Το Αρχικό Ισλάμ: μια Χριστολογική Αίρεση Ταυτόσημη με Πολιτιστικό – Θρησκευτικό Εξαραμαϊσμό των Αράβων
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/το-αρχικό-ισλάμ-μια-χριστολογική-αίρε/
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Οι Ρωμιοί της Ανατολής – Greeks of the Orient
Ρωμιοσύνη, Ρωμανία, Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία
Σε προηγούμενη ανάρτηση αναδημοσίευσα ένα ανατρεπτικό άρθρο του Έλληνα ανατολιστή κι ιστορικού καθ. Μουχάμαντ Σαμσαντίν Μεγαλομμάτη με το οποίο ο διακεκριμμένος καθηγητής αποκάλυπτε ήδη το 2005 την αραμαϊκή ταυτότητα όλων των αραβόφωνων της Συρίας, του Λιβάνου, του Ιράκ, της Παλαιστίνης, της Ιορδανίας, της ΝΑ Τουρκίας, του ΝΔ Ιράν, του Κουβέιτ, του Κάταρ και των Εμιράτων.
Αυτό έχει καθοριστική σημασία για να καταλάβουμε πως η ψευτο-ιστορία που αποικιοκράτες καθηγητές, πολιτικοί και διπλωμάτες παρουσιάζουν χρησιμεύει στην εκ μέρους τους διαμόρφωση εθνικών ψευτο-ταυτοτήτων, ψευτο-συνειδήσεων, και ψευτοθεωριών (αραβικός εθνικισμός, ισλαμισμός, πολιτικό ισλάμ, κοκ) και παρουσίαση μιας εικονικής πραγματικότητας ψευτο-αντιπάλων (‘Ισραήλ’ και ‘Άραβες’), ψευτο-συγκρούσεων κι αχρείαστων πολέμων.
Σήμερα αναδημοσιεύω ένα ακόμη άρθρο από την τριλογία του κ. Μεγαλομμάτη ο οποίος το 2005 πρότεινε την σύσταση αραμαϊκού χριστιανικού ομόσπονδου κρατιδίου στο Ιράκ, ώστε να υπάρξει μια εθνική εστία για το κατατρεγμένο χριστιανικό έθνος των Αραμαίων.
Στο παρόν άρθρο, ο Έλληνας ανατολιστής και ισλαμολόγος εξηγεί ότι το κήρυγμα του Μωάμεθ ανάμεσα στους Άραβες αποτελεί οργανωμένη μεταφορά του πλαισίου των θρησκευτικών αντιλήψεων, πολιτιστικών παραδόσεων, και μορφωτικών-εκπαιδευτικών δραστηριοτήτων των Αραμαίων ανάμεσα στους Άραβες.
Με τον Μωάμεθ η ιστορία των χριστολογικών ερίδων παρουσίασε μια ενδιαφέρουσα πρωτοτυπία. Μέχρι τότε, όλα τα θεολογικά συστήματα που τελικά θεωρήθηκαν ‘αιρετικά’ για την επίσημη Χριστιανωσύνη είχαν εκπορευθεί από περιοχές της Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας. Και είχαν αποτύχει επειδή με την βία οι αυτοκράτορες της Κωνσταντινούπολης απομάκρυναν όσους θεωρήθηκαν αιρετικοί. Μερικοί από αυτούς είχαν μάλιστα φθάσει και σε κορυφαίες θέσεις της χριστιανικής ιεραρχίας. Ο ίδιος ο Νεστόριος ήταν πατριάρχης Κωνσταντινουπόλεως και εκήρυσσε ότι ο Ιησούς είναι άνθρωπος μόνον κι ότι η Θεοτόκος είναι Χριστοτόκος μόνον.
Ο Ιησούς κατά Νεστόριον κι ο Ιησούς κατά Μωάμεθ δεν διαφέρουν καθόλου. Η μόνη δαφορά είναι ότι ο Μωάμεθ δεν πήγε στην Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία για να κηρύξει κι έτσι δεν καταπνίγηκε το κήρυγμά του. Ούτε και το κήρυγμα του Νεστόριου καταπνίγηκε άλλωστε.
Έτσι, Νεστοριανικός Χριστιανισμός κι Ισλάμ ακολούθησαν διαφορετικούς δρόμους στην Ιστορία.
Ως θρησκεία των Αραμαίων που δεν είχαν δικό τους κράτος και ζούσαν μοιρασμένοι ανάμεσα στην Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία και στο Σασανιδικό Ιράν, ο Νεστοριανικός Χριστιανισμός έζησε υπό καθεστώς καταπίεσης στα προαναφερμένα κράτη και παράλληλα διαδόθηκε χάρη στους Αραμαίους εμπόρους από το Ιράν στην Ινδία, στην Κεντρική Ασία, στην Μογγολία και στην Κίνα. Αλλά δεν υπήρξε ποτέ ένα κράτος με επίσημη θρησκεία τον Νεστοριανισμό.
Ως θρησκεία των εξαραμαϊσμένων Αράβων που σχημάτισαν για πρώτη φορά ενιαίο κράτος στην Χετζάζη και την έρημο στα χρόνια του Μωάμεθ, το Ισλάμ επικράτησε ως χριστολογική αίρεση εκτός της Ανατολικής Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας. Ύστερα, χάρη στην προτίμηση που έδειξαν ως προς τους πρώιμους μουσουλμάνους οι Αραμαίοι, οι Κόπτες κι οι Βέρβεροι, το Ισλάμ επικράτησε στα μισά εδάφη της Ανατολικής Ρωμαϊκής Αυτοκρατορίας κι η χαλιφατική – μοναρχική εξουσία απετέλεσε για σχεδόν 1000 χρόνια τον πραγματικό αντίπαλο του θρόνου της Κωνσταντινούπολης.
Ουσιαστικά, ιδωμένο ως χριστολογική αίρεση όπως αρχικά ήταν, το Ισλάμ ήταν η μόνη χριστολογική αίρεση που έγινε επίσημη θρησκεία ενός βασιλείου που απείλησε και τελικά κατέκτησε την Ανατολική Ρωμαϊκή Αυτοκρατορία.
Η Ιστορία της Μεσογείου είναι ένας Ανατολικός Χριστιανο-Μουσουλμανικός Πολιτισμός που οι αποικιοκράτες οριενταλιστές Γάλλοι, Άγγλοι κι Αμερικανοί απατεώνες ιστορικοί κι εγκληματίες πολιτικοί, διπλωμάτες και στρατιωτικοί προσπαθούν να αποκρύψουν για να στήσουν έριδες, διχόνοιες, εμφύλιους και το γενικώτερο θέατρο συνεχών πολέμων και καταστροφών που βλέπουμε από τότε που τα σατανικά βδελύγματα εμφανίστηκαν στην Ανατολική Μεσόγειο, αρχής γενομένης με τον παρανοϊκό σατανιστή και διεστραμμένο κοπρολάγνο Ναπολέοντα (1798).
Islam: the Cultural Aramaization of the Arabs
By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47946
10 October 2005
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In a previous article, “The Aramaeans’ rise will transfigure the Middle Eastern Chessboard”, we stressed on the importance of the Aramaeans as a factor of peace and civilization throughout the Middle East, underscoring their role as break wave against Islamic Terror. We insisted on the Aramaean identity of the Arabic speaking people in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, SE Turkey, SW Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates. We highlighted the fact that the arabization that followed the islamization in these parts of the Middle East was limited only to linguistic level, whereas at the racial-ethnic level any amalgamation led to total absorption of the few Arabs (of the area of Hedjaz) among the vast Aramaean masses. Following several questions expressed by readers, we feel we should analyze the issues in depth, instead of simply answering. This is only a first point.
Islamization: Cultural Arabization of the Aramaeans or Cultural Aramaization of the Arabs?
Now, we are going to focus on an even more crucial issue, the repercussions of which on today’s political and social developments are crucial. If at the linguistic level, Arabic language prevailed over Aramaic – Syriac, and if at the racial-ethnic level, the heavily populated Aramaic masses throughout the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Empire of Iran absorbed the scarce Arabs, who moved outside Hedjaz, what truly happened at the cultural level? This is even more important because Culture more than Language is at the Epicenter of National Identity.
We have therefore first to revisit the cultural milieu of the Aramaeans and the Arabs on the eve of the preaching of Coran by Prophet Muhammad. At those days, the bulk of the Aramaeans were Christian, either ‘Monophysitic’ or ‘Nestorian’ (we have to admit that the terms are conventional and questionable since given by the opposite, ‘Diophysite’ (Orthodox) Patriarchate of Constantinople).
There were still some Manichaean Aramaeans followers of the religion introduced by the Persian philosopher and erudite savant Mani, the “Ambassador of the Light” at Ctesiphon (Tesifun) in 240 CE. Within the Sassanid Empire of Iran (and more particularly in areas such today’s Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, the Emirates, the Arabian coast of the Persian Gulf, the modern province Khuzestan of SW Iran, but also in Central Asia, namely Bactria, Sogdiana and Transoxiana), there were Aramaeans practicing older forms of Aramaean and Iranian religions, namely Chaldaeanism and Ostanism, i.e. two Gnostic systems, Mithraism, Zervanism and Gayomardism).
However, all the non-Christian Aramaeans represented a minority of the noble and ancient nation which stretched from Anatolia (or Asia Minor in today’s Turkey) to the borders of China. It is essential to bear in mind that Aramaeans (usually called by the non-Christian Aramaeans as ‘Syriacs’) were among the pioneers within the context of the Christological disputes, and in this regard, the School of Antioch was a mighty opponent of the School of Alexandria. Although brutally massacred by the Sassanid Persian emperors, the Aramaeans preserved Christianity in the vast empire east of Euphrates, and in their outright majority the Persian Aramaeans were ‘Nestorian’, whereas Roman Aramaeans were ‘Monophysitic’. Aramaeans may have been the best merchants throughout Asia, but they did not have any nomadic culture anymore, having been settled people for more than 1500 years!
Arabs were not Christian; with the exception of few ‘Monophysitic’ and ‘Nestorian’ Christians, and even fewer Jews, Arabs preserved their earlier religious beliefs that testified to poor religious establishments, ignorance, lack of culture and education -let alone Science and Art-, extensive nomadism and barbarism (see videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGnc0StRJuk & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T8IbgR-vSg / the text is available here: https://www.academia.edu/23149240/Colonial_Biases_in_Support_of_Barbaric_Arabia_and_Against_Civilized_Yemen_by_Prof._Muhammad_Shamsaddin_Megalommatis), and last but not least, insignificant social, economic and political structures.
Contrarily to the Arabs in Hedjaz, the (non-Arab) Yemenites had adhered to Christianity in greater numbers, although the majority among them preserved the highly sophisticated pre-Christian Yemenite religion. The Yemenites were preponderantly ‘Nestorian’, especially the Metropolis of Najran, and that is why Caleb, the ‘Monophysitic’ king of Axumite Abyssinia, had been asked by the Romans to make an expedition in Yemen to control the situation, which he did, but the Abyssinians were expelled by the Iranians, who did not wish to let the allies of the Romans to prevail in Yemen – a circumference of Iranian influence -, and subsequently control the Indian Ocean trade to the benefit of the Romans.
How can we interpret the arrival of Islam among the Arabs, and its diffusion among the Aramaeans?
Contrarily to Aramaeans, who had accepted Christianity, and to Aramaeans, who even earlier had accepted Hebrew Religion and Judaism, Arabs did not have any cultural-religious contact / exchange with the world of Mesopotamia, out of which Abraham emanated, or with the world of Canaan – Phoenicia – Israel, where so many historico-religious developments had taken place.
Names and topics, subjects and issues such as the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), the Exodus, the elaboration of the Torah, the formation and subsequent division of the state of Israel (into 10-tribed Islam and 2-tribed Judah), the dedication of the first temple to the God of Israel, the composition of the Books of Kings (Baseleion in Septuagint) and Chronicles (Paraleipomenon in Septuagint), the Prophets, the Maccabees, the construction of the second temple, the Aramaean Samaritans (rejected by the Pharisees and so markedly accepted by Jesus), the Septuagint translation accomplished at the Pharos Island of Alexandria (the epitome of the Judaic value and significance of Egypt), the confrontations between Greeks and Jews in Alexandria, the tremendous internal Jewish (but yet quite global of consequences) clashes between Pharisees, Zaddok (Sadducees), Essenes (Was Jesus one of them, if we base our judgment on some of the Manuscripts of the Dead Sea?) and Zealots, the gradual linguistic Aramaization of the Jews, the Phoenicians and the Babylonians, the composition of Talmud itself and the various Targumim, the formation of Christianity and the rise of Arianism and all the Christological disputes (involving the Cappadocian Fathers, the Schools of Alexandria and Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Eutyches, and Nestorius, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and others), the monasticism, all these cultural developments that had formed the entire Mediterranean, European, North African and West Asiatic worlds, bringing so many different peoples together, Aramaeans and Aramaized peoples, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Celts, Goths and Cushitic Berbers of the Atlas, meant nothing to the isolated Arabs of Hedjaz, who were involved only in the desert roads trade between the Aramaean Nabataean state of Rekem / Petra and Yemen.
All the aforementioned persons, stories, affairs, developments, issues and names were – culturally speaking – nothing to Arabs, and there had never been an Arab to distinguish himself in another land, let’s say in Mesopotamia, Persia or Egypt. Only this demonstrates very clearly how far from the then civilized world Hejaz and its inhabitants, the Arabs, were. Here are some examples:
Nestorius from Germanicia became Patriarch of Constantinople, and Mani traveled to Central Asia and India, whereas Strabo moved from Amaseia to Rome, and then to Egypt, Lucian settled in Athens. Never an Arab had done something similar to the aforementioned illustrious scholars, distinguishing him-(or her- ?!)-self in Letters, Sciences and Arts. There was never an Arab Bardaisan, an Arab Kartir, an Arab Mazdak, an Arab Tatian, an Arab Eratosthenes.
And if we want to be fair and not to accept everything through a modern Greco-Romano-centric viewpoint (which over-accentuates the role and the essence of the “person”), we will add that there was never an Arab author able to elaborate great literary, religious, philosophical, theological, historical or even practical compositions, like Pistis Sophia, the Periplus of the Red Sea, the Chaldaean Oracles, the Physiologus (or even the Axumite Abyssinian Gueze version of that text, namely Fisalgos).
All the aforementioned was strange to Arabs, Arabs were strangers to the civilized nations, and Civilization did not dwell in the land south of Rekem / Petra and north of Yemen.
Suddenly, through what may be believed by many as Divine Intervention and Prophetic Mission, or through what may be interpreted by many others as a colossal work carried out by an erudite college of erudite and intuitive savants around a Great Initiate and Mystic, a new world, namely Islam, appeared to the Arabs of Hejaz. Through the Coran and the interpretations offered by the Hadiths of the Prophet, an enormous number of names, concepts, stories, aspects of culture, phases of civilization, elements of faith, components of erudition, initiation or intuition, Jonas and Sargonid Nineveh, the preservation of unidentified 10-tribed Israel until the latter days, Ut Napishtim (the original Assyrian-Babylonian Noah) and the Flood, Abraham, Pharaonic Egypt and Moses, David, Solomon and the Yemenite Queen of Sheba, Jews in exile and Nebukadnezzar, the polarization around Jesus and his Mother, the concept of the End of Time (Al Yom al Ahar),and so many other topics from the aforementioned cultural – philosophical – theological – religious milieu invaded the daily life, the thoughts, the subjects of concern and discussion, the beliefs and the faiths of the Arabs.
How can we interpret Islam, if not as the Ultimate De-Arabization of the Arabs?
All the elements of the previous, genuinely Arab, culture had to be severely eliminated. No more idols in the Kaaba of Mecca! For prayer, turn to the Great Faraway Shrine (Al Quds ash Sherif), as Jerusalem was named in the Coran. An unprecedented transposition of the aforementioned Biblical and Christian milieu among the Arabs!
At the very original level, Islam was diffused among Arabs and Yemenites to whom Ali, Muhammad’s son-in law, preached Islam two years before the death of the Prophet.
When Islam was first propagated outside the peninsula, it was not originally viewed as a new religion by the Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was rather seen as another Christological dispute, a new Christological system that emanated from Nestorianism. Not only we have historical sources testifying to this, but we can – through common sense – safely conclude that, if Islam transferred among Arabs most of the elements that had already constituted the religious-cultural milieu for Aramaeans, Egyptians, Greeks, Jews and Romans (as we already explained), then Islam would obviously look as another interpretation and as a recapitulation of the said milieu’s elements to the Christian nations to whom these elements and this milieu had already been known for many centuries. If we read the Eastern Roman Historian Theophanes or the famous Chronicon Paschale, we automatically realize this reality.
Islam would stay as part of Eastern Christianity, if the Roman Emperors accepted Muslims within their territory in the 7th and 8th centuries, as they had done with ‘Monophysitic’ and ‘Nestorian’ Christians.
But the Constantinople emperors were exhausted after three centuries of terrible Christological conflicts, so they accepted the secession rather easily, losing therefore all their Asiatic provinces south – east of Taurus and Anti-Taurus Mountains, and in addition all their African provinces.
Of course, the great easiness by which Aramaeans accepted Islam in all the Roman and Persian provinces where they were living (the area that corresponds to modern Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, SE Turkey, SW Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and the Emirates) testifies to
a. the Aramaic indignation with the two capitals, Constantinople and Ctesiphon, and
b. the extreme vicinity of the fundamental topics, the cardinal beliefs, and the seminal elements of Islam, as well as the evident propinquity of Islam in its entirety, as a system that gradually over the span of many centuries became theirs – at least in their majority.
What the scarce Arab and Yemenite armies of Islam brought to Jerusalem, Antioch, Damascus, Edessa (Urfa), Amida, Nasibina (Nisibis), and Ctesiphon during the brief period 638-641 was just a new interpretation of elements known and believed, shared and evaluated by the entire local Aramaean population. That is why that old-new system, once accepted by Aramaeans, became truly a viably existing religion, able to be diffused to further provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire, to the collapsing Sassanid Iran, and further beyond. And the early Aramaean proselytes guaranteed the victory of the Islamic armies in Nihavend and Merv (in Iran) and in Alexandria (in Egypt).
Modern Orientalist scholars, presenting events through viewpoints shaped after preconceived schemes and political needs, failed so far to answer the following two questions:
– For God’s sake, why a ‘Nestorian’ Aramaean of Ctesiphon – whose family had been prosecuted for almost 300 years under various Shapurs and Khusraws – would not accept the new interpretation (which was Islam) of the cultural – historical – religious elements of his own faith and heritage, and why would he not fight against the Persian administration of his own country, thus taking revenge for three centuries of unprecedented persecution?
– For God’s sake, why a ‘Monophysitic’ Aramaean of Damascus, whose family had been prosecuted for almost 300 years under various Constantines and Theodosiuses, would not accept the new interpretation (which was Islam) of the cultural – historical – religious elements of his own faith and heritage, and why would he not fight against the Roman administration of his own country, thus taking revenge for three centuries of unprecedented persecution?
But the determinant truth which lies beyond the aforementioned two questions (and the answers to them) – something that was conspicuously hidden by the colonial Western Orientalist historians – is the reality that Islam is indeed the Cultural Aramaization of the Arabs.
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Μπορείτε να κατεβάσετε το άρθρο του κ. Μεγαλομμάτη σε Pdf εδώ:
Τουρ Αμπντίν, Νοτιοανατολική Τουρκία: ο Άθως της Αραμαϊκής Χριστιανωσύνης
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