Boreal
Remembering Uzza
If Islam Was Explained to Me in a Pub
The Ka’ba: The Nabataeans, Abraham or Adam?
Gerry:
Your description of how believers brutalize little girls into becoming mass
murderers shows some crappy creativity, unlike your description of Paradise as
stacked oases, which conforms to Lawrence's observation that the Arabs'
imaginations were vivid, but not creative.
Uzza: Muhammad's imagination, if you are insinuating that Paradise is how he imagined it, was not typical of the imagination of the Arabs of his time. Pre-Islamic Arabs built the jewel and engineering wonder that is Petra[203]. It took creativity, immense creativity.
Bob: The Arabs did that? That is amazing.
Uzza: Yes, the Arabs did that! Even more amazing, my namesake, the goddess al-Uzza, was worshipped by both the Arabs of Petra[204] and those of Mecca. That required more than a vivid imagination.
Bob: What's with the "al"?
Uzza: It simply means "the." It emphasizes the uniqueness of the one who bears the name. For example, you could spell Allah with a hyphen after the first "l" for it means the God.
Gerry: So Uzza is unique, just like you are unique.
Uzza: In more ways than one, you flatterer you. By naming me Uzza, my parents were making a statement by breaking with tradition. It is a sin for Muslims to name their children after deities whose existence Allah has denied, which is every god and goddess that ever lived, and that includes al-Uzza.
Bob: That sounds dangerous?
Uzza: When the Islamists come for me, my parents will already have been killed.
Gerry: That is terrible. And we let them in, as you said.
Uzza: Archie, more wine please, for tomorrow we die.
Gerry: Don't say that.
Archie: What is so amazing about the Arabs of Mecca worshipping the same goddess as the Arabs of Petra?
Uzza: It supports a theory that it was the well-travelled Nabataeans, the name of the Arab tribe which built Petra, who also founded Mecca.
Archie: [sarcastically] It wasn't Adam and Eve? I don't believe it!
Bob: What about the stone?
Uzza: Most agree that the stone is the remnant of a meteorite.
Bob: So, the stone in the Ka'ba is really out of this world.
Uzza: Obviously, whether you believe it came from Paradise or outer-space. The Nabataeans, some have speculated, believed the stone that fell to Earth came from the home of the gods and goddesses above the clouds; a sign that they, including the goddess al-Uzza, wanted a shrine built where it fell.
Gerry: And that is where they built the Ka'ba.
Uzza: And around the Ka'ba grew the city of Mecca. The Romans maintained, in the first century, a garrison at the port of Jeddah just about 50 miles from Mecca and catalogued much of the area without mentioning Mecca. This is further evidence that it was founded by the Nabataeans. You would have expected that a shrine built by Adam and Eve, and later rebuilt by Abraham after the Great Flood swept away the Ka'ba and its contents, would have already grown into a town worthy of mention by the Romans, who did take notice of Medina.
Bob: Abraham, from what I remember of the Bible, lived at least a thousand miles from Mecca.
Uzza: At least.
Bob: So how did he get from here to there to rebuild a cabin in the middle of nowhere? His two thousand mile round-trip by camel could not have gone unnoticed by those left behind and those who would not have let the old guy go on such a journey all by himself.
Uzza: The first time he was not by himself. He was with Hagar and their son Ismael.
Archie: You mean he did this trip more than once?
Uzza: At least twice. Once to drop off Hagar and their son Ismael after Sarah finally bore her husband a son and demanded he get rid of Hagar, her Egyptian servant and Ismael.
Gerry: I thought Isaac was Abraham's first son by his first wife, Sarah.
Uzza: Islam considers Hagar a legitimate wife of Abraham therefore Ismael, his first-born son. The Koran is clear on the concept: Isaac was a gift from God to Abraham because of his willingness to sacrifice Ismael on a small hill next to the Ka'ba[205].
Gerry: Who is right, the Bible which says that Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac or the Koran which says it was Ismael on hills at least a thousand miles apart?
Uzza: The Koran was also sent to correct errors in the Bible, so the Koran has to be right.
Archie: What else is new!
Bob: If the stone from Paradise was swept away, why do Muslims still believe that the stone they worship today is the same one that Adam brought from Paradise?
Uzza: The angel Gabriel put it in a safe place[206] and gave it to Abraham so that he could return it to its honored place in the Ka'ba he rebuilt.
Archie: That is one handy angel to have around, isn't it? Maybe he was kind enough to loan Abraham his flying horse for at least the return trips to Mecca when he would not have to carry the three of them, which may have exceeded its takeoff weight.
Uzza: Funny you should say that. Scholars have speculated that Gabriel did just that.
Archie: I was joking.
Uzza: Scholars do not joke about such things.
Archie: I can’t help myself.
Footnotes
[203] In the Koran, Allah brags about annihilating more than a handful of cities as an example of his pitiless devastating might, not satisfied with Sodom and Gomorrah, whose names He can’t be bothered to remember.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, the cities Allah crows about destroying and whose names He remembers were ones with which Muhammad was familiar, from stories he heard and from stumbling unto ruins, as is undoubtedly the case with Petra, during his numerous treks north from Mecca to Syria during his more than two decades as an itinerant merchant before Allah chose him as His last and greatest spokesperson.
Petra in the Koran is called Thamud. The people of Thamud were wiped out for not heeding the warning of the prophet Salih, the only non-biblical prophet, apart from Muhammad, found in the Koran. The Destruction of Thamud is an exception to Allah's predilection for committing genocide because people called His messengers liars. Nonetheless, the destruction is just as ghastly and the reason for the destruction of the people of Thamud is about as petty as petty gets where gods are concerned.
Allah is very proud of what He did to the inhabitants of Petra/Thamud and their city. In at least nine chapters of His Book, Thamud is mentioned as a place and a people He obliterated. You could be forgiven if you confused Allah’s passion for Petra with that of a tourist who visits an impressive faraway shrine and keeps on returning to it during conversations to impress his friends and acquaintances.
Following is Allah’s account of the destruction of Thamud in the surah Poets. In this account, the people regret what they did to Allah’s camel, the reason for their obliteration in eight of the nine recollections; but, being sorry did not deter the wrath of the Compassionate, the Merciful.
26:141 Thamud denounced the Messengers as liars.
26:142 When their brother Salih said to them: “Do you not fear God?
26:143 “I am a faithful Messenger to you.
26:144 “So fear Allah and obey me.
26:145 “I do not ask you any wages for this; my wage is with the Lord of the Worlds.
26:146 “Will you be left herebelow in peace?
26:147 “In gardens and springs;
26:148 “And plantations and palm trees, whose shoots are tender?
26:149 “And will you hew skillfully houses in the mountains?
26:150 “So fear Allah and obey me.
26:151 “And do not obey the orders of the extravagant;
26:152 “Who work corruption in the land and do not make amends.”
26:153 They said: “You are certainly a man bewitched.
26:154 “You are only a mortal like us. Produce, then, a sign, if you are truthful.”
26:155 He said: “This is a she-camel; this has a drinking day, and you have a fixed drinking day.
26:156 “Do not cause her any harm, or else the punishment of a Great Day will smite you.”
26:157 However, they hamstrung her, and became full of remorse.
26:158 Then, punishment smote them. There is surely in that a sign; and most of them were not believers.
26:159 Your Lord is truly the All-Mighty, the Merciful.
[204] Allah out-schemed the Arabs of Petra (Thamud in the Koran) in the only recollection where it is not the maiming of a she-camel that is responsible for its destruction.
27:45 And We have sent to Thamud their brother Salih, saying: “Worship Allah”; and lo and behold, they split into two groups fighting each other.
27:46 He said: “O my people, why do you hasten the evil course before the fair? If only you would seek Allah’s Forgiveness, that perchance you may receive mercy!”
27:47 They said: “We augured ill of you and your companions.” He said: ‘Your bird of omen is with Allah, but you are a people who are being tested.”
27:48 And they were in the city nine individuals, who worked corruption in the land and did not set things right.
27:49 They said: “Swear one to the other by Allah: We will attack him and his family at night; then we will tell his guardian: ‘We did not witness the slaying of his family, and we are indeed truthful.’”
27:50 They schemed a scheme and We schemed a scheme, while they were unaware.
27:51 See, then, what was the outcome of their scheming; We destroyed them together will all their people.
27:52 Their houses are in ruin, on account of their wrongdoing. There is in that a sign for a people who know.
27:53 And we delivered those who believed and were God-fearing.
2:125 And [remember] when We made the House (the Ka`ba) a place of residence for mankind and a haven [saying]: “Make of Abraham’s maqam [stand] a place for prayer.” We enjoined Abraham and Isma`il [saying]: “Purify My House for those who circle it, for those who retreat there for meditation, and for those who kneel and prostrate themselves (perform the prayers).”
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37:102 Then, when he attained the age of consorting with him, he said: “My son, I have seen in sleep that I am slaughtering you. See what you think.” He said: “My father, do what you are commanded; you will find me, Allah willing, one of the steadfast.”
37:103 Then, when they both submitted and he flung him down upon his brow;
37:104 And We called out to Him: “O Abraham,
37:105 “You have believed the vision.” Thus We reward the beneficent.
37:106 This, indeed, is the manifest trial.
37:107 And We ransomed him with a large sacrifice.
37:108 And We left him for later generations:
37:109 “Peace be upon Abraham.”
37:110 Thus, We reward the beneficent.
37:111 He is indeed one of Our believing servants.
37:112 And We announced to him the good news of Isaac as a Prophet, one of the righteous.
[206] After the murder of Abel, which is said to have occurred near present day Damascus, Adam became convinced that it was only a matter of time before God decided to punish mankind for its increasingly wicked ways by drowning everyone. In anticipation of the Flood, he built a shelter for the "black stone" he brought from Paradise on mount Hira, the same mount on which the future Prophet Muhammad would receive the revelations.
The flood water came the day when the sins of man became of such magnitude that they could no longer be tolerated, as Adam had predicted. A popular Arab tradition is that rain is the spit of angels. Rain being a rare occurrence where they lived, the Arabs, while being extremely imaginative, could not visualize the flood as real rain, simple angel spit that is.
The flood waters must have come from somewhere else; they did not fall from the sky. The water that inundated the desert and the entire Earth simultaneously gushed from the depths of the Earth, from a hole in the Earth's crust, like from a broken water main or a fire hydrant.
11:40 And when Our Command came, and the water gushed forth from the earth, We said: “Carry in it (the Ark) two of every kind, together with your family, except for those who have been doomed, and [take] those who believe.” However only a few believers besides him were there.
This hole-in-the-ground from which water flooded the entire Earth is said to be at Kufa where the Great Mosque is located. In Shia traditions the Ark was built at Kufa:
The Ark began its voyage at Kufa in central Iraq and sailed to Mecca, circling the Ka'ba (sic) [seven times] before finally travelling to Mount Judi where it settled.
Ibn Haukal [died 978 A.D.]
Before sailing off into the unknown, on the advice of the angel Gabriel who had earlier taken the sacred stone to the shelter built by Adam on month Hira, Noah did seven complete circles of the Ka`ba aboard the Ark.
This circumambulation of the sacred sanctuary by Noah is called tawaf and is still done to this day by pilgrims as part of the Hajj and the Umbra.
Noah's wife, it is said, and one of her sons were great sinners and were not allowed on the Ark.
In the Koran, the son did not make it onto the Ark because he thought he would be safe on higher ground [11:43].
There is no mention of Noah's wife not boarding the Ark, only that, along with the wife of Lot, she will burn in Hell for betraying her husband in some unspecified manner [66:10] as wives in the Koran often do.
In the Traditions, Noah is buried near Baalbek in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley. Adam in Mecca, his tomb at the center of the universe, Eve is buried at Jeddah.
From: La Vie de Mahomet, Virgil Gheorghiu, Robert Lafont, 1962