Can Qusayy Scam? POD c05pt8
- 00:09:53
- YouTube
Can Qusayy Scam? POD c05pt8
Desolate is the best word to describe Arabia in the years before the prophet's birth. Although civilization made its début along the only portion of Arabia that doesn't touch the sea, for thirty-five centuries it failed to take root in the desert sands. In the east lay Mesopotamia, the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates. Its legendary cities invented the tool that binds you and me, reader and writer: man's greatest invention, written language. Nearly five thousand years ago the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians used cuneiform to proclaim their achievements in science, math, astronomy, law, medicine, agriculture, architecture, the arts, and religion. Yet while these advances were occurring, Arabia remained isolated and stagnant - providing the culture necessary to propagate Islam. Poverty in proximity to greatness makes a people vulnerable to deceit. While we stand upon the shoulders of the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Sumerian scholars, we are haunted by their faith. Two politically-minded doctrines grew out of its schemes - Medieval Catholicism and fundamental Islam. For a thousand years the most powerful forces were not nations but religions. Both deployed rites first practiced in Babylonian temples. Many Catholic symbols, festivals, and doctrines are rooted in the practices of these distant peoples. Christmas, Easter, Lent, the priesthood, confession, and the worship of the Virgin Mary are examples of present rites borrowed from a pagan past. Islam was not immune. Allah was Sin, the moon god of Ur. The Qur'anic Paradise and Hell were imported from the same realm. The cuneiform indentations in clay that confirmed these startling realities became hieroglyphics along the Nile and an alphabet on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. We know from the temple writings in Karnak that pagan gods like those of the Fertile Crescent flourished in Egypt. We saw them emerge again in Greece, then Rome. Yet in Canaan it was a different story. A god appeared unlike any other. In a world of idols, he was spirit. In a world of plenty, he was one. In a world of distant deities symbolized by astronomical bodies he was personal, approachable, knowable. His name was Yahweh. His people were Jews. Together they documented their history and their relationship. In so doing these peoples at the western doorstep of Arabia played a central role in the most telling of all modern tales. Their intersection begins when a young man named Abram left Sin. In a perilous journey he, his stunning wife Sarai, his father Terah, and his nephew Lot, left Ur of the Chaldeans, and headed northwest. Crossing along the roof of the Arabian Peninsula, their route carried them along the Euphrates to an outpost town called Haran. There, Abram's father died, but not his father's god. Sin, the moon god of Ur, reigned supreme. Called by a higher source than even the moon and its god, Abram, Sarai, and Lot left the safety of the mighty river and headed to the land of Canaan - the Promised Land.
YouTube | December 15, 2008
