Islam Is Repackaged Polytheism: Documentation
Muhammad and Muhammadanism, S.W. Koelle, 1889, p. 17-19
|
|
Islam: Truth or Myth? start page |
|
|
|
Muhammad and Muhammadanism, S.W. Koelle, 1889, p. 17-19
"The Romans and Abyssinians were identified with Christianity. Whole tribes and districts held up the banner of Judaism and waged war in its propagation. The Persian power was the exponent of fire-worship; and the Arabs in general were devoted to that native idolatry which had its center in the national sanctuary of the Kaaba...The religion most widely prevalent in Arabia, when Muhammad began life, was a species of heathenism or idol-worship, which had its local center in Mecca and its temple... According to a theory held by many, this temple had been sourceally connected with the ancient worship of the sun, moon and stars, and its circumambulation by the worshippers had a symbolical reference to the rotation of the heavenly bodies. Within its precincts and in its neighborhood there were found many idols, such as Hubal, Lat, Ozza, Manah, Wadd, Sawa, Yaghut, Nasr, Isaf, Naila, etc. A black stone in the temple wall was regarded with superstitious awe as eminently sacred...The attempt of the Mussulmans to derive it direct from a stone altar or pillar, erected by Abraham and his son Ishmael, in that identical locality, is altogether unsupported by history, and, in fact, flagrantly contrary to the Biblical record of the life of Abraham and his son. The pagan character of the temple is sufficiently marked by the statement of Muhammadan writers that before its purification by their Prophet, it contained no less than 360 idols, as many as there were days in their year; and that on its walls were painted the figures of angels, prophets, saints, including those of Abraham and Ishmael, and even of the Virgin Mary with her infant Son...Muhammad, with great practical insight and shrewdness, seized on this advantage and retained the heathen shrine of his native city as the local center of Islam. He sanctioned it by his own example as a place of religious pilgrimage for all his followers. (Muhammad and Muhammadanism, S.W. Koelle, 1889, p. 17-19)
