THE HISTORY OF ALLAH Allah is at the centre of the religions of Arabian peninsula. He has quite an interesting history. In ancient Arabia, much before the birth of Muhammad a deity by the name Allah was worshipped by the desert Bedouins of Arabia. The Bedouin Arabs had a nomadic life. They were half-starved anarchic tribes incapable of sustaining an agricultural society (Rodinson, 1980, p. 17). Day-time travel was nearly impossible due to the unbearable heat of the sun. Most journeys were undertaken at night, on moonlight and beneath a sky bedecked with glittering stars. Those indigent Bedouin Arabs were so intimately connected with the moon and its phases that their lives were literally governed by the moon. To them, the moon was their life-sustainer. So they associated Allah with the moon. To the Arab Bedouin folks, moon was an absolute holy entity to be worshipped and revered with utmost zeal. After Muhammad forced Islam at the point of sword on these desert Arab indigents; these neo-Muslim Bedouins still continued with the practice of their age-old belief that their life was regulated by the moon. By this way, those desert Arabs considered moon as their highest deity, ‘Allah Taalaa’, the supreme God. Even today, we find that this obsession with the Arab Bedouin moon is strongly prevalent in Islam. Islam is intimately connected with the moon. All its rituals are based on the sighting of the moon or on the moon calendar. Allah revealed the Qur’an to Muhammad but did not reveal himself in his Qur’an. He preferred to remain a mystery to the Muslims. In fact this mysterious, intangible nature of Allah is the essence of Islam. Allah plays hide and seek game with the Muslims. As Caird (1956. p. 60) concluded, “A God who does not reveal Himself ceases to be God; and religious feelings, craving after a living relation to its object, refuses to be satisfied, with a mere initial and potential revelation of the mind and will of God – a God who speaks once for all, and then through the whole course of history ceases to reveal Himself.” Why Allah did not disclose himself? Is he ashamed of his own creation? As Shaikh (1998) wrote, “The cause of God, would have been served better if He were to show His face to mankind frequently for assuring them that He is there”. Is Allah too great to bother about what people think of him? The answer is simple. Allah did not disclose himself because he lacks one element of perfection – namely ‘existence’ and those Qur’anic revelations are actually a parody of Allah for his imperfection. In fact Allah did not disclose himself to even to Muhammad. Qur’an confirms that even Muhammad did not have much knowledge of his Allah. No doubt, Allah was playing a sick game with Muhammad. “Muhammad has no knowledge of Allah but he only gives warning plainly and publicly; angels only bring Allah’s messages to him…” (Q: 38.67-70). There are several highly offensive verses in Qur’an, which promote hate, call for violence and murder, allow deception, curse the nonbelievers and prescribe severe punishment for them. These verses are highly unethical and if ‘it is in ethics that God comes nearest to us’, is true; then Islam is not that right path which can lead a person to the real God. As Gandhi (1961, p. 10) wrote, “One cannot reach truth by untruthfulness”. Being guided by those absurd revelations, Muslims cannot reach the ultimate truth, i.e., the God.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Oct 2013 05:03:58 +0000