sunniforum.com - History http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/ Articles on Islamic history and civilization. en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:22:32 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/images/misc/rss.png sunniforum.com - History http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/ <![CDATA[Prophets' names appear in the ebla tablets, 1500 years older than the Torah(Torait)]]> http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?62147-Prophets-names-appear-in-the-ebla-tablets-1500-years-older-than-the-Torah(Torait)&goto=newpost Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:17:08 GMT Image: http://us2.harunyahya.com/Image/tablet.jpg Dating back to around 2500 BC, the Ebla tablets provide very important information regarding the history of religions. The most important feature of the Ebla tablets, discovered by archaeologists in 1975 and which have been the subject of much...

Dating back to around 2500 BC, the Ebla tablets provide very important information regarding the history of religions. The most important feature of the Ebla tablets, discovered by archaeologists in 1975 and which have been the subject of much research and debate ever since, is that they contain the names of three prophets referred to in holy scriptures.

The discovery after thousands of years of the Ebla tablets and the information they contain is extremely important from the point of view of clarifying the geographical location of societies revealed in the Qur'an.

Around 2500 BC, Ebla was a kingdom covering an area that included the Syrian capital Damascus and south-east Turkey. This kingdom reached a cultural and economic peak but later, as happened to a great many civilizations, it disappeared from the stage of history. It was apparent from the records that were kept that the Kingdom of Ebla was a major cultural and commercial center of the time. (1) The people of Ebla possessed a civilization that established state archives, built libraries and recorded commercial contracts in written form. They even had their own language, known as Eblaite.

The History of Buried Religions

The true importance of the Kingdom of Ebla, regarded as a great success for classical archaeology when first discovered in 1975, came to light with the finding of some 20,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments. This archive was four times greater than all the cuneiform texts known to archaeologists over the last 3,000 years.

When the language used in the tablets was deciphered by the Italian Giovanni Pettinato, an epigrapher from the University of Rome, the scale of their importance was better understood. As a result of this, the finding of the Kingdom of Ebla and this magnificent state archive became a matter not just of archaeological interest, but one of interest to religious circles, too. That was because as well as the names Michael (Mi-ka-il) and Talut (Sa-u-lum), who struggled alongside the Prophet David, they also contained the names of prophets mentioned in the three holy books: The Prophet Abraham (Ab-ra-mu), the Prophet David (Da-u-dum) and the Prophet Ishamel (Ish-ma-il). (2)

The Importance of the Names on the Ebla Tablets

The names of the prophets identified in the Ebla tablets are of the greatest importance as this was the first time that they had been encountered in historical documents of such age. This information, dating back to 1500 years before the Torah, was most striking. The appearance in the tablets of the name of the Prophet Abraham recorded that the Prophet Abraham and the religion brought by him had existed before the Torah.

Historians analyzed the Ebla tablets from this perspective, and this major discovery regarding the Prophet Abraham and his mission became the subject of research with regard to the history of religions. David Noel Freedman, an American archaeologist and researcher into the history of religions, reported, based on his studies, the names of such prophets as Abraham and Ishmael in the tablets. (3)

Other Names in the Tablets

As stated above the names in the tablets were those of prophets referred to in the three holy books, and the tablets were far older than the Torah. In addition to these names there were also other subjects and place names in the tablets, from which it can be seen that the Eblaites were very successful traders. The names Sinai, Gaza and Jerusalem, not too distant from Ebla, also appeared in the texts, showing that the Eblaites enjoyed commercial and cultural links with these places. (4)

One important detail seen in the tablets was the names of the areas of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the people of Lot lived. It is known that Sodom and Gomorrah was a region on the shore of the Dead Sea where the people of Lot lived and where the Prophet Lot communicated his message and called people to live by religious moral values. In addition to these two names, that of the city of Iram, which appears in the verses of the Qur'an, is also among those in the Ebla tablets.

The most noteworthy aspect of these names is that apart from in the texts communicated by the prophets, they had never before appeared in any other text. This is important documentary evidence showing that reports of the prophets who communicated the message of the one true religion at that time had reached those areas. In an article in Reader's Digest magazine it was recorded that that there had been a change in the Eblaites' religion during the reign of King Ebrum and that people had begun to add prefixes to their names in order to exalt the name of Almighty God.

God's Promise Is True…

The history of Ebla and the Ebla tablets which came to light after some 4,500 years actually point to one major truth: God sent messengers to Ebla, as He did to every community, and these called their peoples to the true religion.

Some people adhered to the religion that came to them and thus attained the true path, while others opposed the message of the prophets and preferred a wicked life. God, Lord of the heavens, the earth, and all that lies between, reveals this fact in the Qur'an:

We sent a Messenger among every people saying: "Worship God and keep clear of all false deities." Among them were some whom God guided but others received the misguidance they deserved. Travel about the earth and see the final fate of the deniers. (Qur'an, 16: 36) ]]> History XTREME http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?62147-Prophets-names-appear-in-the-ebla-tablets-1500-years-older-than-the-Torah(Torait) Islam in Africa http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?61882-Islam-in-Africa&goto=newpost Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:30:12 GMT *ISLAM IN AFRICA* by Shaykh Abdal Qadir as Sufi There is no question but that the future destiny of Africa is Islamic. It is important therefore that Islamic activists get their targets right and do not waste energy in useless argument and in divisive doctrine. We have seen that the... ISLAM IN AFRICA

by Shaykh Abdal Qadir as Sufi


There is no question but that the future destiny of Africa is Islamic. It is important therefore that Islamic activists get their targets right and do not waste energy in useless argument and in divisive doctrine.


We have seen that the sufis are the sole authors of Jihad in African history, Theologically, also, there is no tenable case against the sufis for any men of intellect. If it could have been made, it certainly would have been hundreds of years ago by our able and devout 'ulama' with madrasah educations. It was not.


Al-Ghazali settled the matter once and for all. He was called the Proof of Islam. Imam Nawawi –much honoured by the Wahhabis – was a great sufi whose work The Garden of the Gnostics is a long study of wilayat and inner knowledges. Al-Qurtubi whose gigantic tafsir remains one of the monuments of the literature of commentary on the Qur'an was a sufi. So too was as-Suyuti, the great master of Hadith. Ibn Taymiyya was a sufi, only, regrettably he lacked the intellectual capacity to understand the profound insights of Ibn al-'Arabi and so attacked what he could not comprehend. Ibn 'Abdalwahhab himself was a sufi murid and in the words of a distinguished scholar working on the movement – 'Ibn 'Abdalwahhab never formally renounced his own sufism.'


The inescapable truth is that the opposition, and it is not theological at all, it is political, to the sufis was guided and cued by western academics and orientalists, both catholic and jewish. We have demonstrated the political power of the sufis and the significance as the masters of Jihad and the grass-roots – the only grass-roots movement in Islam. That is why we find that the Muslim Brotherhood – which some scholars claim was scripted and guided by british intelligence – has always been an elitist movement which never took the poor people along with it. Even at its height in egypt when it was, along with the imperialist british, opposing Nasser's policies, its main support was with the educated middle classes. The same is true in syria today where it opposes, along with britain, the leftist regime. This is not to say that there are not many sincere and pious men among them – but it may be that they have been ideologically betrayed. Results will reveal the realities of this matter, if examined further.


We are left with the inescapable conclusion that an Islam based on masonic structures – Islamic societies, Islamic centres with committees, chairmen (!), 'democratic' processes – all these, far from having strengthened Islam, have left it more divided and more distrustful. Islam is not going to be revived by Islamic associations, not by a 'Union of Islamic Associations' any more than it can be controlled and exploited to political ends by Islamic conferences and Islamic secretariats. Islam is with the people. It always has been. "look for me among the poor," said our beloved Messenger, blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, "for I was only sent among you on account of the poor."


A modernist critic said of our proposal for Ribats, which was a system that had created an Islamic empire that lasted over one hundred years and in turn merged into another similar Islamic society, that it was an elitist concept disconnected from the people. Yet critics like that lead bourgeois lives and are cut off experientially from the people. We, as sufis, move among the people of all lands and within our own large communities. We have hundreds of fuqara' and work closely on such matters as education, work structures and so on. We sit down on a quiet day to a table that feeds ten to twenty people.


It is by the already thrilling revival of the sufic path that Islam will revitalise in Africa. The most important factor is that there must on no account be rivalry or ill-feeling between the different Turuq. the french solution to defeating Muslims in morocco and the Sahara was to set up a conflict between the Darqawiyya and the Tijanniyya. They planted spies and did much damage, aided and abetted by the morocco jews, who infiltrated the ranks of the two groups. So today we most scrupulously avoid conflict between the great sufic orders. The two great Orders today are the Shadhiliyya-Darqawiyya in the west and the Naqshbandiyya in the east. Between our two Orders there is a deep and incorruptible love. When we celebrated the Moussem of our great master, Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him, the Grand Shaykh of the Naqshbandiyya, Shaykh Aslam, came with a large group of his fuqara' to confirm our brotherhood and love in the path of serving Allah and calling the fuqara' to direct experience of the Lights and secrets of the Divine Lord. This should be the sunna of all the sufic Shaykhs in Africa today. Only the sufis can create and ambience of trust and brotherhood without which there will never be any Islamic revolution or resurgence.


Make no mistake – we are living in an age where there has as yet emerged no clear Islamic politique. There is, as yet, no flag we can with conscience fight under. Our job should be to work within the existing framework of society – if it is corrupt it will dialectically have no option but to break and change – and within that frame create a body of Muslims who trust each other, keep the salat, pay the zakat and call on Allah morning and evening. People who do dhikr kathiran – as ordered in the Qur'an – much, much dhikr, standing, sitting, and reclining on their sides.


We must work to unite the people in love of Allah. There has been far too much talk of Islam and far too little of Allah, the Fire and the Garden. These 'reformist' movements as well as clinging to the deen of the northern society simply do not believe in the Unseen, in angels, in the Sirat, in the Fire, in the Garden, and least of all in the vision of Allah. They are earthed, utterly identical in behaviour and psychological condition, by the kafir elements with which they are so associated. It is difficult to see what the 'point' of being Muslim is if they are matrix by which we must assess Muslims in the world. That is to say – the kafir who is challenged by the idea of Islam then looks to the Muslim to see the appreciable difference – the vital difference in his life quality that should persuade him too to become Muslim. When he looks at these modernists who cannot wait to persuade the modern man that Islam is compatible with his life-values, his universities, his award system, his materialism, his sciences, he simply loses interest, for such a man has already found out that all these elements and institutions are false and do not provide him with inner sustenance. The whole Muslim has two elements to life – one his outward behaviour which will be not only devout in 'ibada but will be courteous, welcoming, smiling, hospitable, wishing the best on men and praying with good heart for their growth and fulfilment. And two, his inward behaviour which will be enlightened by reflection and invocation, by being guided to understand the deep doctrine of tawhid, by watching the heart, by experiencing the lights from the Attributes and the manifestation of the Essence. He will not be, therefore, solid and opaque, grim and forbidding, he will not be long for the platform, the presidential party, the motorcade, but rather he will be a man who loves the poor, who prefers the company of the men of Allah to the men of a moment's transitory illusion of power. His power will be obliterated in the power of Allah – and by this the people will love him and trust him and follow him. Nothing can stand in the way of the lovers of Allah and His Messenger, blessings and peace of Allah be upon him.


Fill the different sufic orders with new life and new men, fill the nights with dhikr and the pre-dawn with still unmoving, fixed muraqabah, take initiation in the Supreme Name of Allah. See Allah by Allah and be annihilated in Him. Such a man will have died the meaning-death before the sensory-death – and so will be fearless like the great mujahideen before him – for he will have gone beyond. Our great Master Shaykh ibn al-Habib, may Allah be pleased with him, said on his deathbed: "The people of dhikr do not die. And the people who do no dhikr, look at them, they are dead already!"


The road to the liberation of Africa and the raising up of Africa, and to being finished with this tragic hundred years just gone by, is clear. Liberation from exploitation and degradation and the horrible christian nexus of prostitution and alcoholism and the theft of resources. Liberation from the mythic fantasies of marxist materialism which nowhere liberates and everywhere enslaves, a doctrine created by jewish intellectuals (Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky were all rabbinically educated) to destroy her enemies, and that includes Islam. A new Islamic century is beginning. It must begin with the revitalisation of the sufic way in Africa and broad support and brotherhood among the individual Turuq. It means a new spiritual energy. This will vitalise us. The 'politicisation' of Islam was a necessary phrase. It is now over. Our work Jihad was part of that struggle. We have now moved into a new and more inspiring stage of our duties. It is time to assist in the creation of a new man. Sufic products of powerful dhikr, intense spiritual practice, brave material generosity towards the masakin – the bereft.


The sufis must work everywhere – among the personnel of central government – among the police – among the army. They must work too among the refugees. If the sufis had over-run the palestinian refugee camps and not secularists and marxist – their battle would already be over! Every abandonment by the state of the poor and the needy is a war-zone for the sufis. But their armaments are dhikr of Allah, brotherhood, assistance, trust and compassion.


As for overt targets – as we have said there is as yet no banner to fight under. There is, however, one vital target for the Muslims everywhere. That is the brewery and the wine factory. All liquor is haram in Islam and its distribution must be most vigorously opposed by all. The alcohol, where it is made, the vessels containing it, the places selling it, all these are proscribed by shari'at. On this there can be no compromise for Muslims. Also it is a significant and suitably symbolic area of resistance to kafir humiliation that has been tolerated long enough. It is not 'fanatical' to oppose alcohol – it is scientifically unacceptable, producing as it does brain shrinkage, sclerosis, insanity, the destruction of family life, and the work pattern on which modern society is based! The greatest single threat to soviet society is the apparently uncontrollable problem of alcoholism and heavy drinking both in the working and managerial classes as well as among children!


Allah has said in a well known ayat of the Qur'an that Allah will not change a people until they change what is in their hearts. This has always been and still is the business of the Islamic sufis. The modernists and the Wahhabis would like to see an Islamic sociology and deny the existence of an Islamic psychology. Yet it is the nafs that is our enemy as many hadith confirm. It is the heart of a man which must be assured if he is to gain the Garden.

http://bewley.virtualave.net/african2.html#ISLAM ]]> History Baatin http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?61882-Islam-in-Africa Proper records of Muslim rule in India? http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?61564-Proper-records-of-Muslim-rule-in-India&goto=newpost Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:13:22 GMT Salam Alaykum, I would like to know if there are any proper Islamic records of Muslim rule in India. It seems that whenever Islam is brought up to the Hindus they resort to the claim that Muslims killed up to 80 to 100million Hindus during their reigns. So in my opinion it would be good to have... Salam Alaykum,

I would like to know if there are any proper Islamic records of Muslim rule in India. It seems that whenever Islam is brought up to the Hindus they resort to the claim that Muslims killed up to 80 to 100million Hindus during their reigns. So in my opinion it would be good to have a reference that talks about the Muslim rulers, their campaigns, and other matters.

This is not to deny any wrongdoings that may have taken place, but to understand the context of the Muslim rule in India and why this claim of tens of millions of Hindus specifically killed by Muslims is repeated again and again whenever a Hindu is approached. ]]> History DefendingIslam http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?61564-Proper-records-of-Muslim-rule-in-India Perished nations By Harun Yahya http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?61552-Perished-nations-By-Harun-Yahya&goto=newpost Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:07:20 GMT Assalam-O-Alaikum ! MASHALLAH ! an excellent work by Harun Yahya. Code: --------- http://www.perishednations.com/ --------- Assalam-O-Alaikum !

MASHALLAH ! an excellent work by Harun Yahya.

Code:
http://www.perishednations.com/
]]> History XTREME http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?61552-Perished-nations-By-Harun-Yahya