Eternity

230 Pages·2016·1.1 MB·English

by  Anwar Sheikh

ETERNITY By Anwar Shaikh
INTRODUCTION TO BOOK 1
ARE WE ON THE RIGHT PATH?
Whatever man does, is activated by considerations of pain and pleasure. The fear of
pain, and desire for pleasure constitute his instinctive behavioural mechanism. Since
death is man's worst fear, immunity from death, or eternity, ranks as the best favour.
Through fear, man began to believe that there is a god or goddess behind every force
of nature such as the Sun, the Moon, the wind, the rain etc.; and if he submits to the
deities they will show him favour by protecting him from disease, destruction and
death. This is what gave birth to mythology i.e. the belief in superstitious gods and
goddesses.
Dominance-urge, that is, the compulsive desire of some people to command their
fellow-beings, and to be worshipped by them, is so great that they project themselves
as gods to replace the existing mythological deities. This is the most convenient way
of exploiting people's psychological susceptibilities. The Middle Eastern mythology
vouches for this fact. However, the method used to secure this goal is called
"revelation": a person desiring to be God, pretends that he is the Vicar of God and
preaches only what is revealed to him by the Almighty. Through this veil, he
eventually establishes his own divinity backed by a host of fairy tales.
Revelation is the biggest fraud that man invented to gratify his urge of dominance, but
the propriety of revelation itself depends upon the concept of a Creator God which is
totally irrational. Amongst many other fatal flaws, it follows that if the universe needs
a Creator God, then the Creator God must have been created by yet another Creator
God, and so on.
CHAPTER ONE
FEAR AND FAVOUR
Eternityis the destination of man, yet he is afraid of death. In fact, fear of death is the most
dreadful and goads him to seek the equally compensating favour of an everlasting life, which is
most delightful. This is what makes fear and favour man's instinctive behavioural mechanism
because whatever he does is activated by considerations of pain and pleasure.
Psychological basis of behaviour
Strange as it may seem, the concept of morality cannot be visualised unless humans are
endowed with the ability to differentiate between misery and mirth. The former refers to fear
and the latter to favour: I do not molest my neighbour for fear of retaliation, and show him
favour for reciprocal treatment. In fact, it is realisation of dole and delight which gives birth to
such ethical values as vice and virtue: a person who does not know what is good or bad for
himself cannot care about the consequences of his conduct in relation to others, and is thus,
incapable of self-discipline and planning the right course of action; he is an idiot who looks for
pearls in a coal mine and searches for coal in a shallow pond. This is the reason that children
immune to algesia (sensitiveness to pain) are destructive, for being incapable of feeling physical
pain, and the adults who feel the least pain, become the most thick-skinned.
All fear is not bad: rational fear is beneficial. For example, the fear of illness has provided
motivation to investigate the working of the human body and environmental factors, thus
leading to the emergence of numerous sciences such as biology and ecology. It has not only
widened the horizon of knowledge but also narrowed the scope of effects associated with lethal
diseases by spurring human ingenuity in medical and surgical fields. The modern increasing life-
span is indebted to the fear of illness.
Favour and Civilisation
Favour, in its broader sense, is the fountain of civilization. When we talk of favourable
circumstances, we actually think of the conditions that lead to the realization of expectations
and fulfillment of goals. Thus favour and reward become synonymous. Is it possible to imagine
that people will strive for higher and nobler situations without reference to corresponding
rewards? In the absence of a reguerdon, the quality of action is bound to suffer. The resulting
inaction will perpetrate an inertial state, utterly repugnant to cultural advancement. Thus man
will become a regressive animal.
Extremes of Fear and Favour
People are governed by the extremes of fear and favour. There are some who are born greedy;
the more one tries to gratify them, the less satisfied they feel; their mentality is like a
bottomless pit which may devour all the riches of the planet but still experience the pangs of
paucity, poverty and parsimony. The virtues of contentment, abstinence and self-restraint are
too trivial for them to practice. Conscience, consideration and courtesy are the words alien to
their understanding and palate. The greedy folks live to grab every penny and die to save every
farthing. Such people dream of personal pleasure and self-elevation regardless of how much
their avarice may displease and degrade others. They are always chasing favours. When they
can't gain such favours, they pine for the imaginary ones.
Some people are prone to excessive fear by birth, that is why they feel frightened without any
cause. They are timid and cowardly; they can neither defend their own virtue nor contribute to
human values of honour and liberty. They live to evade the fear of death and die to escape the
fear of life.
A healthy personality is the foundation of Godhead but its development is not possible without a
rational sense of fear and favour. It involves training and to a large extent, control of personal
behaviour based on one's own free will. Since we constantly react to environmental stimuli, the
healthy growth of personality requires a sound attunement of the individual to society, and vice
versa.
What is a healthy personality?
It is a garden full of flowers which despite considerable variance in size, makeup, colour and
fragrance, combine to present a bouquet of natural excellence sustained by the common
purpose of looking sweet, splendid and supreme. Behavioural beauty of an individual, which
constitutes a healthy personality, depends upon the harmonious working of one's likes and
dislikes, attractions and repulsions, obsessions and vagaries, beliefs and disbeliefs and
instinctive and learned judgements. These elements in their disciplined operation bear the same
resemblance to personality as flowers of various kinds have to a nosegay. However, for the
emergence of a healthy personality, it is imperative that not only are these elements operated
by a person's free will but the free will itself is sound and rational.
What I have said above is free from the resonance of exaggeration, and quite practicable yet
congruent working of the elements of personality is a dream.
Why is this dream still unfulfilled? What is inhibiting its realisation? Who is its arch enemy?
CHAPTER TWO
URGE OF DOMINANCE
Urgeof dominance is the arch enemy of a healthy personality, and the well-being of mankind.
Since this is the focal point of discussion, I must state that heading an organization or institution
as a duty, is not dominance but leadership. Here, by dominance I mean imposing one's spiritual
or secular authority on others with a view to controlling their lives even to minor details. This is
the process which allows one person to paralyse the free will of millions by saddling them with
his own determination.
What is an Urge?
It is a psychological term which may be described as a driving force. A motor car consists of an
engine, a body, wheels and scores of other parts. Yet it cannot move without fuel which actually
propels it. What petrol is to a motor car or coal is to a locomotive engine, urge is to man. Drive
is just another word for urge. It is a strong emotional force which comes to control the
behaviour of a person. Of course, man has many urges -the urge to satisfy hunger, the urge to
gratify sexual desire, and so on. When an ordinary desire gains high intensity, it also ranks as
an urge. For example, a man falls in love with a woman. If he is just fooling around with her, he
is seeking the fulfillment of a desire, but if he becomes obsessed with the woman, and all his
dreams and actions are directed by the considerations of her pleasures and displeasures, his
desire begins to rank as an urge for being the driving force of his behaviour. Every urge plays
an important role in human conduct but the urge that gains ascendancy over the rest is the
supreme urge; its right operation and magnitude of success or failure may decide the quality of
personality.
Dominance-urge, the root of evil
Of all urges, the urge of dominance is the most severe because it goads its possessor to gain
control of other members of the species. It is evil by nature because "A's" dominance over "B" is
not possible without the latter surrendering his rights to the former. And, there is nothing more
sordid than depriving others of their liberties; it is in fact an act of neutralising the free will of
the dominated person for making it a shadow of the dominant's volition. The evil nature of the
dominance-urge is displayed by the dominance-hierarchies found in domestic fowl, birds,
baboons, bumble bees, crabs etc. It is well explained by what is called "peck order" and is
commonly seen amongst chickens where bird "A" pecks the weaker bird "B" who in turn pecks
the still weaker bird "C". It follows that pecking or repression is the main characteristic of
dominance-hierarchy which is organised on the principle of "might is right". A better
understanding of this concept is provided by "Lek behaviour" which refers to a communal area
where two or more males of a species perform courtship displays. By a demonstration of brute
force, the winner establishes his dominance over all other males of the herd which acknowledge
his right to seduce any female, and priority to enjoy food and water. This is what dominance is
all about -the mania of self-preference to the total exclusion of others.
Dominance-hierarchy
Dominance-hierarchy, of course, is a must for social organization to avoid chaos, which is
another description of death, but even as a pillar of organization, it is virtuous only when every
member performs the allotted function as a duty to promote the cause of the society.
In a dominance-hierarchy based on dispensation of duty, it is the chief function of the ruler to
establish a fair system of administration for the dispensation of natural justice to safeguard
people's rights and liberties. Therefore, his office ought to rank as the most reverential, but in
practice this is not the case because, as a rule, he does not administer rights and liberties to
advance the cause of people but for the purpose of prolonging his own rule and enhancing his
own dignity. As a dominant being, he knows that more freedom for the people means less
power for himself. This is against his nature because power to the ruler is what sight is to an
eye, lustre to a diamond and usury to a Jew. Since an increase in his power leads to a decrease
in people's liberties, he is usually wise enough not to achieve his end with brute force.
Therefore, he resorts to hypocrisy and raises the dignity and sanctity of people's duty (except
his own) so far above people's rights that the former begins to look holy and the latter, profane.
By projecting the state as a goal in itself, he makes it the most powerful and the f nal arbitrator
because it is he who wields the state powers and therefore, the state becomes the shadow of his
personality. Thus he prepares a highly sophisticated web of gubernatorial wizardry which allures
people to get entangled in it to suffer a volitional paralysis of their freedom.
Tamburlaine
A dominance-hierarchy is usually operated by the mechanism of fear and favour to enforce the
gubernatorial will which is the child of the dominance-urge. Timur or Tamburlaine, one of the
greatest conquerors of history, provides a good specimen of the concept of dominance, and fear
and favour.
The entrance to Timur's Palace boasted the inscription:
"The Kingdom belongs to Allah The Sultan is the Shadow of Allah on Earth."
In fact, this inscription sprang from his dominance-urge which prompted him to equate himself
with God, though indirectly, as his shadow or viceroy. It is interesting to know the practical
implications of this urge.
Timur, the conqueror, believed: "Just as there is only one God in Heaven, so the earth can
support only one King". Therefore, he demanded of Bayezid (1360-1403) to acknowledge him
as his overlord. Bayezid, the great Turkish Sultan was himself a formidable soldier and enjoyed
the reputation of massacring a Christian army of 100,000 at Nicopolis in 1396. Being stunned by
this insolence, he challenged Timur to a battle and threatened to take Saray-Mulk-Khanum,
Timur's chief wife, as his concubine. In the ensuing battle near Ankara during July 1402, Timur
triumphed. To display his dominance, he imprisoned Bayezid in a specially-built iron cage and to
magnify the inferiority of the vanquished foe, Timur took his wife for a sexual partner!
His carnage of the Indians in Delhi stood at 75,000. When his chroniclers incorporated this fact
into an official record along with the most horrifying details of rape and pillage, Timur became
angry. Considering his campaign a glorious victory, he remarked: "A cook ought to be judged by
the taste of the dish he prepares and not by the blood on his hands when preparing it".
During his military expeditions against the Arabs, he built high mounds with the decapitated
heads of the victims. The heads, which had been secured in position with clay, faced outward to
frighten passers-by. The mound at Aleppo was ten cubits high and twenty cubits in
circumference.
Tamburlaine and Fear
It seems reasonable to think that a man like Timur would not be afraid of anything. But this
view does not hold good when we realise that on his deathbed, he trembled with fear and
continuously recited Kalma to acknowledge the lordship of the prophet Muhammad, the founder
of Islam who claimed to possess intercessory powers for granting his followers the delights of
Heaven. Not only that, when his grave was opened up in 1941 by the Russian archeologists,
they found two skeletons buried together; the other skeleton was that of Sayyad Imam Baraka,
his spiritual protector; they had been buried together in the same mausoleum, and it was
Timur's face that had been turned towards Sayyad Baraka who was a descendant of Muhammad
and thus endowed with the grace to keep the flames of Hell at bay. Timur was as much afraid of
death and Hell as anyone else!
Timur excelled not only in the art of frightening, but he was also generous to his loyal
servants. He, like most rulers, secured obedience by activating the instincts of fear
and favour to satisfy his urge of dominance. However, this urge is so frantic that its
tentacles spread far beyond the grave. Why? This is a complicated question and does
not admit a direct answer. Therefore, I shall add the next Chapter to explain it.
CHAPTER THREE
FAITH
To be afraid, and expect favour, is human. No matter how strong and proud one may be, there
comes a point when strength turns into weakness and pride into humility. This change is
brought about by the activation of fear or favour. A proud person may bow before his superior
for fear of dismissal or in hope of favour, such as promotion. Whether a person is a suzerain or
servant, he is subject to the influence of fear and favour.
Care, concern and consideration for other people's rights and liberty is usually in inverse ratio to
the intensity of the dominance-urge, that is the more dominant a person, the less caring,
concerned and considerate he is, and vice versa. Therefore, a higher position in the dominance-
hierarchy denotes the comparatively intense self-mania of the dominant though exception
happens to be a rule of nature.
Dominance, Fear and Society
Liberty is man's natural religion. Therefore, he hates servitude, but dominance-urge prospers on
usurpation of liberties the same way as vultures thrive on carrion. This polarity of purpose
tempts the dominant to activate people's mechanism of fear and favour. Members of the
gubernatioral class under the patronage of their chief get together to form an impregnable
coterie to subjugate the masses through a subtle code of fear based on a seemingly rational and
humane system of law and justice. This leads to the moral degradation of the society: poverty
becomes prevalent; fairness, justice and tolerance nearly disappear; trickery, torture and
tantalization assume the status of decorum, discipline and dedication; hypocrisy replaces
sincerity; sophistication puts on the hat of etiquette; good manners are ridiculed; guile is
praised; triviality rides the truth; the silly flout the sagacious and vice derides virtue.
This social debasement transcends national frontiers. Nations find philosophical reasons for
basing their cultural values on absolute competition, for breaking international agreements and
for making deception and perfidy the cornerstone of political attitudes. Nationalism is raised to
the status of Godhead and racism is adored openly. Every nation is made aware of self-
importance and superiority, and is incited to plunder and exterminate foreign people for
usurping their wealth and liberty.
As a consequence, the world begins to appear harsh, facinorous and murderous; sweet tastes
sour and bright looks bleak. Not only the social but also the physical environment begins to
fling, frighten and frustrate; life becomes an unbearable burden and everyone looks for a
messiah with miraculous powers to cure their sorrows and lead them to a paradise where
abundance, mirth and serenity eternally prevail.
Social disorder and Messiah
History testifies to the fact that the worse the social conditions, the greater the likelihood for the
emergence of a god or guru, a messenger or messiah. It is because helplessness makes the
human mind more receptive to superstition; it instigates people to spurn reality, which is usually
harsh and inclement, and embrace the unreality of make-believe teeming with wishful thinking
based on self-evasion.
Value of make-believe
Facing up to reality requires moral probity, courage and the ability to resist or accomplish, but
in the short run, it may not bring peace and happiness to the ruffled mind. Ignoring the harsh
reality is not a laudable act but indulgence in wishful thinking does provide relief by depicting
the bleak as bright and black as white. It even gives hope and may keep the dreamer in a fair
mood until the worst happens. In fact, what make-believe or wishful thinking is to humans,
dormancy or hibernation is to animals.
Dormancy and Survival
Dormancy, i.e. the reduced state of metabolism, is a form of adaptation for certain animals.
Stressful environment forces them to live at a much lower level which requires minimal chemical
processes for staying alive. During a dry period when ponds, rivers and lakes dry up, only those
aquatic organisms can survive which have the ability to become dormant until such time that
their habitats are refilled with water. Similarly, bacteria survive scorching weather by becoming
dormant. Perennial plants, which look dead during a hostile winter, come back to life year after
year through a process of dormancy. To survive inclemency of the environment, even seeds
become dormant and will not germinate during a certain period: seeds of the Danish Spergula
Arvensis sprouted after a dormancy of 1,700 years and seeds of the Manchurian Lotus are
known to have sprung to life after 1,000 years.
Arctic Squirrel
The Arctic ground squirrel is a typical mammal for during its hibernation it makes an
underground nest of hair, grass or other suitable materials; its temperature drops to that of its
surroundings and it appears to be dead; even its bones and teeth suffer deterioration, but when
the stressful conditions have passed, it may resume normal life.
Reality of Dormancy
Since dormancy is a method of surviving at a much reduced level, it is a regressive living.
During the period of hibernation, a mammal may lose as much as 50°70 of its weight and 90%
of its total heat production. In fact, it is a precarious method of survival because the animal
does not always return from its torpor.
Hibernation or dormancy as a method of survival by evading the challenge of reality which is
stressful, harsh and inclement, leaves a profound mark on the behavioural response of the
animal. In simple language, it induces into an animal the habit of evasion when the original
causes requiring evasion or dormancy, no longer exist.
Dormancy and Faith
What dormancy is to seeds and animals, make-believe or wishful thinking is to mankind. It
enables us to evade stresses and anxieties of life by pretending that the truth is not as it is but
as we believe it to be. Another name for make-believe is Faith. This is the reason that Faith has
been called opium, heroin, hashish and tranquilliser.
The main function of the drugs known as psychopharmacological agents is to distort the
psychological processes such as perception, thinking and feeling, to give the sensed objects
entirely different appearances; an illusion refers to the distortion of what is sensed, but an
hallucination is the sensation of something which is not there.
Role of Faith
Faith, as distinct from dormancy, acts mainly on a person's faculties of understanding, and not
theentire body, though effects of the mind on the body cannot be denied. It weakens the
rational part and strengthens credulity, i.e. the disposition to believe without sufficient evidence.
Thus a person who is highly critical and circumspect in ordinary life, and cannot be persuaded or
dissuaded without a reasonable proof, as a believer becomes repugnant to evidence and reason
in his religious capacity as a Jew, Christian or Moslem. It is because he believes or is made to
believe, usually from the cradle, in certain wishful values which give him satisfaction and thus
protect him from the inclemencies of reality; his faith acts as an opaque barrier between him
and the stressful reality, he does not want to remove it because the act of removal may reveal
to him what he does not like. Therefore, ignorance begins to look as a source of bliss which he
habitually enjoys at the expense of the truth.
Nature of Faith
Pre-eminently, faith as generally understood and practiced, is a form of mythology for lacking
rational cohesion. Yet it is a lush oasis in the desert of life; it serves as the pivot of sanity by
acting as a shield against the hostility of foes and hypocrisy of friends; it provides hope against
despair and enhances the chances of survival. Without it, man is like a shieldless soldier in the
battlefield or a heatless sailor in deep waters.
Therefore, man must have a faith, but of a different nature. It must be rational, i.e. it ought to
be largely based on evidence and reason, and must stimulate him to face reality with
confidence, courage and concinnity. However, one should remember that absolute evidence is
rare and every argument has a counter argument, which limits the effectiveness of reason.
Therefore, rational faith is the one that is based on investigation but may carry an element of
trust when reason becomes counter productive. However, the element of trust must be closer to
fact than fiction.
Mythology and Faith
Unfortunately, such periods are rare in history when man might have practiced rational faith. In
fact, there is hardly any difference between mythology and folk religion because they both are
based on specific accounts of gods, demi-gods, gurus, messiahs, prophets, their supernatural
deeds, divine gossip and extraordinary experiences Again, they both communicate in symbols
rather than words. This is the reason that most believers are idolaters despite their avowed
rejection of idol-worship.
A myth, by its advocates, is given decisive authority as the Word. For example, the Bible claims
that the Word was in the beginning and the Word was God (St.John 1:1). Similarly, the Koran
claims to be the Kalaam Ullah -the Word of God. Since validity of such statements is
independent of veracity, it makes the revealed religion an extension of mythology.
Myths and Fear
Myths arose from fear of natural forces such as the sun, moon, wind, clouds, thunder,
lightning, heat, rain, drought, life, death and, above all, uncertainty. Man ascribed a
deity to almost every phenomenon; he started worshipping supernatural powers out
of fear and with a view to appeasing them for gaining their favours. All major religions
are sophisticated continuations of the old mythological traditions and have been given
a more baffling interpretation by their founders, under the influence of dominance-
urge, to be worshipped as gods.
CHAPTER FOUR
MIDDLE EASTERN MYTHOLOGY
Man, the potential God
Potentially, every man is a god, yet his potential does not get a fair chance of realisation.
Why? Because dominance-urge instigates the dominant to create conditions which hinder the
progress of fellow-beings towards Godhead. In fact, he himself wants to be acknowledged as
God for turning others into his worshippers. There is no mystery in it. The working of this
tendency is betrayed by the hierarchial structure of any society; some individuals will do
anything to gain superiority over other people, regardless of what it may take to achieve this
goal.
Representation of myths by messiahs
Revelation, the biggest fraud that man ever invented, is the most effective way of projecting
oneself as God under various devices such as Avatara, God's son, God's messenger, prophet,
guru, messiah, medhi or Imam. Such individuals know the force of mythology and its
devastating appeal to the masses. Therefore, they represent the existing myths with a renewed
vigour by giving themselves the pivotal position in their system of fairy tales which appeal to
people's instinctive mechanism of fear and favour.
Indian and Semitic traditions of mythology
Largely, there are two mythological traditions -Indian and Semitic, but I shall base my case on
the latter for its homogeneity. To establish that the doctrines and beliefs advocated by the
Semitic religions -Judaism, Christianity and Islam -are nothing but the continuation of the
mythological tales that existed in the pre-Jewish era, I may mention them here briefly and
should also emphasise that as mythology denotes infant thinking, man does not seem to have
grown rationally since the time of the Deluge.
i. Egyptian mythological traditions
The Egyptians believed that in the beginning, there was nothing but a great expanse 1 of water
called "NU", covered by the cloak of darkness. From the power of NU arose a huge shining egg
which was Ra.
+++++++++++++
1 Note the resemblance: Genesis starts the story of creation with water, and mentions the
Creator God.
+++++++++++++
a. They also believed that Ra the all-powerful who could assume any form, took the shape
of man as Pharaoh. He ruled Egypt for thousands of years and eventually became very
old.
This seems to be an adaptation of the Indian doctrine called "Avatara" which
means that God appears in human form to help mankind whenever it is enveloped
by the pernicious forces of evil.
b. In his capacity as Atum 1, he was considered as the creator of the world.
c. Because of his longevity, Ra became very weak. People laughed at him and flouted his laws
which he had made binding on them; nothing annoyed Ra more than disobedience to his
commandments 2. He appointed his daughter Sekhmet to wreak vengeance. She carried out
destruction and carnage on either side of the Nile and the desert. Ra and the other gods
rejoiced when she tasted the blood of her victims.
d. Ra named 3 all things of the earth.
e. It was Akhenaton the Pharaoh who first decried the existence of many deities and decreed
the worship of one supreme God 4. He was originally known as Amenhotep IV. God Aton was
not a figment of his imagination but the renaming of the hawk-headed sun god, Ra-Harakhti.
However, Akhenaton's religion was not as monotheistic as it sounds because by declaring
himself the son of Aton, he ranked as a god in his own right, and being Aton's high priest 5, had
the most direct access to him. It gave him the sole right of worshipping Aton on behalf of all
believers. The special relationship between Aton and Akhenaton blurred the distinction between
the two. It was especially so because Akhenaton, like Aton, also had a high priest and thus they
shared their jubilees.
f. The Egyptian mythology states that the Ark (Chest) of Osiris was made of cedar from
Lebanon, ebony from Punt and the south end of the Red Sea; it was inlaid with ivory and rare
gold and silver and its inside was painted with the figures of goods, animals and birds. Moses
was told by Yahwe to construct an ark or chest of similar kind for storing the second tablets. It
was this ark which constituted the proof of a special Jewish relationship with God.
g. The Egyptian mythology narrates an interesting episode: Isis, the sister-wife of Osiris had the
chest containing his (Osiris) body placed on a ship which was headed towards Egypt. As it
passed through the Phaedrus River, its strong currents became reluctant to move the ship. Isis
was disturbed by the behaviour of the river. She laid a curse on it and its stream dried up
forever.
This episode is the forerunner of the Jewish story that describes the parting of the Red Sea,
enabling the children of Israel to escape.
+++++++++++++++++++
1 Note the resemblance: Genesis mentions the Creator God.
2 Jews escaped from Egypt where people believed that Ra had given them commandments to
obey. Ra dealt with them severly
when the Egyptians disobeyed them. Moses received similar commandments from Yahweh who
wanted to be obeyed under pain of annihilation.
3 Islamic mythology states that Allah taught Adam the name of things.
4 Monotheism or the idea of one God as adopted by Moses in Egypt; it is not indigenous to the
Jews.
5 In many ways, Moses was a high priest to Yahwe as Akhenaton was to Aton.
++++++++++++++++++
h. Besides mythology, the Egyptians had developed certain customs which commanded
supernatural reverence: for example, Egypt ranked as the whole world
to its people; they were born and buried there, worshipped their own gods, practiced their
indigenous laws, developed their own architecture, engineering techniques, arts and literature.
They came to prefer everything that was Egyptian -loved isolation and thought of themselves
as a different species in their own right.
The Jews had similar attitudes towards Israel. Even Yahwe was God of Israel. The Jews
obviously brought with them the Egyptian culture and its religious traditions.
i. The geography of Egypt was another source of superstition. It was a country 800 kilometers
long with hardly any breadth and thus made governing difficult unless the people obeyed their
rulers as a matter of faith. Again, the faith had to be rewarding: it led to the belief in
resurrection 1 and the day of judgement when the god Osiris would pronounce a favourable
verdict on the believers who were obliged to acknowledge the divinity of Pharaoh as the first
step towards salvation. This is why the priesthood became an integral part of kingship.
j. Just the concept of salvation was not enough to hungry people. Amon-Re, the state-god,
became entitled to wage 2 war against the foreigners; he received Pith of the plunder, and the
rest went to the participants. Yet another aspect of the ruling class was nepotism. It was the
king's relatives who possessed the most high ranking and administrative posts.
ii. Hittite and Mesopotamian Traditions
1. The Hittites did not believe in mentioning or writing the names of their gods openly and
expressed them by hidden signs. Only the priests knew what they meant. This is the source of
the Jewish Tetragrammation.
2. The divinity of the King was not acknowledged in Mesopotamia. The Sumerian, Babylonian
and Assyrian monarchs were believed to receive their authority from gods and thus their rule
was not original but vicarious. Such a ruler was a divine viceroy.
Here lies the seed of the Semitic prophethood or viceroyalty: both Moses and Muhammad
claimed to be the prophets or viceroys of God, and did not directly declare themselves to be
God.
The concept of viceroyalty led the Sumerians to believe that they owned nothing; everything
they had, belonged to gods; they worked on gods' lands as their vassals and lived in gods'
cottages as their tenants.
++++++++++++++++++
1 Here lie the seeds of the Christian concept of ressurrection.
2The Jewish predatory raids into Canaan for tribute were modelled on this Egyptian practice
which turned out to be the fundamental military principle of Islam requiring the vanquished to
pay poll tax or embrace Islam.
+++++++++++++++++++
iii. Babylonian Traditions
a. Marduk, the Chief god, told the assembly of deities that Babylon was the centre of the
universe where he had built a "magnificent house", for himself.
Here lie the germs of Solomon's Temple, and the reason why Jews thought of Jerusalem as the
centre of the universe.
b. The Babylonian epic (Enuma Elish) held that gods created mankind to serve them. It was
because they (gods) were lazy and wanted man to work hard for providing them with the
choicest foods. The Islamic idea that God created mankind simply to worship Him originated
from this epic.
c. The Babylonian Gods assembled in the Halls of Heaven to bestow upon Marduk the creative
and destructive powers as his reward for slaying Tiamat, the monster Showing a piece of cloth
to Marduk, they said, "Bel Marduk, our lord, now you are the first among gods. You can create 1
or destroy by just uttering a word: speak the word and this cloth will disappear; speak again
and it will reappear in its original form".
d. The Sumerian god Enlil who was also known as Ellil 2 gained a dreadful reputation for being
the mover of hurricanes and the deluge. For his retributive nature, he was called "the Wild Ox".
e. All Mesopotamian gods had sons and daughters. They practiced a culture similar to that of
humans but at a higher level. Thus, they had been invested with finer human attributes by the
believers.
Yahwe the Jewish God and Allah have attributes similar to those of humans. f. Fear was the
origin of gods and goddesses who were supposed to represent the various forces of nature. For
example, the Canaanite deity, Baal, was the god of rain, thunder and lightning. He announced
that he would no longer acknowledge the authority of MOT "Death".
The worst fear was the fear of death which prompted people to search for everlasting life.
Gilgamesh, the Akkadian hero, mirrored the spirit of the Sumerian myths that had existed for
centuries. He was stricken with fear of death and looked for immortality everywhere. He failed,
and at the end wept with dreadful grief and frustration.
During his search, he came across the magic plant called "Man Rejuvinated In Old Age". He
found it growing at the bottom of the sea. He managed to secure a branch of it and on his
return journey, he found the sun extremely hot. He took off his clothes and plunged into a pool
of cool water. A serpent appeared and carried off the magic plant into a nearby well. The plant
was true because the old skin of the serpent fell off and the new skin appeared, having all the
signs of rejuvination. The mention of the serpent in Genesis is not a mere coincidence.
g. Gilgamesh (and Enkidu) suffered terrible dreams and ghastly visions of The Land Of No
Return. This is the prototype of the concept of Hell.
h. According to the Sumerian legend, the first man was Adapa who invented speech He was not
immortal. He made the mistake of denying the "food of life" and "water of life" when offered by
the god Anu and thus contracted disease and death for his progeny. Eve made a similar mistake
in misleading Adam.
i. The Babylonian myth states that at the behest of the god Anu, the goddess Aruru shaped clay
in the form of Anu himself and told Ninurta, the son of Enlil, to breathe life into this new man.
+++++++++++++
1 Islamic creative principle: "Kun Fa Yakoon", i.e. Allah commands "Be and it becomes", is
surely an extension of this fable.
2 Ellil seems to be the Allah of the Moslems. Yahweh as a retributive God also appears to have a
great deal in common with him.
+++++++++++++++