Chapter 1: What is a Prophet?
Chapter 2: The Prophet Muhammad?
Chapter 3: The Nature of Prophethood
Chapter 4: The Purpose of Prophethood
Chapter 5: Muhammad, the Politician
Chapter 6: Prophet and Nationalism
Chapter 7: Islam, the Self-Perpetuating Tool of Arab Imperialism
Chapter 8: The Clash of Prophets and Bibliography

Preface

The Prophet Muhammad of Arabia (peace be upon him), when assessed fairly, undoubtedly emerges as the greatest national hero that any country ever produced.

His greatness, however, lies in masterfully exploiting the concept of Prophethood, which, being an integral tradition of the Middle Eastern culture, is less spiritual and more political.

Prophethood is based on the doctrine of revelation: it means that God, the Creator, loves mankind so much that He wants to guide the human creatures to save them from hell. In return for this favour, God demands absolute submission, that is, man must worship the All-Mighty and live by His laws without ever questioning their purpose, validity and relevance.

The medium of revelation i.e. the person through whom God is supposed to reveal His will, is called the Prophet; he is God's Agent on earth. Since God cannot be seen or contacted, the Prophet's word begins to rank as the Word of God, and the Creator, for total lack of communication with people, recedes into the background. As a result, the Prophet, who (apparently) claims to be God's most humble servant, rises as the dominant force in God-Prophet relationship. It is he who comes to hold the keys of paradise. Therefore, a person must believe in the Prophet to qualify for heaven; he who believes in God alone, cannot rank as a believer; he is an infidel and must go to hell, no matter how righteous he may be!

This exposes the true nature of Prophethood. If its purpose is to glorify God and guide people to righteousness, then how is it that salvation depends upon believing in the Prophet, and belief in God counts for nothing? Again, if the aim of Prophethood is to spread righteousness, then how can a righteous person be thrown into hell just for not acknowledging the Prophet? Even more baffling is the fact that God becomes powerless in relation to the Prophet because there is nothing that He can do for those who believe in Him alone.

Since Prophethood seeks to elevate a Prophet at the expense of God, it has, obviously, nothing to do with God or guidance. It is just a political device of the Middle Eastern origin, which enables its operator to achieve his ambitions under the pretence of spirituality. With a view to bridling the curious human mind, the doctrine of Prophethood discourages free will, which is the fountain of free-thinking, enquiry and social progress. Instead, it imposes complete hegemony of fate on man to drive him as if he were an ass.

In fact, Prophethood is the tool of Dominance-Urge, which goads a person to seek the highest possible position in a social or political hierarchy. All the conquerors, heads of states, etc., however, represent ephemeral type of Dominance-Urge because it expires with the demise of its possessor. However, its spiritual counterpart is a lasting phenomenon because a Prophet commands his followers from beyond his grave through the law that he laid down in his holy book.

Since existence is subject to the Principle of Change, no social law is eternal unless there is a body of people, who respects it and is willing to enforce it. It is especially true in regard to a Divine Code, which is held as sacred and true after a passage of centuries despite its total irrelevance to human problems. This is why that religious enthusiasts are always fanatical, utterly opposed to reason. Since a Prophet represents the most severe form of Dominance-Urge, he seeks to create a band of national followers, blindly dedicated and ready to glorify him through all ages. This is what makes a Prophet a staunch nationalist, who knows that his divine status depends upon the rise and fall of his own people. For this reason, he builds a strong nation through a good deal of effort, making his own glory, the beginning and end of this exercise.

The life of the Prophet Muhammad is a fascinating model of this truth. He welded the fragmented Arab tribes into a unified nation and inspired them with a great political ideal, leading to the establishment of a mighty Arab Empire, which the misguided Muslims of the Indian subcontinent think of as the Islamic Empire, despite the fact that the status of the non-Arab Muslims in it was no better than that of Indians in the British Empire. The Prophet Muhammad was essentially a nationalist. To make the Arabs a pure nation, he even (successfully) carried out ethnic cleansing by massacring and banishing the Jews from Arabia.

In fact, Islam is the most effective tool of imperialism; other nations, usually acquire political and cultural glory through economic power or sword and fire but Islam achieves this aim through the medium of faith-in- Muhammad, the only source of paradise, replete with beautiful virgins, pretty boys and rivers of wine, milk and honey. This lure of paradise has turned all non-Arab Muslims into moths, eager to cremate themselves on the flame of the Arabian cultural hegemony. So blinded are the non-Arab Muslims by the magnitude of the Arabian glory, emanating from the Islamic faith, that the father will kill his own son if he denies its spiritual, legal and moral suzerainty. What can be more fantastic than the fact that Muslims all over the world prostrate towards Mecca at least five times a day. The Prophet gained this singular honour for his country through a spiritual mechanism, which, despite being phoney, appears felicitous, fruitful and fitting. Yet it testifies, not only to the unique political vision of the Prophet, but also offers an amazing study to someone, wishing to engage in discovering the human skills of marvel, mystery and manipulation.

It is not wishful thinking. I have burnt enough midnight oil to uncover the reality of Prophethood. As this doctrine is an open insult to the dignity of God, who is held as the Perfect and Creator, Islam cannot be a Divine religion. Owing to its deep-rooted tendencies to benefit the Arabs at the expense of its followers belonging to the foreign lands, it is reasonable to conclude that Islam is nothing but the tool of the Arab Imperialism.

Is there anyone who can sincerely answer the points raised in this treatise?

Anwar Shaikh
Cardiff
January 7, 1998

.
Chapter One: What is a Prophet?

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) tops all national heroes of the world in greatness, glory and grandeur.

We have heard the tales of Solomon's wisdom, which has done nothing to raise the stature of his nation; whatever, the Jews have achieved, they have done through their own efforts, and at a very high cost, indeed. But, so great has been sagacity of the Prophet Muhammad that, whereas other power-seekers resorted to coercion and bloodshed for controlling the destiny of foreign nations, he devised a self- perpetuating form of Arab Imperialism, which requires no swords, artillery or bombers. This majestic, marvelous and mighty Arabian instrument is called "Islam." In theory, it means, "surrender to Allah" but in practice, it is a force of self-subjugation to the soil of Arabia and its cultural institutions!

Is it not amazing that a modern super power like the United States of America, despite showering billions of dollars in the world's depressed, deprived and derided people, cannot win their gratitude, but one thousand million Muslims of this planet, who mostly suffer from pangs of poverty, will save every penny to perform the annual Hajj ceremony, which has been the mainstay of the Saudi Arabian economy for centuries. This is appreciation of what the Prophet may do for them in the next world!

Even more amazing is the fact that the genius of the Prophet has made the Islamic Imperialism so baffling through a stunningly beautiful coat of reverence that nobody has ever dared fathom its depth. This is what gives it the mystique of heavenly success, splendour and superiority.

Islam has become the conqueror of hearts and minds of the depressed, the distracted and the decimated. It is really spectacular how, through a process of brainwashing, it acts as the tranquilizer for those, who have been ravaged by hunger, ignorance and injustice. It provides tranquility through the hoax of paradise, which is a place of bliss, blessedness and beatitude, where there is no pain, toil or death. Instead, every man shall be endowed with an everlasting age of 30 irrespective of how old he was when he died; his virility shall be increased a hundred fold, and the Munificent Allah shall bestow upon him no fewer than seventy-two most beautiful virgins, eager to gratify his lust. There is only one condition for the fulfillment of this promise: people must believe in Muhammad and the spiritual supremacy of Arabia, his motherland; they must adore all the Arab heroes, and crave for the introduction of the Koranic Law in their countries to demonstrate allegiance to the superiority of the Arab cultural values.

The net result of this faith is that every non-Arab Muslim has been turned into a moth, restless to cremate itself on the flame of Arab Imperialism. Therefore, it is not surprising that, whereas other dominant nations require guns, tanks and atom bombs to subdue foreign countries, the Arabs need nothing of the sort. Islam does it all for them through a dazzling process of brainwashing.

It may look a miracle but, in fact, it is a specimen of a rare political skill. As Muhammad claimed to be a Prophet, people have come to believe that a Prophet is Divine i.e. a part of Godhead, though apparently, they refer to him as a human.

Since influence of Prophethood has become a major source of mental retardation through its uncanny grip on its believers, it is imperative to establish that a Prophet is just a human, though distinguished by a sense of self-importance and sharp political skills, which he uses to bestow divinity upon himself by creating a heroic image in people's minds. Therefore, it is vital to ask, "What is a Prophet?"

The Koran declares:

"Perfect are the Words of thy Lord in Truth and
justice. No man can change His words. He is
All-Hearing, The All-knowing." (Cattle, VI: 116)

According to the Koran (Counsel, XLII: 10), the Bible i.e. the Old Testament and the New Testament, or in the Islamic language, Taurat, Zabur and Anjeel are the words of God. Therefore, they cannot be tampered with, and one can rely upon the truthfulness of the stories that have been narrated therein.

However, it should also be pointed out that the Koran has blamed the Jews and the Christians for interpolating their Holy Books. It is therefore, a self-contradiction of high magnitude, which undermines authority of the Koran itself. But when we bear in mind that the Jews and the Christians adore their Prophets and Patriarchs, one finds no reason to disbelieve the Biblical stories, which are an integral part of the Jewish-Christian faith and tradition. Why should they denigrate their own religious heroes, whom they admire to the tune of worship?

After these introductory remarks, I may add that a Prophet is considered a Divine appointee, who serves as the sole medium of godly instructions to humankind and thus ranks as the pillar of innocence, piety and virtue. So great is his moral stature that he can commit no wrong. The doctrine of Prophethood holds him as the ambassador, and model of morality.

To support this Semitic tradition, its followers have devised tales which lend the most virtuous, vivacious and vibrant character to a prophet, making him the manifestation of God, who is held as the supreme example of righteousness. Since the concept of Prophethood has been a great barrier to free thinking and unity of mankind owing to its supernatural and divisive character, one is inclined to examine it with a view to sifting facts from fiction and truth from triviality. For explaining this puzzle with fairness and an acceptable degree of credibility, I intend to review the lives of more than one prophet so that nobody can say that I have picked on one particular prophet to distort the truth.

Having given my reasons for honouring the veracity of Biblical accounts, now I may proceed to describe lives of the following prophets to show that they were human, subject to the law of error, but their followers have made them Divine for seeking refuge in them:

1. Noah,
2. Abraham,
3. Lot,
4. David,
5. Solomon and
6. Muhammad.

1. NOAH

Noah is considered a model of morality owing to his goodness of conduct, greatness of piety and grandeur of virtue. The Holy Koran vouches for Noah's character:

"God chose Adam and Noah .."
(The House of Imran: 30)

"And Noah We guided before, and of his seed David
and Solomon, Job and Joseph, Moses and Aaron .."
( Cattle: 80 )

"And We sent Noah to his people:
'I am for you a warner, and a
bearer of good tidings.'"
(Hood: 25)

The Prophet Muhammad treats Noah as a model, a warner and bearer of good tidings. This shows the moral dignity of Noah.

One should also note that there is hardly any annotation of the Koran, which has been possible without referring to the contents of the Bible itself. Further, the Biblical traditions have exerted a tremendous influence on the understanding of the Koran despite all the blames of interpolation and corruption that the Moslem scholars have forged against the Bible.

Noah is a Semitic name; it means Rest or Comfort. According to the Jewish mythology, Adam was the ancestor of mankind but his progeny met near extinction when Noah was about 601 years old.

What did go wrong with mankind? According to the Bible (Genesis 9: 5-6), man became so wicked that it grieved God, who repented for having created him. So, He decided to cause the heaviest flooding by incessant rain; its only purpose was to destroy mankind for purging this planet of sin. In His zeal for morality, God destroyed the bird and the beast without specifying how they might have offended His grace. However, as a reward for Noah's piety, the Good Lord commanded him to build an ark of gopher wood of a particular shape and size for himself, his sons, his wife and his sons' wives along with pairs of fowl and cattle. (Genesis 6: 14-22)

Since every living thing perished except what Noah was able to save as a reward for his virtues, he ranks as the Hero of the Flood, the second progenitor of mankind and saviour of the fowl and the beast.

Again, as the present race of man comes from the loins of his three sons, namely Shem, Ham and Japheth, all of us happen to be Jews! Obviously, this is the reward of God's moral sense. To show His pleasure for Noah's morality, God established a covenant with him (Genesis 9: 10-17). It is a part of this covenant that He will never again flood the earth. So great was God's resolve to keep this stipulation that He made the rainbow as a permanent symbol of the divine contract for reminding Him to keep it.

After this eulogy, one ought to look at the practical life of Noah to assess his moral magnitude objectively. According to the Bible, he was a husbandman and the inventor of the vineyard culture. He made grape wine; drank it to his heart's content, and indulged in intoxication. One day, when he suffered from the intensity of drunkenness, he lay naked on the floor. Ham just happened to go into his father's room and accidentally noticed his nakedness. He told his brothers, Shem and Japheth, about it. They respectfully covered their father without looking at him.

Having risen from his drunken torpor, Noah realised what had happened. His behaviour towards his own son, Ham, does not glorify his moral sense at all because he became spiteful towards him though he (Ham) was totally innocent by any standard of good conduct. He cursed Canaan, the son of Ham, for his father's innocent mistake. He said that Canaan would be the servant of Shem and Japheth, who would be blessed by the Lord God. Whereas they and their children would prosper, the progeny of Canaan would live to serve them.

The details of this episode are to be found in chapter 19 of Genesis. Noah lived 950 years. His curse, if believed in, does not vouch for his moral excellence as depicted by the Bible. Fancy cursing Canaan for the "sin" of his father. Canaanites, the modern Palestinians are the descendants of Canaan. Thus the cause of eternal Judeo- Palestinian strife is rooted in the moral sense of Noah, yet God chose him to be the second ancestor of mankind!

2. ABRAHAM

He was the Jewish patriarch, who came to be acknowledged as the father of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He is believed to be the prototype of the faithful man, tested and proven by God. The Koran says:

1. Allah made Abraham, the leader of mankind.
( The Cow: 115 )

2. The best religion has he who follows the creed of
Abraham, a man of pure faith, and a FRIEND of
God. (Women: 12 )

3. The Koran tells its followers that Islam is "the
creed of your father Abraham, who named you
Muslims:" (The Pilgrimage: 75)

Abraham, the glorious prophet of God, the prototype of divine morality, was a native of Ur in Mesopotamia. He was told by Yahwe, the Jewish God, to leave his country and people in search of an undesignated land where he would become the father of a new nation. This land turned out to be Canaan (between Syria and Egypt). God promised him that his progeny destined to be a huge nation, would inherit the land.

The Bible tells us that Abraham was one hundred years old and Sarah, his wife, ninety-nine, when she bore Isaac, their first son. History bears testimony to the fact that, until dawn of the 20th century, the first birth carried a message of death to a forty-year-old woman. How a ninety-nine year old woman gave birth to her first child and yet survived, is certainly against the law of nature. Belief in such a birth during that age, cannot be anything but wishful thinking. Faith has got to be scientific or nearly scientific; this is the message of human advancement and moral thinking. Chaining human mind with superstition is an insult to the moral dignity of man.

It appears that Abraham was less concerned with morality and more with seeking the pleasure of God. This speculation is strengthened by the event narrated in chapter 22 of Genesis; the second verse states that God commanded Abraham to take Isaac "into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."

He prepared an altar of wood, tied up Isaac and laid him on it. He actually took out a knife to slay his son but a miracle saved him! Just think about the moral aspect of this happening:

1. Murder is the most heinous thing and a detestable crime against morality. What kind of God could have tried a man with such an abomination?

2. If it was an act of trial, God surely did not know how Abraham would react to such a test. If He did, He was playing a furtive game, which is far below the dignity of God, who claims to be the Creator of this most wonderful world.

3. If God believes in morality, He must hate murder and all those who do this act in the name of God. This event also shows Abraham's "standard of perfection." Fancy the craze for salvation, by killing one's own son! Is it really an act of high morality or selfishness? Moral standards require of a father to give his own life to protect his children, and not the other way round.

There is yet another event, which gives us an insight into the morality of Abraham. I am referring to his treatment of Ishmael, his other son, from Sarah's maidservant, called Hagar. It is stunning to note that it was Sarah who persuaded Abraham to have carnal relationship with Hagar. Having sexual intercourse with one's wife is a blessing but with someone else, be it a concubine or maidservant, is a sin and a crime. It is only the act of marriage, which sanctifies the sensual rights of the spouses. Thus, marital philosophy of Islam, which allows physical intercourse with a concubine becomes enigmatic, and loses its dignity. How a perfect man like Abraham could fall for it? The result was birth of a son called Ishmael, who became the ancestor of the Arabs. The same Sarah who wanted to be a mother through Hagar, became jealous of Hagar and Ishmael. Her pleasure lay in turning them both out of her house and making Abraham abandon them in a desert. Sarah was once a beautiful woman. Abraham could not annoy her because her displeasure would have upset him. God, the Almighty, chose to side with Sarah in this episode! He took the baby Ishmael and Hagar into the wilderness of Beer-Sheba and left them there to die. Again, a miracle saved them. This episode is narrated in chapter 21 of Genesis, and shows both God's and Abraham's total indifference to morality.

There is yet another event which shows that Abraham behaved like an ordinary human. He was as much afraid of death as anyone else. As he sojourned in Gerar, Abimelech, the king of Gerar, took over Sarah. Because she was beautiful, he was sure that the king would slay him to possess her. (Genesis 20: 11 ) Abraham told them that Sarah was not his wife but sister. One should also note that at a previous occasion (Genesis 12: 11-20) when Abraham entered Egypt, he told a similar lie for the same reason. He was even more afraid of dying on that occasion. Sarah had to join in the mendacity to save him.

Fancy "the friend of God," telling lies to escape death! Imagine God saying to Abraham: "Walk before me, and be thou perfect." (Genesis 17: 1). If this is the character of the Perfect man chosen by God, what can He expect of ordinary mortals? And can He deny them salvation when His own concept of morality is inferior to that of what humans usually practice?

3. LOT

Once upon a time, c. 1900 B.C. there roamed Lot, preaching in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are now believed to lie under the shallow water south of Al- Lisan, a peninsula situated close to the southern end of the Dead Sea in Israel.

The evil habits of the inhabitants of these cities gave birth to an infamous word i.e. sodomy, which needs no explanation. These cities enjoyed the same reputation in wicked gaiety as some modern metropolises do for gambling and sexual perversions. The extraordinary vice of these conurbations attracted the wrath of the Lord with complete vehemence. The faithful believe, as the Bible says: "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from out of heaven," (Genesis 19: 24-25), thus causing their total destruction. The legendary wickedness and the fate of these gay cities has been the subject of dramas, plays, novels and paintings over the centuries. Yet the waters of sodomy, instead of subsiding, have been rising steadily to become the whipping waves in modern times for assuming the form of a privileged homosexuality under the umbrella of "humanism."

We are tolerant and keep our grudges to ourselves, but Lot lashed out against it. The degree of disgust, displeasure and distraction is demonstrated by his devastating stand that he took against it. What gave him the courage to preach against sodomy was the fact that he was the appointed Prophet of God, charged with the mission to deplore, deprecate and destroy the evil without fear of discomfort, distress or death. According to the Koran, "God admitted Lot into His mercy; gave him judgement and knowledge, and he was one of the righteous" (The Prophets 70-75). He had the courage to address his people bluntly: "Why do you come to male beings, leaving your wives that your Lord created for you? Nay, but you are a people of transgressors" (The Poets: 165). They did not like his divine warnings of chastisement and told him that if he did not stop preaching against sodomy, he would be expelled from the locality.

Lot, the nephew of Abraham, though admirably daring, did not triumph in his mission. The Good Lord himself became impatient with these people. Having decided to annihilate them, He sent two angels for carrying out the Divine punishment. Mistaking them for ordinary males, men of the locality tried to seize them for lewd purposes. As they had stayed with Lot, he tried to save their honour by offering the agitators his two virgin daughters, whom they refused and persisted in their evil attempt.

Next morning brought the day of reckoning in the form of brimstone and fire (Genesis 19: 24-25). It leveled completely the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The only people who survived were Lot, his wife and his two daughters. However, his wife was turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19: 26) for "looking back" against the express command of God. So, there were really only three survivors - Lot and his two daughters. After the total destruction, there was only one place where they could dwell, and that was a cave.

It is at this junction that the Bible says something different about Lot, the prophet of God, a righteous and exalted man. The event is recorded in verses 31-38 of chapter 19 of Genesis. It says that to preserve the seed of their father, first, it was the elder daughter of Lot who had sexual intercourse with him, and the next night came the turn of the younger daughter to seduce her father. They both used the same method of seduction, that is, made him drunk to the extent that in each case: "he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose." The result was that they both became pregnant by their own father. One bore Moab who grew up to become the father of the Moabites, and the younger daughter also gave birth to a son called Ben-Ammi who fathered the tribe which came to be known as Ammon.

Giving judgement on the moral perfection of Lot is a delicate matter but one ought to remember two things; firstly, Lot was used to drinking like Noah. Otherwise, he would not have accepted wine. The fact that he also received it from his other daughter, proves his drinking habit.

Secondly, he took no action against his daughters. Instead, he raised his sons himself. It expresses his approval of the whole affair.

One can raise several other points on the issue but it ought to be enough for the thinking mind.

4. DAVID

Plain-speaking is one of the distinguishing features of the Bible. Many a time, has it. Revealed the psychological truths, which men infested with vainglory and an exaggerated sense of self-piety, may like to conceal from their fellow- beings. 1 Kings 2: 1-4, speaks openly about David and expresses a fact about male psyche. I may state it in my own words:

As he lay on his death-bed through longevity and physical exhaustion, he shivered with cold and uncertainty. More than his body, it was his enfeebled spirit - once used to a tonant life of toils, tussels and tornadoes, that needed heat to restore his tempestuous tempo of existence. In a flash of sagacious thinking, someone thought of the rejuvenating power of feminine touch.

The royal court immediately ordered the dispatch of horsemen "throughout all the coast of Israel" to find a young virgin of exquisite beauty who should fondle the dying David by cuddling him and lying on his chest with a view to stirring up his benumbed desire, and thus release him from the clutches of imminent death by giving him a new will to enjoy a vivacious, vigorous and virile life, once his privilege, practice and priority.

It was not a futile mission because the searchers did return with a young virgin of statuesque charm and elegance; her name as mentioned in the Bible was Abishag, a Shunammite. Despite all this effort, the magic of her youth and beauty failed to revive David because she arrived too late to perform the miracle. David had lost his intellectual and physical capacities to feel her presence.

Who was David? He was the youngest son of Jesse and grandson of Boaz and Ruth. He was born in Bethlehem. As a warrior, he was the Jewish hero who humbled Goliath, a soldier of gigantic proportions, when he was only a stripling. This gallantry brought him the reward of appointment as an aid to the court of Saul, the first king of Israel.

Of much greater stature is David's religious leadership, which has served as the nucleus of Jewish nationhood and the secret of its survival. The ideal king, as the Jewish tradition treats him, has become the pivot of the messianic expectations. Being the standard-bearer of the Jewish hope, he has always loomed as a promise of fulfillment throughout the heartbreaking fiascoes, failures and frustrations of the Jewish history. It is this lofty national stature of David, which prompted the writers of the New Testament to treat him as the progenitor of Jesus. The boundaries of his esteem extend far beyond the realm of Judaism, and cover the kingdoms of Christianity and Islam.
The Koran says:

".... David the man of might, he
was penitent. With him We subjected the mountains
to give glory at evening and sunrise, and the birds,
duly mustered, every one to him reverting ......We
gave him wisdom and a sagacious speech ....."
(SAD:15-25)

Stated simply, according to the Koran, David was an exalted prophet of God who had been given command by his Lord over the mountains, birds and the phenomena of mornings and evenings. He was appointed as viceroy by God to rule people justly.

A prophet is supposed to be the model of innocence and moral piety. What does the Bible say about David? It narrates his character in 2 Samuel, and the first Book of Kings. The amazing narrative it contains, shows that a prophet is human, and his exalted moral status is more a matter of faith than fact:

David, one late afternoon, as he "arose from off his bed" and strolled on the roof-top of his palace, felt his gaze arrested by a beautiful young woman, who was bathing in the privacy of her own home. The sexual temptation that her naked body generated proved irresistible to David; every inch of the damsel reflected the pink hues of the setting sun. David, the slayer of Goliath, fell victim to the fascination of the bathing beauty, bubbling with desire, devastation and dalliance.

Who was she? Her name was Bathsheba. She was the daughter of Elia, and wife of Uriah, the Hittite, a general in David's army. David's approach towards Bathsheba, as demonstrated by the Bible (2 Samuel 11: 4), is quite different from that of a Western knight, who begged favour of his lady love. The humbled monarch, though destined to be the genitor of Jesus Christ, used his eastern privilege to get her. The lady surrendered, yet David retained his piety! Instead of offering himself for the punishment that the Old Testament prescribes for adultery, he felt entitled to carnal indulgence indefinitely. However, the prophet Nathan, had the courage to address David on the subject through a parable. The divine David, first flared up with anger, and then realising the enormity of his sin, he repented but decided to cleanse his guilt in a novel way. He slept with her again; she conceived for the second time and became the mother of immortal Solomon, the Wise.

What happened to Bathsheba's first conception by David? Yahwe, the Jewish God, in His wisdom, did not allow the child to live as a punishment to David. But, what did the child do to deserve extinction? What an example of Divine morality!

The faithful hold that it was a way of purifying David. However, this divine process went a bit too far: he sent for Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, and gave him a sealed letter and ordered him to take it to Joab, the army- commander. The letter contained David's command to expose Uriah to the maximum danger at the battle front. It was, in fact, a conspiracy to murder him. To be able to marry his widow, David the prophet of God, not only caused Uriah's death through this stratagem but many other Israelite soldiers lost their lives in its execution.

Yet God forgave David, the Prophet! Both the Bible and the Koran testify to this fact.

5. SOLOMON

Solomon, the Wise, has been given the dignity of a prophet by the Koran.
Islam does not claim to be the religion proclaimed by the Prophet Muhammad of Arabia but the continuation of the faith that God revealed to Noah and "the prophets after him such as Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Job, Jonah and Aaron and Solomon .." (Women: 160)

Obviously, Solomon was a significant prophet for being a link in the chain of prophethood. How important was he? The Koran has endowed him with supernatural gifts: as God had subjected mountains and birds to the will of David, He gave Solomon command over the wind (The prophet: 80) and made him ruler of Jinns (giants). Besides, the Good Lord gave him an extraordinary gift of understanding the speech of birds and animals right down to ants, and thus, he could converse with them in their own tongue.

The Bible, however, presents him differently - a sumptuous king, having ample wisdom and deep understanding, not dimmed by the flashes of royal gaiety, which usually restrict the vision of rulers. He was a man of tremendous sexual appetite and, as stated by the Biblical scholars, enjoyed the novel hobby of concubine-collecting. As a result, he came to possess a harem of three hundred concubines and seven hundred wives, and thus required 1000 female beauties to gratify his erotic desires.

The Bible clearly demonstrates that, when it came to choosing between God and women, he usually opted for the latter. Chapter 11 of 1 Kings gives a clear indication of Solomon's fallibility to the female charm. Yahwe, the Jewish God, who is jealous and demands exclusive love and devotion for Himself, has forbidden a Jew to marry a non-Jew; marriage with a gentile is likely to estrange him from Yahwe. Yet Solomon "loved many strange women" because his harem consisted of, not only Pharaoh's daughter, but also women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians and Hittites.

His love of non-Jewish women made him discard God and openly rebel against Him; "his wives turned away his heart after other gods," and he built temples to Chemosh and Molech, the foreign deities to please his wives and concubines. Solomon, the prophet, was in fact, a practising idolator. This truth is well-attested by the fact that Yahwe, Himself appeared to Solomon twice (1 Kings 11: 9) and warned him that, as he had not kept His covenant and statutes, he would be punished, though retribution would be held in abeyance during his life-time as a mark of favour to David, his father, but it would be unleashed on his progeny, who would lose most of the empire.

The song of Solomon gives us a glimpse of his romantic nature:

"O my dove, that are in the clefts of the rock ..."
( Chapter 1: 14 )

In verse 3 of chapter 4, he likens his beloved's lips to a scarlet thread and her temples to a piece of pomegranate. Again, he says:

"Thy two breasts are like two young
roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies."
(Chapter 4: 5)

One may call it a mystical style of expression to give it a divine construction, but then mystics are known for their erotic passions.

Solomon's disregard for God is revealed by his distracted disposition for women; it arouses his desires and he admires them as if he were an inhabitant of a dreamland dwelt in by darlings of excessive desirability. The Queen of Sheba's story proves this point. She was enthralled by his tales of wisdom, and "she came to prove him with hard questions" (1 Kings 10: 1). As she was determined to discover whether Solomon's reputation was based on truth or triviality, "she communed with him of all that was in her heart" (1 Kings 10: 2).

This is a true Biblical account of the event because history has recorded some riddles of the Queen of Sheba to portray the joviality of the occasion. She asked Solomon:

"What has ten holes; when one is open, nine are closed; when one closes, nine are open."

"Man" whose navel closes at birth, is said to be the answer to this riddle. So charmed was she with the prolific and piercing wisdom of Solomon that she burst into an accolade:

"Happy are thy men ..who hear thy wisdom."
(1 Kings 10: 8)

To influence wisdom with the magic of worldly riches, she gave Solomon a lot of gold, precious stones and great stores of spices. In return, "Solomon gave unto the Queen of Sheba all her desire whatsoever she asked .."
(1 Kings 10: 13)

The amorous Queen, infatuated with Solomon's intellect and body, conceived to celebrate the erotic hilarity of this occasion, and gave birth to a son known to history as Menelik 2; he fathered a small African tribe of Jews known as Falasha, whose existence remained a mystery until 1867.

6. MUHAMMAD

The character of the prophet Muhammad has been drummed up out of all proportions by those, whose selfish interests are conveniently served by such an exercise. So important is the issue under discussion that I shall be failing in my duty to humankind if I gloss it over for fear of consequences. Equally, honesty demands that my narrative must be nothing but the whole truth. In view of the significance of the subject, I may examine it in a separate chapter. Next Page

Chapter 2