Pillaging Religious Symbols

Muslims, as though to demonstrate their credentials as tolerant of other religions, speak of the Abrahamic religions, inclusively. It is not quite possible to deny the origins of Islam as a world religion; it is the third in line of the monotheistic religions, following Christianity which followed Judaism, each born, as it were into the family of the One True God.

In fact, the Prophet Muhammad, when he formulated his vision of a religion that would be suitable for a tribal, Bedouin desert people, borrowed what he felt was useful from the Old Testament, and turned his attention to the New Testament. Abraham became, thus, the father of Islam, and Ishmael, his first-born son became unto Islam what Christ was to Christians.

But Christ is also venerated as a saint in Islam, as is Mary, and as are other figures sacred to Christianity and Judaism. Islam has a long-engrained, historical habit of 'borrowing' sacred symbols and making them its own. In celebrating Eid Al-Adha, Islam 'corrects' the story of Abraham making ready to sacrifice his son Isaac to God, by replacing Isaac with Ishmael, and venerating him.

"After these things God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here am I.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’." (Genesis 22:1-2, R.S.V.).

"By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son ..." (Hebrews 11:17, R.S.V.).

"Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up his son Isaac upon the altar?" (James 2:21, R.S.V.).

Muslims believe that scribes corrupted the original reading from Ishmael to Isaac. And thus feel fully justified in corrupting the authentic script and attribution and altering it to reflect what they would prefer to believe.

This appears to be standard procedure for those who etched out Islam's sacred texts and formulas; to take what was of value to augment some original precepts and commands, and then to argue that Christianity and Judaism should be seen as imperfect versions of what Islam represented, the final and God-accepted version doing justice to the Almighty.

When the ancient 7th Century Jews of the Middle East declined Muhammad's invitation to leave Judaism and to embrace Islam, they earned the divine wrath of Allah. And Muhammad assembled his army to destroy those impertinent Jews who preferred to cling to the religion they themselves venerated, much pre-dating Islam, and far more authentic than Islam represented itself to be.

Since that time, Islam has made a habit of destroying the relics and sacred symbols of other religions. Or in re-purposing them, sanctifying them to Allah. Effectively turning grand Cathedrals in Spain into mosques. Or taking an ancient area of Jerusalem where two Temples dedicated to Solomon had stood (one destroyed after the other) and renaming it and building upon it a mosque, denying its Judaic heritage.

The biblical-era Middle East shrines honoured in Judaic tradition in memory of Jewish prophets and saintly figures have been re-named by Islamic clerics to reflect Islamic names for Muslim reflection. Faithful Muslims have little option, given the millennia-and-a-half that has followed the birth of Islam, but to accept what they have been indoctrinated with.

Their pious belief in the originality of Islam and the righteousness of their adaptation of religious symbols and historical figures is simply another manifestation of myth-making that becomes an unalterable truth to believers. A wretched heritage of religious pillage.