The Kaaba in Mecca, Temple to Hermes?

a reply to: Parazurvan

but no. im gonna post it again since you dont want to read it.

No, Islam does not worship Hermes.
But Pre Islamic Mecca has strong influences of Greek Culture from at least the time of Alexander the great.
Hermetic teachings, as i have shown you repeatedly strongly influenced the very first imams of islam.



Husayn_ibn_Ali, known as the third shia imam disagrees with you as well.

Hermes Trismegistus has a major place in Islamic tradition. He writes, "Hermes Trismegistus is mentioned in the Quran in verse 19:56-57:"Mention, in the Book, Idris, that he was truthful, a prophet. We took him up to a high place". The Jabirian corpus contains the oldest documentable source for the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, translated for the Hashemite Caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid the Abbasid. Jābir ibn Hayyān (Geber), a Shiite, identified as Jābir al-Sufi, was student of Ja'far al-Sadiq, Husayn ibn 'Ali's great grandson. For the Abbasid's and the Alid's, the knowledge of Hermes Trismegistus was considered sacred, and an inheritance of the Ahl al-Bayt. These writings were recorded by the Ikhwan al-Safa, and subsequently translated from Arabic into Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, Russian, and into English by Isaac Newton. In the writings, the Master of Masters, Hermes Trismegistus, is identified as Idris, the infallible Prophet who traveled to outer space from Egypt, and to heaven. There, he brought back Adam and the Black Stone when he landed on earth in India.[26]

a reply to: dashen

In Islamic lore Hermes is likely the Prophet Idreis.

The Quran holds Idreis on the same level as Jesus.

a reply to: Parazurvan

Obviously they didn't worship Hermes or Mercury but what the OP pointed out was that for the immediate Pre-Islamic period the Angel Gabriel was capable of representing such archetypes, before that the oracular Deity Manaf

Manāf (Arabic: مناف‎) is the Meccan god of the mountains and valleys who had an idol which was a large stone sculpture of a man that was worshiped at the Ka'aba of Mecca by the west Arabian tribes of Banu Quraysh and Banu Hudhayl. The name of the god translates into English as 'Height' or 'Elevated' in relation to the role of Manaf as the ruling spirit and personification of the numerous mountains, valleys and peaks of the Mecca region: these high places were sacred to the Arabs who followed the native polytheism, as pagan ritual practice included ascending to the high places to offer worship and sacrifices. In pre-Islamic Mecca, the devotees of Manaf would gather to augur before the idol of the god

Manaf held the position of patron god of the town and the Ka'aba: however, early into the 5th century AD, his cults popularity began to wane and by the birth of Muhammad was eventually demoted to the less important status of a minor geographical god. In spite of the cult of Manaf becoming less popular among the urban Meccans, the gods' idol was still consulted for oracles and offered sacrifice but was lesser in status to the idol of Hubal

They say that women liked to caress the statue of Manaf apart from this being disallowed when ritually unclean, because this would have had phallic aspects as did the Herm stones, it is also suggested the means of divination involved arrows. Manaf doesn't equate with all aspects of Hermes and there were other Deities more commonly associated with the planet Mercury, but he did share some important commonalities of the type highlighted in the OP.

originally posted by: Kantzveldt

They say that women liked to caress the statue of Manaf

lucky Manaf

a reply to: dashen

originally posted by: dashen
No, Islam does not worship Hermes.
But Pre Islamic Mecca has strong influences of Greek Culture from at least the time of Alexander the great.
Hermetic teachings, as i have shown you repeatedly strongly influenced the very first imams of islam.

Husayn_ibn_Ali, known as the third shia imam disagrees with you as well.

I think you're mixing things up a lot, probably compounded by how the wiki quote you posted is so dense and unreadable in the format it has been posted in.

Ahmed Amirudin (Sufi scholar) says that Hermes Trismegistus is mentioned in the Quran (where the Quran mentiones Idris).

Next the quote gives background about the Jabirian Corpus, which contains the oldest documentable source for the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. The Jabirian Corpus is dated mostly from the 9th and 10th centuries. The Emerald Tablet is assumed dated between the 6th and 8th centuries. The Hermetic Corpus, for comparison is dated from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The Jabirian Corpus, while including a source for the Emerald Tablet (that is obviously not original, having come over 500 years later) doesn't mention Idris as being Hermes.
The Jabarian Corpus, obviously, is the work of one Jabir ibn Hayyan, a shiite, who was the student of Jafar al-Sadiq, the grandson of Husayn. Your quote says absolutely nothing about Husayn corroborating that Idris is Hermes.
The only major source for the theory that Idris is Hermes is, as you mentioned, the Ikhwan al-Safa, a Sufi society from some time in the 8th to 10th century. This was well after Islamic tradition (including the identity of Idris as Enoch) had been well-established.

While it is undoubtedly true that many Sufi and mystic sources consider Idris to be Hermes, this is neither a universal (or even widespread) belief, nor can it be said to be an influencer of Islamic thought (seeing as the Ikhwan al-Safa came much after the solidification of this aspect of Islamic tradition).

originally posted by: babloyi
a reply to: dashen

originally posted by: dashen
No, Islam does not worship Hermes.
But Pre Islamic Mecca has strong influences of Greek Culture from at least the time of Alexander the great.
Hermetic teachings, as i have shown you repeatedly strongly influenced the very first imams of islam.

Husayn_ibn_Ali, known as the third shia imam disagrees with you as well.

I think you're mixing things up a lot, probably compounded by how the wiki quote you posted is so dense and unreadable in the format it has been posted in.

Ahmed Amirudin (Sufi scholar) says that Hermes Trismegistus is mentioned in the Quran (where the Quran mentiones Idris).

Next the quote gives background about the Jabirian Corpus, which contains the oldest documentable source for the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. The Jabirian Corpus is dated mostly from the 9th and 10th centuries. The Emerald Tablet is assumed dated between the 6th and 8th centuries. The Hermetic Corpus, for comparison is dated from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The Jabirian Corpus, while including a source for the Emerald Tablet (that is obviously not original, having come over 500 years later) doesn't mention Idris as being Hermes.
The Jabarian Corpus, obviously, is the work of one Jabir ibn Hayyan, a shiite, who was the student of Jafar al-Sadiq, the grandson of Husayn. Your quote says absolutely nothing about Husayn corroborating that Idris is Hermes.
The only major source for the theory that Idris is Hermes is, as you mentioned, the Ikhwan al-Safa, a Sufi society from some time in the 8th to 10th century. This was well after Islamic tradition (including the identity of Idris as Enoch) had been well-established.

While it is undoubtedly true that many Sufi and mystic sources consider Idris to be Hermes, this is neither a universal (or even widespread) belief, nor can it be said to be an influencer of Islamic thought (seeing as the Ikhwan al-Safa came much after the solidification of this aspect of Islamic tradition).

I also tried to explain this too him, being a Muslim and knowing Idris is Enoch.

He doesn't want to hear anything that disagrees with his wild assumption that the Kaaba Mosque is a temple to Hermes.

He didn't even know that Idris was Enoch and won't accept it.

Rather, a lone Sufi mystics identification of Hermes as Enoch is all the proof he needs that Islam worships Hermes.

And anyone who doesn't agree with him is uninformed.


Ignorance knows no bounds.

a reply to: Kantzveldt

If he is suggesting that a temple was erected for Hermes, and he is, that is saying they worship Hermes.

Besides he is wrong on so many levels and has drawn conclusions based on a lack of knowledge and a rush to judgement.

In my opinion he thinks he is exposing Islam.

He just doesn't have his facts straight. He thinks he has discovered something, but has made something up based on, again, a lack of knowledge.


I am familiar with the Emerald tablets and Corpus Hermeticum. None of this philosophy shows up in the Quran and Hermes has no role in Islam. Hermetic schools were not exactly flourishing in Mohammed's day and he based his religion on Catholicism and Judaism and some Zoroastrianism.


It's a ridiculous notion, that the Kaaba Mosque has anything to do with Hermes. Or Enoch/Idris.

He doesn't even know that Thoth is Hermes.

a reply to: dashen

OK. Who cares about the Sufi you quote.

You don't even know that Thoth is Hermes.

Or that Idris is Enoch.

And that just because a few Muslims confuse Hermes with Enoch that this has anything to do with Islam as a whole.


So I can't take you seriously.

You are getting frustrated because your research is flawed and I pointed it out.

Do better research.

a reply to: Parazurvan

Thoth is a moon god of wisdom with an ibis head
hermes is a god of mercury and has sex with everybody.
Thoth was a scribe and god of scribes. Hermes was a god of crossroads, merchants and sacrifices.
The identity crisis of hermes and idris and enoch is passed on from the first shiite and sunni imams and then to the sufi masters.
All the medieval Islamic advances in science and math we're all based on Greek records
But the thoughtu of their philosophy being a part of the learning is just too much for you to bear?

Yes I am aware how the sufi are hated by many other militant branches of Islam.
but you also fail to understand is that the Islamic tradition you are quoting does not disagree with their beliefs. They are adding information that is otherwise missing from everyone else's records. you would be hard-pressed to find me a source in the Quran that says idrus was not Hermes. You are trying to prove a negative when there is a ancient Islamic source that proves the positive.
it is not a logical argument.
Furthermore I never said that the Muslims worship Hermes..
If you would have read the OP you would have seen that Hermes has been replaced by the idea of Gabriel being the messenger of the heavens

.

a reply to: dashen
Look, I would have no issue entertaining these ideas if there was something backing them. As you mentioned, there is one source, from possibly as late as the 10th century, from ONE branch of sufi thought, that supports your idea. And I acknowledge that, but conflating the importance of that doesn't make sense. For example:

originally posted by: dashen
The identity crisis of hermes and idris and enoch is passed on from the first shiite and sunni imams and then to the sufi masters.

No it wasn't. Where are you getting this from?

originally posted by: dashen
All the medieval Islamic advances in science and math we're all based on Greek records
But the thoughtu of their philosophy being a part of the learning is just too much for you to bear?

All knowledge is built on what comes before. I don't see how "Muslims built on the knowledge of the greeks (and chinese, and indians, and persians)" is naturally followed by "That's why Idris is Hermes".

originally posted by: dashen
Yes I am aware how the sufi are hated by many other militant branches of Islam.

Errr...there are many militant sufi branches as well. It is odd how people seem to think Islam is simply divided into "Shia", "Sunni" and "Sufi". Sufism isn't an isolated idealogy. Sufis are Shia or Sunni. And within Sufiism there are hundreds and hundreds of branches, only some of which follow the idea that Idris is Hermes.

originally posted by: dashen
but you also fail to understand is that the Islamic tradition you are quoting does not disagree with their beliefs. They are adding information that is otherwise missing from everyone else's records. you would be hard-pressed to find me a source in the Quran that says idrus was not Hermes. You are trying to prove a negative when there is a ancient Islamic source that proves the positive.

Again, I think you're mixing things up. Yes, the Islamic tradition (insofar as ONLY taken from the Quran) doesn't explicitly disagree with the belief that Idris is Hermes. In the same way the the Bible doesn't explicitly disagree with the idea that Jesus is Hermes or Moses is Alexander the Great, or any such fantastical idea. That comes from interpreting it. If one WANTED to somehow prove those things are true, drawing up a list of superficial similarities and then telling anyone who disagrees "You can't prove a negative!" doesn't make sense.
However, Islamic scholarly tradition, much older and well established by the time the idea that Idris is Hermes came about, DOES disagree with the idea that Idris is Hermes, as it says Idris is Enoch. Now you might say Enoch is Hermes, but that would just make things even more complicated, because you are also suggesting that the Archangel Gabriel is Hermes?

a reply to: babloyi

Hermes doesnt appear on the old testament,eithrr. which the koran calls the original covenant.
Plus i said Hermes was replaced with Gabriel not idris.

a reply to: dashen

originally posted by: dashen
Hermes doesnt appear on the old testament,eithrr. which the koran calls the original covenant.
Plus i said Hermes was replaced with Gabriel not idris.

It is true that Hermes does not appear in the OT either, although not true that the Quran calls the OT the original covenant. Each scripture given to each prophet has a different name (the Taurat, the Zabur, the Injeel, etc,), as it does in Judeochristian tradition, but there is no collective name for them in Islam.
But I'm not sure as to your point. Are you using the fact that Hermes does not appear in the OT either as proof that Hermes is part of Islamic or Judaic tradition?
Also, now you've abandoned the idea that Idris is Hermes?

I mean, I can totally understand the idea of Hermes being considered to be Gabriel. There's no mention of it anywhere either, but certainly the ideas and concepts are fairly similar- a messenger between the heavens and earth. But then the idea of that extends far before Islam and into Christianity and Judaism too.

a reply to: babloyi

the idea that idris was hermes was not one i initially set out to prove, but while one poster here said any such connection is non existent i was able to find proof of hermetic doctrine directly influencing early muslim philosophy. dat all .

a reply to: dashen

Not sure if this will help your case but I found it interesting . From Earnst L Martins book The People History Forgot Chapter 17 www.askelm.com...

"" It has often been believed by most ordinary people that Greece was the home of philosophy, and to a certain extent that is true. Primal philosophies which the west admired are basically Grecian in origin with the exception of Stoicism. Dr. Lightfoot, writing about the two philosophies which gained more adherents after the time of Aristotle (Epicureanism and Stoicism) says:
"These two later developments of Greek philosophy both took root and grew to maturity in Greek soil. But while the seed of the one[Epicureanism] was strictly Hellenic, the other [Stoicism] was derived from an eastern stock. Epicurus was a Greek of the Greeks, a child of Athenian parents. Zeno [the founder of Stoicism] on the other hand, a native of Citium, a Phoenician colony in Crete, and probably of Semitic race, for he is commonly called ‘the Phoenician.’ Babylon, Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, reared some of his most illustrious of his successors. Not a single Stoic of any name was a native of Greece proper."

Lightfoot, Philippians, p.273

The Stoic philosophy was foreign to the pure Greek. Not a single important Greek of pure stock joined its ranks.

"The principal Stoic teachers all came from the east, and therefore their language and thought must in a greater or less degree have borne the stamp of their eastern origin. We advance a step further towards the object of our search, if we remember that the most famous of them were not only eastern but Semitic Babylonia, Phoenicia, Syria, Palestine, are their homes."

Lightfoot, Philippians, p.299""


"""It was not however among the Greeks, to whose national temper the genius of Stoicism was alien, that this school achieved its proudest triumphs. ... The Romans offered a more congenial sphere for its influence. And here again it is worth observing, that their principal instructors were almost all easterners. Posidonius for instance, the familiar friend of many famous Romans and the most influential missionary of Stoic doctrine in Rome, was a native of Syrian Apamea."
Lightfoot, Philippians, p.310

The truth is, the Chaldeans could not be outdone in the field of philosophy. When, during the Greek period, the religions in Greece took a back seat to the study of philosophy, and many influential people were abandoning their ancient religious allegiances, the Chaldeans entered the new field by creating a philosophy of their own, a philosophy which would retain the gods and at the same time be attractive to intellectuals. Thus, Stoicism was born. Said Dr. Cumont,

"Stoicism readily agreed also with the determinism of the Chaldeans, founded, as it was, upon the regularity of the sidereal movements. Thus it was that this philosophy made remarkable conquests not only in Syria but as far as Mesopotamia. I recall only the fact that one of the masters of Stoicism, the successor of Zeno of Tarsus at Athens, was Diogenes of Babylon and that, later on, another distinguished Stoic, Archidemus, founded a famous school at Babylon itself."

Cumont, Astrology and Religion, p.70

"In the empire of the Seleucids alongside ‘Chaldeanism,’ Hellenism had established itself in a commanding position. Above the old native beliefs the doctrines of Stoicism in particular exercised dominion over men’s minds. It has been often observed that the masters of the Stoic school are for the most part easterns. The leading representatives of these doctrines — were all Syrians. It may be said that Stoicism was a Semitic philosophy."

Cumont, Astrology and Religion, pp.81–82""

These are just some snips from the chapter . eta "The Cambridge Ancient History noted the agreement between Stoicism and Babylonianism.

"As early as the Seleucids, Zeno of Citium and many of his chief disciples, such as Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus, had been easterns, and it may be said that Stoicism was largely a Semitic philosophy not only in respect of its teachers but of its doctrines also. Its pantheism which defies all the elements of Nature, and its acceptance of the fatalism of astrology side by side with the retention of belief in the active intervention of God in earthly matters, link the Porch [Stoicism] with the Syro- Babylonian temples. Later there were many Syrians among the leading savants who initiated the Romans into the precepts of the various schools"

Cambridge Ancient History, Vol.Xl, p.641"