History indicates that idolatry is somewhat human instinct. Apparently, its power of toxicity is hypnotic.

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The Idolatry That Has Sneaked Into Islam
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Apart from those who pay divine honour to an image, statue or natural object as symbol of god, the word “idolater” is equally rooted into those who devote intense and blind affection, adoration or admiration to anyone, not normally an object of worship.

Strangely enough, this indelible definition in English has no known deviation in any other language. No doubt, labelling Islam with idolatry will make the Jihad Islamists run for their swords. Frankly speaking, it will induce disbelief to many. After all, the pivotal point of Islam is on an unseen God.

It was this unseen and oneness of God - free from human jealousy, temptation, adoration, and lust that Prophet Mohammed ever preached for his faith - Islam. Islam was then a legacy of Abraham reshaped in a desert and not an innovative religion. He must have despised idolatry so much that he faced towards Jerusalem for his prayer rituals until those 360 idols in the Kaba, were totally destroyed.

History indicates that idolatry is somewhat human instinct. Apparently, its power of toxicity is hypnotic. With all their philosophy, law, science and literature, the great civilizations of the Greeks and the Romans had idolatry rooted in their source of inspiration. The deities and their powers were numerous. Hypnos, Aphrodite, Demeter, Athena and Apollo are just a few to mention here that represent gods and goddesses for dream, love, harvest, health and medicine. Zeus was the greatest god of all. Greek and Roman mythology had similar gods and goddesses.

A few years after Christianity got the imperial seal of approval in the Roman Empire, a great ecumenical conference was held at Nicaea in 325 AD. It was presided by the Emperor Constantin himself. Here, Jesus was declared as God by the votes of the Bishops. The diehard Christians, who once remained hidden for the fear of getting turned into dinners for the imperial lions, suddenly got licensed in formulating the Christian doctrines. So they shaped Christianity in the model of the Hellenism in order to appease the old-guards - the idolaters.

The Romans and the Greeks, assigned to the task of formulating the creeds of Christianity, could not compromise with only one image of god. The monotheistic theme of Judaism was galvanized into their traditional belief in the plurality of gods. Consequently, they had induced three images into one Jesus and he turned out to be the composite of “father”, “son” and the “holy ghost”. Finally, the Nicene Creed was formalized and it reads: “We believe in one God, .... Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, .....God from God, Light from Light,......”. After all, thousands of years’ beliefs and practices in the plurality of gods could not just vanish away in thin air. The vestments of the priests, the use of incense and holy water in purification, burning of candles, light before the altars are still the reminiscence of the pagan Rome.

More with a similar blueprint, the companions of Prophet Muhammad, emerged from a pagan society and geared to worshipping 360 idols in the Kaba, could not compromise with a religion with just one unseen God. Despite being forbidden repeatedly in the Koran, their tentacles of idolatry, soaked with outpouring adoration for Muhammad, had intricately tangled up both God and his messenger together in the formulation of Islamic creeds, and practices. Eventually, these idolatry-creeds reshaped Islam after Muhammad.

Perhaps, a vast number of Muslims would get a thunderous shock after realizing that their intense and often blind adoration to Muhammad is nothing short of an idolatry - if not identical to the Hindus, Buddhists and the Catholic-Christians. The passionate admiration for Muhammad is often contrary to Koranic value and decency.

It gives a concussion when the Islamic evangelists fanatically depict an erotic relation of God with Muhammad. Though not supported by the Koran, they emphatically affirm that God had addressed Muhammad and said: “Were it not for you, my love, I wouldn’t have created the universe”.

Millions of Muslims feel elated in expressing their amorous feelings for Muhammad through a ritual - the Milad. In fact the Milad, though means a birth anniversary, is embedded as a serenade to Muhammad with the same compelling feelings of eroticism, befitting for two lovers. A few samples of those strange lyrics are: “O Muhammad, your prettiness is unparalleled, we have never seen before. O Muhammad, my love you are the bride of my beating heart. You are a healing drink for our hearts” - and the like. The Milad ritual actually originated in British-India. Its lyrics, contain a number of erotic expressions, could make even Romeo blush with futile envy.

The religious guidelines of the Muslims, set by Muhammad’s companions, hardly deviated from those idolaters against whom he maintained an unceasing dissension. Presumably, the passions of Islamic idolatry occasionally supersede the needs surrounding the living and the dead. Even though Prophet Muhammad died about 1,400 years ago, his followers still believe that he is in a perpetual need for well-being. This is evident in the wordings of the Muslim Prayers that have been consecrated to requesting God for granting Muhammad with the equivalency of dignity, abundance, wealth and sufficiency as God once had granted to Abraham.

Most Muslims normally attend two major gatherings for prayers - Eid ul-Fitr and Eid ul-Adha. During the waiting period before the Imam starts the formal prayer, every one has to participate in a prescribed chant. The story behind this chant appears to be the occasion when the Prophet was advancing towards Mecca from Medina for the takeover. The chanting was the words of his companions, screamed in the jubilation of conquering Mecca.

It contains request to God for the well-being of the family, wives, descendants, helpers and the companions of the Prophet. Viewing from the historical perspective, this ritual is totally irrelevant and outdated in relation to today’s scene. Even though we have numerous Islamic scholars, especially those of the Al-Azhar, the tenets of Islam still are more of a reminiscent of Islam’s infancy than the need for keeping pace with time, literacy, knowledge, information and the progress of the world.

The superfluous adoration for Muhammad even defies the Koranic backing. The Koran contains several verses that dictate the Muslims not to distinguish amongst the Prophets (Koran 004.152 and 002.136). There is also a reward that God has promised to those who would refrain from making any distinction. But the force of idol-worshipping instinct often supersedes the Koranic teaching. Obviously, if anyone does not believe Muhammad as the greatest of all the Prophets, would surely be rewarded - not by God but by those Madrassa-trained Jihadi Muslims with tortures, mutilation and even painful death.

Bukhari, who compiled the first Hadith in about 200 years after the death of the Prophet, was a non-Arab and so was Muslim the 2nd compiler. Bukhari was born in Uzbekistian while Muslim was from Nishapur in Persia. Their compilations are revered as marvels by the Muslims, who are heavily intoxicated with Muhammadi-cult. Bukhari had a theological conflict with his mentor - Muhammed Ibn Yahia. The conflict was caused by Bukhari’s arrogance after sensing the popularity of his compilation - Sahih Al Bukhari. He had insisted that his Hadith was no inferior to the Koran as both being the words of the Prophet. Eventually, the sultan of Uzbekistan banishment Bukhari at Khartanak where he died in 870 AD.

Many of the judges and generals, during the collapsing days of the Abbasyd dynasty, were also non-Arabs. Despite Bukhari’s doubts on the divinity of the Koran, he was often hired by the Abbasyd Judges - mostly Nestorian Christians, for authenticating their inhumane laws as consistent with the Prophet’s precedents. For centuries, the blind faith of the Islamic law-makers on the Hadith literature, containing false statements about Prophet Muhammad’s sayings and doings, have driven today’s Islam back to its initial days of idol worshipping paganism

Quite often, the Islamic evangelists and scholars quote the Koran and point out those verses where “Obey God, and obey the Messenger” appear. They then try to rationalize the excessive and blind affection, adoration or admiration to Muhammad as consistent with the Islamic paradigm, jargonized as ‘Sunnah’. Putting plainly, this phrase, “obey the Prophet” doesn’t construe copying the prophet’s personal life. Obviously, every word he ever pronounced is not divine. Had it been so, then the revelation of the voluminous Koran could contain only a couple of words - telling the Muslims to take the Prophet’s words as the words of God.

The interpretations of Islam today are despicable. Besides what Muhammad approved for those subjective situations during his time, the personal choices and practices of Muhammad, including how he kept his beard, dressed himself, cleaned teeth, foods that he liked, pets that he loved, the side of his body he slept on, and a host of other conduct of his life got elevated to the same divinity as if they were the words of God.

Presumably, these personality elements of Muhammad, have guided the West for centuries to address Islam as Mohamadan religion.

During the early days of the Prophet, Islam was modelled on a simple idea of one God. Unlike Christianity, the position of Muhammad was merely a messenger of God (Koran 3:144) and not the God himself. Islam was then perceived as a religion filled with the spirit of kindliness, generosity and brotherhood. “It was a simple and understandable religion. It made its appeal straight to the commonest instincts in the composition of ordinary men.” [H.G.Wells]. Islam, in the midst of religious taboo in the sixth century, was seen by the ordinary people as an oasis in a desert.

God, as in the Koran, asked the Prophet to say: “I am but a man like you, the inspiration has come to me, that your God is one and, ..... in the worship of your Lord, admit no one as partner. (Koran: 018.110). This is not the sole verse telling that Muhammad was “a man like you” - similar repetitions exist many times in the Koran. An undeviating significance of the position of God, in relation to His messengers, has been highlighted and emphasized repeatedly for the early Muslims who were preached by the Prophet himself.

The Koran was regarded as containing a “simple message in Arabic without complications” (Koran-39:28). However, whatever the Prophet preached during his life time, strangely got elevated to divinity after his time and had purposely been made to contain complicated dogmas by the Madrassa-trained ulemas.

Eventually, a theological nightmare crept into Islam that gave rise to fatwa, apostasy, stoning to death, honour-killing and the euphoria of exclusive sex with 70 virgins in the heaven. Despite the fact that the existing theology often contradicts the Koran itself, the forces of the Muhammadi-cult, based on the corrupted contents of the Hadith, shamefully dominate Islam today and are the driving forces behind the “Sharia Laws”.

This fierce devotion to Muhammadi-cult has substantially turned Islam into a worshipper of the messenger and forgetful of the message he ever conveyed. Plainly put, it defeats the Koranic message relative to God that reads: “You that we worship, and your aid that we seek.” (Koran: 001:005).

Merged with this blind veneration to Muhammad is also a fear of arousing Muhammad’s wrath on the Day of Judgement if “peace be unto him (PBUH)” is omitted while taking his name. No doubt some so-called scholars of Islam would interpret the use of ‘PBUH’ as a symbol of respect. But little do they ever care that a compulsive prayer for the salvation of their prophet’s sole invariably imparts an indication of his sinful life.

The Gospels’ authors - Mark, Luke and John were not disciples of Jesus. His companions were mostly illiterate fishermen. So were the companions of the Prophet - illiterate slaves, servants and Bedouins. Anas was a household servant. Bellal, a liberated slave, who initiated the wordings of the prayer call (Azan). Huraira, the tricky one, had slaves of his own. He lived close to the Prophet in Medina for some deceitful motives. Amazingly, he authored over 3,500 hadith in less than two years of his kinship with the prophet. Evidently, the credentials of these companions were neither endowed with genius scholarship, nor did they have exalted credibility. It is so unfortunate that their words, collected nearly two hundred years after their death, formed the backbone of Islamic paradigm that motivates the Jihadi Muslims to kill in the name of “Islam” that also means “peace”, besides “submission”.

The century-old imprints of these ill educated entourage impacted those custodians of Islam after Muhammad’s death. Beside shallowness of prudence and absence of legal sense, their inertia in idol-worshiping got submerged in the formulation of the “Pillars of Islam” (shahadah). So it reads: “.....I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”. Giving a witness is not equivalent to having a ‘belief’, but instead it is an attestation of an event that has occurred before the viewer.

Despite the fact that the Koran prohibits giving a false witness and telling lies, the early custodians of Islam, entrusted with the formulation of the Islamic creeds, didn’t realize that none except the Angel Gabriel could testify that Muhammad had been sent by God as a messenger.

In effect, such an attestation is equivalent to telling lies under oath, a precondition to accepting Islam. Obviously, this ‘pillar’ of Islam that is fundamental to accepting Islamic faith, is obsessed with excessive admiration to Muhammad - a theme that violates the Koranic morals.

Surely, the idol worshipping euphoria has stealthily sneaked into Islamic faith and clearly tells us that today’s Islam is not the Islam that Prophet Muhammad ever preached.


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The article was re-posted on readers' request

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Mesbah Uddin is a freelance writer and a researcher.
E mail : mesbah_uddin@hotmail.com
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[Source: The Translation of the Koran, Yousuf Ali and Pickthall; The Oecumenical Documents of the Faith, Herbert Bindley; History of the Islamic People, Carl Brockelman; Muslim Studies, Ignaz Goldziher; Classical Islam, Von Grunebaum; The Muslim Creed, A.J. Wensinck; The Outline of History, H.G. Wells; Mankind’s Search for God, various.]