTER XVII: Iran–Turan and the Western, Orientalist distortions about the successful, early expansion of Islam during the 7th-8th c. CE

https://www.academia.edu/105292787/Iran_Turan_and_the_Western_Orientalist_distortions_about_the_successful_early_expansion_of_Islam_during_the_7th_8th_c_CE

CHAPTER XIX: The fake, Orientalist Arabization of Islam

https://www.academia.edu/105713891/The_fake_Orientalist_Arabization_of_Islam

CHAPTER XX: The systematic dissociation of Islam from the Ancient Oriental History

https://www.academia.edu/105565861/The_systematic_dissociation_of_Islam_from_the_Ancient_Oriental_History

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CHAPTER XXI: The fabrication of the fake divide ‘Sunni Islam vs. Shia Islam’

https://www.academia.edu/55139916/The_Fabrication_of_the_Fake_Divide_Sunni_Islam_vs_Shia_Islam_

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CHAPTER XXII: The fake Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate

https://www.academia.edu/61193026/The_Fake_Persianization_of_the_Abbasid_Caliphate

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CHAPTER XXIII: From Ferdowsi to the Seljuk Turks, Nizam al Mulk, Nizami Ganjavi, Jalal ad-Din Rumi and Haji Bektash

https://www.academia.edu/96519269/From_Ferdowsi_to_the_Seljuk_Turks_Nizam_al_Mulk_Nizami_Ganjavi_Jalal_ad_Din_Rumi_and_Haji_Bektash

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CHAPTER XXIV: From Genghis Khan, Nasir al-Din al Tusi and Hulagu to Timur

https://www.academia.edu/104034939/From_Genghis_Khan_Nasir_al_Din_al_Tusi_and_Hulagu_to_Timur_Tamerlane_

CHAPTER XXV: Timur (Tamerlane) as a Turanian Muslim descendant of the Great Hero Manuchehr, his exploits and triumphs, and the slow rise of the Turanian Safavid Order

https://www.academia.edu/105230290/Timur_Tamerlane_as_a_Turanian_Muslim_descendant_of_the_Great_Hero_Manuchehr_his_exploits_and_triumphs_and_the_slow_rise_of_the_Turanian_Safavid_Order

CHAPTER XXVI: The Timurid Era as the Peak of the Islamic Civilization: Shah Rukh, and Ulugh Beg, the Astronomer Emperor

https://www.academia.edu/105267173/The_Timurid_Era_as_the_Peak_of_the_Islamic_Civilization_Shah_Rukh_and_Ulugh_Beg_the_Astronomer_Emperor

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CHAPTER XXVII: Ethnically Turanian Safavids & Culturally Iranian Ottomans: two identical empires that mirrored one another

https://www.academia.edu/105744200/Ethnically_Turanian_Safavids_and_Culturally_Iranian_Ottomans_two_identical_empires_that_mirrored_one_another

CHAPTER XXVIII: Spirituality, Religion & Theology: the fallacy of the Safavid conversion of Iran to ‘Shia Islam’

https://www.academia.edu/105770339/Spirituality_Religion_and_Theology_the_fallacy_of_the_Safavid_conversion_of_Iran_to_Shia_Islam

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Download the chapter (text only) in PDF:

selim-i-ismail-i-and-baburDownload

Download the chapter (with pictures and legends) in PDF:

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Iran–Turan, Manichaeism & Islam during the Migration Period and the Early Caliphates

By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu (Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)

Pre-publication of chapter XVI of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey – 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian – Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; chapters XIV, XV and XVI belong to Part Five (Fallacies about Sassanid History, History of Religions, and the History of Migrations). The book is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters. 

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Hsiung-nu soldier from Saksanokhur, Tajikistan

However, soon afterwards, Europe faced two major threats that lasted many centuries: the Islamic armies and the Manichaean subversion. Despite their ferocity and their conquests, at a certain point the Islamic armies were stopped either in Western or in Eastern Europe. But the Manichaean tidal wave that hit Europe back was disproportional and beyond any expectation. Starting from the Eastern Roman Empire and the entire Caucasus region and as early as the 7th c. CE, the Paulicians triggered an enormous religious, social and imperial destabilization across vast lands. The famous Eastern Roman Akritai, i.e. the imperial Eastern Roman guards and frontal forces against the Islamic Caliphate, were – all – Paulicians, having rejected the Christian Orthodox Constantinopolitan theology. Digenes Akritas, the Eastern Roman Empire’s greatest hero and Modern Greeks’ most revered and foremost legendary figure was a Paulician, not an Orthodox.

Constantinopolitan patriarchs, emperors and theologians persistently described the Paulicians as Manichaeans; they used the same term also for the Iconoclasts. This does not mean that these religious, spiritual and esoteric systems of faith were ‘Manichaean’ stricto sensu, but they were definitely formed under determinant Manichaean impact. The same concerns the Bogomiles across the Balkans, Central and Western Europe, starting in the 10th c., the Cathars across Western Europe from the 12th c. onwards, and also many other religious, spiritual and esoteric systems that derived from the aforementioned.

The Muslim friends, partners and associates of the Paulicians were also groups formed under strong Manichaean impact and historically viewed as such; known as Babakiyah or Khurramites or Khorram-dinan, the 8th c. religious group setup by Sunpadh and led in the 9th c. by Babak Khurramdin made an alliance with the Eastern Roman Emperor Theophilos (829-842), an outstanding Iconoclast, and not only repeatedly revolted against the Abbasid Caliphate but also fought along with the Eastern Roman army in 837 in the Anti-Taurus Mountains to recapture Melitene (Malatya), and on many other occasions. The Khurramite commander Nasir and 14000 Iranian Khurramite rebels had no problem in being baptized Iconoclast Christians and taking Greek names (Nasir became then known as Theophobos), which shows the Manichaean origins and affinities of the Iconoclasts and the Khurramites. 

The state of the Paulicians

The massacre of the Paulicians

Kale-ye Babak, the impregnable castle of the Babakiyah (or Khurramites) near Kaleybar – East Azerbaijan, Iran

Afshin brings Babak as captive in Samarra. from a manuscript miniature of the Safavid times

Babak Khorramdin statue from Babek city in Nakhchivan province of Azerbaijan

Within the context of early Islamic caliphates, the Manicheans prospered, definitely marked by their superiority in terms of spirituality, letters, sciences, philosophy and cosmology. It was relatively easy for them to reinterpret the Quran as a Manichaean scripture; it was totally impossible for the uneducated and naïve early Muslims to oppose Manicheans in open debate or to outfox Manichaean interpretative schemes. Among the leading Muslim erudite polymaths, mystics, poets and translators of the early period of Islamic Civilization (7th – 8th c.), many defended all major pillars of the Manichaean doctrine and even the dualist dogma; Ibn al Muqaffa is an example. The illustrious translator of the Middle Persian literary masterpiece Kalila wa Dimna into Arabic was a crypto-Manichaean Muslim, and surely he was not the only. Ibn al Muqaffa was executed as per the order of Caliph al-Mansur (754-775), but the first persecution of the Manicheans started only under the Caliph al-Mahdi (775-785); however, this was the time many groups and movements or Manichean origin started openly challenging Islam and the Caliphate in every sense. However, it is noteworthy that the greatest Caliph of all times, Harun al Rashid (786-809), had a very tolerant and friendly stance toward Manicheans of all types.

Abu’l Abbas al-Saffah proclaimed as the first Abbasid Caliph: the Abbasid dynasty opened the door for a cataclysmic Iranian cultural, intellectual, academic, scientific and spiritual impact on the Muslim world.

However, it is only as late as the time of Caliph al-Muqtadir (908-932) that the Manicheans, persecuted in the Caliphate, left Mesopotamia in big numbers, making of Afrasiab (Samarqand) and Central Asia the center of their faith, life and activities. This was not a coincidence; many Turanians had already been long date enthusiastic Manichean converts and adepts, whereas several Manichaean monuments unearthed in Central Asia date back to the 4th c. At the time of al-Mansur, the Uyghur Khaqan (: Emperor) Boku Tekin accepted Manichaeism as official state religion in 763; the Uyghur Khaqanate stretched from the Tian Shan mountains and the Lake Balkhash (today’s Kazakhstan) to the Pacific. For more than one century, Manichaeism was the state religion across the entire Northeastern Asia.

During the same time, Manichaeism was diffused in Tibet and China. Similarly with what occurred in the Islamic Caliphate, Manicheans in Tibet and China had it easy to reinterpret Buddhism in Manichaean terms. As a matter of fact, Chinese Buddhism is full of Manichaean impregnations. For this reason, several anti-Buddhist Chinese emperors (like Wuzong of Tang in the period 843-845) confused the Manicheans with the Buddhists and persecuted them too. However, Manichaeism was for many centuries a fundamental component and a critical parameter of all social, spiritual, intellectual and religious developments in China. And this was due to the incessant interaction of Turanians and Iranians across Asia. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulicianism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Iconoclasm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akritai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digenes_Akritas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khurramites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunpadh

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/korramis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babak_Khorramdin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilos_(emperor)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophobos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Muqaffa%27

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_Khaganate

During the Sassanid and early Islamic periods, the central provinces of Iran had to embrace many Turanian newcomers. This was one of the numerous Turanian waves that the Iranian plateau and its periphery had to welcome across the millennia. A vast and critical topic of the World History that was excessively distorted and systematically misrepresented across various disciplines of the Humanities is the chapter of the major Eurasiatic Migrations. Various distorting lenses have been used in this regard. It is surely beyond the scope of the present chapter to outline this subject, but I must at least mention it with respect to the persistent Orientalist efforts to divide and dissociate Iranian from Turanian nations across several millennia.

If one accepts naively the ‘official’ dogma of Western colonial historiography, one imagines that all the world’s major civilizations (Sumerians, Elamites, Akkadians-Assyrians/Babylonians, Egyptians, Cushites-Sudanese, Hittites, Hurrians, Urartu, Phoenicians, Iranians, Greeks, Romans, Dravidians, Chinese, etc.) were automatically popped up and instantly formed by settled populations. Modern historians, who compose this sort of nonsensical narratives, are monstrous gangsters intending to desecrate human civilization and to extinguish human spirituality. All civilizations were started by nomads, and there was always a time when all indigenous nations (each of them in its own turn) were migrants.

But modern Western historians intentionally and criminally misrepresent the major Eurasiatic Migrations in a most systematic and most sophisticated manner, by only introducing – partly and partially – aspects of this overwhelming and continual phenomenon, like spices on gourmet dishes. I do not imply that the Eurasiatic Migrations were the only to have happened or to have mattered; there were also important migrations in Africa, the Pacific, and the continent of the Aztecs, the Mayas and the Incas. However, I limit the topic to the migrations that are relevant to the History of Iran and Turan. So, those who study Ancient Roman History are customarily told that, ‘although everything was fine and civilized Romans prospered in peace’, suddenly some iniquitous barbarians arrived to invade Roman lands and to embarrass the civilized settled populations altogether; this type of bogus-historical presentations is a Crime against the Mankind, because it distorts the foremost reality of human history, namely that we have all been migrants.

There is no worst bigotry worldwide than that of settled populations.

Yet, every manual of history would be easily rectified, if few extra chapters were added, at the beginning and during the course of the narration, to offer an outline of parallel developments occurred in the wider and irrevocbly indivisible Eurasia.

The discriminatory, truly racist, manner by which the civilized migrants are presented in various manuals of (Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Cushitic, Anatolian, Roman, Greek, European, Russian, Iranian, Dravidian, and Chinese) History helps only reinstate the vicious and immoral axiom that ‘History is written by the victors’. Every historian, who does not consciously write in an objective manner to reveal the truth and to reject the paranoia of the aforementioned adage, is an enemy of the Mankind.   

Beyond the aforementioned points, many historians today will try to find an excuse, saying that, by writing about let’s say the so-called ‘barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire’, they intentionally reflect the Roman viewpoint, because they rely on Roman historical sources. This could eventually be accepted, if stated in 1820, when the modern science of history had not advanced much, and only few archaeological excavations had taken place. But if this is seriously expressed as an apology today, it constitutes an outrage. The least one can say to these forgers is that they must first obtain an interdisciplinary degree, before publishing their nonsensical manual, or – alternatively – study several paperbacks on the History of the Migrant Nations (in this case: Huns, Vandals, Goths, etc.).  

An even greater mistake that modern historians make is that they present the continual phenomenon of Eurasiatic migrations in a most fragmentary manner; this creates, by means of Nazi propaganda, the wrong idea and the distorted impression that all of a sudden, every now and then, new migrants appear in the horizon, coming out of the vast Asiatic ‘nowhere’. This is an aberration and a fallacy. The absurd factoid, which is deceitfully called “Invasions of the Roman Empire” and is peremptorily dated between 100 CE and 500 CE, is merely an academic fabrication. Why?

First, there were incessant migrations before and after the said period.

Second, the aforementioned factoid is a fallacy due to the fact that, during the same period, other migrations took also place, but the specialists in Roman History do not mention (or even do not know) them; however, these migrations (that they fail to even name) constitute intertwined phenomena with those that they present in their manuals, and consequently their presentation is a conscious and plain distortion.

Third, the events are always portrayed as a menace of barbarism, as breach of Roman legitimacy, and as violation of a hypothetical right of the Roman Empire to exist. This is an outrage; the Roman Empire was not a sacrosanct institution. In many aspects, its lawless formation, barbaric expansion, and bloody wars constitute some of the World History’s bleakest pages. But criminal colonial historians never discussed ‘unpleasant’ topics with the correct terminology; they did not write for instance about the barbarian Roman demolition of Carthage, the monstrous Roman sack of Corinth, the savage Roman invasion of Seleucid Syria or the lawless Roman annexation of Egypt.

This is the disgusting bias of the Western colonial historiographers: when a negative development takes place against Rome, it is ‘bad’; and quite contrarily, when an undesirable occurrence happens to others, it is ‘good’. And in order to represent this vicious bias as ‘historical truth’, they mobilize a great intellectual effort, involving many methods. In this regard, the Eurasiatic migrations are absurdly fractured into many parts, and many of these parts are deliberately concealed, when focus is made on only one of them. The pseudo-academic methods involved to disguise and conceal the topic are numerous.

First, some migrations are not presented as such, but named after the migrant nations; examples: Scythians, Sarmatians, Celts. And yet, these nations are basically known due to their migrations across vast lands.

Second, other migrations are not mentioned as such, but called after the name of the location where excavations brought to light the material remains of a migrant nation’s civilization; example: Andronovo culture, Afanasievo culture, etc.

Third, several migrant nations of different origin are regrouped after the geography where they spread; this is totally paranoid, because no one can possibly ‘regroup’ the Vandals, who crossed Central and Western Europe, reached North Africa, settled in Hippo Regius and Carthage, and then attacked Greece, Sicily, Rome, Sardinia, Corsica and the Iberian coastlands, with the Huns, who crossed Siberia, Russia, and Ukraine, settled in Eastern Europe and attacked the Balkans, Italy and Gaul.

Fourth, several migrant nations are dissociated from one another migrant nation of the same ethnic origin (example: Huns and Turkic nations), whereas in cases of severe distortion, different names of the same nation, attested in diverse historical sources, are tentatively presented as names of two different nations (example: Huns and Hsiung nu whose name is erroneously spelled Xiongnu).

Fifth, several parts of migrant nations are arbitrarily dissociated from their ethnic counterparts and presented separately as settled nations (example: White Huns or Hephthalites).

Sixth, the ethnic origin of several migrant nations is confusingly presented (example: the Bulgars, who were a Turkic nation, are often included in Europe’s ‘Migration Period’ and categorized along with Slavs, whereas they should have been mentioned in the ‘Turkic migrations’!).

To the aforementioned inaccuracies, distortions and prejudices, a plethora of false maps is added to comfortably reduce the size of kingdoms, empires and nations whose existence did not happen to please the discriminatory minds of the perverse Anglo-French and American colonial historians. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronovo_culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afanasievo_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_migration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephthalites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6kt%C3%BCrks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Turkic_Khaganate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumania

The end result of this systematization of Western colonial falsehood is that great and highly civilized conquerors and emperors like Attila, Genghis Khan, Hulagu Khan, Kublai Khan, Timur Lenk and others appear as mysterious meteorites, who came from “nowhere”, as barbarian invaders, and a “scourges of God”, whereas in reality they all (and many others) were far more educated, more cultured, more competent and more heroic than any Greek, Macedonian, Roman or European king or general. To the aforementioned historical reality additional, deceitful tactics and insidious procedures have been added by the criminal, racist, Western European and North American ‘historians’: they definitely proved to be able to write 100000 words to deplore the destructions supposedly caused to the Human Civilization by Attila, Genghis Khan, Hulagu Khan, and others, but when they happen to write about the fact that Alexander the Great burned Persepolis, they remain malignantly and partially silent, abstaining from any due criticism. 

King Attila with the Turul bird in his shield (Chronicon Pictum, 1358)

It would be far easier for all to tell the truth: ‘Asia is Turan’ for most of its territory. And the moral lesson must be drawn: the existence of a ‘state’ is not a reason for anyone not to invade its lands. States are not sacrosanct; and in any case, the territory occupied by the nation that setup the local state, in all cases of historical states, was also invaded by the ancestors of that nation in the first place.

The biased Western colonial historians carry out all these distortions as tasks in order to promote the lawless interests of their own disreputable states; for this reason they always concealed the following unwavering reality: throughout World History, various fundamental concepts like ‘land’, ‘state’, ‘nation’, ‘sacred place’, etc. have had different connotations among nations of nomadic migrants and nations of settled populations.

Furthermore, several fundamental concepts, which are valid among settled nations, have no validity at all among nomads and migrant nations, and vice versa. In addition, some basic concepts that exist among nomads and migrant nations start being altered and becoming different if and when these nations happen to settle somewhere ‘permanently’. The concept of ‘universe’ and the deriving imperative of ‘universalism’ are fundamental notions of nomads and migrant nations; notably, the Akkadians (early Assyrians – Babylonians), who first produced significant literary narratives to detail the concept, were also a migrant nation that had settled only few centuries before writing down in cuneiform texts their world views.

The History of Eurasiatic Migrations, in and by itself, highlights the extensive presence of Turanians in Iran since times immemorial. Thanks to the Turanians of the Achaemenid Empire, the Turkic nations of Central Asia, China and Siberia came to get detailed descriptions of faraway regions and lands, such as Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, the Caucasus Mountains, the Anatolian plateau, the plains of Ukraine and Central Europe, the Balkan Peninsula, and Egypt. Consequently, further the interaction between Iran and Rome progressed, more details about the western confines of Europe reached the Turanian nomads who were moving around Lake Balkhash (Kazakhstan), Yenisey River and Baikal Lake (Siberia), Orkhon River (Mongolia), the Tarim Basin (China), the Oymyakon River (Yakutia, Eastern Siberia) and other circumferences. The incessant waves of migrations to the West and to the South were not blind and desperate movements of uninformed barbarians, who ran like crazy on their horses; only the distorted publications of Western colonial historians contain similar, nonsensical conclusions.

The pattern of the Turanian military horsemen and skillful soldiers is absolutely prominent and protruding in the History of the Early Caliphates; but it is merely the continuation of a millennia long tradition. This consists in a very embarrassing fact for all the Western Orientalists specializing in Early Islamic History, and more particularly with focus on the 8th c. CE, the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate, and the rise of Abbasid Baghdad. They therefore constantly come up with incredible assumptions, farfetched arguments, nonsensical explanations, and sly innuendos to explain how and why so many Turanian soldiers and military heads appear in the Islamic Caliphate. In fact, without Turanian military skills, the Umayyad dynasty of Damascus may have not been overthrown.

It is well known that the early Islamic armies advanced up to Merv in today’s Turkmenistan (651) and they stopped there. For the next hundred years, the only Islamic advance in Asia was effectuated only in today’s Baluchistan province of Pakistan; only at the end of the 7th c. and the beginning of the 8th c., the Islamic armies reached the Indus Delta and Gujarat. But how the Islamic Caliphate started being flooded with Turanian soldiers as early as the last decades of the Umayyad rule, if there had not already been massive Turanian populations in the Sassanid Empire of Iran? If the Turanian nations were confined ‘somewhere in Eastern Siberia and Mongolia’ (as per the distortions of colonial Orientalists), why did they appear to be so deeply involved in battles and developments that took place in Mesopotamia and Syria during the first half of the 8th c.? The answer to this question is very simple: there were always massive Turanian populations in the Pre-Islamic Iranian empires.

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The Battle of Yarmouk (20 August 634 CE) – Comments & Revelations I: without the Aramaeans’ utilization of Islam, prophet Muhammad’s religion would be blocked in Hejaz

Contents

I. Ancient, Christian, and Muslim historiographers

II. Oversights and errors attested in the existing bibliography

A. ‘Battle techniques’

B. ‘Two great empires exhausted and weakened’

———- EXCURSE I: HISTORICAL FOCUS —————-

Borders, fronts, rebellions, divisions and fights

1- Post-conquest Iran

2- Eastern Roman Empire

3- Upper Egypt and the Sudan (: historical Ethiopia)

4- Internal conflicts transported from Hejaz to Syria and Mesopotamia

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C. ‘History of states’ and not of peoples and cultures

D. Poor conceptualization of the early Islamic conquests by modern scholars

—— EXCURSE II: ETHNO-LINGUISTIC & RELIGIOUS FOCUS ———

Ethno-linguistic groups

Religious groups

i- the Christian Aramaeans of the Syriac Orthodox Church (Monophysites)

ii- the Christian Aramaeans of the Great Church of the East (Nestorians)

iii- the Gnostic Aramaeans

iv- the Manichaean Aramaeans

v- the Copts (Monophysitic Christian Egyptians)

vi- the (Aramaic-speaking) Jews, followers of Rabbinical Judaism

vii- the Persians and other Iranians followers of various Iranian religions

viii- the Eastern Roman Orthodox Christians, who sided with the Patriarchate of Constantinople

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E. The demographic structure of the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Western Iranian provinces: the Aramaeans

F. The central provinces of the Islamic Caliphates: the lands of the Aramaeans.

G. Lack of historical criticism in Islamic Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies

III. The astounding scarcity of contemporaneous sources

IV. Critical incidents during the Battle of Yarmouk

V. The true dimensions of the Battle of Yarmouk and of its outcome

An early 7th c. drawing on a 5th c. biblical manuscript: the unusual and unnecessary representation of Job and his family is correctly viewed by modern scholars as a cryptographic representation of Heraclius and his family, notably his second wife Martina, his sister Epiphania, and his daughter Eudoxia. There is a clear reason for this allegory; by associating Heraclius with Job, the calligrapher and painter interpolated the concept of the Righteous Suffering and projected it onto Heraclius. The apparently Monotheletist artist wanted to praise the Monotheletist emperor for his patience and tolerance toward the Orthodox extremists among the Constantinopolitan clergy, who incessantly insulted the basileus. He therefore identified him with the Biblical person that embodies the concept of the Righteous Suffering, which is of entirely Assyrian-Babylonian origin as the illustrious epic Ludlul bel nemeqi – https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1189&context=cop-facbooks

The battle that led to the withdrawal of the Eastern Romans (‘Rum’ – therefore not ‘Greeks’) from Syria, Palestine, and North Mesopotamia has been the object of numerous studies, essays, chapters of books, and treatises. Modern Orientalist historiographers distorted and/or concealed the historical realities that determined the fact. They impacted their writings with unnecessary astonishment, unsolicited admiration, bizarre bewilderment, and at times childishly subjective descriptions. It is as if they are either blind or predetermined to disorient readers from the historical truth. It is most unfortunate that this situation prevails, despite numerous military experts delving into historical texts, many philologists scrutinizing posterior sources, and several historians publishing the corpus of the textual evidence as regards the event.

The confusion of the average reader and learner is completed with the modern, definitely unscholarly, Islamist pamphleteering as per which ‘the faith in the only true God’ gave the victory to the less-experienced, numerically inferior, and surely ill-equipped and poorly armed (if compared with the Eastern Romans) Muslim armies. I will not expand on this nonsense, because it would only prove that all victors and conquerors were true believers and all the defeated armies belonged to disbelievers – which is absurd.

I. Ancient, Christian, and Muslim historiographers

At this point, I have to highlight that, when it comes to the attitude toward History and historiography, there is a deep chasm between our modern world (after 1500) and past generations that lived in the Antiquity or during the Christian and Islamic times. The modern theories that History can ‘teach’ and that, by studying History, one can avoid past mistakes did not exist before the modern world; these theories are wrong, insane, inhuman and disastrous.

‘History’ does not ‘teach’, and not one Muslim, Christian, Manichaean, Gnostic, Zoroastrian, Babylonian or Egyptian ever thought or expected that History could possibly ‘teach’ him anything. In their perception of the world, there was clarity whereas modern minds are terribly confused about a critical issue: recording facts (historiography) is not History. History is what happened. No one can reconstitute it in its entirety, except by living in the past and being present in the events.

Historiography, i.e. simple recording of facts, did indeed happen for more than five millennia, but not for the purpose of ‘teaching’ or being ‘taught’. This reality determined all ancient historical records, be they Ancient Egyptian Annals, Babylonian Chronicles, Assyrian Annals, Greek and Roman history writing, Christian and Muslim Chronography or other. And for the purpose of objectivity, in most of the cases, the authors eliminated their personal views and considerations; and this is quite normal, as we all understand that a fact is always a fact per se, irrespective of the author’s (or narrator’s or historian’s) personal favor and/or understanding.

For the above reasons, serious, decent and valuable ancient authors did not include in their narratives what was evident to all: the historical context. Contextualization would be tantamount to self-devaluation for an historian like Tabari or Theophanes or the anonymous, 7th c. CE, Aramaean author of the Syriac Chronicle of Kirkuk, which is mainly known as ‘History of Karka de Beth Selok’. About:

https://syriaca.org/place/108

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/bet-selok

http://www.csc.org.il/db/browse.aspx?db=sb&sL=H&sK=History%20of%20Karka%20de%20Beth%20Selok&sT=keywords

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Karka

(Throughout the present article links to the Wikipedia are included only for further research and access to historical sources and bibliography – not for the contents of the entries that are often impertinent and biased and the ensuing conclusions misplaced)

Ka’ba-ye Zardosht (Zoroaster’s Kaaba): one of the holiest shrines of the Sassanid Empire of Iran at Naqsh-e Rustam, ancient Achaemenid necropolis; it is to be noted that there were several pre-Islamic times’ holy buildings in rectangular shape. They were located in Iran and in Yemen. The Kaaba of Najran was the Christian cathedral in Yemenite Najran (currently under Saudi occupation).

Saint Sophia: the Eastern Roman Empire’s greatest cathedral was not a holy shrine for the Monophysitic and Nestorian Aramaeans and the Copts (Egyptians), because they viewed the Patriarchate of Constantinople as heretic. This played an enormous role and impacted the historical developments back in the 630s.

II. Oversights and errors attested in the existing bibliography

Contrarily to Ancient, Christian and Muslim authors and people, who did not expect ‘History’ (but their holy books) to teach them the correct path in life and who did not repeat past mistakes by delving into moral depths (and not into useless historical manuals), we need extensive contextualization to accurately perceive and correctly understand epochs that totally differed from ours. This is what is terribly missing from the studies of almost all the scholars who were interested in the Battle of Yarmouk.

Yarmouk battlefield in Jordan today

A. ‘Battle techniques’

Many scholars focused on the battle techniques of Khalid ibn al-Walid (592-642 CE). But however successful these techniques may have been, military dexterity does not explain why the bulk of the indigenous populations of the eastern provinces (North Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyrenaica) of the Eastern Roman Empire did not rebel against the early Muslim rule. The battle of Yarmouk may have been won by the Muslims, but 10 or 20 years later a violent local rebellion could have eventually terminated the foreign rule. But this did not happen.

Typical samples of worthless bibliography and lectures:

https://ospreypublishing.com/yarmuk-ad-636-pb?___store=osprey_rst

https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/182545/battle-yarmuk-636-ce-rethinking-%E2%80%98conquest%E2%80%99-late-antique-near

https://online.ucpress.edu/SLA/article-abstract/5/2/241/117317/The-Battle-of-Yarmouk-a-Bridge-of-Boats-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext

One of the wrong diagrams that one can find in the Internet nowadays; suffice it that you read Tabari and you will understand the mistakes.

This type of diagrams can never explain historical processes; it is therefore wrong, confusing and disorienting.

B. ‘Two great empires exhausted and weakened’

Several authors explained the early Islamic victories by referring to the exhaustion of the then known world’s two greatest empires, namely the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran. This is correct and true, but still it does not help us understand why the outright majority of populations of the western provinces of Iran and the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire did not rebel against the foreign invaders in the first 2-3 decades of Islamic rule. However, this fantasy is reproduced even in serious UNESCO documentation on the Silk Road: https://fr.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/default/files/knowledge-bank-article/vol_III%20silk%20road_the%20arab%20conquest.pdf

The Sassanid Empire of Iran and the Eastern Roman Empire at the time prophet Muhammad was born

Main movements of Eastern Roman and Sassanid Iranian armies

———- EXCURSE I: HISTORICAL FOCUS —————-

Borders, fronts, rebellions, divisions and fights

In this regard, it is noteworthy to point out a quadruple phenomenon that took place in the first decades of Islamic rule in the Caliphate’s central provinces:

1- Post-conquest Iran

The first rebellions against the new rule started early in Iran, but they occurred in remote provinces (Gilan, Mazandaran, Azerbaijan) that were inhabited by nations other than those living in the former western provinces of Iran. In any case, both great empires, the Eastern Romans and the Iranians, were multi-ethnic imperial structures.

2- Eastern Roman Empire

The first line of Eastern Roman defense against the Islamic Caliphate was created alongside the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains, whereas the upper flow of Euphrates became the border between the two empires. This is the location where the formidable Akritai appeared to fight and stop every advance of the Omayyad or Abbasid armies to the West, apparently coordinating with the Islamic opposition to the pseudo-Islamic rule of the caliphs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akritai

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digenes_Akritas

3- Upper Egypt and the Sudan (: historical Ethiopia)

Upper Egypt totally escaped the Islamic rule, as Nobatia was incepted as Christian Coptic kingdom with capital at Faras (almost on the present Egyptian-Sudanese borderline). The Islamic rule in Masr (Egypt) did not exceed beyond the region between Al Minya and Assiut (ca. 350 km south of Cairo), and while Seville, Cordova, Sicily, Crete, Samarqand and the Delta of Indus belonged to the Islamic Caliphate, Coptic monasticism flourished in Thebes of Egypt (today’s Luxor; from Al Uqsur, ‘the military camps’) where all ancient Egyptian temples and antiquities, notably Deir al Bahri and Deir al Madina, had become monastic cells. Two other Christian Sudanese kingdoms rose further in the South: Makuria and Alodia, limiting the Islamic presence in Eastern Africa to the Red Sea coastland.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobatia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makuria

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alodia

4- Internal conflicts transported from Hejaz to Syria and Mesopotamia

The only conflicts that took place in the early Islamic Caliphate’s central provinces (i.e. the lands that belong today to Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, SE Turkey, Iraq, SW Iran, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar and the northern parts of Saudi Arabia) were those related to the ‘new’ faith, prophet Muhammad’s preaching, and the interpretation of this faith’s prescriptions as regards the governance of the state. This means, in other words, that the Arabs of Hejaz, brought with them to Syria-Mesopotamia the deep divisions that characterized their society (acceptance, rejection and/or distortion of prophet Muhammad’s religious revelation) even before prophet Muhammad’s death (632 CE). These divisions were ferocious and the bloodshed tarnished irrevocably the History of Islam, although it really paled if compared with the bloodshed caused after the official imposition of Constantinopolitan-Roman Christianity as the sole religion throughout the Roman Empire. And the early converts from the newly occupied lands that earlier belonged to the Eastern Romans and to the Sassanid Iranians vividly participated in these divisions, debates, polarizations, conflicts and civil wars.

This quadruple phenomenon was never studied per se until now, and to duly investigate it one needs to delve in the ethnic and religious/theological conflicts that took place in the two great empires (the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran) for about 300-400 years before the Battle of Yarmouk. This clearly demonstrates that not one specialist of the Early Islamic History can be taken seriously without the knowledge of at least two among the following languages and religious/literary traditions: Coptic, Syriac Aramaic, Middle Persian, Medieval ‘Greek’ (‘Roman’: the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire), Manichaean, and Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (: the language of Rabbinical Judaism).

—————————————————— 

C. ‘History of states’ and not of peoples and cultures

Numerous authors write on the topic, while focusing on State History (Eastern Roman, Sassanid Iranian, Omayyad and Abbasid Islamic); this is one way ticket to misperception, misunderstanding, and distortion. States are not representative of subject nations and peoples, but of ruling elites and their doctrines; in their effort to secure their interests, states destroy all historical, literary, religious or theological documentation that would challenge them. States are to some extent the reason for the scarcity of documentation that characterizes the 7th and the 8th centuries CE (or, to put it otherwise, the first 100-150 years AH/anno Hegirae).

D. Poor conceptualization of the early Islamic conquests by modern scholars

Most researchers failed to contextualize the early Islamic conquests, because they were unable to properly conceptualize the historical developments in the first place. Battles are undertaken by social groups or eventually states, but socio-cultural processes and historical developments are generated by peoples and nations. So, the proper manner to approach the topic is to view it as an affair of various nations and ethno-linguistic and religious groups that lived in the wider region between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, from the Taurus Mountains to the Indus River Delta, and in-between the Nile and Syr-Darya (Iaxartes River) in Central Asia.

——– EXCURSE II: ETHNO-LINGUISTIC & RELIGIOUS FOCUS ————

In this regard, it is essential to conclude from the aforementioned that the only pertinent manner to tackle the topic is via interdisciplinary studies. Until now, no effort was displayed in this direction; and yet, there can be many combinations of interdisciplinary studies applying to this case.

Ethno-linguistic groups

During the 6th–7th c. CE, the main nations which lived in the lands that, after the Islamic conquests, became the central provinces of the Islamic Caliphate were:

i- the Aramaeans,

ii- the Copts,

iii- the Persians and other Iranians, who manned the imperial administration at Tesiphun (Ctesiphon) and controlled the Iranian military outposts,

iv- the (Aramaic-speaking) Jews, and

v- the Eastern Romans, who were organized in small communities living in the major cities of the eastern provinces of the empire, notably around the Chalcedonian patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria.

This means that at those days the outright majority of the populations living in lands belonging to today’s SE Turkey, Syria, Iraq, SW Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE and the North of Saudi Arabia were Aramaeans.

And the outright majority of the populations living in the Nile Valley were Copts. 

Urhoy-Edessa of Orhoene-Urfa (SE Turkey): a major Aramaean city

Nasibina-Nisibis-Nusaybin (SE Turkey): a major Aramaean city

Hatra (NW Iraq): a major Aramaean city

Dura Europos on Euphrates (Eastern Syria): a major Aramaean city

Tadmur-Palmyra (Central Syria): a major Aramaean city

Bosra (Southern Syria): a major Aramaean city

Rekem (Petra, Jordan): a major Aramaean city of the Nabataean dynasty

Hegra, the necropolis of the Aramaean Nabataean kingdom, at 350 km distance north of Yathrib (Madina)

Charax Spasinu (South Iraq): a major Aramaean city

Religious groups

When it comes to ethno-religious and linguistic groups existing at those days (6th–7th c. CE) in the aforementioned region, we enumerate the following:

i- the Christian Aramaeans of the Syriac Orthodox Church (Monophysites) Although entirely anti-Constantinopolitan, the Christian Aramaeans were divided into Miaphysitic (Monophysitic) anti-Chalcedonian Christians and Nestorian anti-Ephesine Christians (see below no ii).

https://syriacpatriarchate.org/

http://www.jacobitesyrianchurch.org/

https://gedsh.bethmardutho.org/Malankara-Syriac-Orthodox-Church

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_Orthodox_Church

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcedonian_Christianity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Chalcedonian_Christianity

Christian Aramaeans of the Syriac Orthodox Church (Monophysites) formed the outright majority of the populations living in the Eastern Roman provinces of Syria, North Mesopotamia, and Palestine.

The term Monophysitic (Monophysitism/Monophysites) being quite pejorative, it is currently replaced by Miaphysitic (Miaphysitism/Miaphysites). The most common appellation of the church is Jacobite, after St. Jacob Baradaeus (also known as Jacob bar Addai).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Baradaeus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophysitism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miaphysitism

Deir Zafaran (also known as Mor Hananyo) Monastery, near Mardin (SE Turkey): a high place of Syriac Jacobite (Miaphysitic/Monophysitic) Christianity

It is also necessary to underscore that the noun/adjective ‘Syriac’ is totally unrelated to the land of Syria (in such case the adjective is ‘Syrian’), but denotes a late phase of Aramaic that survived down to our days, being one of the main liturgical languages in the History of Christianity. Syriac alphabet derived from Aramaic alphabet (in the 1st c. CE) and, similarly, Arabic alphabet derived (in the 4th c. CE) from Nabataean Aramaic alphabet; Aramaic and Hebrew were the two original languages in which the Old Testament was written.

https://www.syriaca.org/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_alphabet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_literature

Syriac Aramaic in Serto writing

Syriac Aramaic in Estrangelo writing

Monophysitic Aramaeans were essential for the formation and the diffusion of historical Islam. Their overwhelming rejection of the Constantinopolitan theology and of the anti-Aramaean policies of the Eastern Roman Empire totally alienated the Aramaeans from the authorities that ruled them. For Monophysitic Aramaeans, the Eastern Roman Empire was ruled by heretics. And as the illustrious Aramaean theologian, historian and erudite scholar Tatian (112-185 CE) demonstrated in his magnificent opus Oratio ad Graecos (Address to the Greeks), the enormous cultural gap between Aramaeans and Greeks played a considerable role in the destabilization of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire (and subsequently of the Eastern Roman Empire), because the Constantinopolitan authorities cooperated basically with the Greek-speaking minority.

The determinant role played by the Monophysitic Aramaeans in the formation and the diffusion of historical Islam is highlighted by the case of Sergius Bahira, the Syriac Jacobite (Monophysitic) monk, who encountered prophet Muhammad in young age, when he accompanied his uncle Abi Taleb ibn Abd el Muttalib to Syria and other provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahira

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Christian_views_on_Muhammad#Early_Middle_Ages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Talib_ibn_Abd_al-Muttalib

ii- the Christian Aramaeans of the Great Church of the East (Nestorians)

These Aramaeans followed Nestorius in his doctrine that was a radical form of what is called Diophysitism (belief in two natures/hypostases of Jesus); they are called Nestorians, although the term is not regarded as correct (being tantamount to calling the Muslims ‘Muhammedans’). Nestorians rejected the Council of Ephesus (431 CE), pretty much like the Monophysites/Miaphysites rejected the Council of Chalcedon (451 CE).

h ttps://news.assyrianchurch.org/category/education/english-articles/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_Church_of_the_East

Elastic Slider

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaldean_Catholic_Church

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_East

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyophysitism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorianism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Ephesus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon

Dair Mar Eliya (Monastery of St. Elijah) in North Iraq: Nestorian monastery of the 6th c.

Nestorian Gospel in Syriac

The Anikova plate: representation of the Siege of Jericho; masterpiece of Sogdian Nestorian Art from Semirechie (southeastern Kazakhstan and northeastern Kyrgyszstan). Probable date: 8th-9th c.

Ecclesiastical provinces of the Nestorian Church in the 10th c.

Nestorian communities in the 10th-11th c.

Christian Aramaeans of the Great Church of the East (Nestorians) formed the outright majority of the Sassanid Iranian provinces of Central and South Mesopotamia, South Transtigritane, and Arabia, namely Huzistan, Meshan, Asurestan, Nodshiragan (Adiabene), and Arabestan.

Nestorian Aramaeans were essential in the formation and diffusion of historical Islam. Their staggering rejection of both, Constantinopolitan Christianity and Sassanid Mazdeism (the official Iranian imperial religious dogma that consisted only in a later form of the Achaemenid Zoroastrianism), was highly determinant for the early success of the caliphs. At this early point, I only state the well-known (but not deeply understood) fact that, for ca. 180 years before the arrival of the Islamic armies in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia, the Nestorians called Virgin Mary ‘Mother of Christ’ and not ‘Mother of god’, in striking opposition to the Constantinopolitan theologians, monks and courtiers. In this manner, Nestorian Aramaeans proved to be the real precursors of prophet Muhammad and his teachings. As a matter of fact, at the beginning of the 7th c. CE, the Nestorians were closer to the early Quranic text, which may have reached them through hearsay (before the early Islamic armies), than to the Nicene Creed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

Constantinopolitan theology and the anti-Aramaean religious and economic policies of the empire totally alienated the Aramaeans from the ruling authorities. Even worse, in Iran, the Nestorian Aramaeans were persecuted in definitely crueler manner than the Monophysitic Aramaeans were in the Eastern Roman Empire. And the ceaseless Eastern Roman – Sassanid Iranian wars devastated -more than any other territories- the lands inhabited by the Aramaeans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman%E2%80%93Persian_Wars#Byzantine%E2%80%93Sasanian_wars

iii- the Gnostic Aramaeans

Their surviving remnants are nowadays the Mandaeans. There are about 100000 Mandaean Aramaeans worldwide, but due to the ongoing persecution and oppression, most of them live currently in the Diaspora, and not in their historical land, i.e. Central and South Mesopotamia (Iraq) and South Transtigritane (SW Iran).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaic_language

http://www.mandaeanunion.org/

Mandaean rituals

Mandaeans

Gnostic Aramaeans were essential in the formation and diffusion of historical Islam. Their participation in Muslim spiritual life is at the origin of the formation of groups like the legendary Ikhwan Safa, whose rituals have been later reproduced by numerous Islamic mystics, spiritualists, occultists and scholars from the Qarmatians and the Isma’ilis to all types of Batiniyya (‘esoterism’) wise elders and great spiritual scientists, like Muhammad al Fazari, Al Ghazali, Abu ‘l Qassim ibn al Saffar, Maslam al Majriti, and Muhyieldin ibn Arabi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brethren_of_Purity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarmatians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isma%27ilism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batiniyya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batin_(Islam)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%E1%B8%A5ammad_ibn_Ibr%C4%81h%C4%ABm_al-Faz%C4%81r%C4%AB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ghazali

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslama_al-Majriti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-Saffar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Arabi

Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa, (‘Epistles of the Brethren of Purity’), Book I – on the mathematical sciences; Western Iran, ca. 14th c.

Even the communication manners and literary style of the Ikhwan Safa’s treatises and manuals appear to be Gnostic in their essence. What is nowadays erroneously called ‘Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity’, which is in fact the compendium of their wisdom, consists of letters or ‘messages’ (رسائل), being thus a reminiscence of the typically Gnostic manner of sharing knowledge, wisdom and spiritual practices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia_of_the_Brethren_of_Purity

iv- the Manichaean Aramaeans

The religion composed, proclaimed and propagated by Mani was displayed in 242 CE in front of the formidable Sassanid shah Shapur I to whom the prophet of Manichaeism dedicated one of his books, titled Shabuhragan. Shapur I did not adhere to the new religion, but he realized its imperial importance for the Sassanid state and supported the young prophet (born in 216 CE) in his mission. It is not wrong to consider Manichaeism technically as a type of Gnosticism, but it was indeed a Gnostic system apart from the rest.

Aramaeans, Persians, Iranians, Sogdians, Turanians, Mongolians, Indians, Chinese, Egyptians, Romans, Armenians and many other nations wholeheartedly accepted Manichaeism, which was the first religion in the world to have adepts from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The last Manicheans performed their rites in China’s eastern coastland before 150-100 years. Following the rise of Mazdeism (a later form of Iranian Zoroastrianism) and the prevalence of Kartir among the Sassanid courtiers, Manichaeism was persecuted and Mani was tortured to death, but the diffusion of Manichaeism was not impacted; quite on the contrary! Mani’s faith spread and many Manichaean communities existed at the times of the Islamic conquest in both, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran. Aramaean Manichaean communities in Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine greatly impacted Islam in many dimensions.

Almost 400 years before prophet Muhammad postured to be the last of the prophets, the prophet of Manichaeism claimed to be the ‘seal of the prophets’. Manichaean hierarchy seems to have been diffused among many Muslim esoteric spiritual orders. Some of the greatest historians and chronographers of Islamic times, like Tabari, al Biruni, and al Nadim, expanded on Mani and the Manicheans. The five prayers that a Muslim must perform daily seem to have been a compromise between the four daily prayers of the Manichaean ‘hearers’ (laymen) and the seven daily prayers of the elects (ecclesiastical hierarchy). Prophet Muhammad’s discussions with earlier prophets, during the Isra and Mi’raj nocturnal voyage to the Celestial Jerusalem, seem to exactly reflect similar considerations. Furthermore, the ablutions before the prayer appear to be a repetition of Manichaean practices. In addition, the Ebionite and Elcesaite impact on Manicheans seems therefore to have been passed on to the Muslims.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isra_and_Mi%27raj

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Isra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_prophet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebionites#Judaism,_Gnosticism_and_Essenism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elcesaites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_(prophet)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabuhragan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

Was Mani crucified? The question remains unanswered, as several Islamic sources reported a dire end following a terrible persecution unleashed by the Sassanid imperial priesthood against the prophet of Manichaeism.

The diffusion of Manichaeism eclipsed that of any other religion before the Modern Times; but Manichaeism was state religion only once: among the Uyghur nation of Central Asia.

The religion of Mani may have by now gone extinct, but its impact on Islam was tremendous. Many scholars tried to retrace fundamental concepts of Islam to the beliefs of several Jewish or Christian groups and notably the Nazarenes, but it would make more sense to closely examine how some of Mani’s innovative concepts found their way into prophet Muhammad’s cardinal tenets and world conceptualization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazarene_(sect)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_the_Nazarenes

Although Christianity accepted the Ancient Hebrew prophets as such, Islam is characterized by a definitely different approach, as it makes of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isma’il, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon prophets as well (also extending the status of prophet to John the Baptist and Jesus). Furthermore, it is noticeable that Islam’s position on prophethood is flexible enough to encompass other historical figures or outstanding persons not directly known to the small Meccan community of the times of Muhammad ibn Abdullah. However, this fresh approach to World History, which is a novelty for Christianity and Judaism, was absolutely Manichaean or origin. Mani first introduced the concept by accepting Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus as earlier prophets and by thus giving to his religious system a universal-imperial dimension that was badly needed for a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-religious empire.

Manichaean Aramaeans were systematically persecuted in both, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran; it was therefore quite normal for them to support the replacement of the double yoke with an Arab state and administration that they would be able to fully staff and operate (along with other Aramaeans who were followers of other religions, notably Christianity), taking into consideration the fact that the uneducated, uncultured and primitive Arabs of Hejaz, who had never formed any kind of proper state, would be definitely and absolutely unable to face such a challenge.

In the early Islamic times, there have been many notable Manichaean scholars, who prospered in the Islamic Caliphate; as Abbasid Baghdad became a center for either Manicheans or Manichaean converts to Islam, many Manicheans of other origin flocked there to contribute to the illustrious Beit al Hikmah (بيت الحكمة/House of the Wisdom) university, library, archival organization, academic center of translations, research center, botanical garden, and observatory. Abu Hilal al-Dayhuri, a Berber from Maghreb, was one of them. On the other hand, elements of the criticism that Abu Isa al Warraq addressed to Islam and to prophet Muhammad seem to be Manichaean of nature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab%C5%AB_Hil%C4%81l_al-Dayh%C5%ABri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Isa_al-Warraq

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom

However, one must admit that, despite similarities, loans and impact, Islam and Manichaeism soon became rival systems and most of the Islamic erudite scholars portrayed Mani in a rather negative manner. This approach made of Muslims the major opponents of the Manicheans, after the Christians and the Jews; but this situation is attested in rather later periods (9th–10th c.). However, this is not quite strange, if we take into consideration the fact that the Old Testament god Yahweh was portrayed as the Demiurge (i.e. the Satan) by Mani. 

v- the Copts (Monophysitic Christian Egyptians)

As close allies of the Monophysitic Aramaeans (see above unit i-), they were ferocious enemies of the oppressive Constantinopolitan administrative hierarchy and Patriarchate. Similarly with the Monophysitic Aramaeans, who belonged to the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and rejected the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (which sided with Constantinople), the Monophysitic Copts followed the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and rejected the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria.

Coptic manuscript with illuminations

Coptic manuscript

Coptic Gospel with illumination representing the four Evangelists.

Coptic manuscript with illuminations

Similarly with what happened in North Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine where the followers of the Constantinopolitan doctrine-related patriarchates (in Antioch and Jerusalem) were not numerous, as they constituted the Greek-speaking minority of those regions, in Egypt, the followers of the Constantinopolitan doctrine-related patriarchate (in Alexandria) were few, and they constituted the Greek-speaking minority of Egypt.

This leads to a detrimental conclusion as regards the Eastern Roman Empire and its chances to maintain control across its eastern provinces, namely North Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyrenaica; both, the Constantinopolitan authorities and their local stooges were loathed and reviled by the outright majority of the local populations that would certainly do all that it took to get rid of the heretical rulers at Constantinople. All they needed was an opportunity, and prophet Muhammad’s preaching in Hejaz was apparently more important for them (as a tool) than to Arabs (as a faith).

vi- the (Aramaic-speaking) Jews, followers of Rabbinical Judaism

After the destruction of Jerusalem (70 CE) and the failure of the Bar Kokhba (136 CE) rebellion, the Sadducees, the Essenes and the Zealots did not have a chance to survive as religious-spiritual-intellectual systems among the Judaic Jews. Ever since, Judaism has revolved around the Pharisees, who thus formed what is now known as ‘Rabbinical Judaism’. As Ancient Hebrew was already a dead language, all Jews were already speaking Aramaic. Expelled from Aelia Capitolina (former Jerusalem), Jews could stay in Palestine or preferably settle in Arsacid (and after 224 CE, Sassanid) Iranian Mesopotamia.

They then (and over several centuries) elaborated a new religious book that marks a clear line of separation between their ancestors’ religion (Ancient Hebrew religion based exclusively on the Old Testament) and their new religion; this book is the Talmud, which is the product of the criminal priests who never repented for having killed the ancient prophets of Israel. Today, most scholars hide the critical fact that Judaism (i.e. Rabbinical Judaism or Talmudic Judaism) is totally different from and diametrically opposed to the Ancient Hebrew religion. As priestly literature and theological exegesis, the two different Talmud collections, namely the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalemite Talmud, were written in Aramaic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talmud

Manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud with text from the tractate Kiddushin

Manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud with text from the tractate Rosh ha-shannah

Contrarily to the Judaic Jews, who were marked by the composition and the diffusion of the Talmud among them, the Aramaean Jews in their totality turned to Early Christianity; this concerns the Samaritans of the time of Jesus and many other Aramaean Jewish communities that prospered in Syria and Mesopotamia, notably in Dura Europos where the Synagogue fully reveals the impetus and the magnificence of Aramaean Art. By the time of prophet Muhammad there was no Aramaean Jew.

Although late 6th c. and early 7th c. CE Jews wholeheartedly supported the Sassanid Iranians in their wars against the Eastern Roman Empire (in striking contrast with the early Muslims of the period 610-628/629, who clearly regretted the early Iranian advance and conquests, and later rejoiced with the final Eastern Roman victories) and in spite of many unfortunate incidents that occurred between the early Muslims and the Hejaz Jews (during prophet Muhammad’s lifetime), the early (634-651 CE) Islamic conquests were enthusiastically accepted by the Jews of the wider region, who found their ally and protector in the ominous figure of Omar ibn al Khattab, as he allowed them to enter Jerusalem, no less than 568 years after they were kicked out of there by the Romans. Jews actively supported the early Islamic Caliphates, notably the Umayyad state of Damascus, the Abbasid Empire of Baghdad, and the Umayyad caliphs of Córdoba (Andalus).

vii- the Persians and other Iranians followers of various Iranian religions

Being only one of the Sassanid Empire’s nations, the Persians lived in the province of Fars, which in Ancient Greek was translated as Persia; there cannot be confusion between ‘Persian’ and ‘Iranian’. Persians were/are only one of the Iranian nations.

https://www.academia.edu/43365931/Iran_is_not_Persia_and_Persia_is_not_Iran

The Persians controlled the administrative machine of the Iranian Empire during the Achaemenid times (550-330 BCE) and during the Sassanid times (224-651 CE), whereas the Parthians, another Iranian nation of Turanian origin, controlled the administrative machine of the empire during the Arsacid times (250 BCE-224 CE).

The Iranian Empire had always many imperial capitals, notably Pasargadae, Persepolis, Susa, Babylon, Ecbatana, Nisa (Mithradatkirt/Parthaunisa), Qumis (Hecatompylos), Ray (Ragae), Tesifun (Ctesiphon), and Istakhr; on the other hand, Praaspa (Adur Gushnasp/Takht-e Suleyman), at an elevation of 3000 m, in the northern part of Zagros Mountains, was permanently the Zoroastrian religious capital of the empire.

In the Mesopotamian provinces of the Sassanid Empire of Iran, there were few and rather small Persian communities; in these western provinces of Iran were also settled people originating from other Iranian nations that were indigenous in the central, eastern and northern provinces of the empire. They were dispatched to the imperial administration at Ctesiphon and they served in the army. But they were a minority among the indigenous Aramaeans of Central and Southern Mesopotamia, Transtigritane, and the Persian Gulf’s southern coastlands.

This reality has not been either assessed or revealed by any type of specialists who studied and wrote about the topic of the early Islamic conquests. Yet, it is uniquely determinant and utterly explanatory. It changes drastically our scholarly approach to the topic (see below unit E).

Another critical dimension that impacted greatly the fate of the Sassanid Empire of Iran was its religious multi-division. If we leave the Nestorian Aramaeans, the Gnostic Aramaeans, the Manichaean Aramaeans, other Manichaean Iranians (notably the Sogdians), and the Aramaic-speaking Jews aside, the Persians and the other Iranian nations of the Sassanid Empire were spiritually and religiously divided. Among them, there were adepts of the following religious systems:

1- Mazdeism: the imperial religion and Zoroastrian doctrine established by Kartir;

2- Mithraism: the popular religion that made of Mithra a god of polytheistic features;

3- Zurvanism: Mithra broke away from Zoroastrianism and Zurvan from Mithraism;

4- Mazdakism: the subversive socio-religious system of rebellious mobedh (priest);

5- Gayomardism: an offspring of Mazdeism and Mithraism, with monotheistic traits;

If one adds to the numerous aforementioned religions, several religious systems prevailing among nations of the Iranian periphery and border regions, notably Buddhism, Turanian Tengrism, and other Central Asiatic and Indus River valley religions, one gets a complete picture of the internal divisions that existed in the Sassanid Empire of Iran and finally lef to its destruction.

Sassanid Iranian relief with representation of the high priest, mystic and reformer of Zoroastrianism Kartir, a primary initiate who can be viewed as the founder of Mazdeism, i.e. the late form of Zoroastrianism that was instituted as official dogma in Sassanid Iran. Possibly Turanian (Turkic) of origin, Kartir (or Kerdyr) can be held as main responsible for the execution of Mani and the persecution of Manicheans in Iran until the end of the Sassanid times. Long before the Arabs of Hejaz heard of the Mi’raj story (prophet Muhammad’s nocturnal, transcendental travel to the Temple Mount and thence to the Celestial Jerusalem), the Iranians learned about Kartir’s celestial journey in the Heaven. There is also another (parallel?) Middle Persian story about the celestial journey of the sublime initiate Arda Viraf in the Heaven; however, the Middle Persian manuscripts of Arda Wīraz namag seem to date back to the 9th c., although the entire narrative echoes Sassanid traditions. About: https://iranicaonline.org/articles/kartir / https://www.academia.edu/37850211/The_nature_of_spiritual_journeys_in_Zoroastrianism_based_on_Kartir_and_Arda_Viraf_trips

The Mithraic temple of Anahita at Bishapur near Kazerun

The heroic elements of the Sassanid times’ Mazdeism were preserved in the Iranian epics of Islamic times, thus leading to a very different form of Islam than what Muhammad preached in Mecca; Esfandiyar faces Simurgh. Without Iranian epics composed 300 years after the death of prophet Muhammad, one cannot possibly identify correctly the cultural-spiritual-intellectual-artistic-educational environment of Iranian, Turanian, Central Asiatic, Caucasus and Indian Muslim societies. In fact, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh became the second Quran for Ottoman sultans, Mughal emperors, Iranian shahs and Eurasiatic Muslims.

Gayomard (Keyumars) fighting evil spirits; a reminiscence of Gayomardism of the Sassanid times was preserved in the Iranian epics of Islamic times.

The execution of Mazdak, the preacher of the world’s first religion which evangelized a communist social structure without property, as represented in Islamic times’ miniatures of manuscripts

Representation of Zurvan, the all-consuming ‘god’ of time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mithraism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazdak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazdakism

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/gayomart-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyumars

viii- the Eastern Roman Orthodox Christians, who sided with the Patriarchate of Constantinople

As I already said, the few Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Orthodox Christian communities, settled in Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria and several other cities in North Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyrenaica, supported the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Constantinopolitan imperial administration, but they were largely outnumbered by the local Aramaean (in Asia) and Coptic (in Africa) populations (which rejected the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its local stooges). That is why the few Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Orthodox Christian communities were greatly loathed: they ultimately functioned as tools of the imperial oppression and persecution of all those who disagreed with the Constantinopolitan theologians.

These populations and their ecclesiastical authorities, namely the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its dependencies in the East, i.e. the three minor institutions at Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria that were unrepresentative (as they were accepted as ‘patriarchates’ only by the tiny local minority of the Greek-speaking populations of the respective cities), wanted to monopolize the term ‘Orthodox’, but this was merely their propaganda, against those whom they called ‘Monophysites’. It would be however wrong to imagine that there was concord within the sphere of influence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople; there was discord and division instead.

Caesarea of Cappadocia (Kayseri): the city walls erected by Justinian in the middle of 6th c. The early Islamic conquests were stopped in the Taurus and Anti-Taurus mountains beyond Cappadocia. The bulk of the Eastern Roman population was centered between Caesarea and Smyrna (Izmir) whereas Cappadocia was the holy land of Eastern Roman Christianity.

The rupestrian Cappadocian Art: one of Christianity’s most stupendous contributions to Art

Typical sample of rupestrian Cappadocian Art

The highland of Cappadocia where many hundreds of cells and churches have been built and hewn in the rock.

Caesarea: The basis of the Eastern Roman defense against the Islamic Caliphate for more than 400 years

The new theological-Christological dispute revolved around the ‘energy’ and the ‘will’ (thelesis) of Jesus, in the sense of whether they were one or two (human and divine) and, if two, what the relationship of the two energies or two wills was. As a matter of fact, it was the resurgence of the old dispute (about the ‘nature’ (physis) of Jesus), which had given birth to what we now call Miaphysitism/Monophysitism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoenergism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monothelitism

This new division concerned mainly vast populations living in the central provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, namely Anatolia (Turkey), Constantinople, the Balkan Peninsula, southern and eastern Italy, Sicily, and Carthage. The division had already reached the top of the imperial structure, as Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople were accused of Monoenergism and Monothelitism. And the fact that Heraclius got married with his niece Martina (as second wife) unleashed an abysmal hatred against him from the part of the uncompromising ‘Orthodox’ theologians, monks and priests, as they viewed the marriage as incestuous.

This, briefly presented, was the situation in which the two great empires, the Eastern Romans and the Sassanid Iranians, found themselves in the eve of the battles that ended with the loss of the eastern provinces of the former and the final dissolution of the latter. As I said in the last paragraph of the EXCURSE I: HISTORICAL FOCUS, there has to be an academic focus on interdisciplinary studies and research, which will certainly unveil many points and elements of common faith shared by Muslims and followers of other religions (notably Manicheans) or Christian denominations (notably Miaphysitic/Monophysitic and Nestorian). This will greatly impact our understanding of the Eastern Roman and the Iranian defeats, because it may reveal that these early battles (and the Battle of Yarmouk was only one) had been already won before they were fought; furthermore, it will also explain why the situation, which arose as a consequence of these battles, proved to be irreversible for many long centuries.

————————————————————- 

E. The demographic structure of the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Western Iranian provinces: the Aramaeans

No scholar examined in detail the demographic structure of the populations that inhabited the central territories of the early Caliphate outside Hejaz and Yemen. This has much to do with the above EXCURSE II: ETHNO-LINGUISTIC & RELIGIOUS FOCUS. A detailed demographic study covering the period 224-750 CE would reveal that the bulk of the Aramaean populations living in the Western Iranian provinces and in the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire were

1- ethnically different from the nations that ruled both empires (the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans and the Persians);

2- religiously opposed to the official imperial religions of both empires;

3- systematically persecuted and marginalized by both imperial administrations and armies;

4- detrimentally devastated by the incessant wars fought between the two empires, because the ordinary battlefield was precisely located in their own lands, namely the Western Iranian provinces and the eastern provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire (and consequently the bulk of the populations of the ruling nations, namely the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans and the Persians, was not significantly affected by these wars); and

5- linguistically very close to the Arabs of Hejaz, because in fact Arabic was a southern Syriac dialect and the Arabic writing derived from Syriac Aramaic.

Ctesiphon: the remaining part of the then world’s most magnificent palace. Taq-i Kisra (or Al Mada’in) was the Sassanid palace in Mesopotamia and the archway is the largest single-span vault of unreinforced brickwork in the world. One of the best samples of pre-Islamic Aramaean-Iranian Art.

In fact, Ctesiphon (Tesifun) in today’s central Iraq was an enormous agglomeration involving four cities; one of them, Seleucia, known as Mahoze in Aramaic, was the worldwide center of Nestorian Christianity.

The Great Mosque of Damascus is a masterpiece of Aramaean Art.

F. The central provinces of the Islamic Caliphates: the lands of the Aramaeans.

No scholar noticed that, in addition to the aforementioned points, for about five (5) centuries (661-1258), the central regions of the Islamic Caliphates (Umayyad or Abbasid) were exactly the lands of the Aramaeans. The first Islamic capital was at Madinah, but this was soon terminated, as the Umayyad dynasty was based in the Aramaean city par excellence: Damascus. The determinant impact of the Aramaean universities, academies, monasteries and scriptoria (notably those of Urhoy/Edessa, Nisibis/Nusaybin, Tur Abdin, Mahoze/Ctesiphon, and Kerkha/Kirkuk) on the formation of the Islamic educational, academic, intellectual and scientific life changed totally the backward, uncivil and primitive environment in which prophet Muhammad’s preaching was undertaken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Edessa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephrem_the_Syrian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abgarid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edessa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urfa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_Nisibis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusaybin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Gondishapur

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tur_Abdin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ctesiphon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mada%27in

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/ctesiphon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beth_Garma%C3%AF_(East_Syriac_ecclesiastical_province)

The Sassanid Empire of Iran in its greatest extent at 621 CE

Heraclius’ campaigns’ 611-628

This historical process and development made of the early Arab fighters, the so-called Sahaba, a marginal element that played almost no role in the History of Islamic Civilization. In other words, the Islamic Civilization in its early stage was clearly an Aramaean – Iranian civilization with significant Coptic, Yemenite and Jewish contributions; at a later stage, Berber, Turanian, African and Indus River Valley contributions to the Islamic civilizations have also been attested. However, there was never an ‘Arab civilization’ or -as per the French Orientalist forgers- “une civilisation arabo-musulmane”.

This automatically cancels the theoretical importance of the early Islamic conquests that are absurdly amplified and incommensurately over-magnified by both Western scholars and Islamic terrorists; in fact, the real winners were the inhabitants of the central regions of the Islamic Caliphates, i.e. the Aramaeans, who saw others fighting for their cause (to get rid of the double, Eastern Roman and Sassanid Iranian, yoke), for the transfer of the imperial capital into their land, and for the establishment of an imperial elite manned basically by them. In addition to the Aramaeans, the Persians and other Iranians and Turanians managed also to make their way into the new imperial administration. But prophet Muhammad had never spoken about an … ‘Islamic’ empire….

G. Lack of historical criticism in Islamic Studies and Interdisciplinary Studies

Taking all the aforementioned determinant parameters into account, reading the historical sources from the viewpoint of historical criticism, and viewing the historical facts in the light of the hitherto unevaluated critical factors, modern scholars can come up with a totally different interpretation/interrelation of sources and a dramatically contrasting reconstitution of the historical past, which would be diametrically opposed to the nonsense of military experts, who focus exclusively on battle techniques, and to the absurd and paranoid, pseudo-religious belief, as per which ‘god’ was involved in the events that took place in the 630s and 640s and shook the world between the Mediterranean, the Indus River valley, and Central Asia. Historical criticism of all sources relating to these events is indispensable and inevitable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism

Hadhrat Ali’s tomb in Najaf; Ali ibn abi Taleb (599-661) was designated as the first caliph, but after meeting fierce opposition, he was accepted as the fourth caliph. The early divisions of the small Muslim community after the death of Prophet Muhammad are an extra reason for historians to apply today extensive historical criticism and to reject the absolutely reconstructed and erroneous version of History.

The tomb of the 3rd imam Hussein ibn Ali (626-680) at Kerbala. The sons of Ali had to become caliphs in his stead. But the grandson of prophet Muhammad (Hussein) was slaughtered by the son of prophet Muhammad’s worst enemy (Mu’awiya ibn Abī Sufyan / Muawiyah son of Abu Sufyan). If this situation does not impose extensive historical criticism, this means that today’s fake academics receive orders from the powers that be as regards what to study, what not to explore, and how to investigate the topics of their research. Yet, what happened in Kerbala (680 CE) illuminates very well what occurred after the Hudaybiyah treaty when Abu Sufyan rushed to Palestine to meet Emperor Heraclius and deceive him.

III. The astounding scarcity of contemporaneous sources

The first serious difficulty that every modern historian faces, when dealing with the early Islamic conquests, is the extreme scarcity of contemporaneous historical sources. A recent and highly commendable scholarly publication, titled ‘Seeing Islam as Others saw it: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam’ (by prof. Robert G. Hoyland), enumerates ca. 140 different authors, manuscripts, texts or inscriptions (categorized as a. sources; b. apocalypses and visions; c. martyrologies; d. chronicles and histories; and e. apologies and disputations) that involve various narratives in Syriac Aramaic, Coptic, Greek, Armenian, Middle Persian, Christian Arabic, Jewish Aramaic, Latin and Chinese primary sources, which date back to the period between 620 and 780 CE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Islam_as_Others_Saw_It

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Hoyland

As it can be easily understood, most of the above mentioned texts were not written with the specific purpose to detail the battles and the events that took place in the area under study in the 630s and the 640s; consequently, their mention of facts and their references to episodes were rather brief, because the main scope of the narrative was other. The Eastern Roman chronicler and monk Theophanes the Confessor (758-817) presented the longest description of the events by an Eastern Roman author. His text is to be found in Medieval Greek and Latin translation: J. P. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca, cviii (vol.108, col.55-1009). But when Theophanes wrote his venerated Χρονογραφία (Chronographia), at least 150 years had passed after the Battle of Yarmouk was fought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophanes_the_Confessor

https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0700-0800__Theophanes_Abbas_Confessor__Chronographia_(CSHB_Classeni_Recensio)__GR.pdf.html

Click to access 0700-0800,_Theophanes_Abbas_Confessor,_Chronographia_(CSHB_Classeni_Recensio),_GR.pdf

Still this is fine if compared with the Muslim Arabic sources; the scarcity of 7th c. CE Islamic sources is spectacular. The Islamic sources of that period are much scarcer than the non-Islamic sources. Even worse, as the Arabs of Hejaz were not civilized and kept no historical records of their otherwise primitive and therefore dreary societies, a long formative period had to first pass, until -under clear Aramaean, Persian, Coptic and Jewish guidance- some rudiments of historiography be formed.

Most of the first, important historians of Islamic times were of non-Arab origin:

1- Muhammad ibn Ishaq (704-767) was the grandson of an Aramaean young boy held captive in a Christian monastery in Shetata (Ayn al Tamr) in Mesopotamia;

2- Al Waqidi (747-823) was the son of a Persian lady of noble ancestry whose family introduced letters, arts and music to uncivil and primitive Hejaz;

3- Tabari (or rather Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari/ محمد بن جرير الطبري; 839-923) was an Iranian born in the southern coastlands of the Caspian Sea (Tabaristan), a location to which he owes the name by which he became widely known. Tabari’s Chronography was not different from the Eastern Roman historiographical tradition, as he started his narrative from the Creation. Tabari accumulated an enormous, unprecedented documentation, and he mentioned explicitly his sources for each and every part of his colossal text (a recent, unilingual English translation needed 40 volumes of ca. 300 pages each to be published), making it unattractive to the non-specialists. But Tabari wrote no less than 230 years after the Battle of Yarmouk was fought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Ishaq

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Waqidi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Tabari

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Prophets_and_Kings

https://archive.org/details/HistoryAlTabari40Vol/History_Al-Tabari_10_Vol

The situation is even worse, when it comes to Islamic religious, theological, biographical, and hagiographical literature. The earlier manuscripts that survived down to our days date back to the 8th, 9th and 10th c., while few existing exceptions are in truly fragmentary condition and cannot be taken as ‘proofs’ properly speaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historiography_of_early_Islam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_historians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biographies_of_Muhammad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagiography#Islamic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith_manuscripts

An Overview of Ten Manuscripts of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī

On the Manuscripts of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: Discrepancies and Disappearance of the Original Copy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Quranic_manuscripts

The scarcity of the contemporaneous sources makes the interdisciplinary research imperative for the case of the early Islamic conquests and for the study of the first decades of caliphs’ rule. The contrast or the agreement between two different sources and the often divergent perspectives offered can help drastically stimulate the research orientation and push scholars toward hitherto unidentified areas, which may then grant a far better understanding of the historical facts than present-day clichés do. 

The Teaching of Jacob (Διδασκαλία Ἰακώβου/Didaskalia Iakobou; Doctrina Jacobi) is an example in this regard; preserved partially in Medieval Greek manuscripts and integrally in Latin, Arabic, Ge’ez and Slavonic translations, the text consists in a debate among Jews as regards their eventual conversion to Christianity. It seems to be dated back to 634 CE, and it provides some of the earlier references to the Islamic conquests. In fact, it contradicts all Islamic sources, because it describes prophet Muhammad (without naming him) as waging wars in Palestine. However, the brief excerpt that concerns these facts makes state of an alliance between Palestinian Jews and the Arab armies. On the other hand, those among the Palestinian Jews, who had converted to Christianity (or rather were forced to), saw in the person of the ‘warrior prophet’ the Antichrist and even expected the imminent return of the Christ, also regretting that it took them long to identify Jesus with the Biblical Messiah.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_of_Jacob

The Teaching of Jacob, Slavonic translation

The Syriac ‘Chronicle of 640’, written by Thomas the Presbyter, consists in a particular Christian Chronography down to the year 640 CE; the scribe, who copied the manuscript ca. 85 years later (724 CE), added an extra text containing the list of the Umayyad caliphs, who had reigned until that year. The Chronicle contains critical references to the early Islamic attacks and conquests, also stating that an enormous bloodshed followed the battle “between the Romans and the Tayyaye of Muhmd (the Arabs of Muhammad)”, which took place on 4th February 634 CE in Palestine, east of Gaza. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Presbyter

Two years later (636 CE), the Syriac ‘Chronicle of 640′ mentions explicitly the Sassanid Iranian debacle (without however naming the Battle of Qadissiyyah) and the subsequent arrival of the Islamic armies in NE Mesopotamia and notably Mardin (today in SE Turkey), which was the religious capital of the Tur Abdin Aramaean Miaphysitic/Monophysitic monasticism; these events also caused great bloodshed there. However, by dating these events in 636 CE {year 947, indiction 9, of the Seleucid Era (starting 312-311 BCE)}, the author makes it impossible for us to date the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, which is nowadays the tendency of several scholars who rather follow Theophanes’ text. On the contrary, Tabari makes it very clear that the Battle of Yarmouk occurred days after the death of Abu Bakr in August 634 CE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Qadisiyyah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Persia

https://www.academia.edu/40350196/The_Capture_of_Jerusalem_by_the_Muslims_in_634

https://c.worldmisc.com/read/when-was-the-battle-of-yarmouk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Yarmuk

https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/14273/20391

Another brief and fragmentary inscription written on a blank page of a 6th c. Syriac copy of the Gospel of Mark makes state of the failure of the Eastern Roman army to properly defend the eastern regions of the empire; the same expression is used in Syriac (Tayyaye of Muhmd), but the dating is arbitrary. The inscription may well have been written in the 630s, but we cannot specify when exactly. Modern scholars have the tendency to deliberately mistrust the historical authors in order to fabricate the version of historiography that pleases them, and that is why several specialists assumed that the inscription’s author mistook Gabitha for Yarmouk; the inscription mentions a battle between the Eastern Romans and the Muslims in Gabitha (Jabiyah, in Syria) and the modern scholars translate it as ‘Yarmouk’ (in Jordan). It would be however more interesting to focus on similarities and dissimilarities between Syriac and Arabic, because practically speaking the same noun (Gabitha, Jabiyah) ended up having two totally different meanings. If one applies Syriac reading to the Quranic text before vocalization, the surprises may be phenomenal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragment_on_the_Arab_Conquests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabiyah

http://www.allinjordan.com/index.php?cGc9Q2l0aWVzJmN1c3RvbWVyPUJhdHRsZStvZitZYXJtb3Vr

IV. Critical incidents during the Battle of Yarmouk

Tabari starts his narration of the events of the year 13 AH (634-635) with the Battle of Yarmouk; it expands on the illness and the subsequent death of Abu Bakr later. This cancels automatically the falsely reconstructed entry of the Wikipedia that dates the event back to 636 CE. Tabari’s two previous units are:

– Those who say Abu Bakr led the pilgrimage

– Those who say Umar led the pilgrimage

It is quite interesting that, in the introductory text for the events of the year 13 AH (before the description of the Battle of Yarmouk), Tabari states clearly that Abu Bakr, after his return from Mecca to Madina (when the hajj was completed), prepared the armies to be sent to Syria. Tabari narrates the developments, based on many different chains of earlier sources. There were many recruits of Yemen, because the Yemenites had recently accepted Islam (630 CE). So, even in these early battles, we cannot speak of ‘Arab armies’, but of Arab and Yemenite armies; the Yemenites are a Semitic nation, but as different from the Arabs as the Jews are from the Aramaeans, and pre-Islamic Yemenite languages and writings were very different from Arabic.

At this point, one has to point out that, before and after the death of prophet Muhammad (632), the early Islamic state in Hejaz, Yemen, Oman and the desert was in a tumultuous situation and incessant rebellions were exploding every now and then here and there, which means that the Islamic army units were in continuous readiness. However, despite this fact, the preparations for the dispatch of the army to the southern confines of Palestine and Syria, as narrated by Tabari, seem to have been rudimentary. In other words, I want to state that, for an event of so cataclysmic importance, the preparations were minimal.

This can only mean one thing: there were ongoing communications and coordination with Aramaeans based in Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia as regards a) attrition activities that they would possibly undertake against the Eastern Roman armies, b) defection of Aramaean soldiers from the Eastern Roman armies, and c) public opinion preparation for the forthcoming arrival of the Islamic armies and for the acceptance of the early Islamic faith (which was not what people think today that Islam is). And these developments (in Syria, and not in Hejaz) are exactly what made the difference, irrespective of the battle outcome. Otherwise, an early Islamic victory and invasion could be met with local population resistance and then the dispatch of another imperial army from Constantinople or Cappadocia would demolish once forever the initial state structure that the Arab and Yemenite armies may have imposed for a year or two in Damascus, Emessa (Homs), Caesarea Maritima, and Jerusalem.

Four separate armies were dispatched from Madina at the same time and each of them took a different road, but when they reached the region of Yarmouk River, they decided to unite, because the Eastern Romans outnumbered them. The same tactic was followed by the Eastern Romans. In some early skirmishes a Muslim force under Khālid ibn Saʿīd was defeated. Tabari states that the two armies encamped at a relatively close distance from one another without fighting for several months.

At that point, Tabari gives the date of Abu Bakr’s death, namely in the middle of the month Jumadah al Akhirah of the Islamic calendar (16 August 634), and specifies that the event took place “ten days before the victory (in the battle of Yarmouk River)”. It is noteworthy that prophet Muhammad’s worst enemy and late convert to Islam Abu Sufyan bin Harb accompanied the army and was appointed as the ‘preacher’ (qass). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q%C4%81%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%A3

During the description of the battle, Tabari mentions the arrival of the messenger from Madinah, namely the rider who announced the death of Abu Bakr only to Khalid bin Walid, the army leader, keeping it secret from all the fighters for obvious reasons. Tabari narrates also discussions that took place in intervals between Khalid bin Walid and George (Jurjah bin Budhiyah; also mentioned as Jarajis), one of the commanders of the Eastern Roman armies, who finally accepted Islam, performed a brief Islamic prayer (only two prostrations; rak’atayn), and then fought with the Muslims against the Eastern Roman army.

At another point, Tabari mentions an incident between Al-Ashtar (Malik bin al Harith al Nakha’iy, also known as Malik Al-Ashtar; a Yemenite origin Muslim) and ‘a man of the Romans’, who suggested a single combat with any Muslim fighter – a challenge that Al-Ashtar accepted. After the two combatants exchanged many blows, Al-Ashtar said to the ‘Roman’ opponent: “Take that, because I am a youngster from the Iyad tribe”! The ‘Roman’ fighter responded: “May God increase the number of people like you among my people; because, by God, if you were not of my people, I would have supported the Romans (meaning the Eastern Romans), but now I will not help them”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malik_al-Ashtar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyad_(tribe)

The hills around the Yarmouk river

Yarmouk River

Maps and diagrams about historical developments are useless, as they only offer information of one dimension; one grasps the reality as regards the Battle of Yarmouk only when understanding that the outright majority of the local Aramaean populations passionately desired and wished for an Eastern Roman defeat, expecting the Muslim warriors as liberators. This occurred not because these populations believed in the faith preached by prophet Muhammad, but due to their need to use the Muslim armies in order to get rid from the tyrannical Eastern Roman rule. This truth has been systematically obscured by Western historians who came up with cheap propaganda and empty rhetoric, in order to repeat the divisive clichés that are necessary to the criminal colonial regimes of the West.

Incidents like the aforementioned totally change the image that modern scholars have created as distortion of the historical reality. The Islamic army did not actually need to be numerous; the battlefront would not be the most critical location as regards the battle outcome. Even more so, because if the first battle had been lost, the second would have been victorious in any case!

V. The true dimensions of the Battle of Yarmouk and of its outcome

The linguistic affinity between Aramaeans and Arabs was such that we can easily infer that most of the Islamic fighters could easily communicate in the language of a sizeable part of the Eastern Roman army (the Aramaean soldiers recruited from the lands of today’s SE Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine). There is no doubt about the knowledge and use of Syriac Aramaic among Arabs, due to their long professional involvement across the frankincense and spice trade routes. Even more importantly, the well-documented diffusion of Christianity among the Arabs bears automatically witness to their great skills of Syriac Aramaic in terms of reading comprehension, listening comprehension, written composition, and usage. How close to prophet Muhammad may this situation have been? Extremely close!

The cousin of his first wife, a learned man named Warraqah (: lit. ‘paper’) ibn Nawfal was a Christian convert. The religiosity of those days was such that we can safely claim that Khadijah’s cousin was reading every day excerpts from the Peshitta (the Syriac Bible). To all those, who discuss issues pertaining to prophet Muhammad’s education, knowledge and familiarity with Christological disputes, although it is certain that Khadijah’s husband -in young age- traveled repeatedly to territories of the Eastern Roman Empire (where he may have had month-long discussions with monks, theologians and learned merchants), the easiest response would be:

– Already in Mecca, there were Peshitta copies of the Bible, in the small houses of prophet Muhammad’s relatives!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waraqah_ibn_Nawfal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshitta

Peshitta manuscripts with miniatures

Aramaean Art of the Book

Also many Aramaeans involved in the trade between Yemen and the Mediterranean could communicate in the provincial Hejaz dialect that we now call ‘Quranic Arabic’. Language issues are mentioned in the Quran, and not without reason. In fact, Arabic sounded like a rough and uncouth dialect to the Aramaeans of Damascus or Antioch, two great cities each of which had larger population than the totality of the (Hejaz and desert) Arabs. On the other hand, the lexicographical poverty of pre-Islamic Arabic, if compared to the treasure of Syriac Aramaic (which also contained loans from other languages), was viewed by the Hejaz Arabs as ‘linguistic purity’; this situation led them to the aberration that their dialect was more ‘ancient’ or more ‘original’, whereas in fact it was more ‘isolated’ and more arid than Syriac Aramaic. And this situation is reproduced nowadays when people, who are well versed in the Quranic text (which stays close to the pre-Islamic Arabic’s ‘purity’, although it is far more elaborate), try to read Ibn Sina’s Al-Isharat wa al-Tanbihat; they fail to grasp anything.

The religious-cultural similarity between the Arabs, who had just accepted prophet Muhammad’s preaching, and the Christian Aramaeans (either Nestorian or Miaphysitic/Monophysitic) was even more stupendous. Of course, when it comes to religion, tiny differentiations are known to have been reasons of terrible strives and wars, but in this case, there was a tremendously different issue. The Arabs had already rejected their idolatry and polytheistic concepts in order to adopt a faith that had a great number of common points with both, Nestorian and Miaphysitic / Monophysitic Christianity. In other words, they had made the first step in the direction of Miaphysitic/Monophysitic and Nestorian Christianity, and this was how the Christian Aramaeans viewed them; of course, to some Aramaean monks, the Arabs were perceived as heretic, but still this is far ‘better’ than just ‘heathens’.

The truly negative view of Islam was particular only to Constantinople and to Rome; but this detrimental judgment of Islam had basically imperial and material motives; in other words, Muhammad ‘was’ for the imperial ruling class the Antichrist, because his religious system was effective in seriously and irreversibly damaging their imperial posture, material benefits, and ecumenical appeal. Suddenly, the major challenges of 300 years of Christian imperial rule (namely Arius, Eutyches and Nestorius) that the Constantinopolitan theologians had managed to overcome appeared to be extremely weak and minor compared with the latest: Muhammad.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arius

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutyches

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorius

The difference was simple; the earlier challenges (namely Arius, Eutyches and Nestorius) emanated from within the Roman Empire, and the Constantinopolitan elite proved to be able to squelch them, oppressing and persecuting leaders and followers of the ‘heresies’. But Muhammad emanated from outside the Roman Empire. He early managed to secure an independent basis for his faith, and thence he attacked the Eastern Roman provinces that were inhabited by populations, which overwhelmingly rejected the Constantinopolitan doctrine; it was only normal for these populations to massively opt for the standard bearers of the new faith.

In fact, they perceived the arrival of the Muslim armies as liberation from the Roman – Constantinopolitan tyranny. The Anti-Muhammadan rhetoric of the Medieval Latin sources is merely an evil propaganda of the losers; the reality is simple: either they accepted Islam or remained Monophysitic, Nestorian, Gnostic or Manichaean, the Aramaeans, who constituted the quasi-totality of the local populations in Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and the southern coastland of the Persian Gulf, did not rebel against the rule of the Caliphate. And the Arab rulers accepted the importance of the lands of the Aramaeans, and that’s why they abandoned their marginal towns and sketchy villages in Hejaz and set up their capitals in the lands of the Aramaeans.

After all, this new doctrine appeared at the time as merely a new Christological dispute and heresy, and its followers were few and originated from lands that had never been historically important and which remained historically unimportant. But the loss for the theological elites of Constantinople and Rome was abysmal; in fact, pretty much like Constantinople was the New Rome, Damascus and Baghdad were meant to be the Final Rome. That is why Arius, Eutyches and Nestorius were never called ‘the Antichrist’, but prophet Muhammad was!

The Umayyad Mosque at Damascus: a masterpiece of Aramaean Art

Grand Mosque of Damascus: the spectacular mosaics in the arcade around the iwan reveal the splendor of the Aramaean Art.

At this point, I terminate the present, first article of the series; in a forthcoming article, I will reveal other critical points explicitly mentioned in the historical sources that modern Western scholars sulphurously disregard, conceal or misinterpret only to advance their historical forgery and intellectual fallacy; in this they are imitated and followed by the disreputable, ignorant and vicious, pseudo-Muslim sheikhs, imams, professors, muftis, qadis and preachers, who have been fabricated and put in place by the English and French colonials in full disruption of the Islamic historical continuity. Yet, these -widely unknown- points help us first achieve a deep and comprehensive understanding of the facts that took place in the 620s-630s and then get the real picture of the entire historical process without the smokescreen of today’s misplaced version of historiography.

In fact, what most people believe today as History of Islamic Conquests and Early Islamic History is entirely false. It is a fairy tale that turns a) most of the Westerners into absurd Muhammad-haters and Islam-deniers and b) most of the Muslims into useful-idiots and naïve believers of a pseudo-Islamic theological doctrine that has nothing in common with the religion preached by prophet Muhammad and ever since advocated by hadhrat Ali and his descendants. It is not a matter of Westerners accepting Islam and Muslims accepting Christianity as faith, but as historical process. Islam was not preached by prophet Muhammad in order to be imposed worldwide. That’s why both groups need to first interpret Emperor Heraclius’ evident reluctance to fight against the Islamic armies. This was the only man in the world who, before meeting with prophet Muhammad’s personal envoy Dahyah al Kalbi, encountered his worst enemy.

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Secular Education, Oriental Empires, Cultural Nations, Spirituality, Religion & Theology down to Renaissance – Part I

The present article consists in a brief outlook of the nature of the diverse educational systems either in the rising and falling imperial realms or in the chaotic and worthless republics that lack sanctity, legitimacy, and humanity. Here you will find its first part.

I. Education, Social Unity, and Transcendence in the Ancient Oriental Empires

In ancient times, Education was at the hands of the spiritual-sacerdotal-imperial savants and the instructors did their ingenious best to educate their pupils by making them fully aware of the Laws of the spiritual and the material universes, which were also reflected in the average culture of all the inhabitants of the ideal, paradisiacal empire that mirrored the celestial world on the surface of the Earth. There was absolutely no disconnection between the educated and the uneducated, because the latter comprehended in general -via mythical, cultural, education- what the former mastered in detail through systematic scientific exploration, archiving and education.

This was how the emerged great kingdoms and formidable empires were structured in Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria-Babylonia, Hurrians, and Elam), Kemet (Egypt), Hittite Anatolia, Cush (Ancient Sudan), Phoenicia-Carthage, Iran and Turan, China, and Indus Valley and the Deccan. There was Unity in Education, as all the people understood the supreme language of the Myth and the Symbols that exist between the spiritual and the material universes, and as a consequence, they all had the same world view, the same spirituality and culture, and the same moral standards, which defined the sanctity of their empire.

Tuthmose III of Egypt

Hattusili III of Hittite Anatolia

Tiglathpileser III of Assyria

Nabuna’id of Babylonia

Darius I of Achaemenid Iran

II. Lack of Sacerdotal and Imperial Authority in the Low Educational Systems of the Ancient Greek and Roman Barbarians

Ancient Greece and Rome, as small, divided and unsophisticated local societies, were ignorant, barbaric and marginal lands as regards the Ancient Oriental empires; there was no spirituality, no imperial tradition, no sacerdotal scholarship, and no unity of Education. There was division in society, disunity among the various tribes, and clash among the various philosophers who were educated not locally but in the great temples of Egypt, Phoenicia, Babylonia, and Iran. Ancient Greek religion was a petty version, a miserable imitation, and a pale reflection of the Ancient Oriental religions.

There was no transcendence, no contemplation, no meditation, and no sanctity in Ancient Greece; the gods of the Ancient Greeks were mere human projections onto the spiritual world, and as such they were inferior to the aspects of the Divine World, which formed the fundamental truths of the archetypal Oriental myths. Lacking spiritual authority, scientific knowledge, and moral wisdom, the Ancient Greeks became mere ‘friends of the wisdom’, which is the real meaning of the Ancient Greek word ‘philosopher’. In their otherwise worthless education, they replaced the transcendental truth with useless verbosity, the mythical symbolism with puerile anthropomorphism, the sacrosanct theatrical events with their debased public theater, and the Imperial Paradise with their Civil War.

Pericles of Athens

Julius Caesar of Rome

Cicero

III. Education and Culture in Imperial Rome: Result of an Overwhelming Orientalization

Rome became an Empire very late, and achieved a level of Orientalization too late. As a matter of fact, there was no unity in education, and consequently, there was a total disconnection between the educated and the uneducated. This is said with respect to the Romans themselves, the citizens of Rome during the times of the Res Publica (‘Republic’: 510-27 BCE). This phenomenon was the result of the formation of an elite/elitist class with increased focus on material interests, lower degree of piety, and total lack of imperial world view and tradition.

When people deliberate in public, the focus is shifted away from spirituality, moral standards, and culture to petty personal interests and elite privileges. Then, few representatives can take decisions on common issues, discord and disunity appear only to prevail across the society, while social class divisions become the reason of endless strife; the ensuing social stratification destroys or prevents unity in culture and education.

This situation became very ostensible in the early Roman imperial times, when the elite continued living influenced by the Ancient Greek social lifestyle, involving theater, philosophy, and public debates (as the Senatus had still some power), but the Romans, i.e. the average people in their outright majority, had already accepted different Oriental cults, mysteries, religions, schools of spirituality, oracles, mythical symbolisms, and dogmas of cosmogony, cosmology, apocalyptic eschatology and soteriology.

It was only normal for the old republican traditions and the useless public debates to be soon swept away by the mysteries of Mithras, Zurvan-Saturn, Isis, Horus, Osiris, Sarapis, Anubis, Sabazios, Elagabalus, Cybele, Attis, and other Oriental cults and mystical systems (Chaldeanism, Ostanism, Gnosticisms, Hermetism) to which almost all the Romans gradually adhered, abandoning their impotent ancestral divinities and seeking salvation in the dogmas of the Chaldean Aramaeans, the Egyptians, the Cushites, the Anatolians, and the Iranians.

Romans abandoned the nonsense of the political discourses, and started carrying about the mysteries of Isis, an Egyptian mythical symbol and central figure of the Ancient Egyptian Heliopolitan eschatology and soteriology.

The Coffin of Osiris was understood by the Ancient Romans as far more important (as element of contemplation and meditation) than the trivial, material debates of the Senatus. Salvation could never be offered in the useless sphere of politics, but it could be achieved within the circle of Isiac initiates.

Mithras could save a soul – but the useless politicians of Rome could not. That’s why the Ancient Greeks and Romans disregarded the nonsensical theories of the ignorant pseudo-philosopher Aristotle and abandoned the public debates of their worthless republics in order to seek salvation in the mysteries of Mithras.

The fact that Ancient Greece and Rome were flooded by Oriental religions, cults, schools of spirituality and mysticism proves the inferiority of these ancient cities-states and the primitivism of these nations vis-à-vis the Ancient Oriental civilizations.

Zervan, the Iranian god of Time, identified by the Romans of the imperial times with Saturn.

Elagabalus: the Roman Emperor who before his coronation was the high priest of the Aramaean god Elagabal, a solar divinity and hypostasis of Mithra.

There was a major difference between Trajan’s Rome from one side and from the other side Darius I the Great’s Iran, Sargon II’s Assyria, Thutmose III’s Egypt, Mursilis I’s Hittite Anatolia, Hammurapi’s Babylonia, Urukagina’s Sumer (Lagash and Girsu), and Sargon I’s Akkad: different cultural and educational systems existed across the Roman Empire at the time of its greatest expansion. I don’t mean this in terms of regional differentiation in culture and education among the various nations that lived in Anatolia, Egypt, Carthage, Numidia, Gaul and other provinces. I refer to the still existing differentiation between Roman elite culture, world view, and education from one side and from the other side the popular culture, world view, and education across the empire.

However, it was only a matter of time, and finally, the culture, the world view, and the education of the average people prevailed; they were finally imposed on the Roman elite; during the 3rd c. CE, Rome looked very much like an Oriental Empire, as the path from barbarism to civilization had been crossed. It was the time when a Roman Emperor named after the Aramaean god Elagabalus ruled the vast empire. Little time afterwards, Mithra, an Iranian god, became the supreme god of the -thus markedly Iranized- Roman Empire, as Sol Invictus.

IV. Christian Roman Empire: Doctrinal Culture for all and Doctrinal Education for few

In fact, the Christianization of the Roman Empire constituted only the last layer of its Orientalization. Divided along Christological doctrines, the Christian Roman Empire reflected Oriental empires in times of division; it looked like Egypt at the times of Akhenaten, Mesopotamia (Assyria and Babylonia) at the times of Sennacherib or Iran at the times of Cambyses. Due to the juxtaposition and the polarization around the nature and the qualities of Jesus, Christianity produced an enormous amount of theological treatises, endeavors and concerns; compared to the Ancient Oriental religions, the official version of Christianity, as practiced in the Eastern Roman Empire, looked like a merely theological system – not a ‘religion’.

Gradually but steadily, spirituality turned out to become an absurdity, ‘miracles’ became simply a matter of narrative and not of demonstration, belief was reduced to mere acceptance of doctrines interpreting the sacred texts, and people were kept far from education. It was a time of indoctrination and doctrinal culture. There was indeed unity in culture and education, pretty much like in the Ancient Oriental empires, but it hinged on theological doctrine, because official Christianity was not a religion preached by Jesus. All the same, New Rome (Nova Roma) at the times of Justinian I (527-565) looked far closer to Xerxes’ Persepolis, to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, to Esarhaddon’s Assyria, and to Ramses III’s Thebes of Egypt than to Caesar’s Rome.

Early Christian Roman Art is full of Ancient Egyptian and Iranian symbols

Early Christian Roman Art is an Oriental Art.

Justinian I represented in the mosaic of San Vitale in Ravenna

V. Islamic Civilization: an entirely non-Arab Phenomenon

When prophet Muhammad preached Islam among an uneducated, uncultured, barbaric, and marginal tribe, namely the Arabs of Hejaz, he raised the stakes exponentially. Suffice it that you read the (written by an anonymous Alexandrian Egyptian captain and merchant of the middle of the 1st c. CE) “Periplus of the Red (or Erythraean) Sea” (par. 20) and you understand how all the civilized nations of the wider region viewed the Arabs of Hejaz. With the acceptance of Islam by the Ancient Yemenites, who were a Semitic nation totally different from and unrelated to the Arabs of Hejaz, already two years before the death of prophet Muhammad (630 CE), an important change occurred: the majority of the followers of Islam were non-Arabs.

With the early Islamic invasions, many Aramaeans of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine, many nations of the Sassanid Iranian Empire, many Copts (Egyptians), and many Berbers (from Libya and the African Atlas) accepted Islam, dramatically intensifying the fact that the Arabs constituted a minimal and unimportant part among the Muslims of the Omayyad and the Abbasid Caliphates. This generated a new socio-cultural environment from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of China and the middle of the Subcontinent.

VI. Islamic Caliphate: Aramaean & Iranian Education, Sciences, Art, Culture, Intellectual life, and Spirituality under Arab rulers

The Islamic Civilization is an entirely non-Arab phenomenon, as it basically consists in an Aramaean & Iranian civilization with greatly diversified local traits. Within 150 years, after prophet Muhammad’s death, Aramaeans of Mesopotamia and Syria and Iranians transferred the corpus of the scientific, academic, intellectual, artistic and educational genius of the Sassanid Empire of Iran within the Islamic Caliphate.

In fact, Arabic is an Aramaean dialect written with Syriac Aramaic characters slightly deformed as cursive writing; without vocalization, almost the entire Quran can be read in Aramaic. So, Aramaeans (liberated from the yoke of the Eastern Roman Empire and unrestrained from the Constantinopolitan theological doctrine) and Iranian Mazdeists learned and used Arabic for the aforementioned purpose. In fact, the great Aramaean centers of learning, libraries and theological schools of Edessa of Osrhoene (Urfa), Nisibis (Nusaybin), Antioch (Antakya) and Seleucia-Ctesiphon (Al Mada’in) and the famous Sassanid Iranian imperial academy, university, research center, library and museum of Gundishapur, which was the world’s greatest center of learning and wisdom of the 6th c., were merged and continued in the legendary Bayt al Hikmah in Baghdad.

Aramaic Art on the walls of the Great Mosque of Damascus

Early Islamic Art is typically Aramaean.

The Great Mosque of Damascus: a masterpiece of Aramaean Art

At the beginning, Islam appeared to be one more Christological heresy, eventually a more acute form of Nestorianism. With Late Antiquity Gnostics accepting Islam, it is not bizarre why Fathers of the Christian Church, like John Damascenus, a leading Aramaean scholar, poet, and theologian from Damascus, viewed Islam as a counterfeit version of Christianity. On the other hand, this fact explains fully why the Islamic Civilization was always (until its end in 1580) the realm of Learning and Education.

John Damascenus, an Aramaean scholar and monk, Father of the Christian Church, and personal acquaintance of the Omayyad caliphs of Damascus

This fact has little to do with Quranic verses; it is mainly due to the constituent elements of the early Islamic society. When schools of faith and science, like that of the sagacious Ikhwan al-Safa (إخوان‌ الصفا) created the dynamics they did, thanks to their mystical-intellectual endeavors, scientific explorations, and educational system, it would be impossible for the Islamic Civilization not to be at the antipodes of the Christian world: a domain of Learning.

VII. Islamic Spirituality, Religion and Culture vs. Governance and Theology

As spirituality was initially limited in the circle of the descendants (Ahl al Bayt) of prophet Muhammad, notably Ali ibn abi Taleb (who was the son-in law of prophet Muhammad and the prominent figure of the Ahl al Bayt), but governance was at the hands of the enemies of Ali ibn abi Taleb, a very strange situation arose. In the deeply and irreversibly divided (Omayyad and Abbasid) caliphate, education was soon controlled by the Aramaeans and the Iranians, whereas the military started being increasingly dominated by the incoming Turanian soldiers; at the same time, spirituality and religious orthodoxy and orthopraxy remained the exclusive domain of Ahl al Bayt, notably Ja’far al-Sadiq.

The caliphs wanted to justify their unjust and illegitimate rule, while various learners and pundits decided to make distinguished careers by justifying the unjustifiable; they were therefore hired by the caliphs and appointed as religious authorities in order to ‘explain’ as ‘Islamic’ the un-Islamic or anti-Islamic deeds of those caliphs. This attitude constituted an enormous schism between the spiritual endeavors of the early Islamic community and the religious practices of the disbelieving and unfaithful rulers, thus opening the path for a fake religion adapted to immoral, illegal and evil governance. This situation was utterly rejected by many spiritual mystics and erudite Muslims, and the ensuing polarization triggered an enormous literature of jurisprudential and theological contents. So, soon Islam started being turned from a religion to a theology.

VIII. The Secular Nature of the Islamic Society, Education, Culture and Civilization

Islam preaches a secular society, and for many hundreds of years the Islamic caliphates, sultanates, khanates and emirates were prominently secular of nature. The secular nature of Islamic education, spiritual and material research, literature, sciences, intellectual life, artistic inventiveness, and mysticism is underscored by the burgeoning character of the early Islamic society in which -for many long centuries- there was absolutely no ‘sunnah’ in the way this word is used nowadays by the ignorant ‘sheikhs’ and the uneducated ‘imams’ of Madinah, Istanbul, Mekkah, Al-Azhar, Qum, etc.

The fact that “there is no compulsion in religion” (Quran, chapter al-Baqara, verse 256) implied that Shariah law was not compulsory. Actually, there was no Shariah (in the sense this word is meant now) at all in the beginning, for the very simple reason that the historical prerequisite for Shariah is a school of Islamic jurisprudence. The Divine Law demanded from humans a ‘deep understanding’ (fiqh) of the Quran and the Hadith, and this is the real word for Islamic Law even today (as concept); to implement the Divine Law in the human society, the various jurisprudential schools accepted four sources: the Quran, the Hadith (prophet Muhammad’s sermons), qiyas (analogical reasoning),and ijma (juridical consensus). This automatically terminated Islam as religion, turning it to a theology.

The secular nature of the education in the Islamic caliphates and other kingdoms was the result of the well-diversified nature of the Islamic society, which incorporated many different cultures. Prophet Muhammad’s preaching was accepted differently in various locations in Asia, Africa and Europe, as it incorporated numerous diverse local cultures and traditions; this phenomenon generated a multitude of forms of worship, schools of spirituality and mystical tradition, and perceptions of (and approaches to) the spiritual and the material worlds, which were -all- called ‘Islamic’.

Islamic science of the Abbasid times

Abbasid court

Abbasid dynasty

Bayt al Hikmah

Abbasid medicine

Ahmad ibn Musa ibn Shakir: design of a self trimming lamp

Kalila wa Dimna: an Iranian story as foundation of the Islamic Culture

This dynamic spiritual, academic, intellectual, educational, socio-behavioral, and cultural process created an unprecedentedly decentralized phenomenon of faith, life, art, intellect and genius. It was the total opposite of the very centralized Christian churches, societies, states and educational systems. In fact, Islamic education, science and intellectual life reduced Islamic theology to small and marginal circles of dogmatic and indoctrinated imams, who could not impact the advance of Islamic Civilization and sciences.

Basically, Islamic education and culture were characterized by cohesion at the local level, only when viewed independently in the different parts of the Islamic world. However, in reality, an unprecedentedly wide number of different cults, positions, practices and beliefs could effectively be labeled ‘Islamic’, because for someone to be accepted as Muslim it is actually enough to confess that there is no god except God and that Muhammad is the messenger of God (which is the Shahada, i.e. the testimony, of faith / La ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah – لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله). Islamic education revolved around the basics of the religion, before orienting students toward the two main directions: spirituality and science.

IX. Islamic Education divided between Spirituality/Sciences/Arts and Theology  

The only reactionary group of theologians, who wanted to limit education to the sphere of a dark, pseudo-Islamic theology, was the pseudo-school (madhhab) of Ahmed ibn Hanbal. However, this did not influence anyone and either in his days (mainly 9th c. CE) or later, it was not accepted as proper school of jurisprudence, but as a type of barbaric and ignorant heretics (Ahmed ibn Hanbal was also imprisoned). Notably, ibn Hanbal was rejected by Tabari, the Islamic world’s greatest historian and most erudite scholar of those days.

Only after the Crusades and due to the devastating impact that they had on the Muslims of the Eastern Mediterranean, a backward theological system demanded the end of Islamic sciences, the subordination of spirituality, genius and intellect to the villainous theological doctrine that these ignorant and idiotic people considered as ‘Islam’. This theological system is the baseless and anti-Islamic teaching of Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah, who was viewed as a heretic during his time and he was also imprisoned as impostor. His nonsensical theories ostensibly constitute a form of Christianization of Islam.

Ferdowsi: the greatest Islamic poet, intellectual and spiritual authority of all times

A page from Ferdowsi’s epic poem Shahnameh (Book of the Kings), from the copy created and majestically decorated with miniatures for Prince Baysunqur, the grandson of Timur (Tamerlane)

Mohyieldin ibn Arabi: the greatest Islamic mystic, philosopher and transcendental author of all times

The supreme opus of transcendental wisdom of all times: Mohyieldin ibn Arabi’s Al Futuhat al Makkiyah, the Meccan Illuminations

Nasir el din al Tusi: the greatest Islamic scholar, mathematician, founder of Observatory, and astronomer of all times

One page from Nasir el din al Tusi’s Zij-i ilkhani (زیجِ ایلخانی), i.e. the Ilkhanid astronomical table of stars

Timur (Tamerlane): the greatest Islamic Emperor of all times

Timur’s tomb in Samarqand

Timur’s modern statue in Tashkent

With the progression, the diffusion and the prevalence of this pathetic system, an enormous damage was caused to the Islamic Civilization; due to the erroneous education, which was impregnated by the evilness of Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah’s ideas, the Islamic sciences started being abandoned, the Islamic arts were disregarded or reduced to basic and meaningless forms, and the Islamic intellectual life was disintegrated. Even worse, Islamic spirituality was slandered as ‘black magic’, Islamic wisdom was obliterated and forgotten, and Islamic education was decreased to the level needed for imbeciles, who could not anymore comprehend the Quran in the way Muslims were able to understand their holy book two centuries earlier.

X. The divide between Islamic Spirituality/Sciences/Arts and pseudo-Islamic Theology disfigured as Shia vs. Sunni Schism

The reason for this development is the fact that Ahmed ibn Taymiyyah, following the line of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, preached that for Muslims’ education only theology mattered. This evil impostor generated a terrible divide between Islamic spirituality and theology, which lasted down to our days, but was mistakenly and viciously known as difference between ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’. However, this is an evil colonial lie and an Orientalist falsehood imposed on the colonial slaves of France, England and America, namely the ignorant sheikhs and pathetic imams of Islam.

In fact, there was never a historical division between ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’ throughout the History of Islam. The fake divide is an entirely modern, colonial fabrication, which was constructed, when ignorant and idiotic sheikhs, following the remote guidance and the evil orders of their Western masters, started presenting themselves as self-styled ‘Sunnis’. Western forgers and ignorant imams may today describe a historical war, let’s say the battle of Chaldiran (1514) between the Ottomans and the Safavid Iranians, as a fight between ‘Shia’ and ‘Sunni’, but this is entirely false.

Ottoman army

Selim I

Selim I: a great soldier, a poor strategist, and a naïve pupil of evil pseudo-Islamic theologians

The Battle of Chaldiran (1514)

Shah Isma’il Safavi, founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran that Western colonials distortedly called ‘Persia’

Isma’il Safavi, painting by the illustrious 16th c. Italian artist Cristofano dell’Altissimo (whose works are exposed at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence)

Neither Selim I nor Ismail Safavi, the Ottoman sultan and the Iranian shah, who exchanged written insults before the battle, called one another ‘Sunni’ and ‘Shia’. Neither was their difference a theological dispute. In reality, Selim I caused a terrible bloodshed (squelching the Shahqulu/Şahkulu movement) in order to impose a theological dogmatic tyranny in his pseudo-Islamic Ottoman realm, whereas Ismail Safavi established in Iran a secular education that allowed people to free pursue any walk of intellectual life that they wished, either in spirituality or in sciences, thus eliminating the tyranny of theological ignorance. The fact that these events are not portrayed in this manner in today’s educational systems of Turkey and Iran only shows how mistaken, misguided and self-disastrous these systems are. Of course, this is also true for the educational systems of all the other Muslim countries.

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About the Islamic Veil and the related False Dilemma & World Deception

From my last year’s correspondence with a London-based African Muslim Lady

 

Parts

I – About today’s Fake World

II – About today’s Prevailing Materialism and Total Lack of Spirituality

III – About the Global, Full, Deception

IV – About the Islamic Veil (Hejab)

V – About today’s desecrated, fake mosques

VI – Reminiscences from the war front between Iran and Iraq

 

Dear XXXX,

This letter will displease you – greatly! 

You may even consider me as a brutal and heartless person; and perhaps I am to some extent.

But if don’t tell you what I intend to, I will certainly be held as liar by God.

So, I definitely prefer that you view me as a heartless and brutal person than Allah holds me responsible for deliberately concealing reality and truth from you. 

The critical part comes at the end, but before that I will answer to your email.

Воскресенье, 10 апреля 2016, 22:03 +02:00 от xxxxxxx

 

Dear Prof S

 

Your Somali friend is right about it being on social media. It was sent bymy sibling who was sent the video (not link) via Facebook.

 

I – About today’s Fake World

 

I am afraid that, in a society mainly characterized by an extraordinary imposition of total deception and delusion, you have to be extremely attentive in order to avoid falling into the numerous traps that Freemasons and Zionists incessantly set up for the rest of the world and for one another – so, some of these traps are very sophisticated, because they are addressed against people who know the reality of the world 1000000 times better than you and others do.  

There is another show discussing this issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIhTtbqkMNM

My goodness! This is a YT channel that does not show the number of its subscribers – probably because they are few. If you even check the views received on all of the channel’s views, you realize that they are between 2 and 3 million – only! This is next to nothing in the world of YT.

 

To give you an idea, my friend, who uploads many of many articles as videos (www.youtube.com/user/peiraiotis56) is a single person, not an entire community, and he is at the level of 5.3 million!

So, when you have this sort of YT channels set up by communities of Somalis, Oromos, Baluch, and any other, you have corruption. If someone pays US$ 50000 to any of them, asking for intriguing compromises that will not be easily discerned by many, they will cash the filthy, cursed money immediately.

Do not be criminally naive to believe that others are as good as you are or that they have a label “crook” on their front.

You only daydream and you do so self-calamitously, if you think that people, who suffered, lost their property, saw their relatives dead, and were persecuted, have still the strength to say ‘no’ to some little money, which is enough to buy them and thus turn them from ‘good’ to ‘evil’ – particularly if they live in the West and specifically in the US, the world’s most execrable materialistic tyranny.

The outright majority of all the Somalis, the Oromos, the Ogadenis and all the rest are bought up in profane manner and very often without them even understanding it. Things happen at times in a very subtle and concealed manner; the bribe is not always addressed to the concerned person but to wives, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends or associates. They do the rest of the job. So, to imagine that there is a difference in evilness between George Soros and one of the aforementioned is either a tragic mistake or mental self-amputation. 

 

Unfortunately, the Somalis love to view political speeches of worthless people than look into real issues.

No, this is common to all. In a so-called ‘global’ society (the term is very fallacious by the way), all are affected. Except the privileged few who have the courage to incessantly and indiscriminately reject whatever comes from today’s world.

And this is the cataclysmic difference:
– any Somali in Minnesota belongs to ‘today’s world’, and
– any Somali in a remote village in Somalia, a person whose house has no electricity and whose family has no money, does NOT belong to ‘today’s world’ – but most probably he/she does not understand this reality, because to him/her ‘today’s world’ is virtually unknown.

I have attached the translation.

Thank you for your effort! 

Estakhfor Allah! You are an adult! You could understand the language; there are explicit indications of forgery. I will reveal them separately. You could understand them. 

You are right worse things are happening. My sister in law told me of poor people in Egypt who are taken off the street and falsely treated well (e.g. given bath, new clothes etc. and then taken somewhere to be harvested for their organs). Of course, we have also discussed the atrocities carried out by the Freemasons.

Yes, but I see that this was not enough.

 

II – About today’s Prevailing Materialism and Total Lack of Spirituality

The Somali community knows about this issue, since it has been discussed and rumored for many years. I think I mentioned a friend of my father who is now an old man, who finally disclosed to my father that on his voyage to the UK women were raped in front of him in Libya and he could do nothing. This was at the time of Qaddafi – imagine it must be 200% worse now.

With this and with all the aforementioned, you still fail to understand what the truly “worse things” (that have been and are still being carried out in this world) are.

As a matter of fact, your thought, mind, reactions, mindset, and attitude reveal – quite unfortunately – a consummate materialist whose concerns are limited within the material realm and focused on whether this person was unjustly slaughtered, the other person was secretively raped, the third person was illegally sold as slave, and another person was gravely injured and thus submitted to extreme (material) pain.

In whatever comes to your mind, there is nothing called ‘soul’, nothing related to the Spiritual Universe, nothing pertaining to the origin and the center of our existence – the Spiritual Order. Any person, who proceeds in your manner, successfully manages to keep him/herself far from the real essence of the problem; then, magnifying secondary aspects, that person fails to understand the origin of the problem and thus automatically becomes part of the problem. This tells me that, when the problem will be resolved, this person will vanish in the eternal fire that transforms the Being into the Non-being.

The foremost atrocity undertaken against the Mankind of our times is the disconnection of the material part of every human (i.e. the body and the mind) from his/her spiritual part, e.g. a tragic event due to which the complete fall of the mankind has been achieved in a way that today we are able to identify it with textual references to the world of Al Yom al Ahar (the End Times).

The persons, who were raped, tortured, amputated, killed and dishonored in any sense, had already been spiritually dead; before their exposure to the atrocities that so much fascinate you, they had been disconnected from their souls, they knew nothing about what their soul is, where it is, how it feels, what it does or can do, how they can reconnect with it, by what other spiritual beings their souls are surrounded, impacted, helped or endangered, what our destination in life is, to what extent our tasks and responsibilities hinge on our souls and on our re-connection with them, what other spiritual beings exist in the Spiritual Universe, how they are manifested in the material world, and – above all (which is what the filthy Satanic sheikhs of today’s cursed pseudo-Islam ignore) – what the price of our disconnection from our souls is.

This atrocity is zillions of times worse than the materialistic pictures and videos that you have provided me with and also zillions of times worse than your narratives about the execrable lives of unfortunate women, who happened to be relatives of any type to pseudo-Muslims whose character happens to be more barbaric than that of the wildest pig.

Not only the atrocity of the spiritual disconnection of the men is worse, more critical, more tragic, and more ominous than all the material atrocities of all times counted together, but it is the reason for them. In fact, it is the only real and irrevocable death of the humans. What you think as death, i.e. the separation of the soul from the body, is not death.

That’s why today’s soldiers fail to fight like the illustrious fighters who followed the Greatest African of the 19th and the 20th centuries, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan.

– Oh, if I were lucky enough to ride a horse, run behind him, and get engaged in one of his battles, even for only one minute, I would not need to live anymore in this world!

That’s why today’s politicians and statesmen fail to get the slightest portion of the magistrates and the officers who followed the Most Illustrious African of all times, Emperor Ahmed ibn Ibrahim in his epic battles against the Satanic Abyssinian cholera. No one can achieve today to emit from his face the light that dispersed the incestuous and evil Amhara and brought the armies of Somalia up to the sources of the Nile. Those were the fighters, who fearlessly crossed the most abominable and cursed part of the surface of the Earth, an arid and mountainous land that afflicts with evilness anyone who happens to cross or live in it – a territory that Allah will eliminate soon from the surface of the Earth and will return it to its place, i.e. the Nether World.

– Oh, if I were lucky enough to ride a horse, run behind him, and get engaged in one of his battles, even for only one second, this would be the greatest favor I can ask God.

Your thoughts, concerns and endeavors, as long as they are materialistic of purpose, have unfortunately only one result: they turn you into a part of the problem – a morally conscious part of the problem, but still part of the problem.

Yours is also a grave ignorance of the History of the Mankind. Similar situations (with the atrocities attested in the documents that you sent me) existed in many places and most of the times. Freemasons, Jesuits and Zionists used – for a period covering many millennia – to customarily kill children, women and men in ritualistic ceremonies offered in honor of fake deities that were all personifications of Satan.

Useless to add that they also used the organs of their victims and sacrifices in their ritualistic ceremonies! Only today’s ignorance and barbarism drives people into total darkness; an Ancient Egyptian and an Ancient Somali before 3500 years knew very well the different types of use – either blessed and positive or cursed and negative – that each organ of the human body can have. Similar details are abundant in the supreme texts of the Golden Era of Islam.

 

These texts are far more important than the currently useless Quran and the presently worthless Hadith that you cannot understand – except in the light of the texts that I insinuate and which you never read, because you don’t know. Yet, these texts are unknown to the uneducated, illiterate, trashy sheikhs and imams of today’s Islam. So barbaric, idiotic and pathetic they are that, if they come to know about these texts, they will immediately attempt to discredit them, because they will feel the danger that these leading texts of Supreme Human Wisdom herald a) their most demanded death and b) the disastrous end of today’s religious prostitution that is called ‘Islam’.

Only today’s worthless Mankind that cares about football, dance, night life, cars, races, sports in stadiums, free time in malls, sex, porno-videos, cinemas, expensive clothes, electrical appliances, luxurious properties, advanced technology in gadgets and mobiles, lavish vacations, etc. does not know that in Ancient Egypt, when they carried out the mummification process – and this was the matter for every deceased person -, they removed the organs, they did not throw them away, but separately placed them inside differently prepared vases that are called by today’s Egyptologists canopic vases.

Read now this basic reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopic_jar

Look at what the Ancient Egyptians (and the Ancient Sudanese – and I have reason to believe that also the Ancient Somalis) did, while scrupulously working to complete a mummification process! In fact, the human body is the Supreme Architecture delivered by Allah. In and by itself, it constitutes a miniature of the Universe.

Of course, if one is stupid enough (like most of today’s fake Muslims) to believe that Einstein was an intelligent and well-educated professor (and not a vicious gangster, a repugnant criminal, and a filthy, profane liar aiming at besotting you personally and everyone else as well) or to think that the Earth is a Globe that revolves around the Sun, one will never achieve to get a small portion of the magnificence of the Ancient Intellect, which was far closer to the Eternal Truth than the decayed world in which you find yourself.

 

The article that your friend sent is also very revealing of the dire situation of all illegal African immigrants. It is ridiculous that they escape to Europe when the wealth of the world is dependent on the natural resources of Africa which has every precious gem and material on earth.

Very right indeed! I am glad to notice that you identified this critical point. It is quite telling.

 

III – About the Global, Full, Deception

You know I have nieces, and the video really upset me since under different circumstances that could easily have been us which reminds us of our responsibility to end this practice. 

 

Of course, we are human and feel sorrow for those who have been persecuted or abused, but Allah also granted us intellect, and we must think properly, correctly and creatively, and thus avoid being deceived.

 

You know, I have not finished the e-book you sent me a long while ago on ritual abuse. I know I must read it but I am not spiritually strong to go through it yet and I am concerned I will have many nightmares for quite some time.

 

Of course, you have to read Frabato, and complete the reading. Give it a priority! Later, I will suggest you further readings from Franz Bardon. 

I will read the descriptions of Egypt articles you sent me tomorrow. I read your articles (via the update you provided on your work uploading all those documents and videos). The one on the Brussels bombing was very precise and to the point and underscored the key elements of the issues we face. Of course, there is more detail, but for an absolute beginner the areas to focus on were very clear (1) Hanbal, (2) Taimiyah and (3) Abdulwahab and (4) introversion and (5) reductionism.

 

In all three cases of names, please do not forget the word ‘ibn’ before the names that you mention. Without it, the names are wrong, although most Muslims will understand you.

 

You know my sister told me of a Somali girl who appeared on Somali TV without a hijab, who was discussing the real problem of young Somalis being lured into gangs in Toronto. The comments focused on her not wearing a hijab rather than the real issue affecting he children of the people posting those ignorant comments.

 

Pathetic! In all cases, contents matter more than form! Typical case of reductionism – which is a most evil and inhuman ideology and behavioral system!

If a woman is raised to a level of respectability and nobility, hijab is meaningless.

This said, I must add that the issue is risky, because there are many traps in it; however, the traps are not inherent to the subject, but due to the external involvement and the unprecedented maneuvering and manipulation that took place in this regard.

 

In fact, the outright majority of those men, who demand of a woman today to wear hejab, are filthy criminal gangsters, infidel trash, ignorant and uneducated idiots, e.g. all those who bring forth the total destruction of Islam in a precipitated rhythm.

As I told you, the effectiveness of today’s world deception hinges mostly on the establishment of false debates or false dilemmas in every single case and issue. You must always have this in mind. It is the indispensable, structurally Satanic, element of the Zionist, Jesuit and Freemasonic lies and propaganda. 

 

Why is it ‘structurally Satanic’? Because Satan’s rebellion against God, as documented in any major literature and religion, particularly the ancient Oriental religions of the world’s greatest civilizations, was in itself a ‘false dilemma’! Of course, it was a dilemma first presented to himself and then to the spiritual hierarchies that he drew to precipitated fall. Useless to add that a false dilemma is the most sophisticated manner of rejection of Truth!

If the dilemma is ‘A or B’, and A is truly A and B is truly B, then those setting the dilemma in front you (Jesuits, Freemasons, Zionists, etc.) will have only a small chance to draw to their side the majority and to thus achieve their goal as per this subject / issue. If they manage to get it done in one case, it will take them too long and it will consume too much of energy. Last, it will not be sure that it will be achieved in the next subject / issue.

If now the dilemma is ‘A or B’, and A is truly A but B is misrepresented and, although you consider / see it as B, in reality it is -B or C, the chances of the deceivers to get it done (and cheat you) are stronger, because this is in real terms a confusion and not a dilemma. Nonetheless, with this situation, we have not yet reached the level of ‘false dilemma’ properly speaking.

However, if the dilemma is ‘A or B’, and A is in reality -A or Z and B is in reality -B or Y, then you most probably are lost and the deceivers will easily achieve their goal. This is now called ‘full deception’ (an accomplished false dilemma) and to oppose this, you need exceptional intellect, vast knowledge, moral integrity, and spiritual intuition. Few exceptional persons can outmaneuver this fabrication.

 

This is the nature of our world in almost every issue. 

 

IV – About the Islamic Veil (Hejab)

Back to hejab now! Ancient Assyrian and Egyptian, Sumerian and Hittite, Phoenician, Aramaean and Hebrew, Iranian, Greek, Indian, Chinese and Roman women wore either always or under different social circumstances various types of hejab. In pre-Biblical Antiquity, we know that the use of hejab was more widely spread in collapsed societies whereby pan-sexualism and pan-sexuality, immorality and perversion, corruption and materialism had already increased tremendously.

 

In later ages, Christian women wore hejab; Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian women did so too.

My grandmothers were both Christian Orthodox and they both wore forms of traditional Christian hejab covering most of their hair. This occurred as recently as the 1930s and the 1960s. To their viewpoint, an uncovered woman wearing a bathing suit and exposing her mostly uncovered body to the general public in the coasts and the beaches was certainly a ‘prostitute’ – perhaps not a professional prostitute but a viciously immoral trash.

 

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, perfidious distortions and pathetic lies were already systematically propagated without anyone opposing them; swimming would supposedly be very good for the health, sunbath would eventually guarantee longevity, etc., etc., etc. All these silly and nonsensical activities, which had never before been practiced within the context of any civilization, are cancerogenic indeed, and – which is even worse – absolutely calamitous for the spiritual and the physical health of the human being.

 

Then, the Christian Church was already corrupted from inside, having been infiltrated by Freemasons and Zionists (though to lesser extent than now), and only few marginal priests, who were low in the hierarchy, dared to oppose the scheme. As you can easily guess, they were easily discredited by the monstrous and criminal forgers.

As a matter of fact, only modernism crushed the Christian hejab, and this ominous development was quite recent.

Look now! Up to a certain point, the colonies (Egypt, Somalia, India, Cambodia, etc.) followed the colonial metropolises. This was very evident in the 1960s. Independent Somalia meant also uncovered women – not because there was a sociopolitical movement and activists promoting this policy, but because gradually under the Italians, the French and the English, the Somali society advanced on the path of early modernism.

And here comes the ominous false dilemma – on this subject.

Of course, the rejection the Christian (and Jewish) hejab in the West was not a one-step / one-stage movement. As a matter of fact, this rejection did not consist in an innocent concept. At the time, it was certainly marketed as a symbol of carefree life, as an acquisition of postwar peace and freedom, and as an indication of aesthetic concern; but you have to view all this literature as a sophisticated marketing campaign whereby the most atrocious was smoothly, gradually and systematically presented as quasi-divine.

 

From the moment of making the first step in the effort to remove the Christian hejab until the time one woman appeared ‘topless’ in the beach and nudist beaches started being organized in Freemasonry-/Zionism-controlled tyrannies of the West, many decades have passed. For the same scope, every few years, another immoral, paranoid, and worthless ‘innovation’ was being heralded; and everything was planned carefully and from the beginning, long before being executed in a multileveled effort involving art (cinema, TV, video, music), mass media, and other tools of corruption. The end target was what you see now in the West and what you will see in ten years’ time: profanation of the human body, pan-sexism, homosexual marriages, pedophilia, and incest. This is the first part of the false dilemma. Unveiled woman is here finally a consummate prostitute.

The second part of the false dilemma is the internal development that took place in the fake Muslim societies over the past five – six decades; if the Freemasons and the Zionists wanted it, the same evolution would take place in all the Muslim countries. But for different reasons, Freemasons and Zionists did not want it so. Consequently, they started promoting other situations and supporting different developments. By agreeing that civilized Egyptians, Sudanese, Somalis and other African Muslims go to the Hell of Satanic Arabia to …. “study Islam” (which was tantamount to an abomination), the evil colonial powers ensured that

 a) every remnant of civilization gradually but steadfastly disappears from every Muslim country and

 b) every remnant of Islamic faith gets progressively replaced by the filthy, Satanic theology which was prevailing in Saudi Arabia, i.e. the anti-Islamic, evil and inhuman pseudo-theories of Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Taimiya, and Ibn Abulwahhab.

 

At the same time, and for many successive decades, systematically the Freemasons, the Zionists, the Americans, the Europeans and others took great pain to show, through the world’s mass media that they controlled, a totally false image of the reality, misinterpreting the moderate political stance of Saudi Arabia, which however formed a tandem with the barbaric, backward, terrorist, extremist, radical and overall inhuman, religious education which was imposed across the Satanic realm in a most tyrannical manner and diffused to all the countries of Islam through the foreign ‘students’, who used to go to Barbaric, Satanic Arabia to get barbarized in the cruelest possible manner.

 

Like this, as second part of the false dilemma comes not the historical hejab (which existed often though not always across the Islamic World over the past 14 centuries), but the fake hejab of the successive reductionist evil dogmas of Ibn Hanbal – Ibn Taimiya – Abdulwahhab. This is, truly speaking, the anti-Islamic hejab of Barbarism, e.g. the foremost symbol of Women’s Slavery that the outright majority of the Satanic sheikhs, imams, muftis and qadis support.

 

For the imminent clash not to be averted, the vicious, Satanic Freemasons and Zionists deliberately accept as ‘Islamic’ the veil, whereas in reality

a) the veil has not been Islamic but Universal (it existed in almost all the ancient civilizations, as well as in the Hebrew Religion and in Christianity) and 

b) the veil never consisted in a rigid obligation of Muslim women – once (as I said in the beginning) a woman is raised to a level of respectability and nobility within the context of her civilized society.

 

And this is the truth of my words that the vicious mass media have always made a great effort to conceal; I will offer one example, but there are numerous.

 

Before exactly 179-178 years, the Scottish painter David Roberts traveled down the Nile up to the borders of Sudan and immortalized scenes of the places where he passed by. Here you can get general information about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Roberts_(painter)

He went as far as Abu Simbel at a time the great temples of Ramses II and his wife Nefertari were not excavated, but were still sunk in the desert sand (as they had been during most of the Late Antiquity already). David Roberts left impressive drawings of the location. In addition, he depicted many Nubian men and women from diverse places south of Aswan and up to the Sudanese border (few kilometers beyond Abu Simbel), i.e. Qertassi (Kardasy), Korti, Wadi as Sebua, etc.  

Nubian women at Korti – by David Roberts. 1838-1839

Nubian men and women at Qertassy (Kardassy) – by David Roberts. 1838-1839

 

Abyssinian slaves at Korti – by David Roberts. 1838-1839

Dancing girls in Cairo – by David Roberts. 1838-1839

See for yourself how much ‘uncovered’ or how much ‘covered’ these decent, moral, innocent, clean and impeccable Nubian women were. They were living far from the Satanic sheikhs of Wahhabism, and – thank God! – the filthy, villainous and inhuman teachings of the vicious heretics Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Taimiya had not yet reached their noble land.

 

To the Ottoman Caliphate, their region was a rather marginal circumference, and among the Nubians at the time, only a minimal impact was exercised by the vicious colonial slaves, i.e. the uneducated sheikhs of the worthless, fake Al Azhar mosque of 1840. The vicious, fake sheikhs of 1840 Al Azhar idiotically adjusted their trashy theology to the political orders of the time. They consciously served the villainous, dirty, criminal, anti-Islamic and anti-Egyptian needs of the profane, servile political class of vice-royal – khedival Egypt that was a Satanic tool of the Anglo-French Freemasonry and the Khazarian Zionists against the Ottoman Empire – Islamic Caliphate, and therefore against Islam in its entirety. The fake sheikhs of 1840 Al Azhar were at the very antipodes of the true, authentic sheikhs of the Ottoman times’ Al Azhar whom Napoleon’s puppet Muhammad Ali had earlier (in the early 1800s) executed in a monstrous crime that represents one of the darkest pages of Islamic History (which is of course concealed in most of the books by the Freemasonic-Zionist censorship).

 

Back now to David Roberts’ paintings! In fact, they never caused a doubt about their veracity – except for the case of his drawing of the sunset behind the Sphinx of Gizah, which has of course has artistic compromises. David Roberts’ great Nubian ladies of Qertassi, Korti and other locations did not indulge in materialism, consumerism, and liberalism. They were authentic humans and genuine Muslims, like millions of other African and Asiatic women of those days, who, living in hot climate zones, did not need to wear the silly, strict hejab of the barbaric and idiotic theologians, the likes of Ibn Taimiya and Ibn Abdulwahhab.

 

And this concludes the case of the nature, function, usefulness or uselessness of the Islamic veil.

 

The aforementioned is enough to demonstrate what a truthful Muslim woman must do today: it will however be a difficult task, but there is not going to be anything easy in our days.

 

Speaking to Westerners, a truthful Muslim woman today has to castigate – through acts and words – their present attitude, highlighting the fact that the Westerners dishonor their own ancestors and traditions. Only if the West returns to Christianity, the West will be saved.

 

Under no circumstances has the West to accept today’s filthy, trashy, evil, Satanic pseudo-Islam, which in reality is the other side of the Freemasonic-Zionist coin of our modern(-ist) times in the aforementioned evil dilemma.

 

Self-rectification is therefore needed for both, Christians and Muslims (when limiting the discussion to only these two religions). Their tasks are indeed parallel; the Christians must discover their lost Christianity and the Muslims must seek and find their lost Islam. The tasks are separate, so an immense program must be set up as to just how the entire Muslim populations of Europe will be gradually evacuated and relocated back to their respective countries of origin.

 

And then, addressing the Muslims, a truthful Muslim woman today has to castigate – through acts and words – their present attitude, underscoring the fact that their barbarism, ignorance, and materialism dishonor the Islamic Faith and Heritage because Ignorance in Islam is tantamount to Intellectual and Spiritual Prostitution.

 

Quite unfortunately, the undeniable truth is that today’s average Muslim woman’s lack of education, ignorance, insistence on ‘strict hejab’, and submissiveness to men of their societies (which is by itself an execrable sin), if compared to the great role played by Muslim women in the formation and the development of the Islamic Civilization, makes of the strict hejab a Satanic device and an excellent tool in rendering all Muslim women useless, worthless and evil. This ends up as a sheer promotion of homosexuality, pedophilia and incest within today’s fake Muslim societies of decayed Islam.

 

At the very practical level, this imposes on today’s truthful Muslim women a very difficult path; wearing a non-strict hejab, making their veil evidently lenient, offering an emollient outlook and a propitiatory appearance to the public, a Muslim woman must make today a remarkable achievement that hinges on Aesthetics, Morality, Intellect, and Intelligence.

 

In fact, there cannot be anything moral in Islam that is at the same time ugly. Ugliness is an expression of Evilness. And every strict hejab is utterly and disgustingly ugly. This attitude for a Muslim woman today is tantamount to standing on the blade’s edge. Unfortunately, this is the only free space left today, but it is the only indicated by the Truth and dictated by the Faith.

 

At this point, I have to also offer a practical example; it concerns a great and brave lady, a leading personality of the Islamic World that dwarfs the ignorant, uneducated, uncultured, and therefore useless sheikhs of Al Azhar, Mecca, Madina, Jerusalem, etc. She was a splendid stateswoman, who paid with her life her unique courage and her unshakable intention to firmly state the truth – and not the idiotically considered as politically correct lies of the execrable political microcosm of our days. She had the courage to say in public that Osama bin Laden was assassinated in the last months of 2001, and she said this quite early, when the world was inundated with fake videos prepared by the Mossad and the CIA that the idiots of this world – and all the profane, Satanic governments of the Muslim countries – believed for more than a decade!

 

This great lady offered a perfect example to all Muslim women and in general to all the women of the world: the assassinated Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto!

 

(Read the following article that I published in less than 48 hours after her assassination – the following link is a republication: https://www.academia.edu/24418253/Who_is_Responsible_for_Benazir_Bhuttos_Assassination_-_By_Prof._Muhammad_Shamsaddin_Megalommatis)

 

Certainly, today’s truthful Muslim women have to defend the perfect right of every Muslim woman who wants to be fully uncovered, warning her at the same time that materialism is inhuman and acceptance of Western modernity, technology, and consumerism is not only a sin for a Muslim but also a real spiritual death for any human.

 

On the other hand, today’s truthful Muslim women have to permanently reject the vicious, anti-Islamic and totally Satanic imposition of the totally un-Islamic strict veil, denounce as worthless and valueless trash the filthy, hypocritical prostitutes who wear it, and call for the formation of Civilized Islamic groups that will systematically fight and irrevocably demolish Saudi, Wahhabi and Hanbali Islam in the most determinant manner and with the rules that these groups will find best, rejecting all previously existing Sharia-related laws of any country as evidently inapt to face the Darkness and the Barbarism in today’s decayed, fake Islam.

 

A last point about the hejab: if you search for the textual references, you will automatically realize that the hejab is recommended strictly and exclusively to women with menstruation. An 8-year old child and a 53-year old woman (and all the older) must NOT wear any hejab at all. Those who wear it commit certainly a sin, because they are hypocrites and want to show to the others that they conform to the rule! That’s silly. Those who care about the opinion of the other members of the society are Satanists. One must care about ONLY the opinion of God concerning him-/herself.

 

Allah gave us a brain but if we do not want to use it that is a fault on our part. Too quick to judge, ignorant and proud and impoverished and divided and ill-willed!

 

Right! You have got it very right! Reductionism turns humans to primal, visceral animals.

 

This is the situation of the Somali community at least that I have seen in the UK.

 

It is general all over the world – an indication of irrevocable decadence.

 

Of course, you have those that act selfishly and, when I find such people, I hang on to them like precious rubies. If I volunteered and tried to help expecting thanks, I would be dead by now. More often I have faced envy from the people I have sought to help, and this is when I can sense the ill-will. 

 

“Why did this have to be me and not you”, “why do I have to beg you for help”: these are very key questions that can be read on their faces despite the expressions of gratitude.  

 

You are right; this attitude is due to lack of education and lack of culture or – to put it otherwise – because of the disintegration of the traditional culture of these people. Again, this is general.

 

I remember Allah, and how He has allowed me to focus on what is important, which is within my knowledge (principally fighting the social services to return the children, if the mother has done nothing wrong or to have them placed with a reliable relative / community member, so that they do not lose their identity and religion).

 

May Allah reward you for this work! –  ! جزاكم الله خيرا

 

You know, Prof S., it is difficult to stay positive, and then I remember our Prophet has informed us the only one, who should despair, is Satan.

 

This is a great truth, but people are usually weak in the time of distress; and this process quite unfortunately weakens them even more!

 

I am put off from going to the mosque now in order to avoid the hateful stares of the ignorant masses that know nothing about me and imagine themselves to be better because they wear an Abaya or Niqab, and I have chosen to wear trousers or jeans.

 

V – About today’s desecrated, fake mosques

 

You lose nothing! The reason for this is the fact that almost the quasi-totality of today’s mosques, particularly in major urban centers (be they in the West or in the Muslim countries), have turned out to be desecrated locations whereby the evilness of the fake worshippers invites all sorts of demons and evil spirits that disastrously impact on the souls of the fake Muslims. Those materialistic idiots gather there ignoring the fact that wherever egoism, arrogance, material interests, negation of the truth, hatred, jealousy, rage, concern for financial profit, and other similar attitudes are expressed, the location immediately becomes spiritually contaminated, being thus rendered completely worthless. A negative person brings always a plethora of negative spiritual beings with him/her.

 

The silly sheikhs and imams, who teach their unfortunate followers that you can pray next to a hateful and earlier enraged villain and still remain spiritually intact (!), are filthy liars and foremost Satanists, who work for the propagation of evilness within Islam. As per the materialistic, nonsensical and absurd beliefs of these false sheikhs, the humans are nothing more than pathetic robots whose prayers comprise of just some meaningless utterances and of few repetitive movements. Quite contrarily, we know that Allah did not create trashy robots, but thinking individuals able to ensure full communication between their soul and body.

 

These fake Muslims and criminal sheikhs must be assassinated on the spur of the moment; in any case, their spiritual punishment at the very bottom of the Hell is ferocious. This is due to the fact that, by calling Muslims to pray in desecrated, Satanic mosques, these Satanic sheikhs incessantly and massively perform spiritual assassinations. This is how the Evil spread across the Muslim World. Every mosque desecrated by fake believers, who are full of negative attitudes is a cursed location emanating negativity, demoniacal vibrations, and catastrophic electromagnetic waves that permeate the ignorant idiots, who frequent the ominous building and are thus turned to sinners and disbelievers.

 

I myself take great pain in finding mosques proper enough for praying. Compared to you, I have the great advantage that I live in a country which in the past belonged to Dar al Islam (this notion simply does not exist anymore), and I can therefore find old mosques that are not so much frequented by people today. There, you can feel the positive vibrations of great, faithful people who were spiritually alive and truly communicated with their souls, with the spiritual universe, and with God. In Cairo, I prefer Ibn Tulun Mosque, to cite an example. Equally positive are small mosques in poor, remote villages whereby the inhabitants are mere farmers with few material interests, with disregard for the money, and with distrust toward the evil, Western, modern technology and way of life. Distance from today’s urban centers is priority no 1 for any true Muslim and any true believer of any religion.

 

For you, who live in a city of a non-Muslim country whereby so much hatred and rage are expressed by the fake Muslims – all those who care only about material benefits and goods and have a total disregard for, and ignorance of, their souls – the best solution is to pray at home.

 

God forbid what they would do, if I was not wearing a hijab (probably attack and maul me). When I think of those hateful people, I think of reductionism.

 

You are right; reductionism is the supreme stage of Satanism, because it consists in direct negation of the Creation, and of the Universes (spiritual and material). When you don’t comprehend the Entire Universes, when you fail to realize the magnitude of forms of Faith, when you don’t primarily care about how you will manage to comprehend the Universes and their interconnection, and when you fail to see your entire life as an ongoing exam in Morality, Knowledge, Judgment, Discipline and Wisdom, you end up limiting your mind in few simple tasks, duties, thoughts and practices. This is a direct, aggressive insult of Allah – either you understand it or not. This is what most of today’s ignorant, faithless, fake Muslims do systematically with their daily lives. Their punishment will therefore be unprecedented.

 

In a mosque, a Muslim woman must wear a hejab – even in the way I described earlier. In this, their attitude is similar to that of Christian women, who also wore a veil inside a church in the past, which is still a tradition for queens and noble ladies today.

 

This sticks out to me, because eventually there is only compulsion, because you become intolerant of difference (everyone must look the same, move the same, breath the same, and eventually they must die the same).

 

You are right! There is no compulsion in religion (Al Baqara, 256) – Supreme Rule of Islam.

 

The situation that you describe is an explicit uniformism, which is an appendix to reductionism, while it also reflects the evil Western geological – cosmological theory of Uniformitarianism, which is a sheer postulation, and yet it is still accepted by all sorts of evolutionists. Yet, Abraham Gottlob Werner with his Neptunism was closer to the truth than his opponents, the Plutonists who were the early Uniformitarians.

 

Whatever goes to the direction that you denounce is sheer Satanism. The plurality of forms is inherent to Being, and the uniformity of forms is intrinsic to Non-Being. You need Mohyieldin Ibn Arabi to understand these concepts as elaborated within Islam.

 

I think, I told you my brother said he could not listen to a speech of a young woman I knew speaking about the plight of the Palestinians, because she was not wearing a hijab and yet he believes he is going closer to his ‘Deen’, because he goes to ‘Islamic’ lectures and classes.

 

!! You make me laugh at!!

 

I know, it will take some time, which is made difficult with my indoctrination through the British education system, but I want to be free in my thoughts, free and distant of such ignorant people, spiritually strong and connected with my heritage, and at the service of Allah to help do justice and alleviate the suffering of His Creation. This is what I focus on now, and I am truly grateful to you for your time and effort in assisting me.

 

Thank you! More distance you take from all forms of decayed thoughts and beliefs, farther all these pernicious forms of thought will look to you. You will finally see – so I hope at least – that between a) the modern English evolutionist education and b) the Wahhabi – Ibn Taimiya – Hanbali Islamist doctrines, which are taught in today’s fallacious, Satanic medresas, there is no difference. They both are in fact one doctrine and they both follow the same, archetypal opposition to Creation and to God as expressed by Satan.

 

But it will be only after many years and numerous efforts that you will finally reach the accurate understanding of the world and of the concealed reality. You will then realize quite well what is truly at stake in our days, i.e. an issue that goes back to the times before the Creation.

 

As always wishing you the best

XXXXXX

 

However, your progress will be hindered, and serious obstacles will appear in your path, if you fail to control yourself and stay intact, phlegmatic and terribly cold in front of any possible atrocity that you may come across. This is not a joke! It is a very serious problem. And this is the point that I made at the very beginning of this long email, anticipating that it will displease you.

 

In front of any external, material adversity, it is imperative for any person aspiring to higher understanding, wisdom, intellectual potency, and spiritual forcefulness to withhold all of his / her feelings. Certainly, all humans have their moments of weakness and they would not be humans otherwise.

 

My previous sentence in itself offers you an opportunity of double reading; as a matter of fact, it also implies that non-humans do not have this sentimental weakness, and there are actually non-humans on this world – and not only among the elites.

 

If it takes you 50 years to put your feelings under iron mastership, you will have lost your life, the armies of Evil will have conquered the world, and you will be held responsible for being unable to contribute to a successful aversion of the danger.

 

VI – Reminiscences from the war front between Iran and Iraq

 

I was in your age, when I covered – as war front reporter and journalist – Iranian attacks against Iraq either against Sulaymaniyah (in the area of Iraqi ‘Kurdistan’) or in the invasion of Fao, across the river that the Iranians call Arvand and the Iraqis Shatt al Arab, which is formed by the merge of Euphrates (Al Furat) with Tigris (Dijleh / Dicle), thus becoming their common estuary in the Persian Gulf.

 

In the former expedition, we were inside Iraq within hours after the Iranian attack against the sizable Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah had taken place; we first flied to Sanandaj, and from there we proceeded to Baneh by helicopter – at times of absolute Iraqi supremacy in the skies! We had signed a paper for this in Tehran prior to the first flight, taking full personal responsibility for our integrity and life. From Baneh, we continued with military jeeps inside Iraqi territory.

 

We reached at a distance of 2 km (bird’s eye) from the Northeastern suburbs of Sulaymaniyah or – to put it otherwise – we were behind the mountain that surrounds the Sorani (‘Kurdish’) Iraqi city from the east. We were on the next mountain in the east (on the mountain’s western slopes), and there was a narrow valley between the two mountains. The Iraqis had withdrawn their forces and emptied the valley, but they were on the opposite mountain (on its eastern slopes), and they were in a position to watch our movements and shoot us, as we visited formerly Iraqi military outposts that Iranian soldiers had attacked and occupied earlier in the morning, let’s say five hours before our arrival. The attack was such that many Iraqi soldiers were killed, and as you can imagine, the dead bodies were not buried by the time we arrived.

 

Blood was spilled all over the place, and the spectacle of the corpses was far worse than the material that you sent me by email, due to explosions that caused the dismemberment of some of Iraqi soldiers’ bodies. Other soldiers were killed by just bullets. The overall sight was the Hell on Earth. We were few journalists; I don’t remember how many, but certainly less than 6 or 7; Iranian military officers were in charge of us. We had received early morning telephone calls at the very time of the attack, and those, who accepted the offer, had only half an hour to get ready, until a separate car would pick up each one of us to drive us to a military airport in Tehran from where we took off immediately. After one hour of flight (or even less), in Sanandaj airport, we walked only few meters from the airplane to the helicopter. It took another 20-25 minutes until we landed in Baneh, at the spot where the jeep drivers were awaiting us.

 

In the outposts with the dead bodies, next to me was the director of Tanjug (Yugoslavian News Agency), a very nice guy (named Zorz Crmaric) whose friendship I really miss, because we did not contact one another after the early 90s, when his country split in a most spectacular way (as you know), and I moved from Germany and Iran to Russia, Turkey and Egypt. When I was in Iran, he constantly invited me to his villa, because he needed my academic background in Iranology and, when I was speaking, he used to take notes ceaselessly. In addition, I had already traveled to far more places in Iran than he had (and not just major cities but remote villages and uninhabited mountains with archaeological sites off the beaten track), and I was a trustworthy source at the journalistic level as well. I was not Muslim at the time, but Iran was a land that brought me very close to Islam and I used to attend seminars conducted in Farsi by Ayatullah Alameh Yahya Noori, a pacifist and a humanist.  

 

As soon as my Serbian friend saw the dismembered corpses, he became pale and started trembling. I was exactly 30, because this story dates back in 1986. Zorz was slightly older than me, he was married, he had two children, and he was trembling like a 10-year old girl! I stopped working and taking pictures or notes, and instead of talking with the Iranian soldiers and officers in my elementary Farsi, I tried to support, strengthen and re-consolidate that poor guy. Soon two Iraqi military airplanes appeared shelling around us; we tried to hide behind the trunks of trees, so open that mountainous slope was. The two Iraqi military airplanes were shelling at a distance, and thank God they did not drop bombs! We were exactly underneath!! Finally, we returned by jeep to Sanandaj, in order to avoid the helicopter for security reasons, and late in the night, we flied back to Tehran safely.

 

The story left me with a conclusion: when you cannot avert the evildoing, you must have at least the courage to see it face to face, being frozen, calm and steadfast.

 

I never regretted for my conclusion. Now, it is not 1986 but 2016. The sun has set and the little light still left will soon disappear. Your attitude will only kill you and this can happen very soon. You have to train yourself as soon as possible in order to eliminate this weak side of character. You must force yourself to become courageous and resolute, able to face adversity, and capable to support others in adversity. This is your caliber; I would not say this to all the women whom I know, but I say it to you, because it suits your fundamental standards. You can be stronger than most of the men of this world, if you try. The predisposition is inside you, and this already means that you have to follow the path opened to you by Allah. You have been sent with a purpose here, and I am confident of what I am telling you now. Escaping from your role will not bring any recompense, believe me!

 

If you want my advice as to just how to overcome this weakness of your youth, I will say that you need to open the Wikipedia and start watching pictures of entries about serious contaminations and diseases. Some of them are so harmful that those affected would really be willing to take the position of the children of your pictures – wherever these pictures may have been taken.

 

If you want I can send you this terribly unpleasant material but, you know, you will have to study closely the awful pictures of people affected by bubonic plague, yellow fever, typhoid, and cholera to see what truly exists on this world.

 

If you fail in this, you only justify those fanatic Wahhabis saying that women are only for the kitchen. The choice is yours.

 

A last point! The most unpleasant one! You seem to daydream about this world, and this must take an irreversible end as soon as possible – for your sake alone. Have you thought for instance how wonderful it was for these little angels to be out of this murky, filthy and disgusting world and what service their killers offered them – without knowing it? Or is it that we only live here, at the material level, and there is nothing afterwards – as per the instructions of the Zionists?

 

I truly confess to you that, in just few years, most of the people in this world will envy the destiny of these young children-angels. Numerous will then find other persons’ tombs and will go to stand out and call them to get out so that the living ones go inside. Do never judge before the complete end of a story!

 

Far from all these fake Muslims, spiritually present more than ever, Prophet Muhammad prayed for these lucky souls, who had the privilege not to know the poisonous truth of our miserable lives. This is the reality.

 

Best regards,

Shamsaddin

Iranian Qajar dynasty Art Gallery (mainly 18th – 19th c.)

A Large Qajar tile, Persia, 19th century

Of rectangular form moulded and painted in under-glaze cobalt blue, pink, turquoise and brown, outlined in black with a prince and attendant on horseback visiting a courtesan, set amidst a leafy glade with fish pond and palace in the background, with a border of birds and floral scrolls
39.5 by 52cm.

Khusraw discovers Shirin bathing 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of the Turning Point of Islam from Civilization to Barbarism – Part IV

Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of the Turning Point of Islam from Civilization to Barbarism – Part IV

 

By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

 

In three earlier articles published under the titles “Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Misperceptions – Part I” (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/brussels-terror-attack-due-to-western-misperceptions-part-i/), “Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of Evil Theological Systems – Part II” (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/brussels-terror-attack-due-to-western-ignorance-of-evil-theological-systems-part-ii/), and “Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of the Barbaric Darkness of Ibn Taimiya’s theological system – Part III” (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/brussels-terror-attack-due-to-western-ignorance-of-the-barbaric-darkness-of-ibn-taimiyas-theological-system-part-iii/), I first highlighted the Western ignorance of the Muslim World and more specifically the ignorance of the fact that the extremist way of life, mindset and belief are approved and shared by many hundreds of millions of Muslims in countries other than the evil cradle of Salafism / Wahhabism, i.e. Saudi Arabia; I called that dimension of Western misperception of the Islamic World ‘sociopolitical’.

Then, I proceeded through a historical-religious analysis, emphasizing the putrefaction process caused to the Islamic religion by several Islamic theological systems that were considered heretic when they were incepted and preached, but managed to gradually survive and effectively prevail in our days among most of the world’s Muslim populations.

 

I then established a link between the three successive layers of alteration, distortion, falsification and barbarization of Islam caused by the theological systems of Ahmed ibn Hanbal (8th – 9th c.), Ahmed ibn Taimiyah (13th – 14th c.), and Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab (18th c.).

 

A most critical dimension of today’s global problem of Islam is the following: although only Saudi Arabia accepts today the heretic Islamic School of Jurisprudence of Ahmed ibn Hanbal (on which depend the other two ulterior theological systems), the theological system of Ibn Taimiya, a vicious heretic and an unconditional Hanbali, although fully rejected as tenebrous at the times of the Islamic Golden Era, is widely accepted today among Muslims, either Hanbali or Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i – the three true and historically valid, and not heretic, Islamic Schools of Jurisprudence.

 

This in itself may not say much to the unspecialized readership. However, if one takes into consideration the fact that Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab – a barbaric and silly thug, a self-styled Muslim Hanbali theologian, and the founder of modern Wahhabism or Salafism – was the pupil of other ignorant theologians, who were the followers of the evil theological system of Ibn Taimiya, and thus became himself a staunch supporter of Ibn Taimiya, one understands clearly the present disastrous situation of the Muslim world.

 

So, it does not matter whether the entire population and the theological authorities of a Muslim country have contempt for Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab and reject Wahhabism or Salafism explicitly. It does also not matter whether they proclaim their adherence to the three rightful and lawful Islamic Schools of Jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi’i) and reject ibn Hanbal’s system.

 

As long as they accept the abomination of Ibn Taimiya, all Muslims are affected by the Hanbali contamination either they realize it or not. In this case, their declaration of being Hanafi, Maliki or Shafi’i is absolutely worthless and cannot be possibly accepted by any shrewd investigator.

 

As long as they accept the theological obscenity of Ibn Taimiya, all Muslims are inclined to end up Wahhabists and Salafists sooner or later, because the fruit of Ibn Taimiya’s theological lawlessness and political fornication was Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab, the source of the iniquity and the villainous father of all illiterate, barbaric, heinous and villainous extremists, radicals, and terrorists.

 

The aforementioned historical analysis reveals something critical that both, Islamic terrorists and politically correct Western academia and politicians, have always tried to conceal; in a way, there were Islamic extremists and terrorists who, deeply plunged in illiteracy, ignorance, barbarism and hatred of the “Other”, carried out dreadful acts during the Islamic Ages. Islamic Terrorism is therefore nothing new, and basically it does not pertain to the theological system of Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab, but to the barbaric lawlessness of Ibn Taimiya, who antedated Abdulwahhab by five centuries and although Hanbali, is accepted by most of today’s Muslim theologians .

 

In this regard, it would be a colossal mistake for Europe, America and the Western World at large to perceive themselves as the true targets of the Islamic Terrorism. They are not, although there is a vast documentation bearing witness to declarations of numerous well-known terrorists and Salafi terror ideologists, who state that the countries of the West are their target.

 

In reality, terrorism is not the basic characteristic of the Islamic terrorists; barbarism is.

 

And as barbaric elements, they hate most the Sciences, the Arts, the Letters, and the Intellectual Life in its entirety; they abhor Philosophy, the Free Thought, the Investigative Spirit, and the Exploratory Mind. And they target above all Spirituality, Meditation, Contemplation and all the spiritual exercises and activities that de facto liberate the soul from the material-materialistic jail wherein all the Salafists and all the Islamic terrorists want to imprison it.

 

The historical dynamics of this deleterious movement has not yet been studied; this is due to the fact that the well anticipated conclusions are extremely harmful to the politically correct theories, attitudes and behaviors.

 

Pretty much like the followers of Ibn Taimiya destroyed Islamic Civilization within the Islamic World before 400-500 years, today’s Islamic terrorists and Salafists intend to bring down the World Civilization and replace it with an immense darkness, injustice, barbarism, tyranny and inhumanity.

THE TURNING POINT FROM CIVILIZATION TO BARBARISM WITHIN ISLAM – THE TERRORISTS OF THE YEAR 1580!

And here I reach the point with which I concluded the previous article. There is indeed a particularly critical moment, a specific date that can be taken as the turning point in the down spiral, from Civilization to Barbarism within Islam. This can be safely and accurately determined; it is 1580.

What happened then and where?

The fanaticized mob of Istanbul destroyed the Observatory of Istanbul, which was the epitome of the world’s most advanced techniques and technologies with respect to the Islamic Science of Astronomy and Astrology that were both viewed as one science and not two within the context of the Islamic World. The barbaric and abominable deed involved the destruction of thousands of manuscripts, the ruination of hundreds of astronomical instruments that were among the most advanced in the world, numerous killings, and all sorts of violent acts and catastrophes.

The illiterate masses were guided by villainous and thuggish sheikhs and imams, who were the followers of the heretic system of Ibn Taimiya and therefore hated the Islamic Sciences, and more particularly the one that was considered as the supreme among them, namely Astronomy and Astrology. As per their silly beliefs and their misinterpretation of the Quran, which is an indispensable element of all barbarisms carried out in the name of Islam, the observation of the stars and the deduction of conclusions as regards the future are not permissible in Islam. This is of course an aberration.

The barbaric masses and their uneducated sheikhs influenced the supreme religious authority, the sheikh-ul Islam, and demanded the destruction of the Observatory, claiming that the wrong prognostication of the Chief Astronomer and Astrologist was a curse sent by their otherwise fake god. As the imperial authorities were not influenced by the intellectual cholera of Ibn Taimiya, the Sultan did not want to destroy this valuable research center that enabled his country to compete at the international level in terms of science and research. Then, upon recommendation of an illiterate and dark mufti, the masses unleashed their evilness and in the course of manifestations they attacked and destroyed the Observatory of Istanbul.

I herewith include three paragraphs from Wikipedia’s entry on Istanbul Observatory:

In 1574, Murad III became the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The empire’s chief astronomer, Taqi ad-Din, petitioned the Sultan to finance the building of a great observatory to rival Ulugh Beg‘s Samarkand observatory. The Sultan approved, and construction was completed in 1577, at nearly the same time as Tycho Brahe‘s observatory at Uraniborg.

This observatory consisted of two large structures perched on a hill overlooking the European section of Istanbul and offering a wide view of the night sky. Much like a modern institution, the main building was reserved for the library and the living quarters of the staff, while the smaller building housed a collection of instruments built by Taqi ad-Din. These included a giant armillary sphere and an accurate mechanical astronomical clock for measuring the position and speed of the planets. With these instruments, Taqi ad-Din had hoped to update the old astronomical tables describing the motion of the planets, sun, and moon.

The observatory did not survive to advance the development of astronomy in the Muslim world. Within months of the observatory’s completion, a comet with an enormous tail appeared in the sky and Sultan Murad III demanded a prognostication about it from his astronomer. “Working day and night without food and rest” Taqi ad-Din studied the comet and came up with the prediction that it was “an indication of well-being and splendor,” and would mean a “conquest of Persia”. Unfortunately, instead of well-being a devastating plague followed in some parts of the empire, and several important persons died. Taqi ad-Din was able to carry on his observations for a few more years but eventually opponents of the observatory and prognostication from the heavens prevailed and the observatory was destroyed in 1580. Other sources give the “rise of a clerical faction,” which opposed or at least was indifferent to science, and specifically to “the recommendation of the Chief Mufti” of the Ottomans, as the explanation for the destruction of the observatory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_observatory_of_Taqi_ad-Din

More details about the Chief Astronomer and Astrologist Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Maaruf can be found in the respective entry of the Wikipedia and the bibliography provided therein.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma%27ruf

To be continued

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of the Barbaric Darkness of Ibn Taimiya’s theological system – Part III

Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of the Barbaric Darkness of Ibn Taimiya’s theological system – Part III

 

By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

 

In two earlier articles published under the titles “Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Misperceptions – Part I” (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/brussels-terror-attack-due-to-western-misperceptions-part-i/) and “Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of Evil Theological Systems – Part II” (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2016/03/24/brussels-terror-attack-due-to-western-ignorance-of-evil-theological-systems-part-ii/), I highlighted the Western ignorance of the Muslim World and more specifically of the fact that the extremist way of life, mindset and belief are approved and shared by many hundreds of millions of Muslims in countries other than the evil cradle of Salafism / Wahhabism, i.e. Saudi Arabia; I called that dimension of Western misperception of the Islamic World ‘sociopolitical’. Then, I proceeded through a historical-religious analysis, emphasizing the putrefaction process caused to the Islamic religion by the different Islamic theological systems, and I established a link between the three successive layers of alteration caused by the theological systems of Ahmed ibn Hanbal, Ahmed ibn Taimiyah, and Muhammad ibn Abdulwahhab. In the present article, I will expand further on the nefarious impact that the barbarism of Ibn Taimiyah had on Islam as religion, spirituality, culture, and civilization.

 

As I described in the previous article, “Ahmed ibn Taimiya was the ugly and perverse child of his time“, meaning the period of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions that resulted in the destruction of Baghdad. In fact, his theological system was an introverted reductionism that triggered an overwhelming indifference for, and an abysmal hatred of, the “other”. These characteristics were intensified by ibn Taimiya’s followers who instructed Muslims to limit themselves to basics and to abstain from any contact with, or study of, the “other”.

WHY TROUBLES GO DEEPER THAN MERE WAHHABISM: THE EVILNESS OF IBN TAIMIYA’S THEOLOGICAL BARBARISM
Of course, after the year 1291 (Fall of Acre), when the last Crusader was out of the Orient, the Islamic World recovered from the Crusades and the Mongol invasions, and continued to expand in terms of imperial power, advance in terms of civilization, and prosper in terms of economic recovery and wealth accumulation. But there were two main negative points that survived for some centuries, gradually spread across the entire Muslim World, and finally prevailed:

A – The introversion gained momentum among the populations, irrespective of the success of the armies and the caliphs. It was combined with a genuinely un-Islamic reductionism (I mean of course ontological reductionism) as Ibn Taimiya followers – in order to control the masses – diffused the pathetic opinion that Philosophy, Arts, Letters and Sciences are useless, because “only few things are necessary for man to gain the ticket to the Paradise”: by hating and ignoring the “other” (which is a non-Islamic attitude and stance of life) and by preaching and diffusing this mindset, attitude and behavior, the followers of Ibn Taimiya addressed the fears, the sorrow, and the horror generated among the Muslims because of the Crusaders and the Mongols.

B – The bullying exercised by the masses that followed the theologians, who accepted Ibn Taimiya’s heretic theological system, started having an impact in the long run and progressively all the scholars, scientists, artists, architects, mystics, and philosophers came under attack, got dispersed, and disappeared.

For the first time, around the years 1350-1400, within Islam was formed a driving force which was pushing toward ignorance, darkness, hatred and barbarism. 

It is obvious that such evil force could not exist without targets. Even worse, the targets had to be close. Shia Muslims and Oriental Christians were the first to be targeted. Then, it was the turn of the mystics, the Sufis, the philosophers, the erudite scholars, the astronomers, the chemists, the architects, the poets, the intellectuals, and the artists.

 

An inherent element of the evilness of Ibn Taimiya’s system is uniformity; the hatred of the other – in and by itself – eliminates every chance for diversity. At the social level, this situation means that you cannot differ, because you then become the “other”, and you get subsequently targeted. This means that you cannot carry out experiments in Chemistry, you cannot make sidereal observations in the Observatory, you cannot meditate, and you cannot explore or study anything, because “only few things are necessary for man to gain the ticket to the Paradise” and because the quasi-totality of the population, who are ignorant and uneducated, are not involved in these activities. This means that, by being a genuine scholar, polymath, mystic, explorer, erudite intellectual, philosopher, scientist, architect, artist or author, you differ, you automatically become the “other”, and consequently you are immediately taken as target.

 

During those centuries many Muslim scholars, polymaths, mystics, explorers, erudite intellectuals, philosophers, scientists, architects, artists or authors were persecuted – not by the power of the Sultan and Caliph but – by the average people at the very local, social level; they were forced to stop their scientific, philosophical, artistic or spiritual activities, they were obliged to move to other countries, and they were killed. And a systematic disregard for the Islamic Spiritual, Intellectual, Academic and Scientific Heritage was imposed, so that average Muslims forget the Golden Era of Islam, i.e. the greatness that the filthy and evil minds of ibn Hanbal and ibn Taimiya were virtually unable to ever reach.

Last, in cases of illustrious names of the foremost Islamic scholars of the Golden Era of Islam, the likes of al Farabi (Alpharabius), Muhyiddin ibn Arabi, ibn Sina (Avicenna), Nasir al Din al Tusi, ibn Rushd (Averroes), Al Ghazali, and others, they were all systematically, uninterruptedly and viciously denigrated, defamed and execrated by the uneducated, uncultured and sullen followers of the tenebrous theology of ibn Taimiya. This continues down to our times.

As regards ibn Taimiya, he gave the evil example; speaking against al Ghazali, he said: “This Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, despite his brilliance, his devotion to Allah, his knowledge of kalam and philosophy, his asceticism and spiritual practices and his Sufism, ended up in a state of confusion and resorted to the path of those who claim to find out things through dreams and spiritual methods” (Majmu’ al-Fatawa, vol. 4, p.71).

It goes without saying that this force destroyed the Islamic Civilization, driving the Muslim World to a bestial level of total insignificance around the years 1600-1700. For reasons which rather pertain to foreign affairs, not one caliph / sultan decided to oppose openly and drastically the force of darkness. We refer mainly to the Ottoman times now, because Sunni Islam in Europe, Asia, and Africa was multi-divided in the period 1300-1500, until Selim I (Yavuz Sultan Selim, the ‘stern’ one) reinstated the Caliphate in its magnitude. When the expanded Ottoman Empire was engaged in ferocious battles against Spain in Western Mediterranean, against Austria-Hungary in Central Europe, against Abyssinia in the Horn of Africa, and occasionally against Iran (and later Russia) in the East, it would be impossible for a Caliph (the Sultan) to trigger a deep social chasm by arresting the followers of the vicious, Satanic theological system of Ahmed ibn Taimiya and by declaring an open war against them. Sultans, in their majority, tried to basically rule against the dark ideas of these ignorant people, without turning openly against them.

Through the above, one can conclude that a great number of populations that traditionally belonged to and followed the Shaffi’i, Hanafi and Maliki schools of jurisprudence started being gravely affected and genuinely altered because of the socially forced diffusion of the villainous system of Ahmed ibn Taimiya, a Hanbali.

In a way, viewed through a historical perspective, the diffusion of that system across 96-98% of all the Muslims’ territories (the rest 2-4% representing the Arabian Desert) represents a late and indirect form of Hanbalization of the Shaffi’i, Hanafi and Maliki schools of jurisprudence.

In fact, this process never stopped; it was only spread over and over.

However, in the whole process, there is particularly critical moment, a date that can be taken as the turning point in the down spiral, from Civilization to Barbarism within Islam. This can be safely and accurately determined; it is 1580. Why this date is so important and what happened then in Istanbul are essential for the entire world to know, because today’s tragic events and terror attacks are only a mere reproduction of that ominous day.

 

(to be continued)

 

 

 

Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of Evil Theological Systems – Part II

Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Ignorance of Evil Theological Systems – Part II

By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

 

In an earlier article published under the title “Brussels Terror Attack: Due to Western Misperceptions – Part I” (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2016/03/23/brussels-terror-attack-due-to-western-misperceptions-part-i/), I highlighted the Western ignorance of the Muslim World and more specifically of the fact that the extremist way of life, mindset and belief are approved and shared by many hundreds of millions of Muslims in countries other than the evil cradle of Salafism / Wahhabism, i.e. Saudi Arabia; I called that dimension of Western misperception of the Islamic World ‘sociopolitical’. In the present article, I will expand on the historical – theological dimension of the problem.

 

WESTERN MISPERCEPTION OF ISLAM – HISTORICAL / THEOLOGICAL DIMENSION

 

In fact, there is an even worse, overwhelming, and terrible deception imposed on all those in West who have no background in Islamic History, Islamic Philosophy, and Islamic Theology. It pertains to the use of the terms ‘Wahhabi’ and ‘Salafist’.

 

Several investigative analysts have already questioned a few important points, such the inextricable relationship between the Islamic terrorists’ ideology, i.e. Wahhabism, and Saudi Arabia’s official and totalitarian dogma, which is again Wahhabism.

 

It would look as if Saudi Arabia cultivated and exported the evilness of Wahhabism, and this is true indeed, but unfortunately, this conclusion covers only a tiny part of the problem. To understand the extent of the problem and why it does involve the greatest part of the Islamic World, one has to go back to History.

 

THEOLOGY vs. RELIGION

 

Meanwhile, one must manage to avoid traps that only help the terrorists continue their evildoing, because precisely these traps mislead the Western statesmen, military headquarters, academia, mass media, and public opinion in their evaluation of the present situation. The trap is that of accusing Islam itself as a religion of terror. Extensive historical research would easily and plainly prove the opposite, namely that the peak of the Islamic Civilization (and all the thousands of historically known Muslim polymaths, philosophers, erudite scholars, scientists, poets, artists, historians, authors, etc.) was totally devoid of any inclination toward violence, let alone terrorism.

 

Where does this trap hinge on?

 

The answer is simple; there is a subtle and yet enormous difference between two words that play here a determinant role: ‘Religion’ and ‘Theology’. All the religions – when systematized as dogma, doctrine and cult – are, usually, essentially transformed into theological systems that can be at times identified as very distant from the original religion.

 

Christianity offers many examples in this regard; the word ‘Trinity’ does not exist in the New Testament. Early Christians practiced Christianity without conceptualizing what later became the Trinity dogma of Christianity. It is only after St. Basil, Bishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia, wrote his lengthy theological treatise On the Holy Spirit (374 CE), which was accepted as doctrinal pillar of Christianity, that 4th century Christians were able at last to contextualize the third person of their religion.

 

Similar situations occurred in Islam, a religion that is based on one holy book, the Quran, and prophetic explanations and narratives usually called ‘traditions’ (Hadith in Arabic) that determine not only the aspects of spiritual life and human morality but also the details of socioeconomic life. In this regard, theological systematization and recorded application of the Islamic Jurisprudence ended up to an interminable typolatry (“the worship of the types of the religion”) very similar to what Jesus accused the Pharisees of (“Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”; Matthew 23:24). This attitude was proven unable to hinder the free development of Philosophy, Letters, Arts, Sciences, and Spirituality in the first six – seven centuries of the Islamic Era, but when the Islamic Civilization collapsed, typolatry prevailed overwhelmingly bringing forth putrefaction.

 

THREE THEOLOGICAL LAYERS THAT COMPOSE TODAY’S ISLAM

 

If you go to the Wikipedia, you will read that the terms Salafi and Wahhabi are almost synonymous and that Wahhabi means the follower of Muhammad Ibn Abdulwahhab (18th c.); they are categorized as Sunni, even by people like Karen Armstrong, but this is very, very false.

1. Muhammad Ibn Abduwahhab adhered to the evil theological system of Ahmed ibn Taimiya (13-14th c.). Today’s Salafists or Wahhabis adhere to that system too.

2. Ahmed ibn Taimiya adhered to the evil theological-jurisprudential system of Ahmed ibn Hanbal (8-9th c.).

3. Now, Ahmed ibn Hanbal is – today – considered as the founder of one of the so-called four (4) schools of Islamic Sunni Jurisprudence (Fiqh – you have to pronounce both, -q and -h).

All the sheikhs and all the muftis of Islam will tell you today that the four schools of Sunni Jurisprudence are: Hanafi, Maliki, Shaffi’i, and Hanbali – all terms are established after the names of several theologians (in chronological order: Abu Hanifa, Malik ibn Anas, Al-Shafi‘i, ibn Hanbal) who lived in the 8th and the 9th c. Indicatively: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiqh

This is a shameful lie.

Certainly, in terms of present sociopolitical conditions, one can find followers of each of the above systems. If one consults existing maps closely, one will soon notice that Hanbalis are to be found – only – in Saudi Arabia!

The critical point, which is today concealed by both, the Muslim sheikhs or muftis and the politically correct Western academia, is that the Hanbalis were never truly accepted as genuine Muslims, civilized humans, and people of good faith by any Muslim in the 8-12th c., which was the peak of Islamic Civilization.

At those days, not one Islamic philosopher, erudite scholar, spiritual mystic, scientist, theologian, polymath, architect, artist or poet ever accepted Ahmed ibn Hanbal as an educated person, let alone as an accredited scholar and theologian. The true fact is that he was imprisoned as a barbaric and dangerous heretic and as an ignorant person, who would spread evilness and darkness among Muslims.

His followers were very few, vulgar, miserable, marginal, and disorderly elements. Across the (already then) vast Islamic World, the only location where they were accepted was the most uneducated, most uncivil, and most worthless part of the Islamic territories, namely the Arabian desert (they were not accepted then even in the Hedjaz, the Cordillera that spans from the South of today’s Jordan to the North of Yemen, i.e. where Mecca and Medina are located). One has to bear also in mind the fact that the Hedjaz, although important from a religious viewpoint (as a holy place where the Prophet of Islam lived), has never been in the Islamic Ages a recommended place for Letters, Sciences, Arts, Philosophy, and Imperial Prestige.

Ahmed ibn Taimiya lived outside Arabia and was a Hanbali, and as such he was imprisoned for felony, heresy, and barbarism. When he was free, in his speeches, he used to admonish his followers to attack personally all the Islamic philosophers, scientists, artists, architects, authors, poets and erudite scholars, because they all had absolute contempt and disdain for him, and his ignorance. Ibn Battuta, the illustrious traveler and author of Islamic Ages, describes that the villainous ibn Taimiya exhorted his followers to attack physically the followers of important Islamic philosophical systems who verbally disagreed with the nonsensical and immoral words that he used to utter. This behaviour prevailed among his followers after he died.

Taking into consideration that Ahmed ibn Taimiya was a Hanbali and that Hanbalis were an illegal group (and not an established and accepted school of Islamic Jurisprudence) at the time, one may ask how Ahmed ibn Taimiya managed to influence people in areas like Damascus where there were no Hanbali at all.

Ahmed ibn Taimiya was the ugly and perverse child of his time. During his life, the last Crusaders were kicked out of the Orient. However, the shock they had created was extremely negative and uniquely tremendous among Muslims, Christians, and Jews of the Orient. It was also the time when the epicenter of the Islamic Civilization, Baghdad, was destroyed by the Mongols. This generated a very negative attitude and aggravated introversion, which was at the antipodes of what the Islamic World had been for six centuries before the Crusades.

 

(to be continued) 

To be or not to be. Western Questions about ISIS and Islam reveal the Collapse of Christianity

By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Refutation of Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer’s article ‘Is ISIS Islamic?’

This is the Caliphate that France, England and America did not want.

And this is the ‘Caliphate’ that France, England and America wanted.

This is the Caliphate that France, England and America did not want.

And this is the ‘Caliphate’ that France, England and America wanted.

This is the Caliphate that France, England and America did not want.

And this is the ‘Caliphate’ that France, England and America wanted.

In a previous article under title ‘Ottoman Empire, Fake ‘Middle East’, the Pseudo-Christians of the West, and the Forthcoming Tribulation’ (https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/ottoman-empire-fake-middle-east-the-pseudo-christians-of-the-west-and-the-forthcoming-tribulation/), I analyzed why the Western Christians’ stance towards their governments’ policies against the Ottoman Empire and its detached provinces (the technical entities of the so-called ‘Middle East’) is very wrong, definitely immoral, and in total contradiction with the Christian principles, values and virtues. I concluded that a great number of nominal Christians, who approved of the evil policies and deeds of the Western governments, are in reality pseudo-Christians irrespective of what they may think they are.

In a world engulfed in the worst crisis of identity of all times, it is only normal that doubts are raised as regards the identity of the ‘other.’ Only yesterday, Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer, who specializes in ‘global religion’ – a non-existent entity – questioned in an article the identity of ISIS (Is ISIS Islamic? / http://www.theglobalist.com/is-isis-islamic/).

Quite interestingly, under the title, a motto gives the summarizing idea of the article (“Every religion has its dark sides, but the conflict is about politics.”). This is absolutely irrelevant; dark sides in a religion are what you don’t know of that religion. They don’t exist by themselves. No religion has ever had any dark side whatsoever. And all conflicts about politics cannot be deprived of their own religious dimension, because everything in a human society hinges on the spiritual belief or disbelief. Atheists are religious too; they are slaves of Satan either they understand it or not. Their theory and their rejection of God is a form of Satanic faith.

When one starts with so many preconceived ideas as the global religion theoretician Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer, his approach is doomed to fail, but this does not originate from the lack of knowledge of the ‘other side’. And Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer’s main problem is not his lack of insightful knowledge about both, the Islamic world and ISIS itself. The article reveals a serious problem of Christian identity and for this reason I intended to comment on it. I think that my comments will be useful to both, Christians and Muslims.

The author of the article tries to implement the following simplistic logic: if we hold the Ku Klux Klan in the US and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda as ‘Christian’, then we can consider ISIS as ‘Islamic’. This sort of approach does not clarify anything, and rather creates further confusion among both, Christians and Muslims. Generally speaking, I understand and accept the approach through analogy, but to implement this method in your text, you’ve got to select very firm examples. Yes, it is correct to say ‘if we hold the New and the Old Testament as holy books for the Christians, then we can consider the Quran as holy book for Muslims’. Beyond the limit of such comparisons, we can achieve minimal result through analogy and at times lose clarity.

There is always a very serious mistake in every approach that avoids a proper, direct definition and attempts to define something through its opposite. If you want to define Christianity, you cannot possibly be as vague as you are when saying ‘Christianity is something other than / different from Ku Klux Klan’ (or the LRA). Ditto for the Islamic World.

It is really gross to try to define Christianity as the antithesis of what the author calls the LRA ‘a terrible terrorist organization’! Who can expect a religion to possibly be ‘a terrible terrorist organization’? No one!

In addition, there are in Uganda hundreds of thousands if not millions of simple people who, if not terrorized, will have the courage to state that the LRA is NOT a terrorist organization – or if you want not as terrorist as the execrable, racist Ugandan government. And who is authorized to speak about ‘terrorism’? The global mass media? Or the defenders of a non-existent ‘global religion’?

But the term ‘terrorism’ (or ‘terrorist’) is an unhistorical fabrication that was composed only recently as a vicious tool of the world’s most evil, most villainous, and most dictatorial regimes, the likes of America, England and France. It has no credibility, and above all, it is used within political context. Why on Earth a scholar and an academic feels the need to confuse his readers so much as to mention a political term when he talks about religion?

Whatever Christianity has been or has not been or may have been, it is certainly something unrelated to modern political terms; even more so if these terms are recently invented as result of scheming and propaganda and therefore fully rejected by vast populations worldwide.

However, the use of brutal manners in order to achieve power that will later consolidate the survival and the propagation of a faith, a religion, a sect or a secret order-organization is widely attested in almost every religion, culture, nation and period.

There are many historical examples in this regard. The Ismailiyah Order of the Shia Muslims, who were also called Hashashin (because their leader, the famous ‘Elder of the Mountain’ administered the proper dose of hashish to his disciples in order to duly instrumentalize and effectively utilize them for his purposes) and were known to Marco Polo (he called them Assassins and this is how this word was first used in European languages), used to send members (their secret knights) to cross incredibly long distances to arrive where their target (a ruler, an military leader, an imam or other) lived and, by treacherously approaching, assassinate them. Should we call them ‘terrorists’? This would be utterly ridiculous.

It is actually always pathetic and ludicrous to project one period’s / civilization’s / culture’s measures, values and criteria onto other periods, civilizations and cultures. One cannot evaluate others through use of one’s own criteria; every civilization, culture, religion, and historical period is an independent entity that no scholar can transform as per his theoretical needs in any way. The reason for this maxim is simple; by slightly transforming (through improper evaluation involving external criteria) a civilization, culture, religion, and historical period, a scholar only modifies and misinterprets it. This scholar is therefore speaking of a false entity that practically speaking never existed (except in his misinterpretation and imagination); thus, he only confuses his unfortunate readers.

Another example is offered by the Christian Catholic Holy Inquisition. It is undisputed that this Holy Office carried out very brutal policies for long. Should we call it ‘terrorism’? This would also be utterly ludicrous.

As the author is continuously avoiding a proper definition for what is ‘Islamic’ and what is not, the article is characterized by a personal, individualistic approach that is both, irrelevant and confusing. Prof. Mark Juergensmeyer implements again the analogy approach, but this time at the very personal level. He, as a Christian, dissociates himself from the Ugandan LRA and the American Ku Klux Klan, and he therefore postulates that, accordingly, ‘this is the same position most Muslims are in now with regard to ISIS’.

This is very irrelevant because scholars are expected to include personal views and experience in their memoirs at the end of the their lives and not as supposedly convincing evidence in their articles and other publications. This style is very arrogant; in addition, it is very confusing because personal approaches do not constitute proper definitions. The sentence he makes is quiet evident: ‘As a Christian, I feel like they have nothing to do with me or with the Christianity that I know’. The last words reveal the extent of the problem; probably the globalist professor and specialist of the non existent ‘global’ religion ( !! ? !! )  does not know the Holy Inquisition, and consequently we can safely claim that he does not know Christianity well. And this is the problem for him and for all the misled and confused Christians of the West.

Many people have been driven to the impasse of assuming a lot; one of their wrong assumptions is to take today’s fallen Christianity as the true Christianity. Similarly, in the Islamic world, there are many Muslims, who assume that today’s fallen Islam is the true Islam. Both groups fail to understand one another because they primarily fail to understand themselves and accurately specify how far they have gone from their respective religions, sailing adrift in the Sea of Relativism and Faithlessness.

After the preliminary part of the article, its inconsistency turns it to a mere worthless piece. As the title obliges the author to give a definition of ISIS, the ‘global religion’ specialist or rather propagandist Mark Juergensmeyer enters into a series of mistakes while giving to his readers unexplained terms that are absolutely meaningless to the non-specialist.

He says: ‘What makes things even more complicated is that ISIS bases its beliefs and actions on a form of Islamic interpretation called Salafism’.

– Why on Earth is now the Salafist nature of ISIS (which is true and beyond any doubt) a problem?

Let me make my position clear. In many articles, I denounced the Wahhabism (the correct term for Salafism) as a deformation of Islam. But Wahhabism (or if you want Salafism) is nothing new to the Western world’s academia and diplomats.

To paraphrase Prof. Juergensmeyer, before any other institution on Earth, Saudi Arabia – the country that America catastrophically chose as its primary ally in the region before …. 70 years or, to put it otherwise, the country that England disastrously conspired with against the Ottoman Caliphate for more than 100 years before the fall of the Ottoman dynasty and continually ever since – ‘bases its beliefs and actions on a form of Islamic interpretation called Salafism’.

What is Prof. Juergensmeyer talking about?

If Saudi Arabia did not exist, there would never be an ISIS.

What does Prof. Juergensmeyer want?

Does he want ISIS to disappear and Saudi Arabia to survive?

That’s silly.

Because if Saudi Arabia continues existing, even if ISIS is mercilessly exterminated and all its members and fighters executed ( and this needs at least 50000 US soldiers in a large scale land attack and in coordination with the venerable president of Syria! ), there will be another ISIS, an ISIS bis if you want, or an ISES (Islamic State of Egypt and Sudan), an ISYA (Islamic State of Yemen and Arabia), or any combination of letters you may choose!

As long as Saudi Arabia exists, Wahhabism will be its pseudo-Islamic state dogma, and through the filthy money of the inhuman gangsters who rule from Riyadh, Wahhabism will be diffused among the masses of Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia to the Muslim Diaspora worldwide.

What is even worse is that Prof. Juergensmeyer fails again to either give a definition of Wahhabism (Salafism) or the historical perspective thereof; as a matter of fact, all the filthy and un-Islamic, dark and inhuman ideas that Muhammad Abdel Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism) shaped and propagated during the 18th c. did not fall from the sky into his idiotic and ignorant mind. There has been an entire historical process within Islam (with heretic theologians preceding Muhammad Abdel Wahhab by 450 and 900 years) that led to this monstrous theological deformation of Islam. All this is unknown to the ‘global religion’ professor who writes about Islam without having a clue of all academic fields pertaining to the study of this historical – spiritual phenomenon.

This is the historical reality, which is quite well known to specialists of Islamic History and Religion in the West, but it remains concealed, because it is politically disturbing and troublesome. If Wahhabism is not uprooted, if all the Wahhabi institutions across the world are not shut down, if a new class of Muslim intellectuals at the antipodes of Wahhabism is not formed, the explosive situation will only turn worse.

First point of conclusion is therefore that Saudi Arabia and the Saudi family itself must be denounced as the only matrix of all evil across the Islamic world for the last 200 years, and an overwhelming attack against it must be undertaken in order to totally eliminate Riyadh and the villainous, heretic elite which from there managed to incessantly spread the evilness of Wahhabism worldwide.

The confusing presentation of Prof. Juergensmeyer is due to the fact that he does not seek the historical, religious, cultural and theological truth, but only writes in order to serve political purposes and needs, preserve strategic alliances, and in the process, effectuate compromises. We saw these compromises in Mosul, in Sanjar and in Raqqah. These compromises are responsible for the evacuation of most of the Yazidis from their homelands; these compromises are the reason for the deracination of all the Aramaean Christians of Mosul; these compromises are the root cause of the hecatomb that the bloodthirsty vampires of ISIS want to deliver.

For one more time, the ‘global religion’ specialist, Prof. Juergensmeyer, attempts a confusing definition through analogy! He writes: “The Salafi movement is similar to an extreme fundamentalism in Christianity”. This is an understatement; in addition, who can specify what ‘fundamentalism in Christianity’ means? This is not called ‘definition’ but ‘anyone’s guess’…

It must however become crystal clear to Western readership that ISIS, Saudi Arabia, and Wahhabism, (Salafism) do not constitute any form of Islamic fundamentalism. They are heretic, so they cannot be held as Islamic in any sense. They are far and out of the foundations of Islam, so they cannot possibly be ‘fundamental’. Muhammad Abdel Wahhab in his days was considered as a heretic and a traitor by the Ottoman administration; the same evaluation concerned also the Ottoman Caliphate’s traitor and founder of the Satanic house of the Saudis.

The two earlier Islamic theologians on whom Abdel Wahhab was based to produce his pseudo-Islamic trash, namely Ahmed ibn Taimiyah and Ahmed ibn Hanbal who lived in the 13th-14th c. and the 8th-9th c, respectively, were also considered as heretic in their times and duly imprisoned. They may be unknown to Prof. Juergensmeyer, but he should then abstain from writing purposelessly on issues he is not relevant of.

The famous, 14th c. Moroccan traveler, explorer and scholar Ibn Battuta encountered in Damascus people who knew personally the evil, villainous and ignorant heretic Ibn Taimiyah who was then imprisoned. This is what the Islamic World’s most illustrious traveler wrote about the progenitor of Wahhabism:

A controversial theologian  

One of the principal Hanbalite doctors at Damascus was Taqi ad-Din Ibn Taymiya, a man of great ability and wide learning, but with some kink in his brain. The people of Damascus idolized him. He used to preach to them from the pulpit, and one day he made some statement that the other theologians disapproved; they carried the case to the sultan and in consequence Ibn Taymiya was imprisoned for some years. While he was in prison he wrote a commentary on the Koran, which he called ” The Ocean,” in about forty volumes. Later on his mother presented herself before the sultan and interceded for him, so he was set at liberty, until he did the same thing again. I was in Damascus at the time and attended the service which he was conducting one Friday, as he was addressing and admonishing the people from the pulpit. In the midst of his discourse he said “Verily God descends to the sky over our world [from Heaven] in the same bodily fashion that I make this descent,” and stepped down one step of the pulpit. A Malikite doctor present contradicted him and objected to his statement, but the common people rose up against this doctor and beat him with their hands and their shoes so severely that his turban fell off and disclosed a silken skull-cap on his head. Inveighing against him for wearing this, they haled him before the qadi of the Hanbalites, who ordered him to be imprisoned and afterwards had him beaten. The other doctors objected to this treatment and carried the matter before the principal amir, who wrote to the sultan about the matter and at the same time drew up a legal attestation against Ibn Taymiya for various heretical pronouncements. This deed was sent on to the sultan, who gave orders that Ibn Taymiya should be imprisoned in the citadel, and there he remained until his death.

At a certain point in his article, Prof. Juergensmeyer makes a totally misleading statement (“So, yes, ISIS is ultimately Islamic – whether you like it or not”), which can have disastrous consequences on anyone who may happen to accept it. A heretic cannot be identified with the religion from which he was rejected. It is not a mere point of accuracy, but a critical issue of false target.

Failing to understand this, he adds perjury to infamy, by completing his sentence with the following: “but it is certainly not the kind of Islam that most Muslims would accept or profess”.

This is a pure lie. And more than a merely false point, it reflects the tendencies of the Western governments to totally conceal the truth from their peoples. First of all, no one has accurate estimates on the subject. Gallup polls in several Muslim countries are prohibited – particularly on a subject this critical -, whereas in the rest no Gallup polls have ever been conducted on issues as troublesome as that.

However, there are many indicators that ISIS does truly reflect in a certain way the kind of false, heretic and decayed Islam that most Muslims accept and profess. If you make a list of what is correct as an act or practice of the Islamic way of both, personal life and social organization, including perhaps 500 detailed points accepted by the followers, the fighters and the leaders of ISIS, and then you submit this list to 1000 average Saudis (without adding that these points are all approved by ISIS members), their responses, homogeneous and ominous, will take you by surprise. Their agreement with the 500 points of the list will deliver a result far above 90-95%.  Similar results, always above 80%, you will collect from countries like Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Yemen, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria, etc. And certainly the agreement will be lower in other countries, but even in Turkey, it will be as high as 40% due to the vicious Western policies in favor of the AKP party Islamists and against the nationalist military establishment of Ankara (a paranoid policy that allowed the ruling Islamists to widen their basis through a varied set of methods).

How can one be sure of this?

By simply walking in the streets of districts inhabited by middle and lower classes (that total more than 80-90% of the total population of the country in most of the aforementioned cases) and observing what goes around, talking to the people, asking about their ideas, and entertaining comprehensive discussions as to just how they see and how they want to see their lives and their social environment – something that Prof. Juergensmeyer did not do, ultimately preferring the calmness and the security of his office somewhere in the States.

However, the situation is far worse than that. If you now present the same list (of what is correct as an act or practice of the Islamic way of personal life and social organization, including perhaps 500 detailed points accepted by the followers, the fighters and the leaders of ISIS) to a selected group of academics, engineers, businessmen, administrators and high profile functionaries, deputies of ‘parliament’ (this is a non-representative assembly for most of the cases), military, ministers and religious authorities across the Islamic world (without however saying that these points are all approved by ISIS members), you will collect even more surprising results. The outright majority of the elite of these countries (and I don’t mean here only Saudi Arabia but all the aforementioned countries) in majority supports the same points. This is for instance the reason one should view the latest president El Sisi of Egypt as theologically – ideologically – politically far closer to the former president Morsy than to the one time vice president El Baradei.

It would take too long to narrate how this situation has been formed, but I would however like to briefly hint at what I said earlier about the theologians who served as source of inspiration for Muhammad Abdel Wahhab, the founder of the Wahhabism (Salafism), namely the heretics Ibn Taimiyah and Ibn Hanbal. In fact, if Muhammad Abdel Wahhab developed the theological system that constitutes today’s Wahhabists’ doctrine, this is due to the fact that Ibn Hanbal’s and Ibn Taimiyah’s successive and intertwined theological systems gradually prevailed among the Islamic world and eliminated or transformed/altered all the opposite systems.

As a matter of fact, if one Muslim imam, qadi, mufti, minister, general, professor, president or businessman today rejects Wahhabism, he still accepts Ibn Taimiyah’s widespread and fully accepted theological system, which is – metaphorically speaking – the tree that produced the fruit of Wahhabism. There is, practically speaking, little difference or no difference at all between the two systems; simply every posterior system that emanates from an anterior is expected to feature and does actually feature some extra points.

The real difference existed in the past, in Islam’s Golden Era, when totally opposite philosophical systems totally prevailed across the highly educated Islamic World. These are the philosophical systems of Ibn Sina, Qurtubi, Ibn Rushd, Ghazali, Mohyieldin Ibn Arabi, Ibn Hazm, to name but a few; to them is due the Islamic Enlightenment, whereas to the gross, villain, uneducated trash of Ibn Taimiyah is due the complete disfigurement of Islam’s quintessence. However, due to the gradual diffusion of Ibn Taimiyah’s theological nonsense and ignominious darkness, and following its prevalence among ignorant and uneducated masses that it created in a vicious circle mechanism, as it attacked Science, Knowledge, Philosophy, Art and Spirituality, gradually all the philosophical systems of the aforementioned Titans of the Islamic Thought disappeared until the end of the 16th c.

Of course, there is one more difference between the political elites of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc. and the ISIS extremists; the former, although accepting most of Abdel Wahhab’s theories and all of Ibn Tamiyah’s ideas, differ politically and make the necessary compromises to ensure the survival of their regime. Contrarily, the latter reject the compromise of the former, viewing it as a treason of Islam. Political difference is therefore due to mere survival tactics of elites that are theological quasi-identical to ISIS; these elites believe that by making compromises upon compromises with the West, they can prolong their tenure and the ensuing material benefits. But their existence only spearheads new waves of uncompromising Wahhabists. Certainly, there is also an attitudinal difference (but no behavioral difference) between the followers of a guy like al Bashir of Sudan or Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen and the fighters of ISIS; the former want to pocket more money and store it in their banks, whereas the latter are ready to die. But none of them would accept his wife to be uncovered (without hejab, the Islamic veil) or his daughter to travel alone on motorbike across Europe.

The best corroboration of the aforementioned is the following tragicomical contrast between Egypt’s last and current presidents; Muhammad Morsy is viewed by some as extremist  whereas the incumbent is considered as a moderate and pragmatist person.

Former Egyptian president Muhammad Morsy’s wife wears hejab (Islamic veil that allows the face to be seen).

Current Egyptian president El Sisi’s wife used to wear a niqab (Islamic veil that covers the face entirely leaving only two small holes for the eyes) and only recently “swapped the niqab for a trendy hijab, hushing up claims that she was dyed-in-the-wool” (http://www.albawaba.com/slideshow/sisi-wife-intisar-amer-581626)!!

Prof. Juergensmeyer goes on saying that the reason for which “world leaders are trying to make in saying that ISIS is ‘not Islamic’.” is that ISIS “is certainly not the kind of Islam that most Muslims would accept or profess”. In the light of the aforementioned this appears to be a very unfortunate consideration and an erroneous evaluation of what is going on in the Islamic world.

Reaching the end of the brief yet mistaken article, Prof. Juergensmeyer says that Islam’s name means “peace” which is very wrong (in reality, it means ‘submission to God’ although it originates from the word ‘peace’).

In the article’s last three paragraphs, Prof. Juergensmeyer makes one more futile effort to dissociate ISIS from today’s prevalent Islamic theological systems and to associate it with politics. This is quite pointless and misplaced. In fact, there is no, and there cannot be any, difference between religion and politics in Islam. So, everything that is religious is also political, and vice versa.

Contrarily to the wrong Western assumption that Islam is the only system whereby religion and politics constitute an indivisible entity of faith and action, it is historically proven that all the major religions were systems in which faith and government were perfectly well interwoven. The same occurred particularly in Christianity either Orthodox or Catholic; one may even ponder that in some cases the phenomenon occurred more emphatically in Christianity than in Islam; extensively discussed terms, such as Papocaesarism and Caesaropapism are quite telling in this regard.

So, Prof. Juergensmeyer’s sentence “Besides religion, it is critical to recognize that all the forms of terrorism that we have seen are about politics. Any act of violence in the public sphere is aimed at trying to claim political space – at taking over power to assume control over regions or peoples. This is certainly true in the case of ISIS” is absolutely irrelevant and completely wrong.

The way one family lives is defined by religion; the way one society is organized is specified by religion; the way the art of rule is exercised is decreed by religion. The aforementioned does not only apply to the Islamic world; it does also to Ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Iran, etc. It is also valid in Confucian China, Biblical Israel, and Christian Rome or Constantinople. One can enter into details that can fill volumes: the way one fights in battle is determined by religious orders; the way one sleeps is elucidated by religious advice; the way one eats is clarified by religious guidance; the way one has sex is stipulated by religious prescriptions, and so on.

Piety is one of the religious traits and virtues that must be reflected in a person’s life, either this person is Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or Confucian. I fully agree with Prof. Juergensmeyer that “most people directly involved in ISIS are not pious Muslims”; this is right. But does it really matter?

And what about Prof. Juergensmeyer? Will he agree with me saying that “most people directly involved in Assets Management are not pious Christians”?

When we see vulture-funds in Latin America terrorizing nations like Argentina (which involves populations far larger than Iraq or Syria) and endangering the lives and the well-being of dozens of millions of people, do we still need to focus exclusively on a minor terrorist group and forget worse gangsters and terrorists who are far more perilous than the idiotic fighters of ISIS?

And this concludes the case of this type of confusing presentations and futile approaches that leave the Western readership in mysteries; identifying the true reasons of an explosive situation may help greatly solve and diffuse the crisis. But it entails a real inquiry about the original and the altered, the genuine and the transfigured, the authentic and the corrupt. Instead of searching pretexts and excuses, one should seek the truth.

It is not only greatly comical but also highly perilous for the Western leaders to continue on the same track. Why should they bother whether most of today’s Muslims accept or don’t accept the doctrine and the practices of ISIS? The Western leaders themselves constantly disregard the majority of the population back in their countries, and particularly when the majority is ostensibly opposite to calamitous choices that they make (such as the case of the erroneously conceived and catastrophically carried out attack against, and occupation of, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq). Their disregard for the wishes and the opinions of the majority of their countries’ populations is monumental; they cannot be sensitive for other nations when they are insensitive for their own.

The search for the reasons that brought about the present situation cannot be undertaken by Western academia, intellectuals and diplomats without a deep investigation of the developments that took place in their own countries in the first place. Before bothering to know whether ISIS is Islamic or not, they should care to find out whether the so-called Christian nations of the West are really Christian. Drunken of their colonial successes for many centuries, the Western peoples lived with myths and lies that totally disfigured the true dimensions of their own deeds, choices and policies. Modernity is not Christian but Anti-Christian. Globalism is not Divine but Satanic. And the Homosexual Marriages are not the ‘right of the free’ but the evilness of the slaves – of Satan.

Atheist, materialistic, and despiritualized, the Western world turned out to be the Cemetery of the Christian Faith. That’s why the leaders of the Western countries did not give a damn about the persecution, expulsion and extermination of the Aramaean Christians in Mosul. They face now a nominalist and legalist theological system of despiritualized Muslims, who are partly westernized and deeply materialistic, which means filled with extremely contradictory elements able to explode with uncontainable consequences.

The fallacy, inhumanity and monstrosity of either systems is such that one could simply consider them as the two faces of same coin. So corrupt and eroded this coin is that nothing can save it; it will soon be thrown in the Hell that it deserves. And its two faces, in full discord to one another, are triggering now by themselves the downgrading spiral that will bring their end. To survive one has to dissociate him/herself from the onerous coin as much as possible, as soon as possible, and as irreversibly as possible.

 

 

 

 

Ottoman Empire, Fake ‘Middle East’, the Pseudo-Christians of the West, and the Forthcoming Tribulation

Cassandra, by Evelyn de Morgan – London, 1898

 

By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire is a Crime for which the World will still pay much.

The rightful state for all African and Western Asiatic territories between Morocco and Iran is the Ottoman Empire. However, in the aftermath of WW I, and because of the defeat of Imperial Germany’s allies, the Ottoman Empire was dispossessed of more than 80% of its territories (today’s Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Yemen) that had meanwhile been limited only in Western Asia, due to the French – English – Italian colonial expansion and illegal expropriation of Ottoman provinces in NW – N – NE Africa (today’s Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea).

The colonial empires attempted to achieve economic and political benefits through their expansion, and they managed to do so, and in the process they diffused colossal amounts of lies, disseminated alien theories and insults against the indigenous nations’ traditions, performed heinous deeds, carried out series of crimes, imposed unacceptable policies, and offered every reason for any indigenous nation to reject their plans and to revile them for having spread in the process discord and enmity among the indigenous nations, fratricidal conflicts, successive wars, foreign military interventions, ecological and human disasters, and total social disintegration.

On the other side, governed by puppet governments that do not obey the will of their peoples but carry out the orders of shadowy organizations and secret societies, the Western societies in their totality (except those who openly rejected the evildoing) became the undisputed accomplices of their governments and of their secret masters. Responsibility is therefore to be shared by all.

Because the top of the Western societies, i.e. the powerful secret organizations that define who participates in the local governments and who does not, consists of unbelievers, immoral gangsters, and villainous cheaters, no consideration was given to the moral aspect of the policies implemented and the deeds performed. But this does not change in anything their responsibility, and the responsibility of the puppet governments, and the responsibility of the peoples who were controlled by this pyramidal hierarchical scheme. They all bear the common responsibility for the aforementioned deeds because, irrespective of any religion and faith, every human bears the responsibility of his / her acts.

This is something that most of the simple people in all the Western countries tend to forget. If this attitude characterizes one agnostic or atheist person, it does not matter much because every person who rejects the universal order established by God (however perceived as per each specific religion and philosophy) is automatically immoral and no morality standards or principles can apply to, and be expected from, him/her. The notion of civic morality is a ludicrous attempt to effectively kill God and as such fully disregarded. Morality exists only within Faith; extreme cases like those of the Biblical stories about Sodom and Gomorrah bear witness to the aforementioned.

So, Western people, who are Christian of faith and accept the Christian concept of morality (differently interpreted of course as per each denomination), must know that they fully bear responsibility for the criminal deeds and policies of their governments to which they (and their forefathers) did not duly react. What is to be concluded from this point is that, according to Christian morality itself, Christians in the West should not be surprised, if terrible acts against their life, integrity, safety, and security are to be tomorrow undertaken. These acts have already been spearheaded by their governments’ policies and by the inactivity of those who value Christian and Biblical moral concepts like the famous order ‘Ό μισείς, μηδενί ποιήσεις‘ (Do that to no man which thou hatest – from Tobias, 4:15 – http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/apo/tob004.htm) which was exemplarily rephrased by Jesus as ‘Καθώς θέλετε ίνα ποιώσιν υμίν οι άνθρωποι, και υμείς ποιείτε αυτοίς ομοίως‘ (Do to other people what you want them to do to you – from Luke 6:31).

I am sure that true Christians fully understand the crimes that their successive governments have performed for more than 200 years against the Ottoman Empire and the different nations that lived in this vast empire. It would be too idiotic to believe that Jesus demanded from his followers to invade other countries, extirpate their resources, scheme against their inhabitants, and in the process persecute, torture or kill those who opposed them.

As this is quite clear, one has to conclude that those among the Westerners, who recently supported policies such as the wars undertaken by the US (with or without their allies) against Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, etc., are not and by definition cannot be Christian, irrespective of how they identify themselves, what they say they believe in, and whether they go to a church or not.

The reason for the above statement is simple.

– Who is the Christian American who would accept happily a foreign invading nation to detach Texas from the US, occupy the land, persecute the inhabitants, and expropriate its resources?

But America invaded Iraq, and the American Christians had an opportunity to thunderously oppose the Anti-Christian and Satanic policy of their country and in the process save their souls by markedly dissociating themselves from this nefarious evildoing. Unfortunately for the American Christians, they did nothing of the sort; quite contrarily, many of them expressed great happiness for the destruction their army caused on innocent countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. none of which had ever planned, neither did they have the means, to attack America.

The extent of the crime to which these pseudo-Christians are held as wholehearted accomplices is such that, if they believe in their often mistranslated Bibles as they say, we can safely conclude that their souls will vanish in eternal Hell. And even before dying, they will face a calamitous punishment while living.

Jesus spoke about these pseudo-Christians of the West who are a real disgrace on the surface of the Earth; he said that ‘Οὐ πᾶς ὁ λέγων μοι, Κύριε Κύριε, εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἀλλ‘ ὁ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς‘ (Vulgata: ‘non omnis qui dicit mihi Domine Domine intrabit in regnum caelorum sed qui facit voluntatem Patris mei qui in caelis est ipse intrabit in regnum caelorum’ / English: Not every one who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he that does the will of my Father who is in the heavens – from Matthew 7:21).

Similarly, the English and French pseudo-Christians, who do not regret for their countries’ anti-Ottoman (and at the same time Anti-Christian) policies and who do not try to dissociate themselves from their evil, Satanic governments and states by any possible means, will be held responsible and vanish in eternal damnation. And before this is adjusted to their souls, their fate on Earth will be duly affected, because they have, thoughtlessly if not willingly, been the unrepented accomplices of the vicious and heinous policies pursued by their governments against the Ottoman Empire and its different nations.

Of course, the Christian populations of England and France (and before them those of other Christian countries like Holland, Spain and Portugal) were repeatedly confused and systematically misled by their vicious governments that promised them great wealth and prosperity due to the acquisition of colonial territories. But there are plenty of warnings in the Christian Bibles that clearly state that Christians have as tasks to watch carefully so that no one cheats them. Jesus said: ‘καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ ᾿Ιησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· βλέπετε μή τις ὑμᾶς πλανήσῃ’ (Vulgata: ‘et respondens Iesus dixit eis videte ne quis vos seducat’ / English: And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you – from Matthew 24:4).

All accounts made, there have been very few territories (mainly small islands) that were totally uninhabited at the moment of the Western colonization. In most of the cases, colonization brought about total destruction of the previous inhabitants, so it was a premeditated criminal act that the European colonizers carried out – and only for the sake of robbery, theft, expropriation of local wealth. Even worse, when trying to achieve these immoral and illegal targets, to overwhelmingly prevail over the indigenous nations that justly and rightfully defended their homelands, the European colonizers were forced to carry out extensive persecution, torture and genocide of the indigenous nations.In fact, it was a typical downgrading spiral that we customarily notice every time we see people, who are possessed by evil spirits, proceed from minor evil deeds to the most appalling crimes and sins.

It goes without saying that these crimes were decided and performed by the Freemasonic gangsters, who govern England, France, Holland and America; as a matter of fact, following their first initiation into the mysteries of Satan, these secluded non-humans lose quickly all traces of humanity and morality, and can perform all types of criminal evildoing. However, the enormous moral problem of all the rest, i.e. those who inhabit these countries and claim to be Christian, is that they did not and they still do not oppose these acts and policies, they don’t dissociate themselves from these crimes, and they do nothing to prevent them, being thus the most unfortunate accomplices. For the sake of stolen wealth that does not effectively belong to them (and which is will certainly and justly be soon removed from them), these pseudo-Christians have sold their souls to the devil.

They have thus forgotten the words of Jesus saying ‘Τι ωφελείται άνθρωπος εάν τον κόσμον όλον κερδήση, την δε ψυχήν αυτού ζημιωθή; Η τι δώσει άνθρωπος αντάλλαγμα της ψυχής αυτού;’ (Vulgata: ‘quid enim prodest homini si mundum universum lucretur animae vero suae detrimentum patiatur aut quam dabit homo commutationem pro anima sua’ / English: For what does a man profit, if he should gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? – from Matthew 16:26). This helps us understand that the consequences of their own indifference, ignorance, and immorality will fall upon them.

There is no Middle East – this is a false term in replacement of the correct ‘Ottoman Caliphate’ 

The extensive falsification project, which was launched by the colonial Orientalist academics in support of their countries’ evil deeds and was unfortunately accepted by the different Western, Christian nations, is another vast crime perpetrated for which the Western nations are in total impossibility to avoid the consequences. The project hinges on a multitude of points and details, systematic distortion, and fallacious contextualization of the events, but here I will examine only one dimension and term.

In fact, there is no Middle East.

The term is a subdivision of the ‘Orient’ (East) into ‘Near East’ (or Levant), ‘Middle East’, and ‘Far East’ (that comprised India and every land east of India). The entire subdivision of the Orient is historically irrelevant and morally vicious, but this is a subject for later discussion.

First, we should examine the general division of the world until the late 15th c. into Orient and Occident (East and West). The term draws on geographical considerations, but it takes a far more elaborate form of cultural division or divide. Geographically, it is truly correct to divide the surrounding lands as per the four cardinal points; however, this varies per country. What is ‘West’ for Iran (example: Turkish Anatolia) is ‘East’ for Greece. The same happens when moving from the septentrional to the meridional direction; what is ‘North’ for Sudan (example: Egypt) is ‘South’ for Phoenicia.

So, we can shape a conclusive opinion that whatever stands as geographically ‘relative’ cannot be held as historically – culturally – politically ‘absolute’. Consequently, the use of a similar term in a specific country cannot become general for all the countries of the world.

However, in striking opposition to the aforementioned conclusion, Western European scholars, promoting Freemasonic schemes, division and strives that brought about endless bloodshed, attempted to divide – first the historical past and second the political present of the last 300 years – into a fictional categorization ‘Orient vs. Occident’.

The term ‘Orientalist’ originates from this false division too. Quite interestingly, the vicious Freemasonic forgers of France and England did not come up with an equivalent term for those specializing on Western civilizations; there was never an ‘Occidentalist’!

This incredible trickery means that for no less than 20 different great civilizations (which entail twenty different names of specialists, such as Egyptologist, Assyriologist, Iranologist, etc.) there has been one generic term (Orientalist) created, whereas for only 2 great civilizations (Greece and Rome) no generic term was created but instead there have always been two specialized terms (Hellenist, Latinist) in use. This is exactly how – due to the dishonest terminology and the worthless diatribes of the Freemasonic forgers – the number 20 proved to be only half of the number 2!

As ‘Occident’ are identified, as regards the Antiquity and the Christian / Islamic Ages, only Greece, Rome and the predominantly Celtic Western Europe.

As ‘Orient’ are identified, as regards the Antiquity and the Christian / Islamic Ages, all the other lands, nations, cultures and civilizations in either Europe (Scythians, Cimmerians, etc.), Africa (Egypt, Carthage) or Asia (from Phrygia and Lydia that flourished on the Aegean Sea’s eastern shores to China).

This division is culturally baseless, structurally false, and largely contradicted by the existing historical sources and archaeological evidence referred to by the villainous Freemasonic forgers. In addition, it is geographically unacceptable. Example: ‘Oriental’ Carthage lies ‘west’ of ‘Western’ Greece!

Quite interestingly, even Greece’s territory during the Christian / Islamic Ages (successively part of the Eastern Roman and the Ottoman Empires), was viewed as rather part of the ‘Orient’. Useless to add that, according to this paranoia, the Islamic Caliphate of Andalusia in the Iberian Peninsula was unequivocally part of the ‘Orient’ too! This was absolutely ridiculous from the geographical point of view, because it meant literally that the ‘Orient’ was located both, east and west of the ‘Occident’!

However, the baseless cultural division obscured the minds of many people worldwide and deceived those of the rest. Even more unfortunately, the ensuing political division triggered scores of dead, incessant wars, and permanent discord and racism with even worse consequences.

As ‘Occident’ were identified in Modern Times only Italy, France, England, Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian nations, and the US. Republics or monarchies seceding from the Spanish, Portuguese, and Ottoman Empires (Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Greece, Serbia) were tentatively accepted as ‘Occident’, and the same concerned later a certain number of former English dependencies that were accepted as independent states (Canada, Australia).

As ‘Orient’ were identified in Modern Times all the other lands, nations, cultures and civilizations in either Europe (Austria-Hungary, Imperial Germany, Tsarist Russia. the Ottoman Caliphate, and even the religious monarchies of Spain and Portugal that opposed the intellectual cholera of the so-called ‘Enlightenment’), Africa (the Ottoman provinces in the Black Continent, the Great Somali Sultanates, Morocco, the African kingdoms of the Oromos, the Hausa, etc., plus all the indigenous nations of the European colonies) or Asia (from the Ottoman Empire and Iran to Central Asia, India, SE Asia, China, Korea and Japan).

The political divide is certainly clearer of purpose; due to the projection of the baseless divide on the European soil itself, we can understand that the Freemasonic forgers created the two terms – parts of the divide in order to further polarize the differences between the states whereby the Anti-Christian theories of the French philosophers of the ‘Enlightenment’ were accepted (England, Holland, America, ‘Nouveau Régime’ France after 1789) and the states whereby these villainous, yet ideally marketed, theories were rejected.

In fact, the fake political divide categorized as ‘Orient’ together numerous states, empires, religions, cultures and nations as different from one another as the Catholics are from the Orthodox, the Sunni Muslims, the Shia Muslims, the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Taoists, the Confucians, the Shinto, the followers of diverse indigenous African religious systems, like the Oromo monotheistic Waaqeffannaa, and the followers of indigenous American and Pacific religious systems. Only this shows that the categorization is fake and the ensuing polarization can afflict the entire Mankind.

Following the systematized diffusion of the vicious divide, the ‘Orient’ (or East) was cut into three pieces, namely ‘Near East’ (Proche Orient or Levant in French), ‘Middle East’ (Moyen Oreint in French) and ‘Far East’ (Extrême-Orient in French). In fact, there is a very simple question that does not take years of specialized studies for someone to formulate, and it still unveils automatically the entire fallacy of the Freemasonic subdivision of the Orient:

– ‘Near East’; ‘near’ to whom?

To Western Europe, of course! This makes clear what is in the back side of the minds of the people involved in universities, research, academic and intellectual life, and subsequently in the world of politics.

Middle East: a Historical Fallacy and an unacceptable Immorality for Christians

There is no need for someone to specialize in an academic field in order to fully assess how terribly immoral and inhumanly vicious this terminology is.

Giving to a place, land, nation and civilization an appellation that does not reflect genuinely the indigenous developments and evolution across History but fully subordinates the place, land, nation and civilization to yourself is the result of a disproportionately gigantic egoism / egotism which is tantamount to the worst form of discrimination and racism. The problem is not anymore about the term’s falsehood and fallacy, but about its absolute immorality and tragic vicissitude. Of course, if the French or the English employed this term locally for the use of their own students only, this would be tolerated and would not create a major problem. Unfortunately, this is not what happened.

The colonial academics and diplomats imposed this false term on the students and the intellectuals, the journalists and the filthy, corrupt politicians of the victimized countries that were thus defined through their relationship with a third party. The Lebanese and the Egyptian slaves of the French (and subsequently the European and the American) universities were therefore forced to ‘learn’ that their countries were part of a region called ‘Near East’ because this region was ‘near to’ and ‘east of’ France and Western Europe. This automatically implied that the region in question was insignificant up to point that not one indigenous academic / intellectual could give it a collective name on the basis of the historical characteristics and evolution of the region, but they all had to pathetically wait the foreign invaders decree and order how their place should be named.

The subliminal consequences were immense; to call it ‘trauma’ it would be an understatement. In fact, it was a national – cultural – academic – intellectual – mental – educational assassination and, subsequently, a mind transplantation. The fact that the purely religious aspect was left out of the targeted area did not turn things better but did indeed worsen them. Islam as religion had collapsed long before the colonial powers arrived. As early as 1600 – 1700, Islam was not anymore a religious system of spirituality and transcendental experience (as it had used to be, like every religion) but a silly legal system involving a myriad of jurisprudential deliberations about petty things, a certain number of orders and directives that have to be executed thoughtlessly (and in most of the cases out of a desire to imitate the Prophet Muhammad), rites that have to be performed physically but without any spiritual dimension, beliefs that are of nominal value, a morality that counts on reward and social approval, and a deliberate, compact ignorance about, and disregard for, the Islamic Philosophy, Art, Science, and Erudition – despite the fact that Islam is accepted as the Religion of the Revealed Knowledge. It was quite clear to the colonial specialists on Islam that the survival of these religious beliefs within the new, colonial environment created after their arrival and interference in the colonized societies would have only explosive and destructive results; that’s why they did not do anything else except help the explosion come timely…

The indigenous nations were thus obliterated at all three, the personal, the collective social, and the narrative national, levels. They were turned to impotent, brainless and demented monkeys awaiting their foreign masters to give them names like Koko, the famous female gorilla that was born on July 4, 1971, in San Francisco, and mastered over 2,000 words in the American Sign Language, allowing her to communicate with humans in an astounding way (http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-famous-monkeys.php). As their mimicking of Islam was quite materialistic a system, they were engulfed in a total lack of creative imagination, which demands a certain degree of spirituality in order to be developed, and this prepared all these populations to duly be pathetic spectators of their unstoppable degradation and destruction; their leaders followed and still follow therefore an idiotic policy of day-by-day survival, which is not even a real effort to survive. If Zine al Abedine ben Ali, Mubarak, Ali Abdullah Saleh and Muammar al Qadhafi were overthrown in 2011 – 2012 and not in 1998, this is only due to the fact that the plan providing for their extinction included another date.

The imposition of the alien, colonial ego on the colonial monkeys and its mixture with the aforementioned religious leftover produced a monstrous, confused mind able only to cause self-destruction of monumental scale. This is the environment out of which emanated the dictatorial, bogus-monarchical, and religious authorities of the region, the likes of Abdallah of Saudi Arabia, Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, Al Thani of Qatar, Abdallah of Jordan, Qadhafi, al Assad, Bouteflika, Mubarak, Sheikh Shaarawi, Saddam Hussein, Sheikh Qaradhawi, etc., all confused and self-confusing, genuinely unable to make a correct assessment of their situation and to see the impending destruction. They ostensibly worsened their case because, when they were deliberately and repeatedly mistreated, disrespected and even ridiculed, and they felt so, they used to react to this situation without however correctly assessing the overall context from where they emerged and the existing possibilities for efficient reaction – and this used only to bring forth the next disaster.

The absolute elimination of the indigenous ‘ego’ along with a flux of false documentation and historical falsification that the colonial powers produced massively and projected on the militarily / economically / politically / academically / intellectually / culturally colonized territories (that are still euphemistically called ‘independent realms’!) triggered oppressed among local leaders and indigenous peoples vast complexes of inferiority, obstinate reactions, and obdurate interpretations of Islam (‘misinterpretations’ is the correct term) that are the root causes of all conflicts and misunderstandings, strives and clashes in the wider region.

I did not mention however the above points in order to analyze the reasons of, and find a solution to, the problem but exclusively in relation with the pseudo-Christian populations of the West. Morally dead, these fake Christians accepted the Freemasonic falsification produced by their academic – political elites, without thinking that ‘Οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν’ (Vulgata: ‘nemo potest duobus dominis servire’ / English: None is able to serve two lords – from Matthew 6:24).

Accepting to impose on all the other nations of the world definitions based on a vicious egocentric Western misperception of the World and misuse of the World History is a great sin for Christians of the West. Consenting, favoring and sanctioning the aforementioned colonial policies of their governments is a tremendous immorality from the part of the Christians of the West. It consists in one of the worst expressions of pride, arrogance and egoism in the World History. But in Christianity, egoism, egotism and egocentric theories are the expression of a high level immorality.

As matter of fact, European colonialism and colonial academic endeavors fully reflect Biblical expressions ascribed to Satan himself, as Isaiah specifies: “I will ascend…I will raise…I will sit… I will ascend…I will make myself like the Most High” (14:13-14). Western European and North American pseudo-Christians must have no doubt of what comes after pride and egoism. Isaiah points it out for them in just the next verse (14:15): “But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit”. This is the wretched place into which very soon North American and Western European nations will find themselves for having committed innumerable atrocious crimes against the lands and the nations that they colonized, depersonalized, and deprived of a) identity, b) integrity, c) traditions, d) resources, and e) independent political volition, through an entire set of deception techniques and systematized falsehood.

As long as this vicious egoistic and egocentric attitude prevails and remains unchallenged in the West, the local pseudo-Christians must be fully aware that they bear responsibility as accomplices of they governments and that they stand in full opposition to Jesus and his words: “whoever exalts himself will be humbled” (Matthew 23:12).

True Christians in Western Europe and North America, if any, instead of talking nonsensical stories about conspiracy theories, must get a clear vision of the conspiracy acts that their corrupt governments and Freemasonic academicians have perpetrated over the past 300 years. They must therefore stand up, take to the streets, and bring down the forgery ateliers and the Satanic lodges that devised these schemes and invented the fake divisions that triggered the death spiral in the provinces of the Ottoman Empire that sheer cacophony led us to the misnomer of ‘Middle East’. Their voices, if any, must reach the darkness of the Whitehall, the Buckingham, the Élysée, the Hôtel Matignon, the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and the other neuralgic centers of today’s Satanic power. Christian voices must raise up in the West, terminating the apathy of the high accomplices and they should echo the question Paul made to the Corinthians: “For who makes you different from anyone else? (1 Corinthians 4:7).

So, if Paul is right is eliminating boasting from the lives of the Christians (“Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded…by the law of faith” – Romans 3:27), today’s Christians in Western Europe and America must denounce the formation of the vicious Euro-centric academic approach and system and condemn its calamitous projection on the rest of the world. If they want to be present as Christians in other lands that were not ‘Western’ before the beginning of the European Era of Colonialism (1492 CE), they must follow Jesus’ example and go there to serve – as per the local values, ideals, concepts, faiths and virtues, not theirs. Jesus reportedly made “himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7).  If these Biblical excerpts form the foundations of the Christian faith, these values and attitudes have to be displayed by the Western countries, and if this is not the case, Christians in the West have to clearly and effectively dissociate themselves for their governments and states, denouncing and preventing the iniquity carried out by Paris, London and Washington D.C. Otherwise, they should not be surprised by the forthcoming tribulation that they deserve.

And for those among these pseudo-Christians, who are fully aware of the Christian sources but dare shamelessly propagate silly concepts and misinterpretation schemes like the stupidly awaited ‘rapture’ at the End of Time, the punishment will come soon and it will be as terrible as their theological fornication.

And what does it matter whether these pseudo-Christians believe they are right in their purpose and true in their faith? World History is full of examples of hypocritical people who thought of themselves as ‘righteous’ but ended in the Hell. The forthcoming developments will demonstrate how false these pseudo-Christian doctors and pastors have been, and will prove that, despite their ceaseless evocations of Christian sources and Biblical excerpts, their real master is Satan. But it will be too late for all of their followers who will also vanish in Eternal Fire.

Καὶ τῶνδ’ ὅμοιον εἴ τι μὴ πείθω· τί γάρ; Tὸ μέλλον ἥξει. Kαὶ σύ μ’ ἐν τάχει παρὼν ἄγαν γ’ ἀληθόμαντιν οἰκτίρας ἐρεῖς. (‘What does it matter now if men believe or no? What is to come will come. And soon you too will stand aside, To murmur in pity that my words were true’). Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1239-1241 (Cassandra addressing the chorus)