Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Islam and the Embarrassing Croissant

Nabonidus Cylinder

The most common symbol in the world of Islam is the crescent. It is seen atop minarets, mosques, postage stamps and flags of Muslim countries. Some Muslims will argue that it merely points to the days of the Ottoman Empire when it was popularized. Critics of Islam will often make the claim that it ties Islam with a pre-Islamic pagan deity, a moon god.

Religious symbols usually have some historical significance as in the symbol of the cross seen on Christian churches which obviously has something to do with the crucifixion of Christ.

In order to wrap ones mind around the meaning of these symbols it is often necessary to dig deep into history and archeology. Both the Bible and the Qur’an refer to Abraham as a key character of their origin. The history of the Qur’an however dates only to the sixth century after Christ. Its references though claim to be revelation of the prophet Mohammed, it is clear that his information came from much earlier religious traditions.

Manuscripts of the Tenach, or Old Testament of the Bible, as well as the gospels predate Islam by hundreds of years and the archaeological discoveries validate many of the ancient stories recorded in those religious texts.

It is claimed that Abraham migrated from Ur in Mesopotamia in the lower Euphrates River valley, north to Haran, then eventually south Canaan in what later came to be called Israel by his ancestors.

In Babylon there is record of numerous gods but in Haran there is a well documented history of the worship a moon-god called Sin. A contemporary of  King Cyrus (who recorded some events on what is called the Cyrus Cylinder) was a king named Nabonidus. Nabonidus was the father of the Babylonian king Belshazzar who the bible portrays as seeing the famous writing on the wall regarding future events. Now Nabonidus recorded some events himself on some clay cylinders which were found in 1854 by J.G. Taylor at the ruins of a pyramid like ziggurat in Ur. Others were found in 1881 by a Syrian archeologist at Sippar, near the present city of Baghdad. On these cylinders there is record of Nabonidus doing construction work on the temples of Sin in Haran as well as Ur. There are many references to the god Marduk and Sin, the luminary of heaven and the netherworld.

According to the late archaeologist William F. Albright and translations by A. Leo Oppenheim, this moon-god was glorified by Nabonidus wherever he went. He traveled for a time south to Tema in Arabia where he beautified the city and elevated the moon-god Sin. Much of what Nabonidus built was later destroyed by king Cyrus who was friendly toward the Jews. But fortunately for the sake of history these clay cylinders are quite revealing regarding what was going on while Nabonidus was king of Babylon from 556-539 BC.

References to the crescent moon is recorded in the bible story about Gideon as well. In the Book of Judges we read that Gideon rose up and killed Zebah and Zalmunna and took the crescent ornaments which the kings of Midian wore as well as those on their camels' necks (Judges 8:21&26). A separate book of the bible, Psalm 83, further reveals how the Arabs and Assyrians strove to destroy the nation of the Jews, and Zebah and Zalmunna are again mentioned.



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