Islam, Judaism, religions, etc. similar beginnings?
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Peace be upon all and praise be to God,
I just remembered something that I have thought over numerous times to myself and thanks to Al Quraishi I remembered mashallah. Is it just me or are mostly all religions the same, just corrupted to a point? I have done some research on Ibrahim (not actually from any religious group) and I have read that each city had many gods, and the main god for his was El. Now, I know that there is the dispute of, "That couldn't be El from the Jews" and to a point that could be right, such as the usage for the word Allah. However what I think is that El may have indeed been the one that we call Allah, God.
As the Quran tells us, we always go back to idols and polytheism and forget God after we have implored God alone to help us. I am thinking that this is the same for the ancestors of Ibrahim and Ibrahim himself. They associated partners with the one true God and therefore became polytheists.
Theres also a similar story with Muhammad. The Kaabah was a shrine filled with idols and Allah was the main God of all. The people corrupted their religion to God Alone and associated partners with Allah, thereby creating polytheism in Arabia again.
The same could go for countless religions. Hinduism is a good example as well, as there are some that believe that there is only one God and one God alone, yet others believe in the 1000s of gods that they have.
Has anyone reflected on this at all? Sorry if everyone has talked about this already, but just thought I would spark a conversation for us to discuss on and perhaps, God Willing, increase our knowledge.
Wa Salaam
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peace
El 'el (Hebrew) Sometimes Al. Strong, mighty; as an abstract noun -- strength, might -- applied to divinities, heroes, or cosmic spirits. By the later Jewish and Christian monotheists rendered as God.
Several linguistic people connect El, to a host of important words in the english language. Why? becasue of its influence from hebrew dialects. Where this might not seem obvious, think about the english name for the letters that im writing this with, as compared to the hebrew Aleph Bet.
El ectricity
El ite
El eveted
El ected
etc..And several names like
michaEL
RafaEL
AzazEL
gabriEL
etc..some see a large conspiracy in this, i doubt it. These people met up, traded goods and ideas, and words. Just like today a word of nearly any language can become popular worldwide if people think it sounds funny. Excuse me ladies, but punanani, has pretty much hit it worldwide because its a funny word. People altso still make up words, and noone better than the medical industry, and the walt disney corporation
As they changed ideas, relegions was shaped. All, i mean every single scholar that i know, believe that the unseen monotheistic god was a product of tribal wars. It was common practice to humiliate the other tribe by defacing or stealing their god (totem, rock anything). So smart tribes realised that without a physical god like that, this wouldnt happen "...oh yeah? well go ahead and steal it idol worshippers!". More than this, it provided a unifying belief there wasnt before. Becasue now everyone could have the same deity, afterall, you cant see it, so who knows who depicts it right. The strongest of these ideas, seems to have been from phoenecia or canaa, and we still belive that they had it right....for some reason. Part of my own study, but to a larger extend idolfree1's (a member here) shows that the monotheistic idea was present in highly developed communities, like that of ancient khemet, and the whole idea that they had severael gods are presented to us by our MASONIC histortians, who belived they had it right the first time. In other words, the pantheon of egypt is a product of our first assumtion when we refound it, rather than the khamets themself. We too have "angels", and we too draws them, but we dont associate them with being the Divine itself.
We altso still raise temples in the names of people or deitys we admire. Like st.peters church. If time went on for 3000 years, and it was digged out of the sand, i wiould bet you a million that they would assoume that peter was a god, and this temple was devoted to his worship....well....actually....ok but the main point is. That just becasue we find a temple named something, doesnt mean that whoever had the name was coincidered a god at the time. Only Masonic scholars have this kind of logic, because as we have digged up more and more, they have adopted a relegion based on their own misconceptions. And even added new goddess to their pantheon, like columbia (american godess).
And now they are trying to erase the facts. in fact we are witness to it in iraq atm. They went for babylon, stole artifacts en mass, covered up that they found king golgamehs toomb...meaning to those interrested, that gilgamesh wasnt a legend or a god. But a king, a physical living king either adored by his people or feared for centuries after. And this just adds to my point really. The name means nothing its merely a word. A word means whatever people want it to mean. You have to look at the concept. Because concepts stay the same. Gravity works nomatter what you chose to call it.So i wouldnt say the relegions got perverted as much as they developed into what they are, in baby steps, following the people. Which is altso why we need to protest people who wants to "freeze" faith, because it is not meant to be frozen in 14 century rome or 6th century arabia. It never was the point.
hakuna matata!
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Peace Magi,
But that doesn't negate the fact of polytheistic religions at all. I understand what you are conveying though and it makes sense, but what about the religions that are actually polythiestic? It even says so in the Quran when Abraham destroyed his peoples idols. For those people, do you not think that the original belief in one God (El) got corrupted to the point of idolatry?
Wa Salaam
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I've recently been delving into Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Laozi) and 'tao' can be described as 'road', 'path', 'way', 'means', and 'doctrine'. Kind of reminds me of the straight path. There's a lot a Muslim can agree with in Tao Te Ching, and some they will not. The same with alot of spiritual beliefs really, and we know how origins can change and be distorted over time, so it would not surprise me if spiritual beliefs that were started by people who were inspired by God, and their messages were changed and tweaked slightly over time (the victor re-writes history, people that die are overhyped or demonised, etc, etc). Or maybe even that some of the people that were inspired managed to tap into the universal Truth in some areas but not in others, they caught only a glimpse of Islam, not all the messengers were perfect right? We're only human, not everyone can tap their full being into the universal Truth like Jesus or Muhammad, etc.
When I read a profound and enlightening verse from Tao Te Ching, or even Art of War, for example, I'm reading it through a Muslim's eyes, and I dont feel like I'm picking out just what I agree with from the source text, but I feel that the author seemingly picked out the right Way when he wrote what he did, his other verses that I might not agree with dont negate that fact or the rest of the material.
Magi has a good point too in that we assume a lot of the time one person is responsible for originating a spiritual belief but in fact maybe lots of people contributed to it over time and then we get the final product now, with one alleged author. So, all that matters I guess is what you take from it, rather than the hows or whys of its origin. All about the message at the end of the day.
Just my random thoughts of the day, anyway.