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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad

Subodh Dev

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad

Contents
Prologue................................................................................3 PART ONE ...........................................................................6 1. Tolerance Characteristic of ancient non-biblical cultures .................................................................................7 2. Enter the prophetic God ...............................................11 3. A New Prophetic Tradition Takes Shape ..................21 4. The Philosophy of Prophetism ....................................24 5. Prophets Deluders or a Deluded Lot......................54 6. Authoritythe Life Force of Prophetism ..................66 7. Fraud and Sword Only Causes of Success of Prophetism .........................................................................72 8. The Prophetic Moral Code ...........................................78 Part Two .............................................................................91 10. Genocides in the Old Testament .............................103

Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Prologue Man has always been conscious of his limitations. This sense of limitedness is the natural outcome of his sense of separateness from the rest of the universe. Being unhappy about his limitations, man had always wanted to be free of them. This urge to be free is as much inborn as his sense of limitedness, for the very concept of limitedness simultaneously gives rise to its opposite, the concept of unlimitedness. In order to overcome his limitations, man thinks that he must turn towards the unlimited, which he calls God. Therefore, as long as man carries about himself, the concept of a separate limited being, cut off from the rest of the universe, he has the innate need for God. That is why, throughout history, every culture had its own God concepts. Now, if at all there is the unlimited, the God, man will be limiting it by forming concepts because the very concept of unlimitedness is limited by its opposite the concept of limitedness. In fact, the very process of conceptualization itself is limiting. Hence,
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad unless all conceptualizations cease, there is no chance of meeting the unlimited, the God. But the concept of a separate limited identity, in other words, the ego is the breeding ground for further conceptualization as we have already seen. Therefore ego or the feeling of separate identity, which is the seed of conceptualization is the fundamental obstacle that blocks the communion with the limitless. All forms of self importance like the need for special status, special privileges, etc. arise from the ego only. In the light of the above discussion, we can say in plain words that as long as there is even an iota of self importance in a person, he has not realized God. If at all there is enlightenment, an enlightened man will definitely know that God, the limitless, cannot be conceived by mind which is limited (limited at least by the concept of opposites). He also knows that all concepts about God are born of peoples minds and the quality of the mind that conceives determines the quality of the God conceived. Above all, he knows that God concept and God are different.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad But at the same time he may interpret, modify the existing concepts or form new concepts of God in order to help the evolution of the less evolved around him, who are slaves of conceptualization, only to point out at the appropriate time that the limitless is inconceivable, all concepts are only aids to reach it and have to be dropped once they serve the purpose.

Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad

PART ONE DISCERNING PROPHETISM

Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 1. Tolerance Characteristic of ancient nonbiblical cultures When we look at the ancient non-biblical cultures, one cannot but notice an amazing thing their seers (not to be confused with priests) never claimed any special status for themselves. They were absolutely devoid of all self importance. Therefore the question of forcing their God concepts into the heads of others never occurred to them. In Bhagavad Gita Krishna says to Arjuna. The most secret knowledge has been imparted to you by Me. Think about it totally and act as you like (Gita: 18. 63). So everyone was free to choose his own path. That is the reason why these cultures accepted that divinity could manifest itself in any form or communicate with anyone. None of their Gods were jealous of other Gods and never vengeful to the devotees of others. For example, in Hindu and Greek cultures it could be seen that many gods used to happily accept worship of the devotees together. Among the ancients, at least the Hindus declared that their
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Gods were not essentially different but only different aspects of one and the same reality. The Reality is one; but the wise speak about it in many ways: As Indra, Mitra, Varuna Agni, mighty Garutamat, Yama and Matarishvana, the giver of breath. (Rig Veda: 1.164.46).This reality, they said, permeated the entire universe, both organic and inorganic. Whatever is in the universe is permeated by God (The first line of the first mantra of Ishavasyopanishad). It is not therefore surprising that in non-biblical cultures of antiquity, religious hatred was always an exception and never the rule. Like the Hindus, the ancient Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Chinese etc. were tolerant towards the religious practices of others. The multiplicity of Gods continued in all ancient cultures but for a brief period in Egypt during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton (c.14th century BC) who made his own worship compulsory, ordered the temples of other Gods closed, their names in old inscriptions erased
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad and followers of older traditions killed. Many scholars are of the opinion that Moses picked up his religion from the Pharaohs example, but there is no convincing proof. There are enough reasons to believe that ancient Jews, belonging to various tribes, were not monotheists. The Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is plural and actually means Gods. Many scholars are of the opinion that the first line of the book of Genesis should have been translated as in the beginning the Gods created the heavens and the earth. But the latter day Christians translated this as in the beginning the God. Their argument was that the first translation is wrong because Jesus was not present at the time of creation (for them the only person other than Jehovah qualified to be called God is only Jesus). But the following passages from the Old Testament support the view that the ancient Jews believed in Gods. The serpent says unto the woman (Eve), ye shall not surely die. For God doeth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall

Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:4- 5) 1. At another place in the same chapter, Lord God says to Himself Behold, the man is become one of us, to know the good and evil and now, lest he puts forth his hand, and take also the tree of life and eat, and live forever (Genesis 3:22)2. Note that both the Lord God and serpent uses the plurals us and gods. We can find the King of Salem, Melchizedek who is also the high priest of the Most High God administering the communion of bread and wine to Abraham and blessing him in His name. Abraham also expresses his devotion to the Most High God and takes an oath in His name (Genesis 14:17-24). Abrahams own brother Nahors grandson Laban used to worship images. The Lord God
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All Biblic quotes used in this book are from King James authorized version of the Bible and Koranic quotes are from English translation of the Koran by Marmaduke Pickthall. Maximum care has been taken not to quote them out of context so as to prevent the distortion of their meaning. Explanation in bracket by the author

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad of Abraham commands Jacob (later Israel) to build an altar and worship the God of Bethel for guiding him (Genesis: 31, 35:1). So far we do not find Abrahams Lord God jealous.

2. Enter the prophetic God The scenario changes with the arrival of Jehovah, the prophetic God who reveals Himself to Moses (in fact, the God propagated by him). Many Bible scholars are of the opinion that Jehovah was the war god of the Midianites. There is no evidence to prove that Jehovah of the Midianites was jealous and intolerant. These scholars opine that Moses picked up Jehovah during his stay in Median, after running away from Egypt, prior to his becoming a prophet. This seems to be right because the Jews before Moses do not seem to know of Him. Jehovah Himself reveals this to Moses. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name God Almighty. But by my name Jehovah was I not known to them (Exodus 6.3). Moses, in all
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad likelihood, hijacked Him from Medianites, retained His name but changed His personality. So what actually came down to the Israelites was new wine in old bottle. [Mohammad (May peace be upon him) did exactly the same almost twenty centuries later. Allah was originally a pre- Islamic Arab God, a tolerant and benevolent one. Mohammad retained His name but replaced His personality with Jehovahs. He has explicitly stated that his God, Allah is the same God as of Abraham, Moses and Jesus]. Moses Jehovah is exclusive, jealous, cunning, cruel, intolerant, vengeful, dictatorial, idiosyncratic and unreliable. The revelations through Moses cited below fully exposes Him. He ceases to be alike to all of His creation and picks on Jews as his chosen people. Even though they have no right on Canaan, already inhabited by others, He promises it to them. Even amongst them He chooses a prophet to communicate to them only through him and everyone else has to be submissive to the chosen one. (1) I will raise a prophet from
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad among them to brothers unto thee and put my word in his mouth and he shall speak with them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that who so ever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in My name, I will require it of him. (Deuteronomy: 18. 18, 19) - His exclusiveness. (2) Thou shall have no other gods before me. Thou shall not bow down to them for I the Lord thy God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children unto the third or fourth generations (Exodus 20:3, 5). His jealousy and vengefulness. (3) Thou shall not bow down to other gods nor serve them, nor do after their works, but thou shall utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images (Exodus 23:24). His intolerance. (4). He that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be thoroughly destroyed (Exodus: 22:20) His dictatorial way of suppressing dissent.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad (5) These are the statutes and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days ye live upon the earth. Ye shall utterly destroy all places, where in the nations, which ye shall posses served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills and under every green tree (Deuteronomy 12:1, 2)His instigation to destroy other cultures. (6) If thy brother or thy son or the daughter or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friends entice thee secretly saying let us go and worship other gods, which thou hast not known, not thy fathers. Namely, of the gods of the people around you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; But thou shall not consent neither should thy eyes pity him, neither thou spare, neither shall thou conceal him. But thou shalt surely kill him; thy hands shall be the first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all people (Deuteronomy 13:6-9) - Again His cunningness
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad and brutality in silencing dissidents. Please note that by involving the entire community in the murder, Jehovah sees to it that the executed will not be treated as the heroic martyrs by the people. Same strategy was adopted more than thirty centuries later by Chairman Mao to deal with the Tibetan rebels. He used to get them killed by Tibetan villagers in order to prevent their projection as heroes of Tibetan freedom struggle by other rebels. The consequences of disregard to Him are catastrophic. (7) And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall be surely put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well as the stranger, as that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death. (Leviticus: 24. 16). (8) In the song which Jehova taught Moses and ordered to be sung to Israelites, the dire consequences of disloyalty to Him are They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with bitter destruction. I will also send the teeth of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad beasts upon them, with the poison of the serpents of the dust. The sword without and the terror within, shall destroy both young men and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of grey hairs. (Deuteronomy 32:24, 25). --Destroying the dissidents was the strategy adopted by Stalin also, some three millennia later. (9) Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan on to the land of Canaan; Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell there in: for I have given you the land to possess it. (Numbers: 33. 51, 52, 53). (10) But if ye shall not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land which ye dwell. (Numbers: 33.55).
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Jehovah instigating the Israelites to do ethnic cleansing. Hitler adopted the same policy towards Jews and Gypsies in the 20th century. One of his close deputies, Himmler, puts forth the same argument for justifying the killing of innocent Jewish children along with their guilty parents. If the children are spared then they will grow to take revenge on our children (Himmlers speech at Possen on 6-101943). Like Jehovah, Hitler also started with driving out his victims from Germany and like Hitler Jehovah also ended up by commanding the total annihilation of the victims. Outside the promised land Jehovah ordered that the entire male population should be slain, the women, children and cattle be kept for the enjoyment of Israelites. (11) And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shall smite every male there of with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoils there of, shall thou take it unto thy own
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad self and thou shall eat the spoils of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee. (Deuteronomy: 20. 13, 14). But regarding the inhabitants of the Promised Land, Jehovah was totally merciless. (12) But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save alive nothing that breatheth (Deuteronomy 20: 16). At times Jehovah was quite idiosyncratic. (13) Thou shall not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind; thou shall not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled of linen and wool come up on thee. (Leviticus: 19.19) Jehovah claims the credit for every victory of the Israelites, but puts the blame on them whenever the reverse happens. All of their misfortunes are assigned to their disloyalty towards Him (worshipping other gods). So they try more vigourously to live according to His ordinances monotheism and iconoclasm. Still defeats, exiles and slavery befall on them.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad But Jehovah makes a final volte-face on the already crushed Jews when He reveals through Jesus that now they have no time left and shall repent, for the end of the world is near: Verily I say unto you. This generation will not pass till all these things (Jesus prophesies about the end of the world) be fulfilled (Mat: 24. 34). So Jehovah is at least Hitler, Stalin and Mao, rolled into one. But He puts even these three mass murderers to shame by His punishment for the worship of other gods. If any Israelite, male or female is found or admits worshiping other gods , then Jehovahs orders are to stone him to death by His congregation. Also if more than one witness testify an Israelites worship of other gods, he shall be certainly killed. The witnesses shall lay their hands on him first and then all others. (Deuteronomy: 17. 2-7). Now if someone from a city of non Israelites abets an Israelite to worship other gods and if it is found to be true on enquiry, then Jehovahs commandment is: (15) Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad therein, and cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it in the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the Lord thy God and it shall be an heap for ever, it shall not be built again. (Deuteronomy: 13. 15, 16). The Biblical prophet, Nahum the Elkoshite, on the basis of a vision he had, quite accurately describes Jehovah: (16) The God (is) jealous, the Lord revengeth; the God revengeth and (is) furious; the Lord will take revenge on His adversaries, and resrveth (wrath) for his enemies (Nahum:1. 2).

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 3. A New Prophetic Tradition Takes Shape A prophet is one who prophecies. There were a rare few of them, who on the basis of their clarity and common sense could foresee future events. But the vast majority of them claimed to be in contact with some spirits, good or evil, who gave them the knowledge of things to come--a sort of mediums. Such prophets, also called sorcerers, diviners, exorcists, soothsayers etc. were present in every culture throughout the history. But as long as they restricted themselves to simply predicting the future or dealing with the spirits, without demanding the submission of their fellow humans, they did not do much damage to the world. It is in the Old Testament that for the first time we come across a different category of prophets, the monotheistic or Jehovite prophets, who claimed themselves to be the exclusive messengers of God and also demanded the total submission of their people in the name of their God, Jehovah. Jehovite prophets founded a religious tradition which sanctified political aggressiveness on the basis of the revelations
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad received by them. These prophets waged a relentless war against the prophets of other traditions, commanded by their God Jehovah, in the revelation, Thou shall not suffer a sorceress to live. (Exodus: 22.17). Also A man also or a woman that hath a familiar spirit or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. (Leviticus: 20.27). Even though any type of symbolism in worship is idolatry, these prophets, as per the ordinance of their God considered all versions of it other than their own the cloud and the tabernacle as blasphemy which should be totally eradicated. (e.g. worship through pictures or molten images, especially of living beings, including trees and inanimate objects of nature were considered by them as abominations). It is this type of prophetism, in which the submission of the fellow humans is also demanded, that will be the subject of our study in this article. Hence forth by prophetism we mean the Jehovite variety of it. Moses was the first known prophet of this kind for even though he claimed that Jehovah had revealed
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Himself to his ancestors--- Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (later Israel)--- none of them posed as messengers of God. The covenant established with Abrahams Lord God was more or less a family affair. Jehovah reveals to Moses that He has promised the land of Canaan to his ancestors, but only to him the means to achieve it are revealed. The means, along with other forms of violence, include bloody massacres as well.

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 4. The Philosophy of Prophetism 4.1 The crux of prophetism God will choose someone to be His prophet and communicate with his people only through him. Whatever He has to reveal to His people about Himself or His commandments to them will be revealed only through His prophet. The implication here is: the only valid knowledge about God is the one given by the prophet, the Divine will is known only to him and therefore no one else can know the Divine and His designs by independent enquiry, however sincere he may be. This is the fundamental axiom of prophetism which is beyond reason and questioning. Absolute obedience of His commandments as given through the prophet, total obedience to the prophet being one of them, is mandatory irrespective of the nature of the commandment. Enforcing the revelations on the flock as the only legitimate belief is the duty of the clergy. Deviation from the path laid out through the prophet (in fact laid out by him) will result in total destruction (and in Christianity and Islam, eternal damnation in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad the hell also). Belief in God alone is not sufficient, belief in His prophet also is essential; for only the prophet can intercede with the God on behalf of the people. Their direct prayers to God are not enough for redemption. [We have already cited revelation from the Old Testament (Deuteronomy: 18. 18, 19) making the belief in the prophet mandatory. In the New Testament Jesus says: For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all (men) should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father: He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father that hath sent him (Joh: 5. 22-23). And again: If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered; and men gather them, and test (them) into the fire and they are burned (Joh: 15. 6). The basic tenet of Islam is the Kalimah There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet. And, Lo! Allah and His angels shower praises on the messenger. O ye who believe, also shower praises on him and salute him with a worthy salutation. Lo! those who malign Allah and His Messenger, Allah hath
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad cursed them in the world and hereafter, and hath prepared for them the doom of the disdained (Qu: 33. 56-57). Anwar Shaik, the renowned Pakistani scholar and writer who settled in London explains: The words used in the original Arabic, Yassallune and Sallu are derived from the noun Assalaat meaning ceremonial worship (Shaik Anwar-- Islam, The Arab Imperialism).The implication is that it is not mere respect or praise of Mohammad that is expected, but his worship or submission to him is called for. Mohammad emphatically says that only he and no one elsenot even Moses and Jesus-- can intercede with Allah on the day of judgment]. Ibn Ishaq, in his Sirat Rasool Allah (this is the first biography of Mohammad) records the prophet as saying: I was given all embracing words; booty was made lawful to me as to no prophet before me; and I was given the power to intercede: five privileges accorded to no prophet before me. Because of all these, position of prophet in Islam is such that he has to be taken more seriously than even God! Ba Khuda Deewana Bash, O Ba Muhammad Hoshiyar. (One can
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad be reckless with God but with Mohammad be careful). Therefore, in Islam, Allah may be discussed; but Mohammad cannot be discussed except in praise of him. Also the prophet can delegate his authority to his chosen follower and he in turn can appoint his own successor and other officials and transfer the divine power to them for specific tasks. Jesus confirms this many times in the gospels. 4.2 Some basic questions 1. Can God be partial to some and prejudiced against others so as to promise a land (Canaan), already inhabited, to the Jews and order complete extermination of the natives, while He could have easily given them any uninhabited land and blessed it to become fertile? 2. Does it matter to God under what name or mode he is worshipped or whether worshipped at all? 3. Can the God be vengeful towards those who do not worship him; at least towards those who do not for the simple reason of their total
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad ignorance of Him, so as to order their massacre or permanent damnation in Hell? 4. Can He be exclusive so as to cut off all communications with His people but through His chosen prophet and command the submission of all others to His Favourite? Partiality, prejudices, preferences, need for glorification, vengefulness, etc are qualities arising out of a sense of incompleteness. God being unlimited cannot feel incomplete which would indicate limitation. If He is the creator, His primary feeling towards His own creation will be of connectedness, which means He cannot see anything in the creation as totally different or cut off from Himself. Otherwise, He ceases to be unlimited, being limited by the thing totally different from Him. Therefore the question of having preferences to someone or prejudices against another and the like does not arise. To point out the contrast, we present a quotation from the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna says to Arjuna: I am equal to all. I hate none; nor have I any favourite. Those who worship Me with devotion, they are in Me and I am in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad them. (Gita: 9. 29). By the same argument, whether being worshipped or not or the way of worship does not matter to Him at all. Then how can the question of vengefulness towards the non-worshipping arise? Therefore He will reveal Himself to any sincere enquirer. Two more quotations in this context will be highly enlightening. Krishna to Arjuna: Whosoever, by whatsoever path approaches Me, I accept him for his salvation. (Gita: 4.11). And Those who worship even other Gods with devotion, worship Me. (Gita: 9.23). Also being the creator, every phenomenon, every movement in nature, every word and deed of beings will contain some message of His or the other. There is no need for Him to appoint a sole stockist of His wisdom. And no human being can claim to be one too. If one can get few glimpses of God then it was, is and will be possible for many others also. Therefore God can never command to his people to be submissive to one particular individual. A wise saying from the oldest living non prophetic tradition the Hindu tradition is very significant in this context. One should listen to
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad sensible words, even if they come from a child, but if what is said is unreasonable, one should reject it even if the speaker is Brahma (the God of creation of the Hindus) Himself.---(Subhashitammeans wise saying) In the light of the above discussion it becomes crystal clear that diabolic revelations (such as quoted in this article or found elsewhere) can never come from God, the limitless Being. Then where from these monstrous ideas come from? Obviously they belong to the dark dungeons of the prophets mind. It can matter very much to the prophet that the God has a preference for him, for then he becomes very much important than others. Gods insistence on being worshipped can be very important for the prophet for it makes him totally indispensable. God condemning all other forms of worship can be extremely advantageous to the prophet for it will enlarge his sphere of influence and discourage his followers from going astray. God picking him up as his messenger and demanding the submission of worshippers to him can be really great for the prophet for it
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad can make him the greatest authority in the worldGods deputyand provides with the moral right for exercising the authority on anyone. Finally, Gods anger and vengeance towards the disobedient and devotees of other gods and His all out support for their destruction can very well serve the two fold requirement of the prophet, namely, maintenance of discipline in his camp and generation of motivation and courage in his flocks for aggression on other societies. 4.3 Prophetism laid bare. It is on this backdrop that we can see prophetism for what it really is. We will study its origin, nature and structure in some detail (as the length of this article permits) on the basis of the Old Testament. The other two brands of prophetism, Christianity and Islam, are only more aggressive versions of the Mosaic ideology. As we have said earlier, since the nature of the mind that conceives determines the nature of the God conceived, to understand the monstrosity of Jehovah we have to look into the personality of Moses. He
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad was a courtier of Pharaoh, an influential man. By nature he was hot tempered and given to sudden outbursts of violence as indicated by his murdering of the Egyptian officer who beat up a Jewish worker. It seems that he was trying to project himself as the leader of Israelites. For on the day after the murder, when he tries to mediate between two quarrelling Israelites, one of them reacts: Who made thee a prince and judge over us? A conjecture of the Bible historians is worth mentioning here. A search into the ancient Egyptian records has brought to light an influential courtier of the Pharaoh named Be Yah of Semitic origin whose temperament and religious ideals are strikingly similar to Moses. For example, he is recorded to have refused to bow down to Egyptian Gods and given to bouts of violent anger. Be Yah disappears from the records immediately after an unsuccessful coup by the regent princes Tausret against the lawful young Pharaoh, Siptah. Probably Be Yah might have been a fellow conspirator. (Johannes C De MoorThe Rise of Yahwism). Now the Book of Exodus tells that having fallen from the grace of the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Pharaoh due to accusation of murder, Moses flees from Egypt to the land of Midianites. There he marries the daughter of the Midianite priest Jethro and lives in his father-in-laws house. He spends his time grazing his fatherin-laws sheep and wandering in the desert, rather too insignificant for a former courtier of Pharaoh. Most one time important people can never accept their later insignificance gracefully. Their minds will restlessly brood over how to restore their importance. To Moses, the new circumstances gave enough time and solitude to perfect his plans to establish himself as the sovereign of Israelites. Jehovahs revelations might have been conceived (consciously or unconsciously) as the key instrument for realizing his ambition at this point of time. It cannot be a mere coincidence that he starts getting Jehovahs revelations during this period, that too in the isolation of the desert. Jehovah reveals to him that He has chosen him as His prophet. Moses has to pass on His commandments to the Israelites from time to time and see that they are followed by them implicitly. In short,
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Jehovah entrusts the Jews to Moses. Of course, the only proof for all these is Moses own words. As he has problematic speech faculty, Jehovah comes out with a workable arrangement. It is to involve Aaron also in the game. Jehovah suggests ..is not Aaron the Levite thy bother? I know he can speak well.And thou shall speak unto him, and put words into his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. And he shall be thy spokesperson unto the people and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth and thou shall be to him instead of a God. (Exodus 4:14-18) He returns to Egypt with his brother Aaron only after learning that the Pharaoh and all other significant men who were against him are no more. Back in Egypt, he plays the role of the divinely ordained prophet of the Jews at Pharaohs court. His modus operandi for winning over the Israelites for leaving Egypt and securing Pharaohs permission for their departure is a combination of trickery and terror. His stick-snake show seems only like stage magic. It should be remembered that
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad ancient Egypt was fabled for her court magicians. Moses, having been educated at Pharaohs palace may have been well trained in that art. This view becomes more convincing when we read that only Aaron was allowed to be with him on Mount Sinai when the famous ten and many other commandments were revealed by Jehovah. That Jehovah had ordered Moses to come to the mount to receive the commandments was well advertised before hand and the entire Jewish population assembled at the foot of the mount to witness the miracle. But they were all kept well out of bounds with a fence around it with the warning that any one other than himself and his brother Aaron who even touched the fence will die. Soon there was seen smoke arising from the mount and a cloud appeared and the blast of trumpets was heard. People were told that Jehovah had descended on the mount and Moses, accompanied by Aaron went up. This is so typical of all stage magicians. They never allow the onlookers to get too close. The first three of the ten plagues sent by Jehovah on Egyptians, are repeated by the court magicians
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad also, making their probabilities of being stage tricks very high. The remaining of the nine plagues like appearances of locusts, hail stones, darkness during the day etc., which the magicians could not repeat are more likely natural calamities which were interpreted by Moses as the hand works of Jehovah to the superstitious audience. The tenth, the killing of the first born Egyptians, both two legged and four legged is clearly an act of terrorism by Moses and his goons. This is evident from Jehovahs command to draw a sign on the lintels and side posts of the doors of Israelites with the blood of the animal sacrificed in order to distinguish their houses from Egyptians and asking them to remain indoors the whole night; for God does not need any sign on the houses of the wicked to punish them, while the terrorists need. (Exodus: 7-12). Once Moses took over the charge of Israelites, dissidence was always suppressed with death penalty. Ideas were always imposed upon them most brutally, with lot of bloodshed, throughout their stay in the desert (for nearly
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad forty years). For example, while Jehovah declared himself to Moses as the only God of the Jews, they were worshipping other gods under the symbol of a Calf. When Moses, on his return from Mount Sinai came to know of this, his reaction was: And Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said. who is on the Lords side? Let him come unto me. And the sons of Levi (Moses himself belonged to the Levi tribe) gathered themselves unto him. And he said unto them. Thus saith the Lord of Israel. Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from the gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, every man his companion and every man his neighbour. And the children of Levi did according to the words of Moses: and there fell of the people on that day about three thousand men. (Exodus 32:25-28). The killers were consecrated and they became the priestly class, the Levites. Here, apart from cruelty, treachery also is employed. When Moses had gone to Mount Sinai for forty days, many Israelites, thinking that he had gone forever, were relieved and wanted to return to their old
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad ways of worship. Aaron actually encourages them and makes images of the Calf by melting their ornaments, only to inform Moses later to get them killed. The same treachery was repeated by Mao in his campaign let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred thoughts compete---his infamous Cultural Revolution. Maos campaign also was aimed at identifying the dissidents once they came out with their non conformist opinions and eliminating them. Is not Moses brutally dictatorial? Apparently the only punishment he knew was of death. For instance, a man who chopped wood on a Sabbath day was brought to Moses and he, as per Jehovahs orders, asked the congregation to stone him to death. (Numbers: 15. 32-36). In order to rule a society with an iron hand, any dictator needs a trusted gang around him. Moses accomplishes this by getting a revelation from Jehovah to make priesthood hereditary: Bring the tribe of Levi near and present them to Aaron the priest, that they may minister to him----And thou shall give the Levites unto Aaron and his sons: they are wholly given unto him out of the children
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad of Israel. And thou shall appoint Aaron and his sons, and they shall wait on their priests office and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. (Numbers: 3. 6, 9, 10). Moses was totally devoid of any feeling of gratitude. He was earlier given shelter by the Midianites. (Exodus: 2. 11-18). They had also extended their hospitality to the Israelites during their passage through the desert. On top of all, Jethro, the Midianite priest had given him valuable advice for organizing the Israelite society. (Exodus: 18). But the Midianites incur Jehovahs wrath by inviting Israelites to their festivals where they bow down to Midianite gods, which is perceived by Jehovah as the Medianites sly plotting against them. As a result, He sends a plague because of which many Israelites are killed and also orders the destruction of Midianites. In accordance with Jehovahs standing instructions regarding the people outside the Promised Land, the Israelites massacre all their adult males and take the women and children as captives to Moses. Now Moses flares up: Behold, they caused the children of Israel, through the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad council of Balaam, to commit trespasses in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves. (Numbers: 31.16, 17, 18). Here we can see him overdoing his Gods commandments. No doubt, Moses was a master organizer. But at the same time, he was also very cunning, cruel, ambitious and violent. He effectively manipulated the fear, greed, lust and gullibility of the Jewish people to establish himself as their Supremo. Through the combination of trick and terror tactics, he also succeeded in establishing Jehovah as the national God of the Israelites (The Old Testament: Books 2, 3, 4 &5). Through nearly six hundred commandments that are claimed to have been revealed to him by Jehovah, he tightened his grip over the Jewish society. From the above study of Moses mindset, it becomes quite clear that he will naturally
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad conceive a God like Jehovah only. Both of them are despots. Also, for people wandering in the desert with future uncertain, such a God who delivers even by snatching from others is most acceptable and a great morale booster. In fact Jehovah is only a magnified projection of Moses himself. That is precisely the reason why He is a Super Dictator and there is nothing divine about Him. Not only Moses, but every prophet has projected his mind on the Jehovah concept. The apparent changes we perceive in Jehovahs revelations while going through the prophetic literature is due to this. But the fact that His basic jealous, intolerant, vengeful and dictatorial nature remains unchanged through out, unambiguously reveals the mindsets of the Jehovite prophets. Few examples to illustrate this point (that the prophetic God is only a projection of the prophets mind): (1) The prophetic God reveals according to the convenience of the prophet. Jehovah had strictly ordered endogamy for Israelites. But Moses takes an Ethiopian woman as one of his wives, and even Aaron and his wife turns against him on this account. But Jehovah sends
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad a revelation declaring him a super prophet and supporting him but without relaxing the rule of endogamy a bit. (Numbers: 12. 6, 7, 8). So Moses remains above the law for ordinary mortals. Exactly in the same manner Allah too always obliges Mohammad. His favourite wife Aisha (She was only six years when she was married to Mohammad who was about fifty five years) seems to have noticed the repeated coincidence between Mohammads convenience and Allahs revelations. Once, on a revelation in the context of his conduct towards his wives, she comments: Allah excels even you in fulfilling your wish (Hadis: Sunan Ibn Majah). Another example: An ordinary Muslim is permitted by Allah to have only four wives at a time. But Mohammad had at a time at least eight wives! Allah reveals in this instance that being the prophet, he is privileged to have any number of wives at a time, while the ordinary believer is not. O Prophet! Lo! We have made lawful unto thee thy wives unto whom thou hast paid their dowries, and those whom thy right hand possesseth of those whom Allah hath given
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad thee as spoils of war, and the daughters of thy uncle on the fathers side, and the daughters of thine aunts on the fathers side, and the daughters of thine uncles on the mothers side and the daughters of thine aunts on the mothers side: who emigrated with thee, and a believing woman if she give herself unto the Prophet and the prophet desire to ask her in marriagea privilege for thee only, not for the (rest of) believersWe are aware of that which We enjoined upon them concerning their wives and those women whom their right hands possess (meaning the captured women clarification by the author)that thou myst be free from blame, for Allah is Forgiving, Merciful ( Quran: 33. 50) (2) During his initial years in Medina, Mohammad had no resources. In order to keep his flock with him, attract fresh converts, and to force Islam on people, he evolved a strategy of raiding the merchant caravans from Mecca, the rich Jewish settlements and unorganized Arab Pagans of Medina. Nearly eighty such raids were conducted during his life time out of which about twenty five were led by him in person.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad These raids are described in the Hadis as jihads and the jihads led by Mohammad himself as ghazwahs. But the Pagan Arab moral code had forbidden robbery. So Allah sends convenient revelations: Now enjoy what you have won (the booty) as lawful and good, and keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is forgiving, Merciful (Qu: 8. 69). This revelation comes immediately after the so called battle of Badr. The problem of division of booty now crops up. And Allah reveals: They ask thee (O Mohammad) of the spoils of war. Say: The spoils of war belongs to Allah and the messenger, so keep your duty to Allah, and adjust the matter of your difference, and obey Allah and His messenger, if you are (true) believers (Qu; 8. 1). Thus having ensured the obedience of believers, He sends a revelation on how booty is to be divided: And know that whatever ye take as spoils of war, lo! a fifth thereof is for Allah and for the messenger and for the kinsman (who has need) and orphans and the needy and the wayfarer. (Qu: 8. 41). Thus the mujahid (a Muslim who takes part in the raids- jihads or holy wars, as they were called by Quran and
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Hadis) can keep four fifths of the booty, while Mohammad can keep the remaining one fifth. This is how the Islamic religious institution of Khums- the sacred one fifths- came into existence. Allah promises His believers much booty: Allah was much pleased with the believers when they swore allegiance with thee (the prophet) beneath the tree and he knew what was in their hearts and He sent down peace of reassurance on them, and hath rewarded them with a near victory; And much booty they will capture. Allah is ever mighty, wise (Qu: 48. 18-19). Allah further ensures that the believers would continue to receive booty for all times to come: And other gain which ye have not been able to achieve, Allah will compass it (Qu: 48. 21). In the second most important Hadis collection, Sahih Muslim, Mohammad is recorded to be explaining: The spoils of war were not lawful for any people before us (the Muslims). This is because Allah saw our weakness and humility and made them lawful to us (Sahih Muslim: No. 4327). One can very well imagine the type of people getting attracted by this offer of Allah
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad and Mohammad! (3) As the prophet grows more and more ambitious and exclusive, so does his God too. Moses was concerned only with becoming the undisputed leader of the Jews and the Promised Land of Canaan. So long as their paths did not cross, he did not bother about the Pagans living outside the Promised Land. Correspondingly Jehovah was also not interested to become the God of non Israelites. They had to be satisfied with their false gods. Jesus, as portrayed in the New Testament was much more ambitious than Moses. Not having an undoubted social father, he sincerely believed that Jehovah was his personal father and since his father is the Lord of heaven and earth, their lordship is his by virtue of inheritance, being the only begotten son. [In John 3.18, Jesus refers to himself as the only begotten Son of God. Later, probably because he could not find this concept anywhere in the works of earlier prophets, he took upon himself another appellation, the Son of Man. So the Son of man is the Son of God and vice versa. He declares his Lordship over heavens and earth as by virtue of inheritance in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 5. 27 of the same gospel: And (the God) hath given him the authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man]. At the age of twelve, during a visit to the temple of Jerusalem with his parents, Jesus gives them a slip and stays back in the temple. When the worried parents come back in search of him to the temple and ask him how could he do what he did to them, he replies: How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business? (Luke: 2.49). After hearing a voice from heaven at the time of his baptism to the effect that he is the beloved son with whom his Heavenly Father is pleased, he expects that the Jews will accept him as the Messiah, their saviour king. But with Jews rejecting the propaganda that he is Messiah, destined to be their king and the mighty Roman Empire all around, he was at a loss to see how his rise to glory would materialize. Many times he becomes wild with the Jews for not accepting him. Some time before his crucifixion, he is convinced that the glory he dreamed for himself cannot be attained in his first coming and has to wait till his second
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad coming after the crucifixion and resurrection. So he enters Jerusalem, fully conspicuous on a donkey so as to conform to the description of the Son of Man by an earlier prophet, Zachariah, prepared to die in the firm faith that the Jews will realize his greatness when he resurrects and makes his second appearance. When the high priest of Jews asks him, just before he was taken to be tried, to testify whether he is the son of God, he says: Thou hast said; nevertheless I say unto you, Here after shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven (Mat: 26. 64). But obviously he does not die on the cross for he meets his disciples later. Before his crucifixion, he had forbidden his disciples from revealing his gospel to the non Jews. These twelve (disciples) Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying; Go not unto the way of the Gentiles, and unto (any) city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go preach, saying. The Kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mat: 10.5-8).But when nothing of the sort he expected happened after
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad his crucifixion, instead of waking up from his illusions about his own glory, he still hopes that his glorification by the world will take place in the near future and the traumatic experience he suffered is a necessary part of it. For after his revival he says to Cleopas and another disciple at Emmaus: O fools, and slow of hearts to believe all that prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, to enter into his glory? (Lk: 24. 25, 26). He also realizes that in order to rise to glory it is not enough to target the Jews only and decides to go after the Gentiles too. Since he was afraid to roam around publicly in Jerusalem now, he calls his disciples to Galilee and commands them: And Jesus came and spoke unto them saying; all powers is given unto me in heaven and earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost (Mat: 28. 18-19). Since Jesus has declared (and every pious Christian believes it!) that every word spoken by him came from God, this is an instance of Jehovah also growing in ambitiousnessfrom the God of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Jews only to the God of the whole mankind-along with his prophet. But at the same time, Jehovah, Jesus Father in Heaven, is more exclusive in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, he used to send His prophets on a regular basis. Moses was only one among the many, at most the most important one. But in the New Testament, He sends His only begotten son, who alone can save the world from sins. Thus He becomes more exclusive. The key to Jehovahs increased exclusiveness is in Jesus concept of himself. He says, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto Father, but by me (Jo: 14.6), which means that there is no salvation except through Jesus! The same idea is expressed when he says that those who believe in his gospel will be saved and those who do not will be damned. (Mk: 16. 16) .At one point he even denies all prophets who came before him: All that ever came before me were thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them (Jo: 10. 8). So Jesus makes salvation his exclusive portfolio. Surely he is more exclusive than Moses. We find Jehovah most ambitious and exclusive when
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad He appears in Quran as Allah. Simply being accepted as the only God is not enough for him. It has to be shouted also, from mosque tops, five times a day, that there is no God but Allah (La Ilaha Illallah). The only religion acceptable to Allah is Islam. And whoso seeketh as religion other than theSurrender (to Allah) (meaning Islam) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a looser in the Hereafter (Qu: 8.33).Also He has given out the entire world to His prophets followers Lo! The earth is Allahs. He giveth it for an inheritance to whom He will. And lo! The sequel is for those who keep their duty (unto him) (Qu: 7. 128). The Hadis Sahih Muslim narrates how Mohammad used to assert his inheritance of the whole earth: Mohammad and his followers went to attack a Jewish settlement of Medina. When they reached the settlement Mohammed announced Oh ye assembly of Jews, accept Islam and you will be safe. But the Jews resented. Mohammad made the same announcement two more times. When he did not get a satisfactory answer he declared: You should know that the earth
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad belongs to Allah and His prophet, and I wish that I should expel you from this land (Sahih Muslim: No. 4363). All these imply automatically that Allah and Allah alone is to be worshipped by the entire world for all times to come. Correspondingly, Mohammad is the most ambitious as well as the most exclusive of the prophets. Mohammed claims himself to be the last prophet, thus in effect becoming the only one, for the other prophets will be right only if they agree with him. Since no other prophet will follow him, he is the greatest of them too. Being the only true prophet of the only true God, the world is left with no other choice than to be subservient to him. We have described the origin, the nature and structure of prophetism in sufficient detail to see it as it is. It is essentially an ideology for ego gratification of the prophet in the name of God. Aggression, cruelty, greed, crookedness, lust and violence are justified in His name. If religion is meant for raising man from his animalistic nature by curtailing his ego, then surely prophetism cannot be called religion.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Instead of raising man to divine heights, it pulls down God to the level of an evil tyrant. What is sought in prophetism is domination with absolutely no botheration about the means. Therefore it is the worst political ideology in the guise of religion.

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 5. Prophets Deluders or a Deluded Lot From our study of prophetism this far, it is quite clear that the source of revelations is prophets own mind; probably the unconscious more than the conscious. That means while some of them might have been consciously fooling the people, many were deluded to believe sincerely that they were really the messengers of God. Definitely, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad belonged to the latter category. A more than sympathetic biographer of Mohammad, Maxime Rodinson says that Mohammad himself was afraid that human inspiration formed some part of his revelations. At a later stage he himself admitted that Satan had managed to insert his own orders among the revelations. (The famous Satanic Verses). (Maxime Rodinson - Mohammed). This, in, itself is a proof that Mohammad was not conscious of what actually was happening at the time of wahi (revelations). It is a fact of life that man has unimaginable capacity for self deception. Many times intense stress, excitement, depression, urge, emotion, hope
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad and the like can delude even a normal man to the point of hallucinations as in the case of Carlos Ventresca, the chamerlengo in Dan Browns Angels and Demons. But for an already mentally afflicted person, emotional charges of much less intensity can trigger delusions, hallucinations and uncontrolled reactions. Certain delusions in such cases can stick on permanently overshadowing their commonsense. Coming back to Moses, Jesus and Mohammad, even a lay man can sense that something is wrong with these three, even though they looked really sincere in their beliefs. Moses and Mohammad were overtly ultra violent. It is human to get angry with a person who harms or react violently under the extreme conditions of threat to life or honour of their women folk. But to plunder and massacre even unarmed innocents and rape and sell their women and children into concubinage and slavery, that too as divinely ordained duty, one must have certainly crossed the boundaries of sanity. Jesus was not in a position to do physical violence on anyone. It is not that he did not want to; on the other hand he was for
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad it. He says: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay (them) before me (Lk: 19. 27). So he substituted physical violence by curses. He also believed and declared that his heavenly Father had delegated to him the authority to judge and send people to hell (Joh: 5. 22; Fathers cruelty is hereby transferred to His only begotten Son). Another act of Jesus that looks quite crazy is his cursing the fig tree for not bearing fruits out of season. Apart from this, Jesus seems to be sexually abnormal too. In his heaven there are no things like marriage and sex (Mk: 12. 25). He is of the opinion that removing the body parts are more profitable than incurring sin and getting the whole body cast into hell fire (Mat: 5. 29-30). Here even though he mentions only eyes and hands, what he really means is obvious. For the eunuch is his sexuality ideal and there are some eunuchs, which made themselves eunuchs for kingdom of heavens sake. (Mat: 19. 12). While Jesus was an anti sexual, Mohammed was an ultra sexual. In Mohammads heaven, sex is almost the only entertainment. It is an
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad unending copulation that is going on there. Even while on earth he was oversexed. He married about a dozen times after the age of fifty and by their ages his wives were fit to become his granddaughter to mother. His sexual craving increased with his age! His description of heaven and hell, his visions and his horse journey to heaven etc. are too much even for a lay man to be taken as real, while he fully believed in their realities. Not only for us, but also for their contemporaries, Jesus and Mohammad appeared to be out of their minds. The Pharisees say: Now we know that you are possessed by a devil (Joh: 8. 52). Even Jesus own folks thought that he has gone out of his mind And when his friends heard (of it) they went out to lay hold on him for they said, He is beside himself (Mark: 3. 21). There is an apocryphal text, The Gospel of Hebrews (kept out of the church canon, not because of unreliability, but because of theological inconvenience) says that Jesus family took him to be baptized because they hoped that this ritual may purify him of the impure spirit that troubled him. Similarly many contemporaries
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad considered Mohammad as either a cheat or mad and he has to invoke Allahs revelations in defense of himself. And they say: O thou unto whom the Reminder is revealed, lo! Thou art indeed a madman! (Qu: 15. 6). There are nearly a dozen more passages where people consider him as mad. People also called him enchanted. We are best aware of what they wish to hear when they give ear to thee and when they take secret counsel, when the evildoers say: Ye follow but a man bewitched (Qu: 17. 47). Another delusion both Jesus and Mohammad shared was the Dooms Day. Jesus believed that it will be in the immediate future after his crucifixion and resurrection, when he would appear in his glory on the clouds of heaven ready to do the final judgment on the world and people of his own generation will witness it. He is dead certain about it for he tells his disciples: Heaven and earth will pass away but my words shall not pass away (Mat: 24. 35). Many psychologists have analyzed the personalities of the prophets in the last century, especially that of Jesus and Mohammad. Their diagnosis of Mohammad is
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad that his is an example of paranoia, which is defined as the sneaking development of a permanent and unassailable delusion system, in which clarity of thought, volition and action are preserved. (Remember Mohammads visions about the heaven, hell and of himself as the only mediator on the dooms day).In fact this diagnosis of the modern psychologists only confirmed the diagnosis made from another quarters on the basis of Yogic Psychology about one century before. Swami Vivekananda pointed out that Mohammad suffered from derangement of brain due to stumbling into the state of samadhi without proper preparation and guidance. That is why, according to the Swami, Mohammad, along with his good works, brought unending sufferings and destruction into the world (Swami Vivekananda: Complete Works, Vol I, Discourses on Raja Yoga, chapter on Meditation and Samadhi). An exceptionally brilliant psychopathological analysis of the behaviour of important Biblical prophets including Moses and Jesus was done by the multi discipline scholar Dr. Herman H Somers
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad in the late 20th century. He was a Jesuit missionary for about forty years. After making his diagnosis of the great Biblical prophets, that most of them including Abraham, Moses and Jesus were not mentally sound, he broke away from the order. Dr. Somers diagnosis of Moses is that he was suffering from reactive psychosis. This was caused probably by the guilt feeling about murdering an Egyptian officer. Sometimes in such cases the murderer develops the conviction that God had wanted the murder. This would have led Moses to remarkable self righteousness and proneness to murder and death penalty. Regarding Jesus, Dr. Somers concludes that he was suffering from paraphrenia, which is a fairly rare mental affliction in which the patient develops a delusion, mostly concerning his parents or ancestry, which is triggered and fed by only rarely occurring hallucinatory crises. These patients have great hostility towards anyone who criticizes them. But he remains adapted to his milieu, has a coherent thinking and well organized behaviour. Dr. Somers published a book on Jesus in Dutch, in the light of his
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad findings, about twenty years back and to my knowledge the church has not opened its mouth in rebuttal till date. (Source: Psychology of Prophetism by Koenraad Elst). Finally, almost all the prophets played the hand of their God. Moses, while he was massacring the non Israelites, told himself and others that it is Jehovah that had destroyed their enemies. Joshua also told the same. Jesus also took the stand that he is only doing the will of his heavenly Father; in other words it is the Father who is talking and acting through him. Even on the Day of Judgment, when he will send them, who were not believing in him to hell, again he will be doing the will of the Father only. Similarly, Mohammad also believes that in jihad it is Allah who destroys the enemies: Fight them (the unbelievers)! Allah will chastise them at your hands, and He will lay them low and give you victory over them, and He will heal the breasts of folk who are believers (Qu: 9. 14). Again the Quran says: Ye (Muslims) slew them (the unbelievers) not; but Allah slew them. And
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad thou Mohammad threwest not when thou didst throw, but Allah threw, that He might test believers by a fair test from Him. Lo! Allah is Hearer, Knower (Qu: 8. 17). A reader of prophetic literature, who is not alert enough may easily get misled to believe that these prophets had really surrendered their egos and were functioning simply as the instruments of God. But if they had really surrendered their egos, then they would have also said that it is the same God that is speaking and acting through others as well. For, it is the ego, the me or the sense of separate identity cut off from the total, which is the cause for the sense of other, the non-me also. So when the ego or the me goes by surrendering, the other (the non-me) also vanishes. Then, only the sense of totality remains, sense of all divisions disappears. For such a mind there are no false gods as different from the true God. There is no devil as opposed to God. There are no chosen people or prophet of God too. This is the wonder about non prophetic religions. The words false gods do not exist in their dictionaries. There is no devil concept also in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad them. Also there are no chosen people for them. There is also no concept of a prophet in them (This topic is discussed later). A person who is really living as the instrument of God will never really feel that he is the specially chosen prophet who alone can contact God or the only mediator between man and God or the only begotten Son of God, because any feeling of speciality is the product of ego, the feeling of being different from the whole. On the other hand, such a man will see the totality or God in everyone and everything; so everyone will look divine to him. Therefore the idea of mediating with God on behalf of man is sheer nonsense. Anyone who thinks that he is the intermediary between man and God is the most deluded egotist. For the real sign of an instrument of God is the absence of any sort of self importance. But the prophets were men of enormous self importance. In every book of the prophet, he is the central figure. Anyone who goes through the old or new Testaments or the Quran can easily see this. So their belief that they were living as Gods instruments was only an illusion. They were not actually conscious of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad the workings of their own minds. But from what is described in the Bible or Quran, it is possible to trace the workings of their minds. The firm belief of the prophet that he is Gods chosen one among men made him feel more important than others. While playing the instrument of God, his firm belief was that only he is the instrument of God; others are not. Again self importance! To him, being the instrument of God means, if he is angry with another, then it is God who is angry with that person. If he kills anyone, it is God who kills that person. If anyone does not agree with him, then it is with God that person is not agreeing, for the prophet is only an instrument. If someone is not honouring the prophet, then it is God that he is not honouring. Therefore, being the instrument of God, the prophet can never tolerate any disagreement or disrespect to God. So prophet is angry with him, which to the prophet means that God is angry with him. This is how the prophets self deception works. The net result is that instead of getting freed from his ego, by living in the illusion that he has become an instrument of God, the prophet
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad unconsciously expects his God to become his instrument for fulfilling his desires. This is how the prophets ego gets blown up to astronomical proportions. As every egotist is intolerant to disagreements, the prophet in his delusion makes his God jealous, violent, intolerant etc., by making his God his instrument. That is why the prophetic God is always jealous, despotic, cruel, vengeful and intolerant.

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 6. Authoritythe Life Force of Prophetism Fundamental questions like what is this existence, what is this phenomenon called life and the like are not the themes of discussion in prophetism. Gods name was not invoked in search of answers to such questions. It was rather invoked as an instrument for the exercise of authority by the prophet and the clergy over their people. That is why craving for power is always intrinsic to prophetic religions. There is little spirituality and too much politics in them. Therefore in prophetism, the church and the state are always inseparable; the state is always theocratic. Their prayer book is also their law book. In the words of Pope Boniface VIII: Both the swords (the spiritual and the material) are in the powers of the church. The spiritual is wielded by the church and the material for the church. The one by the hand of the priest and the other by the hands of the kings and the knights at the will and sufferance of the priest. The history of the last two thousand years has conclusively made it clear that prophetism
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad cannot survive without political power. The loss of political power to Romans in the first century BC and the later displacement to various parts of the world broke the venomous strangle hold of the Mosaic ideology on the Jewish psyche. As a matter of fact serious discussions among the Jewish scholars about prophetism and Jehovah began much earlier. Late Shri. Ram Swaroop points out: As events settled (after settling in Canaan), many Jewish Scholars tried to allegorize the events of the Exodus and ethicalize their God. The Talmuds, as these commentaries are called, contain much that is noble and inspiring (Ram Swaroop-Hinduism vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam). Another factor that broadened the Jewish minds was the Graco-Roman cultural influence in the last half of the first millennium BC. Cultured elite of the Jewish community were greatly attracted by this cosmopolitan culture. They took a relaxed attitude towards the Mosaic Law. Communal and regional identities and loyalties were assimilated to a great extent by this culture. These modernised Jews led by Menelaos, the High Priest of Jerusalem Temple,
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad inspired the Syrian king Antiochos IV Epiphanes to pass an order abolishing the Mosaic Law and replacing with secular civil code. Menlaos also agreed to turn the Jerusalem Temple into an inter religio--cultural place of worship and dedicated to Zeus Olympikos (as He was called in Greek), a synthetic and interdenominational God. But pushing things this far resulted in the Macabean (an orthodox Jewish tribe) backlash leading to the establishment of an orthodox Jewish state, thus giving a fresh lease of life to prophetism. This state lasted for a few decades until it was conquered by the Romans. ( Koenraad Elsts The Saffron Swastika).The orthodox Jews revolted twice, in AD 70 and 134 but were crushed both the times by Romans. Subsequently the Jews got dispersed to various parts of the world. The rabbinical tradition which took shape around the time of rebellions became synonymous with Judaism and they never had another prophet again. So the most important contributing factor towards the detoxification of the Jewish minds of prophetism was the loss of political power. As
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad time passed, Judaism matured quite a lot. They emerged as one of the most successful people on the face of the earth, in spite of the great deal of oppression they had to suffer everywhere except in India. Also, the Talmudic God replaced Moses Jehovah for all practical purposes. Today, the conquest of Canaan and the associated massacres remain with them only as history. The modern state of Israel is quite democratic, even though there is no dearth of fundamentalists groups there. Even during the war times, Israel has reasonably honoured the international norms and dealt sternly with those that indulged in excesses. But the demon called as prophetism could not be contained by all these developments. It made its hideous appearance in more ambitious and exclusive forms through the channels of Christianity and later Islam and tormented the world for centuries. Western European nations broke free form the yoke of the church few centuries ago. Devoid of political power, Christianity has crumbled in most of the developed countries of Europe and America. With the science exploding the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Biblical myths, churches being sold, number of church goers extremely dwindled, getting no fresh native recruits to the seminaries, dioceses closed down and filing pauper suits unable to pay off compensations to the victims of sexual harassments by church fathers and increased interest of the people in non prophetic religions, the situation has become really pathetic for Christianity in those countries. Today, backed up by the mighty western money and media power, various churches and missionary groups are desperately trying to establish themselves in the developing HinduBuddhist countries of Asia and in Pagan Africa by indulging in mass conversions by means of allurements, fraud and even force. Till date, not a single person from the Hindu- Buddhist religions who has studied his mother religion and Christianity has opted for the latter by finding it superior. The conversions have not at all improved the quality of life of the new convert in any manner and the church cares two hoots about this. They care only for increasing the number of followers to realise their ambition of domination over these
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad countries. They do not dare to try their hands on the Islamic countries. In the non Islamic countries of these continents, they have already cultivated very strong influence on the governments, media and educational systems. They have managed to see to it that the story of the decline and fall of the Christian Empire in the developed west, especially the storm raged in the western media after the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the nineties, was not visible in the media of these Afro Asian countries. The Pope still proceeds with the confidence that the third millennium will see the cross firmly planted on the soils of these new pasture grounds. These churches and missionary groups, in return, serve the imperialistic designs of their western masters. But Islam has not lost its political power so far. So it continues to grow in strength and fundamentalism.

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 7. Fraud and Sword Only Causes of Success of Prophetism It should be kept in mind that authority never came to prophets merely by repeating the revelations; but it came only by wielding the sword. The famous Italian philosopher and statesman, Machiavelli, points out in his masterpiece, The Prince: All well armed Prophets have conquered and unarmed failed. When we look at the history of prophets, Moses took up the sword and he was a success. Mohammad wielded the sword more ferociously and he was a grand success. As a matter of fact, Mohammad condemned both Judaism and Christianity as peaceful religions; for Judaism, in his time had given up violence in practice and Christianity, even though resorted to violent practices, was theoretically peaceful. Once on a jihad expedition, a follower asked Mohammads permission to renounce worldly activities and lead a life of seclusion. Mohammad scolds him: (Listen to me, O man of little understanding) I was not sent down (by Allah) to preach the religion of Jews and
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Christians (The Hadis collection, Mishkat No. 4489). Jesus could not take up the sword and he was a failure. Most of us are brainwashed by the mighty propaganda going on for almost two thousand years to believe that Jesus did not want to take up the sword; he was the messenger of peace. But Jesus himself contradicts this according to the gospels. He says: Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay; but rather division (Luke: 12.52). Mathew also records the same idea (Mat: !0. 34). His picture, drawn by the gospels most of the times, is anything but that of a peaceful man. He is very much intolerant towards non acceptance and disagreements. He tells his disciples that on the last day of the world he will sit in his glory on his throne and segregate those who have not served him to his left and send them to eternal hell. Then he shall say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (Mat: 25.41). Here, for the first ever time in the Bible (in fact in the history of mankind) we find the concept of permanent hell introduced. A
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad person who wants even his worst enemies to burn forever in hell cannot be called peaceful or matured. Real maturity can come only with a certain degree of freedom from likes and dislikes and without real maturity there is no real peace. Christianity became a great success only when its saints and leaders took up the sword in a big way in the latter days. While propagating Jesus as the messenger of peace, his message of peace was spread by them by the sword. The use of force is prescribed by the last book of the New Testament, the Revelations. The pagans have to be broken as the potter breaks his pots (Re: 2. 26-27). The church fathers like St. Augustine (354-430 AD) have seen in the use of force the best method of bringing round the unbelievers. Apart from vindicating the rights of the faithful, force is supposed to do good to the unbelievers by compelling them to examine the truth and renounce error. The Christian Roman emperors starting with Constantine used force on a large scale for spreading the faith. Later on the Christian kings of Europe were invited by the church to impose Christianity on their people.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Europe was thus converted to Christianity by fire and sword. Inquisitions, crusades and fraud where force does not succeed, is the history of Christianitys spread throughout the world. As sample we point out two formidable forgeries committed by Pope Stephan II in eighth century. (Source: Papacy - Its Origin and History by late Shri. Sita Ram Goel). 1). Donation of Constantine: This forged document depicted Emperor Constantine surrendering in devotion, his crown and authority of Roman Empire at the feet of Pope Sylvester I. It also showed the Pope returning the crown and other imperial symbols to the Emperor. The Emperor is shown to have succeeded in persuading the Pope to accept only the Imperial Palace, the city of Rome, and the province of Italy and the rest of the Roman Empire in the west. Constantine is commanded by the Pope to rule over the eastern Roman Empire. The Emperor, considering himself to be too insignificant to live in the same city as the Pope, seeks and gets Popes permission to shift his seat to Constantinople. This is the gist
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad of the document. The forgery was exposed in the year1440, by an Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla. He was intrigued by the mention of Constantinople (New Rome) in the document, for that city did not exist even as a project in the year in which the document was supposed to have been deposited by the emperor at the tomb of St. Peter! It is on the basis of this forged document that the Pope reigns as the Sovereign of the city state of Vatican on this day. 2). The Isidorian Decretals: This document is presently known as the False or Pseudo Isidorian Decretals which consists of decrees ascribed to various popes from Clement I (8897 AD) to Melchiades (311-314 AD). These Decretals were designed to prop up the popes position as the Supreme Pontiff of the church. As in the case of Donation of Constantine, here also, the fabricators made the same fatal error with dates. It was found the Decretals interspersed with passages from St. Jeromes Latin translation of Bible. But St. Jerome was born only in 340, twenty six years after the last
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad date in the Decretals and finished his translation only a few years before he died in 420 AD. So both the temporal and spiritual authorities of the popes are derived out of forgery.

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 8. The Prophetic Moral Code Too much publicity has been given to the prophetic moralitythe Christian virtues like charity and Islamic virtues like brotherliness. The propaganda is aimed at making the non believer believe that the field of application of these virtues extends to the entire humanity and for attracting him to prophetic faiths. In reality nothing can be farther from the truth. Since prophetism divides humanity into two mutually exclusive classes of believers and unbelievers, each prophetic religion has, in theory as well as in practice, two sets of codes of conduct--- one towards the believer and the other towards the unbeliever. To exemplify, the famous injunction of Jesus, love thy neighbour as thyself, which is claimed to be the basis of Christian charity, is originally given out as an ordinance to Israelites by Jehovah through Moses to be followed within the community. Thou shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shall love thy neighbour as thyself (Leviticus: 19. 18). Jesus never extends this rule to cover
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad whole of humanity. On the other hand what he reserves for those who do not believe in him is only hatred, as is made clear by him in (Mat: 25.41) and (Mk: 16. 16), where he says that he himself will send the unbeliever to permanent hell and he (the unbeliever) will be doomed. Initially he had restricted its field of application to those Jews who were his followers. For, as we have seen earlier (Mat: 10. 5-8), before crucifixion he restricts his teachings to Jews only, which means that it is his follower Jewish neighbour who is to be loved as own self by another follower Jew. After his crucifixion he commands his disciples to spread out to the entire world and not only teach his gospel to them but also baptize and bring them into his fold. Every true Christian upholds this claim even to this day. Now the domain of the above law automatically stands extended also to gentiles who become his followers. Therefore at any point of time, the injunction to love the neighbour as oneself was meant by Jesus to be practiced within the community of his followers only. Coming to the practice side, right from the inception of Christianity, its
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad saints and popes have been committing colossal violence and frauds. We have pointed out two formidable forgeries made by Pope Stephan II. The catholic church has come to admit about the forgeries committed and violence and frauds practiced by the saints and popes. Yet it is not prepared to give up the gains made or claims advanced on the basis of these malpractices. This is Christian morality! If at all a virtue had been ever practiced by them, it was always done within the community only. What Christians have done to Jews and other non Christians is sheer blood chilling horror. Swami Vivekananda who saw through the missionary game commented thus: Christians talk of universal brotherhood; but anyone who is not a Christian must go to that place where he will be eternally barbequed. Similarly in Islam also we can find two different sets of codes of conduct: Mohammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him (Muslims) are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves. (Qu: 48. 29). And O ye who believe! Take not for intimates other than your own folk.. (Qu: 3. 118). So
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Islamic brotherhood also is strictly forbidden to be practiced outside the community, by all merciful and all powerful Allah himself. It is an offence to rob another Muslim but perfectly alright to rob a kafir. We have already seen the Quranic revelation and quotation from Hadis to this effect. Mohammad himself sets an example by leading the robbing expeditions on the merchant caravans of Pagan Meccans and rich Jewish settlements of Medina. It is a sin to covet another Muslims wife but perfectly legal to covet a kafirs wife. One of the true believers signs is: And who guards their modesty--- save from their wives or (captives) that their right hand possesses, for then they are not blameworthy (Qu: 23. 5-6). Another revelation to the same effect is And all married women are (forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hand possesses (QU: 4. 24). These ayats declares that coveting a kafirs wife is perfectly legal in Islam (By making a kafir woman captive for sexual gratification the believer does not become blame worthy!). The Hadis Sahih Muslim makes this very clear by providing the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad context. At the battle of Hunain Allahs Messenger sent an army to Autas Having overcome (the infidels) and taken from them captives the Companions of Allahs Messenger seemed to refrain from having intercourse with the captive women because their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah, Most High, sent down regarding that. Forbidden unto you are women already married except those whom your right hand possesses (Sahih Muslim: No. 3432). It is a crime to kill a Muslim but a merit to kill a kafir. In Islam, a Mujahida Muslim who strives in the way of Allah-- meaning one who does jihadis far superior to an ordinary Muslim as is revealed by Allah: Count ye the slaking of a pilgrims thirst and tendance of the Inviolable Place of Worship as (equal to the worth of him) who believeth in Allah and the Last Day, and striveth in the way of Allah? They are not equal in the sight of Allah Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in Allahs way are of much greater worth in Allahs sight. These are they who are triumphant (Qu: 9. 19-20). A still higher grade
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad goes to the Ghazi-- one who slays a kafir with own hands. Muslims shall exhibit loyalty towards one another. But no Muslim is bound to keep the promise made to a non Muslim. Quran says: Freedom from obligations (is proclaimed) from Allah and His messenger towards those of the idolaters with whom ye made a treaty (Qu: 9. 1). Even in a gang of notorious dacoits, a minimum restraint and humanness have to be displayed by the member gangsters towards each other. Otherwise the gang will not survive. So it is no wonder that we do find some commendably virtuous practices in prophetic religions also. Whenever virtues like charity or brotherliness are shown to unbelievers they are meant to be bates for pulling the unbelievers to the prophetic camps. That is why no Christian missionary group does much charitable activities in a country governed by Islamic law. If at all they do, they work mainly among the non Muslims of that country who can be converted without arousing the wrath of the government. Even in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad India, the missionaries are interested in taking only the Hindus to heaven by making them Christians. They are least bothered about fifteen crores (a crore is ten millions) of Indian Muslims suffering on the earth and ultimately going to hell for not accepting Christ! It need not be particularly mentioned that if charity is done with an ulterior motive, it ceases to be a virtue and becomes an act of exploitation or at least a strategic business action. Even these so called virtues were not the original contributions of the prophets. These codes were traditionally observed by many Pagan societies. Both Moses and Mohammad, who were master organizers and born leaders unlike Jesus, realised the importance of the Pagan moral codes in keeping their congregations together and fully functional and incorporated them into the internal codes of conduct of their respective congregations in the guise of divine commandments. Unlike Moses and Mohammad, Jesus was only a typical Jewish prophet who accepted the Mosaic Law. But he lived at the cross roads of history, when the Jewish society was getting
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad bombarded by various external influences. While Jesus remained essentially Jewish, his younger contemporary, Paul, who sowed the seeds of Christianity in the west, where by hook or crook it reaped rich harvests, was cosmopolitan. Paul exhibited some originality but not Jesus. The only original idea that he can be credited with is that of the eternal hell. This concept cannot be found anywhere in the world literature before him. Even the Son of God concept can be found in Hindu and Greek mythologies or Egyptian and Roman histories. Even though many Egyptian and Roman Kings took up the title of Son of God on themselves, none of them claimed to be the physical sons of God. Of course, Jesus was gifted with the skills of memorizing and oratory, as is evident from the number of parables he told. But the wisdom he gave to the world was already contained in these parables (which were already prevalent during his time) and the then current proverbs. The mighty Mangol, Chengis Khan, excelled all prophets in implementing strict moral code on his people. The famous 13th century Muslim historian, Mihajus Siraj
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad records in his Tabqat--i--Nasiri: The justice of Chengis Khan was so severe that none except the owner had the courage to pick up a whip that had fallen by the road side. Lying and theft were things quite unknown in his army and no one could find any trace of them (quoted by late Sita Ram GoelThe Calcutta Quran Petition). On account of this, will it be proper to coin terms like Chengis Khanic honesty and simplicity and do propaganda that they are the essential principles of his ideology? Definitely not! For such moral behavior on the part of their people was brought about by the prophets or their successors and Chengis Khan by an iron hand. It was the fear of punishment, either on the earth or in the hell, that made people conform to the prophetic or Chengis Khanic moaral codes. Once the iron hand was removed, as it happened in Western Europe due to crumbling of Christianity a few centuries ago, or the demolition of the communist power structure in many countries in the twentieth century, people started acting out their minds pushing the traditional virtues into insignificance. The
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad great lesson to be learned from this is: real virtue cannot be enforced from outside; it has to flower within. But this flowering can take place only in inner freedom. Once we believe in a prophet, then the prophet becomes our perpetual authority. We have to believe that he stands for ever between us and God and unless we please him, our visas to heaven will never come. He has told us what to think and how to think and we have to force our minds always to conform to the thought pattern he has set for us. This is the very antithesis of inner freedom. Hence prophetism and inner freedom can never go together. Therefore the very concept of prophetic virtue itself is a fallacy. Prophets vis--vis Rishis and Gurus It has become a fashion with the modern educated Hindus, who are ignorant of their own as well as the prophetic religions, to equate the prophets with the Rishis and Gurus, while truly believing Christians and Muslims consider the Rishis and Gurus as the agents of the Devil. But the Rishis were not prophets. The natures of revelations of both are entirely
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad different. The traditional Hindus believe that the Vedas were revealed to the Rishis. The Vedic revelations sprang forth not from any external source but from the depths of the Rishis own Being, in a state of total silence (Samadhi), when the sense of all differences including the me and the other totally disappeared, when his own individuality or the ego was completely obliterated. But in the case of the prophetic revelations the difference of the me and the other was very much present. He was conscious of himself as different from the God, Whose voice he heard. So the prophetic revelation occurred as the result of establishing communication with a source that appeared to be external-- rather mediumistic. The state of his mind that heard the revelations was of fear and confusion, far away from silence. The results of the two types of revelations were also diametrically opposite. The Rishis, because of the revelations received by them, became egoless. They neither spoke about themselves nor claimed any importance. In fact they even declared that anyone could receive revelations provided his mind becomes
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad silent. On the other hand, every prophet talked a lot about himself and claimed the status of the most important person on earth--Gods own chosen one. He also insisted that God will communicate only through him, no matter how much meritorious the rest might be. The Guru also is not a prophet. The role of the outer Guru, Guru the person, is to awaken the inner Guru, the capacity to observe and learn from everyone and everything. Once the inner Guru is awakened, the disciple is on his own. A real Guru feels his mission accomplished when the disciple evolves to his own level. The Guru never tries to mould the disciple according to his ideology but allows and guides him to grow in his own natural way. But the prophet uses all means at his disposal, including violence, to mould his followers according to his ideology, the so called revelations from his God. Also the followers have to be submissive to the prophet. No one will be allowed to be at par with him. People who have claimed direct contact with God or in other words claimed prophethood have been executed both in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Christianity and Islam. The growth of the follower and dispelling of his ignorance are not the concerns of the prophet. By being obedient to the prophet, the follower is promised some worldly benefit or heaven after his death. Even in heaven, the status of the believer is much smaller than that of the prophet.

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad

Part Two THE CONSEQUENT HUMAN PLIGHT

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 9. Division between man and man We have discussed various aspects of prophetism. We have seen how the prophets in their self deception believed themselves to be the only intermediaries between man and God. In their illusion, they believed that they were living as the instruments of God, while in reality they were functioning as if God was their instrument for self glorification. Without their being conscious of it, their self importance grew to such an extent that honouring or dishonouring them was equated to honouring or dishonouring God himself, as we have already seen earlier. This self importance coloured their visions so much that they could see the world only through the smoke screen of their personal cravings. That is why all the prophetic religions teach that God created the nature, the animals and the birds only for the use of man. But the fact is that the man is only a part of nature as animals, birds, insects and trees are. The non human organisms had come into being long before the man had appeared. The above teaching of the prophets turned out
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad to be the most major cause for mans destructive mentality towards nature and other forms of life. Even among the humans, those who did not please the prophets by bowing down to them were considered by them as their enemies and therefore the enemies of their God. Every major prophet, in his unconscious self importance, has expressed the same sentiments as in the infamous statement of Jesus: He who is not with me is against me (Mat: 12. 30). Now, a true believer in the prophet cannot but see the unbeliever, whom his prophet sees as his enemy (and hence his Gods enemy), as his own enemy, even if the unbelievers are his parents. For Jesus says: He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Mat: 10. 36-37). The implication here is, if the family members of the believer are not believers in Jesus, then like Jesus, he also shall consider them as enemies and if the believer cannot consider his family members as his enemies, due to his love for them, then he loves them more than Jesus and hence he is not
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad worthy of him. The same idea is expressed in Luke (14. 26) also. This enmity towards the unbelievers created frictions in the converts family and community wherever conversions took place to Christianity. The Govt. of Madhya Pradesh (a state of Central India) constituted the Niyogi Commission, headed by Justice Dr. Bhavani Shankar Niyogi, a retired Chief Justice of Nagpur High Court, in 1954 to study the prosyletization activities of the missionaries in India as there was large number of complaints from various quarters about their activities. The commission found out that missionaries employed financial and other allurements, fraud and pressure tactics to bring about mass conversions and as a result, there was disruption of family and communal harmony in the conversion affected areas. The Quran says: O ye who believe! Choose not your fathers or your brethren for friends if they take pleasure in disbelief rather than faith. Whoso of you taketh them for friends, such are wrong-doers (Qu: 9. 23). It does not matter to the believer that personally the unbeliever may not have anything to do with him. It may be
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad that the unbeliever might have even helped him a lot (Like the Midianites, who gave shelter to Moses and Israelites or the Hindus who granted lands for Churches and Mosques and even helped Christians and Muslims to practice their forms of worship). But all these do not matter to the true believer because his prophet is his most ideal role model. Allah says to his believers: Verily in the prophet of Allah ye have a good example for him who looketh into Allah and the last Day, and one remembereth Allah much (Qu: 33. 21). Thus, in the mind of the true believer, there came about a division of the world into two mutually opposing classes of believers and unbelievers. This exclusivist mentality of the prophet and his true believers sowed the seeds of religious conflict in a world which hitherto did not know of hatred in the name of God and religion. Since prophetism never allows reason and objectivity to examine its basic premises, as the faith of the believer in its dogmas grew stronger, his fanaticism increased leaps and bounds. And fanaticism is certainly a type of madness which is the mother of all forms of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad terrorism. We give below an illustration from Mohammads first biography, Sirat Rasul Allah of Ibn Ishaq (cited by late Sita Ram GoelThe Calautta Quran Petition). For the sake of brevity, we use only the first names in places of long full Arab names: The Apostle (Mohammad) said, Kill any Jew that falls into Your power. Thereupon Muhayyisa lept upon and killed Ibn Sunayna, a Jewish merchant with whom he and his elder brother, Huwayyisa had social and business relations. Huwayyisa was not a Muslim at that time. When Muhayyisa killed Ibn Sunayna, Huwayyisa began to beat his brother, saying, You enemy of God, did you kill him when much of the fat on your belly comes from his wealth? Muhayyisa answered, Had the one who ordered me to kill him ordered me to kill you I would have cut your head off. The other asked, By God, if Mohammad had ordered you to kill me would you have killed me? He said, Yes, by Allah, had he ordered me to cut off your head I would have done so. He exclaimed, By God, a religion which can bring you to this is marvelous! and he became a
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Muslim. This is an example of how prophetism dehumanizes people. The introduction of the idea by the prophets that God destroys His enemies (unbelievers in Him and His Prophet) gave rise to the concept of the Holy Warthe jihad and crusade. Accordingly, the believer who is engaged in holy war is helping his God in establishing His Kingdom on earth. In the context of jihad Allah says: O ye who believe! If ye help Allah, He will help you and make your foothold firm (Qu: 47. 7 ). In ayat no. 15 of the same chapter, Allah promises paradise to such a person. This illusion made it possible for the prophet and his true believers to kill man not only with a clean conscience but also in the firm belief that such killings would bring to him merit in this world and in heaven. For example, in Christianity, the heroes of heathen killings, heretic hunting and inquisitions were canonized as saints! A typical example is Cyril of Alexandria who became the bishop in 412. He organized riots against Alexandrian Jews who were forced to leave the city. He had an
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad army of monks whose job was to harass the non Christians in all possible manners. The Christian Roman emperors, at least from 375 onwards, had made intolerance to non Christians an official policy and were patronizing the likes of Cyril. In 415 Cyril let loose his army of monks on the centre of learning in Alexandria. The Caesarium, the Temple of Sarapis and many other Pagan monuments were destroyed. The leading scholar of Alexandria, a young Pagan lady, Hypatia who was a mathematician and philosopher of the neo platonic school, was caught, stripped naked and dragged inside the church by the monks. There she was clubbed to death, her body cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones using shells and the remnants thrown into fire. Cyril was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1882 for his services to the Christian cause, even though all facts abut his service in Alexandria were well known at that time. As there is no evidence of the destruction of the famous library of Alexandria in 415, it is widely believed that it survived the christian attack. But the scholars had started leaving
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad since that incident and the decline of the centre of learning had begun. The library was burned down by Muslims in 642, when they captured Egypt in a surprise move. The remaining scholars of Alexandria made a last minute attempt to save the fabulous library. They sent a humble petition to Caliph Omar in Mecca to spare the library, to which the latter is reported to have replied: If the books in Alexandria are in agreement with Quran, they are superfluous. If on the other hand, they are contrary to Mohammads book, they are impious. In either case, there is no need to preserve the library. It must be burnt. So the library along with 700,000 volumes of knowledge of ten centuries was destroyed. For six months the books were burnt in the furnaces of public baths in Alexandria. In Islam jihad is the duty of every Muslim for all times to come and refusing to take part in it for any reason other than physical disability is a sin which can cause his fall into hell, even if he is observing all other injunctions of his religion. Regarding the importance of jihad Mohammad says: To keep yourself busy in the way of Allah (meaning
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad jihad) for a single morning or afternoon is better than the whole earth and whatever (wealth) it possesses. And to get imprisoned in the field of battle is better than getting engulfed in surphis prayers for as many as sixty years (Mishkat: No. 4489). Sahih Muslim records Mohammad saying that it is the shahida Muslim who gets killed in jihadwho is the most meritorious person. All other Muslims will have to wait till the day of judgment to get entry into heaven. But a shahid can enter the paradise, the same day of his martyrdom in jihad, even if he has not kept any other religious injunctions. The reward awaiting the shahid (the pleasures of the paradise) is of such magnificence that the shahid himself will desire to return to earth and get killed in jihad ten more times. It is a real pity that even in this 21st century there is no dearth of deluded souls who believe this and come forward for suicide attacks. The Quran also says: Allah has purchased of the faithful their lives and worldly goods and in return has promised them the Garden (meaning Paradise). They will fight for His cause, slay and be slain. Such is
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad the true pledge in the Torah, the Gospel and the Quran. And who is more true to His promise than Allah? Rejoice then in the bargain you have made. That is the supreme triumph (Qu: 9. 111). Now regarding those who refuse to fight jihad or turn back from the enemy, the Quran says: Those who were left behind rejoiced at sitting still behind the messenger of Allah, and were averse to striving with their wealth and lives in Allahs way. And they said: Go not forth in the heat! Say: The heat of hell is more intense of heat, if they but understood (Qu: 9. 81). And Whoso on that day- meaning the day of jihad- turneth his back to them (unbelievers) unless maneuvering for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from Allah, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journeys end (Qu 8. 16). This concept of holy war in prophetism did not remain limited to theory only. It was put into practice most savagely right from the days of the first prophet - Moses himself - which spread death and devastation in the world for centuries. We give here, briefly, an account of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad the human prophetism. suffering brought about by

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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad 10. Genocides in the Old Testament The first victims of prophetism were the prophets own people themselves. The first bloodshed by prophetism was of Jews when Moses, allegedly as per Jehovahs command ordered the slaughter of about three thousand Israelites in Sinai, who worshipped the Golden Calf, on a single day. Some other non Canaanite nations were also slaughtered during Moses time, the massacre of all male and married women population of Midian being the most gruesome among them. Joshua massacred the entire population, both human and cattle, of thirty one Canaanite cities (Joshua: chapters 6-14). All these massacres were carried out in accordance with Jehovahs commandments. a). Christian Vandalism The early Christians were not powerful enough to do really large scale killings. Their violence was restricted to few pockets where they were dominating. But when the powerful Roman Emperor, Constantine, became Christian, they
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad started large scale killings of the non Christians who refused to embrace Christianity. Backed up by the might of the Christian Roman Emperors, and of the later Christian kings, millions were slaughtered during the first millennium throughout Europe for not accepting Christianity. The survivors had to profess Christianity, at least publicly. It is not that Constantine adopted Christianity due to religious reasons. He found the Christian theology and organizational structure most suitable for maintaining his position and total control over his people. The pagan Romans, on the other hand, belonged to a tradition in which republics and democracy to some extant flourished. They were also polytheists. In such pluralistic traditions, it is not possible for dictatorship and religious exclusiveness to survive. As per the deal with the Christian clergy, Constantine was declared as the Maximus Pontiffix (the supreme bridge), the supreme temporal and spiritual leader of the Christian Roman Empire. Only in prophetism, a single person can hold both the temporal and spiritual authorities.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad The second millennium saw the spread of Christianity in the American and Australian continents and many parts of Asia and Africa by fraud, fire and sword. Pope Alexander VI (1492- 1503) impressed upon the kings of Portugal and Spain to transport the missionaries to the distant lands conquered by them and to pay for their upkeep till they managed to live off the conquered lands. The modus operandi of the missionaries in South and Central America, the Caribbean Islands and the West Indies was to read out the Requerimento, the demand of submission to Christianity, which was in Spanish and not understood by the natives. Even then the Spanish soldiers were called to start a slaughter of those who refused to submit. Millions of natives were inhumanly tortured and executed in this manner, their places of worship demolished or converted into churches before these lands were completely christianised. The Australian native population was also decimated. The missionaries who went along with the Portuguese could not match the performance of their brethren who were
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad working with the Spaniards in the western hemisphere. The reason was that the Asian countries were not at all inferior to the Portuguese in the art of warfare on the land and the missionaries could not fool the natives into believing that their religions were inferior to Christianity. Unfortunately for the missionaries, they could use force only in some small coastal pockets which came under Portuguese control due to the latters supremacy over the seas. But in these pockets, they showed their real colour. In Goa, on the west coast of India, St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, wrought havoc. He was the person who brought inquisition to Goa. As a result, thousands of Hindus were slaughtered for not accepting Christianity. Thousands fled from Goa to neighbouring Hindu kingdoms to save their lives, honour and religion. Thousands were tortured in the most inhuman manner till they submitted to Christian faith. Children were brutally flogged and cut to pieces in front of the parents. Their feet were cut off so that they could not run away from the scene of their childrens torture.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Their eyelids were removed so that they could not close their eyes to the horrible scenes in front of them. Readers who want to know more about Goa inquisition can refer the well documented books: History of Christianity in India: The Beginning to 1707 AD by Stephen Neill, The Goa Inquisitions by AK Priolkar and St. Francis Xavier; the Man and Mission by Sita Ram Goel. But in spite of all this barbarism, the missionaries did not succeed in christianising Goa completely. Even today, Goa remains a Hindu majority state. In Africa also fraud and sword were extensively used by the missionaries in their zeal for christianization. Men were forcibly captured and sold in the slave markets. The first President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, once said that when the missionaries arrived in Africa, the Africans had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. The missionaries asked the Africans to close their eyes and pray. And when they opened their eyes again, they had the Bible in their hands and missionaries had their lands. b). Islamic Havoc
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad We have seen earlier that jihad occupies the central place in Islam. Ayotollah Khomeini, the former ruler and religious leader of Iran, who issued the fatwa against Salman Rushdie fully validated this when he said that Mehraab (the main hall of a mosque) itself means the place from which the war (harb) starts. Allah had revealed that as the Jews did not stick to His words revealed through the earlier prophets He had forsaken them and picked on Muslims as His chosen people. Now He threatens them that If ye go not forth- meaning if the Muslims refuse to wage jihad- He will afflict you with a painful doom, and will choose instead of you a folk other than you (Qu: 9. 39). In the Hadis we get even clearer exposition of the concept of jihad. Sahih Muslim (No.4696) quotes Mohammad: One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did express any desire (or determination) for jihad died the death of a hypocrite. It is to be kept in mind that in Islam the hypocrite goes to the lowest layer of hell; one layer lower than even a kafir. The same Hadis collection (No.4294) describes how jihad should be waged: Fight in the way of Allah,
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. When you meet your enemies who are polytheists, invite them to three courses of action: Invite them to join Islam. If they refuse to accept Islam, accept from them the jizziya. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allahs help and fight them. In the light of Quran and Hadis, we get the following clear concept of jihad. (1) It is actual war for religious reasons. (2) Its ultimate objective is Paradise. (3) Its objective in this world is the spread of Islam. The spread of Islam through jihad is achieved in four ways: a).By inviting the unbelievers at the pint of the sword to join Islam. Apart from increasing the number of adherents instantaneously, in due course people would be convinced that if they refuse the peaceful invitation to submit, then they would have to face the sword of Islam, which would further accelerate its spread. b). Collection of jizziya, the poll tax. This would also help the spread of Islam by being used for the up gradation of the war machinery, its maintenance and payment of bribes. c). Massacre of unbelievers. This would help Islamisation by reducing the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad number of non Muslims in the world and hence opposition to it. Massacre also paves the way for the next important element of jihad: d). Plunder. The booty includes the movable and immovable properties and the women and children of the unbelievers and the professionals among them. One fifth of the plunder goes to the prophet and after his time to the caliph which is directly used for spreading Islam. The portion that goes to the mujahids indirectly helps Islams promotion by motivating them to strive even harder in Allahs way. The human resources also fetch money through ransom and slave trade. The women helps greatly to the growth of Islam for their children by their masters would be brought up as Muslims. Mohammad had fully realized the importance of sword in the spread of his religion from his own experience. While at Mecca he was rejected by the people and he had to run away to Medina. He got fully convinced from his Meccan experience that his religion will not sell through the medium of peace. That is why he started getting revelations regarding the use of sword in the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad service of Allah. It is extremely significant that all the revelations regarding jihad came down at Medina; after he could mobilize some support. He used all the four aspects of jihad discussed above extensively. In his first armed raid against the Meccans in 622, he had only 301 ill equipped supporters. But when he marched to Mecca in 630, he had a well equipped army of 10,000 soldiers and in 632, on the eve of his death, when he planned the invasion of Palestine, he had a powerful army of 30,000 men! All these are well accounted in various Hadis collections and his biographies. The Hadis, Mishkat (No. 4549) reveals the great importance Mohammad gave to sword in his religion: The portals of heaven les under the shadow of the sword. Regarding the earth also, we have seen how the sword helps in realizing Mohammads ambition. In jihad, another element of almost the same importance as the sword is plunder. Allah makes it clear that only the mujahid is entitled to get the booty. A certain Arab tribe around Medina refused to accompany Mohammad on his expedition to Hudaibiyyah and Allahs
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad revelation came down promptly: Those who were left behind will say: when ye set forth to capture booty, let us go with you. Say (unto them O Mohammad): Ye shall not go with us. (Qu: 48. 15). Sahih Muslim (No. 4294) quotes Mohammad: Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make holy war, do not embezzle the spoils. In fact embezzlement of spoils is one of the deadliest sins in Islam as made clear by No.210 of the same Hadis collection. Even a shahid can go to hell because of it. Once, a slave of Mohammad got klled in the jihad against the Jews of Khaibar. When Muslims started greeting the dead slave as a martyr, the prophet cried out: Nay, not so. By Him in whose hand is the life of Mohammad, the small garment he stole on the day of Khaibar but which did not fall into his lot is burning like the fire (of hell) on him. This shows how carefully and effectively Mohammad used loot to motivate people to work for him. The pattern set by Mohammad was followed by his successors as well. As a result, history of Islam is fully soaked in blood. The hooligans of Arabia at the time of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Mohammad joined his fold because plundering the kafirs and abducting their women were approved by Allah and His prophet as legal. Many ambitious and opportunistic people also accepted Islam by seeing the rise of Mohammad. But the vast majority of Arabs joined Islam for the fear of losing their lives. When Mohammad breathed his last, the Meccans had decided to return to their ancestral faith. But they were threatened of massacre by the chieftains of Mohammad which frustrated their plan (See The Calcutta Quran Petition by late Sita Ram Goel). All those Arabs who refused to get converted to Islam were mercilessly cut down. Mohammads last wish was to cleanse entire Arabia of non Muslims. His wish was fulfilled by the later Caliphs in a very short time after his death. The subsequent Caliphs and sultans undertook extensive jihadic expeditions, which brought vast areas of Asia and Africa under the control of Islam along with huge amount of plundered wealth. Millions of kafirs were butchered for not accepting Islam and their blood flowed like rivers. Their women folk
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad were brutally raped and taken as captives to the harems of the believers where these unfortunate women had to keep on contributing to the growth of the believer population. Thousands of infants were savagely cut to pieces and pierced by spears in front of their mothers and many more thousands of children were sold into slavery. In India, large number of women jumped into burning pyres, when the news of their men folks slaughter at the hands of jihadis reached them, in order to save their honour. Thousands of places of worship of the kafirs were desecrated or razed to ground and mosques were erected in their places. The partition of India in 1947 due to Muslim demand for a separate country for themselves resulted in the loss of nearly two million lives. Another million people were displaced. Thousands of women were ravished. Since then four wars were fought between India and Pakistan. In the name of Islam, Pakistan actively promotes cross boarder terrorism against India and involves in fomenting communal riots on Indian soil. Due to Indias large Muslim
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad population, Pakistan is greatly successful in its dubious designs. Modern Islamic apologists and historians at the helm of Indias historical studies establishments try hard to blackout the barbarism of the Islamic aggressors. They try their best to make the Indians believe by fair and foul means that the motivating factor behind the aggressions of Sultans and other Muslim chieftains was not Islam, but it was the greed for wealth accumulated in the temples of India. These pseudo historians try to blackout the chapters of Islamic vandalism in Indias history. Some state governments in India send even directives to their education departments, ordering them not to include the atrocities of the Islamic raiders and rulers of India in the history syllabi. This is a blatant and motivated lie, for the chroniclers of these rulers and raiders make it very clear that the invasions were nothing but jihads and take pride in the killings of kafirs, plunder, desecration and destruction of their places of worship. The raiders and rulers alike had declared that their
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad military expeditions were nothing but jihads aimed at eradicating the evil of idolatry. That they destroyed and desecrated even very small temples which did not have any wealth, unambiguously demonstrates the nature of the aggressions. Above all, the raiders and rulers were of different nationalities, they belonged to different cultures, lived in different times and were of varying educational standards. The only thing common to them was their religion, Islam. Yet the pattern of their onslaughts were same everywhere, as can be seen in their chroniclesmurder, torture, loot, arson, rape, selling the captives into slavery, forcible conversions, desecration and destruction of temples and erection of mosques in their placesthe pattern set up by prophet Mohammad himself. These apologists and pseudo historians are able to fool people only because of the overwhelming majoritys ignorance of Islam and its history, especially of the Hadis. In Quran, almost every tenet is spread over the entire text and no contexts of revelations are provided. Since it is the context that gives a correct understanding of the word,
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad it is not possible to understand Islam only on the basis of Quran. But the Hadis, the words and deeds of Mohammad, provides the correct contexts and hence the correct meanings of the Quranic revelations. Also they are the most authoritative interpretations of the revelations, being the accounts of how Mohammad himself explained Allahs commandments and put them into practice. That is why the Islamic scholars consider the Hadis to be as important as Quran. Once Islam is understood on the basis of Hadis, the chronicles of the Muslim invaders and rulers will be found to be in exact accordance with the spirit of Islam. Then no one will be able to fool people by lying that the Islamic invaders were motivated only by economic or political factors and their chronicles are not reliable records of their motivations and actions. The same Islamic spirit (which is the same as the spirit of prophetism) could be found in action behind modern day terrorism and communal disturbances, which have become really dangerous. Unless the danger is correctly understood there is no way of dealing
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad effectively with it. Therefore, a thorough debate on prophetism is the first step to eliminate terrorism and communal hatred.. c). One God but Different ProphetsCause for Torture, Loot, Arson, Rape and Slaughter Another development in prophetism also resulted in the slaughter of millions. To the believers, prophet became more important than his God for all practical purposes. The Jews, Christians and Muslims worship the same God. But that did not prevent them from reaching out for one anothers throat. Since Jews did not accept Jesus or Mohammad, they were targeted by the followers of the latter two. The Christians labeled them as God killers and oppressed, tortured and killed them for centuries. It was only in 1962 that the church agreed to forgive them for killing Jesus, that too on condition that they should disassociate themselves with the generation who are alleged to have caused Jesus crucifixion. The quarrel between Christians and Muslims was also because their chief prophets were not the same. The crusades that resulted also claimed
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad millions of lives, both civil and military. Forcible conversions also took place to either side. Arson, plunder, loot, torture and rape were widely practiced by both sides. d). Prophetism versus culture, civilization and knowledge Prophetism, being exclusive by nature, has always remained inimical to freedom of thought. In fact, its first adherents were also its first victims. The Jews lived for centuries in Egypt quite cordially with the Egyptians. People like Joseph, rose to supreme positions in that country. They worshipped Egyptian gods also and were quite liked by the Egyptians. It was Moses who caused their minds to be closed and fanatical. Till they came under the influence of Hellenistic culture and spread out of Israel owing to the loss of political power to Romans they were not a nation worthy to be compared to other great nations of antiquity like India, China, Egypt, Persia, etc. But once the Mosaic influence on their psyches started fading away, they made their way to the forefront of civilized societies.
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad The ancient Greco Romans were highly cultured and civilized people. They had made tremendous advancements in various fields of learning like science, mathematics, architecture, literature and other arts and crafts. They were pluralistic and liberal. Once they were forcibly converted to Christianity, all their glory faded away. The same liberal Hellenists, who once used to carry the light of knowledge, now started carrying the fire of fanaticism. The entire Europe slipped into a dark age for a millennium. The Christian church and missionaries try to fool the Asians and Africans by associating the greatness of western civilization and scientific developments with Christianity. But the fact is that Christianity destroyed the glorious civilization of the ancient west (we have already seen what they did in Alexandria) and only after the west Europeans threw away the yoke of Christianity, they could make whatever advancements they made. Until the 17th century, the church had been totally oppressive of the scientists and other free thinkers of Europe. Many of them like the astronomer
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Joseph Brno were burnt alive and many others like Galileo were inhumanly tortured by the inquisitors. Islams story is also not different. There are many evidences to show that the ancient Arab pagans were cultured and civilized. Even ladies had freedom to come up and compete with men. For example, Mohammeds first wife, Khadeeja was running her family business. There was a poetess, Asma bint Marwan, who was murdered on Mohammeds orders. They were tolerant and hospitable to other people. They had given asylum to both Christians and Jews in their troubled times. But once they became Muslims, they were deculturalised and lost most of their noble qualities. They became extremely fanatical and drove away Christians and Jews from the Arabian Peninsula. This is the evil influence of Islam. As Islam went on conquering, along with human lives and honour they went on destroying the centers of learning and cultures also. The famous library of Alexandria and the University of Nalanda and many other centres
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad of learning in northern India were completely burnt by the Muslim fanatics. The strict commandments of Allah and Mohammed not to mix up with the unbelievers developed a ghetto mentality in them, which held back their progress till date. A myth that is extensively propagated and believed by many is that Islam promoted knowledge and civilization. This is just a motivated white lie. In fact, during the first two centuries of Islam, the only duty of Muslims was to practice Islam with its worship and violence on all fronts. But during the period of the Abbasid Caliphs, knowledge and civilization flourished in some countries because the rulers broke away from the Islamic orthodoxy. This is a clear proof that prophetism was not able to completely extinguish the light of humaneness. Whenever something good and human comes out of the true believer; it is this humaneness emerging out of the dark clouds of prophetism. So whatever growth in civilization and knowledge achieved in the Islamic world was in spite of Islam. The person who was mainly responsible for this progress was the Abbasid Caliph, Al122

Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Mamoon of the 9th century. He created a translation bureau in Baghdad called the Beikal-Hukmah or the House of Wisdom. The Hindu and Greek texts on various subjects were translated and Hindu scholars were welcomed to settle in Baghdad. This led to the renaissance in the Islamic world in the 9th century. Al-Mamoon was a Mutazilah (one who stands apart), an adherent to a school of thought in Islam which originated around his time. The adherents to this school had their own political and religious views which differed completely from the traditional Islam. They did not believe that Quran was revealed by Allah.. They also did not believe that Quran is the repository of all knowledge.. Mamoon and his group kept aloof from the factional feuds of his contemporary Islam. He established observatories and promoted science and arts and rational outlook. His progressive outlook and policies invited severe opposition from the vast majority of orthodox sections. They treated him as an apostate. Under the leadership of Imam Hanbal, the originator of the most fanatic school of Islamic
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad law, frequent insurrections were attempted. Mamoon in turn, ordered his people to adhere to Mutazilitizm He started dealing strongly to the Mullahs who upheld the traditional view that Quran was revealed by Allah and everything worthy to be known was in it. This led to unrest and resulted in weakening Mamoons position. He suddenly died in 833 AD. Hanbal won. Some scholars believe that Caliph Mamoon was murdered. The mutazilitezes, (as Al-Mamoons adherents were called) were suppressed with brutal barbarism and Islam succeeded in bringing about the Cimmerian darkness once again. A few fortunate Mutazilitezes escaped to Spain where there were some progressive Muslim rulers. The Abbasid Caliphate came to a bloody abrupt end when Halaku Khan the grandson of Chengis Khan brutally massacred the Caliph and all his family members. Another factor that allowed civilization and learning to flourish in some Islamic countries was the introduction of the sophisticated Persian language in the palaces and offices of the Muslim rulers. This paved the way for entrance into a new world of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad thoughts different from Quran, knowledge of various subjects and scholarly pursuits. It is in Persian that the great classic, the Rubbiat of Omar Khayyam was written. The book is a philosophical meditation on life which breaks clean away from the style and level of Quran. But the civilizing leaven of Persia did not reach Egypt and North Africa in sufficient strength. Consequently, prophetism triumphed and the Islamic world sank back once again into ignorance.. Even in Iran (formerly Persia), Islamic fanatics triumphed and Ayatollah Khomeini captured power. Since then, till his death, he went on issuing fatwas for the elimination of free thinkers like Salman Rushdie. Iran was also pushed into the Islamic darkness. Even though the Muslims condemn Al-Mamoon as an apostate, they are ever eager to claim the credit for his achievements by boasting of Islams role in bearing the torch of knowledge and civilization during the middle age. e) Reactive Aggressiveness Violence
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Prophetism begets violence in yet another fashion; violence as reaction by the non prophetic religionists. The Bible describes that centuries after Moses and Joshua conducted the genocides of non Israelites, the Moabites (the descendants of Abrahams nephew, Lot and Lots eldest daughter) attacked an Israelite city as a revenge operation. The Egyptian Pharaoh during the days of Solomon also did the same. The stray cases of violence against prophetic religionists Muslims and Christians by Hindus in our times also are due to reaction to the prophetic religionists aggressions on them and their religion. As long as the prophetic religions continue to remain aggressive, the reaction, in the form of hatred towards them is never going to end. f) Prophetism and Modern Day Chaos We have seen earlier how terrorism is a natural outcome of prophetism. A major threat to world peace in our times has been Islamic terrorism. The oil rich Arab and Persian Gulf countries have been lending financial support and safe bases to Islamic terrorists. During the
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad years of cold war, USA and its allies gave espionage training and weapons to jihadis, to use them against the erstwhile USSR. The Soviets also did the same in some African and Arab countries against the American block; especially taking advantage of the latters all out support for Israel. In their shortsightedness and competition for world domination, USA and USSR made Islamic terrorism really deadly. After the end of the cold war due to collapse of USSR, both present Russia and the western countries have become the targets of jihadis strikes. The west, in its double standards, is keeping its eyes closed to the jihad waged in Kashmir and other parts of India. According to official accounts, the terrorism in Kashmir alone has claimed about one hundred thousand lives so far. The Islamic terrorists attacks have become the order of the day in one part of the world or the other. The pseudo intellectuals of the media, especially in India, try their best to make people look away from the real issue, which is the role of Islam in terrorism. They try to
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad present the whole problem as the reaction of the Muslims all over the world to western imperialism. Even the Islamic terrorists attacks in Kashmir and other parts of India are labeled simply as terrorist attacks and attributed to economic, social and political desperations or Pakistans designs to destabilize the enemy country India by them. Of course the reaction to American aggression on Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistans hand in cross boarder terrorism do play their parts. But the media, especially in India, refuse to discuss one key issue: How the terrorists are able to mobilize support for their cause, carry out their operations successfully and remain out of reach of the powerful governments? Also they pretend not to see the fact that most of the identified terrorist organizations of today are Islamic. The leaders of these Islamic terrorist organizations are themselves highly religious and appeal to their fellow religionists throughout the world, not in the name of resistance to economic or political exploitations by western powers, but in the name of Islam. They tell the Muslims all over the world that
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad they are waging jihad against the infidelsthe enemies of Allah and Islamand there is no reason to believe that they do not mean what they declare. It is highly significant that their list of infidel countries against whom they are waging jihad contain not only the western powers and Israel, but also India,, a country in which Muslims enjoy more privileges than anywhere else in the world., in spite of the fact that more than ninety five percent of Indian Muslims supported the partition of India on religious grounds to carve out Pakistan for themselves in 1947. Even Bangla Desh (former East Pakistan), which owes its existence as a sovereign country to India, has joined hands with Pakistan and other jihadis and has become a hub of cross boarder terrorism against India. The Islamist terrorist training camps are flourishing there in cooperation with ISI, the notorious spying agency of Pakistan. The same ISI had collaborated actively with the Pakistani army dominated by West Pakistanis in the mass killings and rapes of East Pakistanis in 1971. It was Indian armed forces that routed the Pakistani army, captured about
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad one hundred thousand Pakistani soldiers including general Niazi as prisoners and liberated East Pakistan from the brutal oppression of General Yahya Khans military regime of United Pakistan. The sovereign country of Bangladesh was thus born in 1971. It should be remembered that the only thing common about these Muslim countries or various terrorist groups is Islam. On the basis of this only common factor, the Muslim countries prefer Pakistan to India and the terrorists declare India as Dra-ul-Harb, the country with which jihad has to be waged. All these facts most clearly point out the role of Islam in modern day terrorism. Another example is the present day Pakistan. Most people consider its government to be a puppet of USA. But the terrorists who are waging jihad against the west enjoy tremendous support among its people. This is in spite of the fact that the west has been always pampering Pakistan, particularly in the context of confrontation with India. Even General Musharuff, the Pakistani president shy away from alienating himself and his military government from his people
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad by taking strong action against the Al-Quida jehadis, even though USA has been exerting heavy pressure on him for the same. The terrorists call for jihad greatly appeals to the hearts of both literate and illiterate believing Muslims because it is their divinely ordained duty to help jihadis. As a result, the terrorists receive direct and indirect support of the Muslim community. Direct support in terms of funds, cover, contacts, recruits, storage facility of arms and ammunition, strategic information and indirect support in terms of its not condemning terrorism sufficiently strongly. As there is growing resentment of terrorism everywhere, many Muslim religious leaders do make some press statements as an eyewash. But none of the Muslim clerics has so far issued a fatwa (religious order) against terrorism or those helping the terrorists in any manner. They otherwise issue fatwas on every topic under the sun; like whom to vote in the next election, whether utterance of triple talaqs in an intoxicated state or by telephone or by SMS by the husband will effect to a divorce etc. Whenever the police become serious in anti
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad terrorism operations, they make a big hue and cry that Muslims are targeted. If the government enacts any strong anti terrorist law, they take to streets with the slogan that Muslims are being oppressed. This support from the Muslim community helps the terrorists to remain out of reach of the law enforcing agencies and to carry out their terror strikes successfully. The terrorists also manage to secure indirect support of the non Muslims as well. They do this by striking terror in latters hearts. They have already succeeded in creating panic everywhere in varying degrees. But in India they have succeeded to such an extant that the dominant sections of the Indian media abuse anyone who wants even to discuss the Islamic factor in international terrorism as a Hindu Fascistone of the most detestable abuses used in Indias pseudo intellectual and political parlours today. The Union and State governments in India do not exhibit the political will to deal with terrorism sternly. Apart from the fear of terrorists retaliation on their persons and kith and kin, the politicians who rule India are afraid of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad antagonizing the Indian Muslim community by taking effective measures against terrorism because the latter vote en bloc in elections. But the height of irony is the stand taken by the Indian Human Rights Activists. They ignore the Islamic terrorist attack victims right to even live, but invariably jump to the forefront to fight for those arrested on charges of terrorist activities. There are widespread allegations that the Indian Human Rights Activists are prompted not only by fear, but also by the money reaching them, through illegal channels, from the huge fund provided by oil rich Muslim countries to sponsor Islamic terrorism. As we have pointed out earlier, prophetism still has not been successful in dehumanising its adherents (who are in fact its victims) fully. That is why we do find many persons born in Muslim community who do not subscribe to the view that jihad is the most meritorious action. They are genuinely concerned about the growth of Islamic terrorism. But unfortunately such people do not have any say in their community. According to Islamic standards on the basis of
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Quran and sunnah (the tradition set by prophet Mohammad), they are not to be counted as real Muslims. This is the attitude of the Islamic establishment towards them. Eminent people like the former chief justice of Indias Supreme Court, Mr. M.C. Chhagla, former Union Minister Mr. Sikander Bakht and the present President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam etc. are not considered as true Muslims by the dominant Muslim orthodoxy. Even an ordinary Muslim, as a person, is as good or bad like any other human being. But when the call of Islam comes his humaneness is eclipsed, at least temporarily, and he becomes a wild fanatic. The Christians are more diplomatic and they employ various means, including violence, according to the situation and their capacity. Even today, in Christian majority areas of India, especially in the north eastern parts, many times Christians resort to violence against the non Christians for religious reasons. In other parts they resort to frauds and inducements to destroy the belief systems and culture of the Hindus from whom they face practically no resistance. Thus even today,
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad prophetism continues to poison human minds causing mental and physical agony to large number of people. It makes every true believer a potential terrorist. It is only a matter of time before nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction fall into the hands of prophetisms terrorists. Once that happens, no one will be secure. Seeing all these, one really feels from the heart that the world would have been a much better place to live had prophetism been never born. . An Appeal to the Sensible The capacity to think and choose for oneself is what distinguishes humans from animals. Without it man is just a two legged animal. This gift of nature (or of God, if one prefers to put it that way) to man is meant to be used. Otherwise his survival on this planet will not be possible. Like in any field of human endeavour, this gift, the thought faculty, has to be used in the realm of religion too. Can God, if He is just and compassionate towards all, if He is the ultimate refuge of all be as partial as to reveal himself only to His chosen Favourite?
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad What about other sincere seekers? Will he be so narrow-minded as to earmark the whole earth for the glorifiers of His Favourite? Then what about others who are also His creation? Will He deny their right to exist as He has created them? Just because one has not heard about the favourite prophet or is not impressed by him, will he be sent to eternal hell to burn for ever by the compassionate God, even though he may be a sincere and meritorious worshipper? Will the just and compassionate God be as violently intolerant towards honest disagreement with His Favourite as to order total destruction of the dissident? Will He reward His Favourites followers who loot, torture, kill the non followers and rape their women with high positions in His heaven? What does it mean to send the last prophet? Has He ceased to care for his creation even though the complex phenomenon called life still goes on? If He does all these, He certainly is not just and compassionate. Moreover He is not at all God but in reality a demonic egotist. It is foolish and
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad dangerous to believe in such a God and His last prophet or His only begotten son. Foolish because believing in such a God calls for enslaving the brain to His prophet and his henchmen. For, His favourite prophet and his successors are the judges of all who are judged by none. This is one of the appellations with which the Popes adorn themselves. A Popes authority to be the judge of all and immunity from being judged by others is derived from Jesus who says: No one knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. (Mat: 11. 27). In plain words, this implies: since only the Father and no one else can understand the Son, no human is in a position to judge him and since only the Son and those to whom the Son has revealed can understand the Father and His will, they can and they only can be the judges of others. The popes claim that being the successors of such a Jesus, no human, including the greatest emperor, has the authority and competence to judge them. This means unlimited privileges and zero accountability to the Favourite and in
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad turn to his caucus, the clergy-elite clique. Any dissidence will be dealt with various pressure tactics including excommunication and physical violence. Sha Bano and Imrana episodes will further repeat. High Tech talaqs, beheadings, chopping off the limbs, gouging out the eyes and the ghetto mentality will continue forever. The common man will be exploited in the name of God and His prophet or only begotten Son by men of vested interests at the helm, not only for the cause of religious imperialism, but also for the sake of political imperialism as well. The church has been precisely doing this. Even though the westerners have practically rejected Christianity (the percentage of church goers in Western Europe is around 5), their governments have been extending full support to the missionary groups based in their countries and these groups leave no stone unturned in their evangelization efforts in Asian and African countries. Why do these governments show such an enthusiasm for the spreading of an ideology which has been rejected by their own people? It is trivial even
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad to a fool that the motivation is not religious but political. The Popes, who have fallen from the position of king makers, in their turn, have been willingly playing the roles of their agents for the last few centuries. It is also dangerous to believe in such a God and His prophet or only begotten son, for then it becomes the divinely ordained duty to destroy the culture and belief systems of others. Even in this 21st century, the prophetic proselytizing religions claim that their God has commanded them to convert the entire world into their faiths. Hence proselytizing is their birth right. Let us pause and think for a moment. Just because something that is claimed to be the word of God is written in some book, have the believers the right to act it out on others? If you say yes, consider this: Chenghiz Khan also used to get revelations from his God, Il Tengiri. He used to conquer, murder, plunder, rape and sell the captured women and children to concubinage and slavery as ordered by his God through the revelations. Historians Mohammad Habib and
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad Khaliq Ahmad Nizam, in their book, A Comprehensive History of India Vol. V, The Sultanat record that while talking to some Muslim magnets at Bukhare, Chengis Khan tells them: I am the punishment of God; if you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me on you. (quoted by late Shri. Sita Ram Goel-- The Calcutta Quran Petition). Now, has Chengis Khan the right to do as he did just because his God commanded him to do so? If you again say yes that means you approve of violence against innocent human beings and hence you are an antisocial. Only when someone else commits violence on you, you may think differently. If you say no, then by approving forceful and fraudulent conversions, jihads, crusades and inquisitions because they were ordered by the prophetic God, you admit yourselves to be of double standards-- which is brutally selfish. Then you are an enemy of peace. This is bound to beget counter hatred as reaction and will pave the way for endless conflicts. In any conflict it is always the commoner who suffers. Those at the helm are
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad seldom affected. The situation has become quiet grave. The calls for jihad have evoked, as a reaction, the calls for modern crusade (the terms that slipped out from American President George Bushs tongue in the days of attack on Afghanistan) also and together they have the potential of plunging the world into a third world war. Therefore it becomes the duty of every sensible person to decide for himself whether he wants to live in a sane, peaceful and civilized manner or live in chaos and perish. If the choice is the former, the whole issue of prophetism has to be objectively and thoroughly looked into, with an open mind. The west has discussed Christianity and rejected it; but in India it is never debated. Islam is never discussed in the east or west objectively. Even the very ability to look objectively is finished if one accepts a prophet as the sole custodian of truth and salvation. The history of world religions validates this fact. Hinduism, a non prophetic religion has produced countless saints and seers from time immemorial, right up to this day. But the total number of real saints produced by all prophetic
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad religions put together can be counted on the finger tips! The whole idea of a saviour or an interceder (who in effect is a saviour) of humankind is absurd, for as we have discussed in the beginning, the fundamental obstacle that blocks the tuning with the Divine (in other words salvation) is the ego, the sense of a separate identity. Unless one clearly understands for oneself the fictitious nature of the ego, it never goes away. Someone else can at the most point out to us that the feeling of separateness is false. But he cannot come and sit within our separate Iness to understand that for ourselves. As the saying goes, one can bring the horse to the water, but cannot make it drink. So, ultimately everyone has to save himself. The Bhagavad Gita puts it most beautifully: Let (a man) raise himself by himself, let him not degrade himself. (He) himself is his friend and (He) himself is his enemy (Gita: 6.5). Seeing this very clearly, if we reject the blind belief that some one is the only begotten Son of God and saviour or the last prophet and mediator and no one after him can have the direct experience of God for all
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Prophetism, Crusade & Jihad times to come, then we will be able to look at things objectively with an open mind. It can be argued that if the belief is lost the man is lost. That possibility is there only when a belief is lost out of reaction or greed or due to pressure or fraud. But rejection of a belief due to the understanding of its falsehood brings about only clarity and openness of the mind. Such a mind can become receptive to noble ideas from all quarters and make the right choice. Only then we will be able to live sanely, happily and effectively in todays complex life situations.

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