Allah = Hubal = Baal?

*sigh*

Come now Mojo. To call somebody "blasphemous" means that you have had to judge them in comparison to what your own beliefs are. You are expressing a personal opinion when you call me "blasphemous" as there is no concrete universal definition to the word when applied to religion - maybe a majority view at best, but it still requires a judgement. Plain and simple.
And that's what this whole thread is about - judgement of others. Not very "Christian" is it?

By the way. I could easily argue that I have based my statements on factual and logical evidence. Isn't fact truth? And don't you like the truth? You seem to have promoted it earlier.

Truth can't therefore be blasphemy can it?

Originally posted by Byrd
summary is pretty much what most of the scholars say

Considering that you are a Master's student and well studied in anthropology, sociology, and related fields, I honestly take that comment as a good indicator that I haven't strayed too far afield in my own informal studies.

But if you do believe in the possibility of Baal somehow being related to or inspired by a demon (yeah sounds crazy I know), the discussion becomes much more interesting and fits better in this section of the site.

Trying to make the gods of other religions into demons and devils is, in all honesty, a task that a person should avoid. Obviously, Islam and Christianity are two very different religions. They both claim to worship the god that the ancient hebrews worshiped, and both claim to have thier religion started by a 'divine(lyinspired) reformer', whether its jesus or mohammed. The muslims beleive that the jews and christians have corrupted the true word of the one and only supreme god, creator of the universe, moulder of adam and inspireror of Abraham, in part thru their own folly and in part because of the machinations of shaitan and deception. Christians think precisely the same thing about themselves as muslims and about muslims as they think of christians, that they worship the god of abraham and that the muslims have been mislead by a false prophet tricked by satan. The irony is thicker than a pop song that lists stuff that isn't ironic as ironic.
You cannot, rationally, demonstrate that Allah is really a demon. When Mo came with 'The New Religion' it was of a new god, he said 'forget hubal, the moon god, the godess of the desert, the lady of the oasis, forget it all, its all deception and foolishness, for there is only one god, the supreme creator god, the administer of universal and divine justice, the only, single, super-powerful, all seeing all knowing all powerful god of the universe'. That alone demonstrates that they aren't worshipping shaitan or any variation of Baal. And added to that is the fact that the story of the koran has Abraham as the great patriarch whom god first spoke to, and the story of genesis and adam and even and the paradisical garden, and everything, indicates that the arabs were aware of the jewish religious traditions, and also the christian ones (since jesus is apparently mentioned nearly as much as mohammed in the hadiths), and that with the impetus of Divine Revelation given to Mohammed by God on High, they formed the purest, most monotheistic, most god-fearing version of the judeao religions.
Its senseless to suppose that christianity is the true religion, and that therefore islam must be wrong, and that therefore if anyone spoke to Mohammed it must've been either satan himself or a minor demon who until then had been content with being worshipped and idolized as Baal.

From that site you note,

Muhammad freed his tribe the Quick Facts about: Quraish
Quick Summary not found for this subjectQuraish (القريش) from their pagan worship by smashing all the idols at the Kaaba, including Hubal.

He smashes Hubals idols and says 'worhsip the only god, Allah, the god of abraham' and you are seriously contending that the muslims were worshipping Hubal still??

According to Hitti, a tradition recorded by Muhammad's early biographer ibn-Hisham, which makes Amr ibn-Luhayy the importer of this idol from Moab or Mesopotamia,

Not for nothing, but a writer long after mohammed can't honestly expect, with out evidence, to demonstrate that hubal is an import. Baal is a semitic word, the arabs are a semitic speaking people, finding bal, baa, or any such variant, attached to the name of one of their gods is insignificant. It merely reinforces the fact that they are all semitic speakers, just as 'father, pater, pader' reinforces the fact that indians, germans, latins, and americans are all indo-european speakers. It does not make Jesus Bhrama.

Muhammad ibn Ishaq said that Hubal was cornelian pearl in the shape of a human. His right hand was broken off and the Quraysh made a gold hand for it.

That is Hubal. Hubal is nothing more. Hubal is the idol, the idol is the god. Allah is not described as being made of pearl, nor of having golden hand, nor any of that. And the Kabba, apparently, is already venerated, before Hubal is brought in. The idol is brought to 'the big meteor from heaven itself'.

and also, if there is any doubt

Hubal was also the same idol which abu-Sufyan ibn-Harb addressed when he emerged victorious after the battle of Uhud, saying:
"Hubal, be thou exalted;"
To which the Prophet replied:
"Allah is more exalted and more majestic."

Mo is the guy that received divine revelation, the pagan arabs stuck to their ways, and only slowly came to accept the supreme god, precisely like the pagan gentiles stuck to their old ways, and only slowly came to accept jesus.

babyloi
BTW, etymologically (or at least phonetically), Hubal doesn't match Baal or Allah. Hub-al stresses the "huB" part, while "Baal" is just continuous, doesn't stress anything

All of this really just shows that one can't make bland 'folk' etymological associations. Its too weak a foundation to prop anything upon.

bush43
Perhaps this link can clarify the lack of truth in this thread.

What, pray, tell, did you think was convincing from that, an apologetics site?

badmojo
I wouldn't base my conclusions on what others interpret from it

Then why should he, or anyone else, base their truth on your reading of it?

Who's judging?

Uhm, you are, rember:

Quite the blasphemous person aren't you leveller.

I find it ironic, once again, that, on the one hand, some peopel can talk about how allah is bs because god isn't autocratic, but then can say that merely because leveler is trying to examine the situation with and independant mind, that he is a blasphemer. Sheer absurdity. Don't agree with my interpretation, you are a sinner. You, and others, suggest that everyone else read the bible? How about you try reading it? Who were the bookish prelates who threw accusations of blasphemy at He who disagreed with them? Perhaps you (and not trying to direct it only at you) and other oughtn't reject everyone around you??

Speaking evil of God or denying Him some good which we should attribute to Him. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is stating that Jesus did his miracles by the power of the devil (Matt. 12:22-32) and is an unforgivable sin (Mark 3:28-30). Blasphemy arises out of pride (Psalm 73:9,11), hatred (Psalm 74:18), injustice (Isaiah 52:5), etc. Christ was mistakenly accused of blasphemy (John 10:30-33). [carm.net]

There is not mention of personal judgement. Blasphemy is an action of blasphemous people...hence the adjective used to desribe your comments.

By the way, you have yet to prove the "truth" of your comments...

Okay a few things.
First of all I think leveller convinced me that the connection between Baal and Allah is actually not as valid as I thought it was.
Great job leveller, we're all here to learn and today I learned something as well.

Second, it is not senseless at all for christians to think all other religions and gods are false and wrong, they wouldn't be a christian to begin with if they wouldn't think that. It has nothing to do with arrogance and not even with feeling superior, but with the simple fact that the bible is clear about what christianity is about. Accepting what Jesus is handing you.

If the Islam thinks Jesus is just a great guy, but not the son of God, the Islam is being retarded.
Jesus made it pretty clear what He was, and if you know what Jesus says in the bible, there are really only 2 options you can choose from, He was either what He said He was, or he was completely insane.

Originally posted by Nygdan

Obviously, Islam and Christianity are two very different religions. They both claim to worship the god that the ancient hebrews worshiped, and both claim to have thier religion started by a 'divine(lyinspired) reformer', whether its jesus or mohammed.

I like your post. But I just want to pick you up on the point above.
Although they may be different religions, why would the god be any different? Both claim to be Abrahamic religions so therefore both have the same root deity stemming from Judaism.

The whole argument about Baal worship has to regress to the time of the Judaic god as both deities existed then - Baal was not a major relevance in either the Christian or Muslim era. It's therefore more likely that all three religions would be linked to Baal worship by the Judaic stem rather than through a scenario where one picks it up later down the historic timeline.
I would suggest that if there is Baal worship in religion (and there does seem to be plenty of evidence both Biblically and archealogically) all three religions are as "guilty" as each other - albeit Christianity and Islam by association through their Judaic root.

Judaism evolved from the Baal religions and Christianity and Islam from Judaism. One cannot therefore single out a specific religion and taint it with accusations of being evil when all three are/were involved in some way.

Originally posted by BadMojo
Speaking evil of God or denying Him some good which we should attribute to Him. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is stating that Jesus did his miracles by the power of the devil (Matt. 12:22-32) and is an unforgivable sin (Mark 3:28-30). Blasphemy arises out of pride (Psalm 73:9,11), hatred (Psalm 74:18), injustice (Isaiah 52:5), etc. Christ was mistakenly accused of blasphemy (John 10:30-33). [carm.net]

There is not mention of personal judgement. Blasphemy is an action of blasphemous people...hence the adjective used to desribe your comments.

Of course it's a judgement. I take a different meaning from those words than you do. Therefore I make my own judgement.
I'm not speaking evil of my God. Maybe I'm speaking evil of your god in your opinion, but heck, that would take a judgement call on your part. Personally I couldn't care less if you call me blasphemous - I actually wear it as a badge of honour sometimes when it is applied by certain people in this world.

As for offering evidence? Evidence of what? The claims I make of Christianity being involved in Baal worship?
Use Google. I might post more on the subject here if the thread doesn't suffocate under fundametalist claptrap (as these normally do) but for the meantime you'll be able to find literally hundreds of thousands of good sources on the net and you can always use the site search here to see where we have extensively covered the subject before. Try typing "Paganism and Christianity" into your browser.

maybe you just need to be more patient with Islam - after all, it took over 300 years for the Christians to promote Jesus the Prophet to Jesus the Son of God - and this was their own product!

Maybe there will an Islamic version of the Council of Nicea some day. Of course, it could go the other way and they'll promote Mohammed to Son of God...you takes your chances.

Seriously, what I think is really obvious here is that gods (by whatever name and form) come and go throughout the course of human history. I mean, Christianity is still a fledgling religion compared to others over the course of history. Every religion had its devotees and so very many of them were willing to kill and die to defend the fact that it was their god(s) that were true and all others were false.

I also find it interesting that we've got all these monotheists (of which I am one) arguing over which god is supreme and true - think about that for a moment. You seem to be starting off all your arguments by acknowledging that there is more than one god but, yours is Numero Uno! Is that what you really think?

I do believe in God, the Supreme Being. I just don't put very much stock in man's ability to put a name or a claim or even a legitimate concept onto God. And I don't care how many bishops or popes vote on it - humans can't just get together and decide to give God children and spirits and avatars and alternate/paralell forms. I don't mind if they try because, I think God pays no attention to that kind of stuff coming from humans.

------------

I meant to start off by saying a huge THANK YOU to so many of you for providing such great information! I learned quite a bit.


[edit on 10-5-2005 by Al Davison]

Originally posted by Jakko
Okay a few things.
First of all I think leveller convinced me that the connection between Baal and Allah is actually not as valid as I thought it was.
Great job leveller, we're all here to learn and today I learned something as well.

Second, it is not senseless at all for christians to think all other religions and gods are false and wrong,

agreed. However,it would be senseless to think that it can be demonstrated, or the that position is rational. You are saying your god is real, therefore, de facto, all other gods are variously false.

It has nothing to do with arrogance

Definitionally, thinking that your way is the only right way and all othe rways are either the result of stupidity or evil is arrogant.

If the Islam thinks Jesus is [...]not the son of God, the Islam is being retarded.

No, its not being christian.

Do all jews go to hell? How can jews be worshipping the god of the old testament if that god is not triune? How can christians have an old Testament that hasn't been reworked to include jesus, as the one who made adam, talked to abram, etc etc? Jesus existed before the first century AD. So jews and christians can not be worshipping the same god, at all.
If you can work it out in your head that christians and jews really are workign the same god, why is it immpossible for muslims to be doing the same thing? Why, becuase the divine revelation received by mohammed was received after the jesus ministry?? Whats that matter? The OT doesn't get changed after the ministry, and the jews continue to worship just as they allways did? Are you saying that the jews aren't worshipping, today, the god of the old testament???
Why would god tell mohammed about jesus in his revelation??? He didn't tell anyone about jesus, and he didn't run around the world telling everyone about jesus afterwards either, so why would he treat mohammed speacial like? The jesus message is already out there, god doesn't tend to make special appearances to do it all over again.
So when god came to mohammed, an arab, of the group that god promised to make a great people out of, because of abraham and ishmael, he wanted to reform them out of the paganism that they had fallen into, and gave mohammed divine revelation. He didn't make up an arab jesus to do it all over again just for them, why would he?
So if the jews, in the old testament, can be worshipping The God, even tho they don't know squat about the Spirit or Jesus, and, technically, without that, the Father then even, and if christians can read the old testament but not be reading a false book about this 'super god' that isn't jesus, then why can't muslims also be worshipping The Real True God, and, similarly, just 'not get' the jesus message??

Originally posted by Leveller
all three religions are as "guilty" as each other - albeit Christianity and Islam by association through their Judaic root.

And the irony of it would be (if we accept hubal is just baal), that baal is replaced by baal.

Judaism evolved from the Baal religions and Christianity and Islam from Judaism.

I tend to think that there wasn't ever any worship of Baal. I think that the roots of the jewish religion are very complicated tho. I tend to think that Baal is, as noted, just 'the lord'. So amoung the phonecians, they praise the lord, amoung the ancient syrians, when the thunder clashes and the lighting strikes, its the Sky Baal, amoung the ammonites, its the Molech-Baal, the sacrifice consuming lord, etc etc.
On the other hand, there's also got to be a certain element of what went on amoung the greeks and romans. The romans of course worshipped Jupiter, they did this long before they heard about the greeks. The greeks saw Jupiter and said 'ah, they must be dumbasses worshipping zeus, Zeus Pater, God the Father, in a somewhat corrupted manner'. SImilarly, the greeks, wherever they went, talked about the native peoples worshipping Hercules, etc etc.
No doubt, if they came across the yehudis, they'd say 'Ah, their hero went up a mountain to commune with the Sky Father, Zeus on their olypmos, perfectly reasonable, their Zeus Worshippers too!". Which the jews would say 'thats stupid, we don't worship zeus'. Similarly, the muslims are saying 'jesus h christ, we don't worship a demon god, we worship god'. They define their worship, not the rest of us.
Then again, we see the superstitious fear that muslims, since they don't worship the triun godhead, yet claim to worship the god, must've been 'tricked' by the devil or a demon into thinking that they were getting divine revelation, when really it was demonic trickery.
Well, in a sense, whats it matter? If the koran was written by demons, whats it matter? The message isn't demonic? I mean, its obviously not christian, but so what?

I also agree that these three religions worship the same God. The obvious point of contention being, who is Jesus? At this point, I don't doubt that there are a multitude of arguements could be made for or against all three. Soon, they we will ALL be called to task.

Any further discussion of the similarities and differnces of the three monotheistic religions would possibly be considered off-topic in this particualr thread...

Jesus leaves no room for compromise regarding peoples verdict about Him.
He was clear about what He thought He was.

There are only two ways to take it, either Jesus is the son of God, or Jesus is insane. There is no middle way.
The Islamd however choses the middle way which is what made me say the Islam has a retarded view on Jesus.

It doesn't matter how you look at it, this is a pretty objective thing to say I think.

Its not objective at all. Its pretty silly to say that the bible is absolutely without a doubt objectively and completely true, and that the stuff it has jesus saying is just what he said and all that he said. There's a message in the new testatment, one that seems to be that jesus is saviour, the son of god. To say that thats either true, or jesus said it and was wrong, is silly, there are obviously other options. The people recording the story, nearly a hundred years later, could've been wrong, they could've put lots of their own ideas into it, indeed, we know that the opinions and considerations of the scribes made their way into the text, literally, from the margins. We know that the text can be, has been, editorialized. Therefore, its entirely possible that what muslims say is the situation is the actual situation. I don't beleive it, but just because you can only figure thta jesus is god or jesus was just some crazy jew, hardly means that there are no other options on the matter.

Well of course we don't have anything else to base an opinion on besides what the NT tells us he said, what other options are there?
Besides this, the Islam DOES take Jesus teachings partly serious if I am correct, which still leads to the conclusion that the final verdict of Jesus as an earthly yet smart prophet just makes no sense in any way.

Originally posted by Jakko
Well of course we don't have anything else to base an opinion on besides what the NT tells us he said, what other options are there?

The multiple different versions of the different books of the new testament. God didn't write the new testament, jesus didn't write it, his followers wrote letters to each other explaining various aspects of the story, and we can see that older versions are different than current ones. We, in other words, know that its not a perfect transciption. Besides which, whenever we read any text, we bring stuff with us to analyze it. When jesus said he was going to establish a new kingdom, or that there's a mansionin heaven waiting for us, he didn't literally mean that he was going to write up a constituion and set up a monarchy, or that there were big pretty houses floating in the clouds. When he said he was going ot be like a fire on the world, he didn't mean he was going to burn and hurt everyone. We have to interpret things allways. Given that, and taking it with the fact that the gospels are imperfect and have changed, been altered, and aren't dictated to people by christ, we can't say, outside of faith, that its precisely what jesus said. Therefore, jesus could've said what the bible says, and its true, or jesus could've just been a crazy jew who thought he was god, or he could've made no such claims, and that was stuff that his disciples added later on, a hundred years later. We already know that there were discussion amoung the early christians as to whether or not jesus was divine, and that it had to be settled as dogma. Its not 'patently obvious'.

Besides this, the Islam DOES take Jesus teachings partly serious if I am correct, which still leads to the conclusion that the final verdict of Jesus as an earthly yet smart prophet just makes no sense in any way.

The muslims obviously don't take jesus seriously, and then just ignore the bit where he's saying he's the son of god. They say that the christians have, in error, made up their corrupted and incorrect texts, and come up with this 'fantasy' about jesus magically being the son of god.

I was responding to Jakko in particular but, of course, all of this stuff is open to general discussion.

Leveller
The sad fact is that the fundamentalists end up resorting to the comfort of tribalism instead of facing the hard facts.

I've sometimes thought that judaism and islam are 'bookish' religions, and that christianity is more 'loose and fast' when it comes to stuff, with christian fundamentalists very much like the most 'bookish' aspects of judaism and islam. I also get the impression that part of judaism is to say 'the laws, they might not make sense, but we have to submit to them, because they are from god, we have to submit to torah', and that the more fundamentalist christians are developing in a line very similar to this. IE, look at modern creationism, reality itself is secondary to the book, and the way to understand reality is to see what interpretations can conform with the book and reject the rest, even if more logical, as deception.

Tho I am certainly not too familiar with judaism or islam to be able to say that they are 'bookish' with authority.


[edit on 11-5-2005 by Nygdan]

Ok, ok, it can't be very unexpected that the muslim is defending Islam, sure, I'll probably be biased towards one way, but hey, at least I am admitting it.

Originally posted by Leveller
What one has to remember here is the physical newness of Islam when compared to the other big two religions. Islam didn't need a Jesus as it relied on the Judaic root and took the monotheistic hardline path. It also took the element of hardline tribalism.
One must remember that Islam is much closer to Judaism than to Christianity. A little remembered fact is that Mohammed was trained and taught by Jewish religious teachers. He didn't just dream his religion up out of thin air. Many of the rules, beliefs and dogmas are Judaic.
Like myself you seem to believe that the big three share the one root.
There is one simple answer to the question that you pose above - tribalism.
The Judaic and Islamic gods are rooted very heavily in tribalism, Christianity to a much lesser extent (which is why it has caught on much more than the other two). When religion requires a specific mode of worship, it can't be acceptable to those who use a different mode. They therefore try to distance themselves from one another as much as they can.

I would have to disagree that Islam has (at least from my understanding of the term), elements of hardline tribalism. Pre-Islamic Arabs were very much into tribalism -you were nothing without the protection of the clan, if you were an orphan (not connected through blood to the clan) you were finished, certain clans were more important than other clans- however, one of the aims of Islam was to change all that. That is why there is such an emphasis on Muslim unity- Everyone calling each other brother, sister, mother, father; praying together; pilgrimage together; giving charity to the needy- everyone is meant to look out for each other regardless of their tribe. You could say this is tribalistic, but then Islam is a pretty big religion to be called a tribe. And besides, (despite what some people may say), there is no "us against them", "muslim against non-muslim" constant battle going on.
BTW, there is nothing in the history of Muhammad to show that he was taught by Jewish religious teachers. There were almost no Jewish tribes around Makkah while Muhammad was growing up, and by the time he started preaching Islam, the Jewish scholars were spending more time trying to find holes in his stories than help him.
It may seem unrealistic to say that Muhammad dreamt up his religion out of thin air (or was revealed it by God, as I'd say ), but it happened to Abraham, to Moses, why not to Muhammad? The incredible similarities may be because (as muslim's claim), the message is from the same God.
Has Christianity really caught on more? It had a 600 year start, but (and I'm sure these statistics are questionable), Islam is said to be the fastest growing religion. It can't be all that tribalistic if so many different cultures are absorbing it. That is the interesting thing. Although Christian and Jewish doctrine have people being married the same way, priests/bishops dressed the same way, funerals the same way etc., Islam has been absorbed into all these different cultures without interfering (to such a large extent) with their technicalities. An Imam in Malaysia is bound to look very different from an Imam in Afghanistan. A wedding in Egypt has many differences from a wedding in Pakistan.

Originally posted by Leveller
But there is a third way of looking at things. One which I believe is acceptable to all (although it does create confusion in the fundamentalists) -
All religions claim that their god is the one and only god. It doesn't matter which god you serve or believe in, that specific religion's god is everyone's god whether you know it or not or like it or not. Logically, this means (according to all three religions) that any god believed in by a follower of any of the three religions is the correct one - the problem is that the fundamentalists can't help babbling on about how they've found the correct one and that they alone have the Truth. What they don't realise is that according to the other guy's religion and even to their own, the other guy has found the correct one as well!!!! The sad fact is that the fundamentalists end up resorting to the comfort of tribalism instead of facing the hard facts.

Absolutely agree. What I've been saying all along . If there is someone who says they are worshipping the "One God", you can have no right to say "No, that is the wrong God". If there IS only One, the One must be the same for all.

[edit on 10-5-2005 by babloyi]

Allah = The ideology of mohammed.

Muslim's follow ideology of one man called mohammed. So when you see terrorist act's, ritual beheading, kidnapping, ransom that is mohammeds spirit in them.

Babloyi.
Just a couple of points I'd like to bring up about your post.

There is absolutely no doubt that the Islamic deity is tribal. Not only are his attributes tribal, not only are the scriptures tribal, not only did he evolve in an area where tribalism was rife, but he also evolved from the tribal root religion of Judaism.
Which brings me onto wether or not Muhammed was taught by rabbis. One of his first major experiences was at Yathrib in 622, where three large Jewish tribes had settled amongst Arabs and were preaching monotheism. Muhammed made a hijra to Yathrib after he fled Mecca and formed many ideas there with help from Judaic teachings. Here he was he was taught biblical history such as the story of Ishmael by the Jews. It was also here that a lot of the Islamic laws were formed. Eventually the Jews of Yathrib forced Muhammed to leave, after they accused him of bastardising their religion. From here, Muhammed went and preached and Islam began.

It should be noted that the era of Islam is dated from this hijira to Yathrib.

Originally posted by Leveller
There is absolutely no doubt that the Islamic deity is tribal. Not only are his attributes tribal, not only are the scriptures tribal, not only did he evolve in an area where tribalism was rife, but he also evolved from the tribal root religion of Judaism.

Perhaps this is a result of a misunderstanding with the word tribalism. I looked it up on dictionary.com, and found: " A strong feeling of identity with and loyalty to one's tribe or group". If this is all, then certainly, Islam is a very tribal religion. However, "tribal" also brings forth images of warring between tribes, hatred with people who are not "of the tribe", and customs set specifically for the tribe. Since Islam is supposed to capable of being a universal religion, tribal is not exactly a good word for it. It does not intrude with the customs of any region (as long as they don't go against Islam).
Sure, it's root (Judaism) may be a very tribal religion, but Islam rejects the notion that only 1 "tribe" will be saved.

Originally posted by Leveller
Which brings me onto wether or not Muhammed was taught by rabbis. One of his first major experiences was at Yathrib in 622, where three large Jewish tribes had settled amongst Arabs and were preaching monotheism. Muhammed made a hijra to Yathrib after he fled Mecca and formed many ideas there with help from Judaic teachings. Here he was he was taught biblical history such as the story of Ishmael by the Jews. It was also here that a lot of the Islamic laws were formed. Eventually the Jews of Yathrib forced Muhammed to leave, after they accused him of bastardising their religion. From here, Muhammed went and preached and Islam began.

It should be noted that the era of Islam is dated from this hijira to Yathrib.

All three Jewish tribes were very contemptuous of Islam, and did all they could, from the very beginning, to break it. They weren't really preaching monotheism, just practicing it. Think about it. Why would the Jews, who were very certain that only they would be saved, attempt to help this person?
Also, the Jewish scholars made much of the fact that Muhammad's versions of Biblical events did not match with theirs (for example the story of Ishmael).

It was the pagan Arabs of Yathrib who invited Muhammad to Yathrib, to help unify their various tribes and to mediate matters of justice (Muhammad was famous for his honesty and just manner). The Jews didn't really have much say in telling him to stay or leave, as they weren't involved in the politics of the city.

BTW, although Muhammad may not have known the specifics of the story of Ishmael, his tribe was aware that they had descended from the Ishmael-Kedar/Qaider line- another example of Pre-Islamic tribalistic behaviour (importance of lineage in status).


[edit on 11-5-2005 by babloyi]

Originally posted by babloyi

All three Jewish tribes were very contemptuous of Islam, and did all they could, from the very beginning, to break it. They weren't really preaching monotheism, just practicing it. Think about it. Why would the Jews, who were very certain that only they would be saved, attempt to help this person?

That's not true.
The whole reason Mohammed went to Medina was because he was being persecuted in Mecca and because he knew that the Jews in Medina were tolerant.
The tribes of Medina did not become contemptuous of Mohammed until he proclaimed himself a prophet (Judaism proclaims that the next prophet will be thier messiah - something that they deemed Mohammed not to be). Up until that time, Mohammed received a warm welcome and even after his proclamation there were still some Jews in Medina with whom he was on friendly terms.

As to why would Jews help him? Why wouldn't they? At the time Islam didn't exist so it wouldn't have been seen as a threat to their religion would it? Also remember that Mohammed was preaching monotheism. Most Arabs worshipped polytheistic "pagan" deities. The Jews of Medina had a lot more in common with Mohammed than they did with the vast majority of other Arab worshippers.

It's a denial of reality to say that Mohammed created his religion without the help of the Jews. He took holidays, prophets, laws, so much that was in the Jewish belief system already. The religions have evolved from each other. Of course, followers of religion don't want to admit this. They want to believe that their religion is the only true one and that it was handed down by their god alone. Unfortunately for them, history and a clear head teaches us otherwise.

[edit on 11-5-2005 by Leveller]