Monday, March 16, 2020

Apostate prophet seeks the true God; should He be feared?

In answer to the video "How Allah Got His Name Wrong (Islam Debunked)"

The fear, awe and reverence to God is so deeply rooted in the teachings of Judaism that they may not pronounce what they have construed as His actual proper name
Deut28:58"fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord, your God".
God Himself, throughout the HB, does not identify any word as His unique, proper name. It is the Jews that have identified these 4 consonantal letters YHWH (the Tetragammaton) as such. The instruction to fear the name YHWH creates difficulties within the text and its interpretation. For example HaShem, Elohim or Adonai replace these 4 consonants whenever they appear in the text. When describing the sacred Ark of the Jews, and speaking of the inscription on it representing these 4 letters, the author of 2Sam6:2 refers to "the name" so as to avoid pronouncing the word.

The biblical instruction of making God's name known to the world is reinterpreted in the sense of making His fame, reputation known. Knowing "about" God is achieved by showing the manner in which His attributes manifested in the world and throughout history. The text however shows that the name was known in ancient times, without any restrictions Gen4:1, just as was the case in the times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob Gen15:7,17:1,22:14,28:3,13,35:11. 

Later however, due to the high awe, and reverence towards the name, the priests forbade the laymen from uttering it, and preserved it among their own descendants. This of course is an unfounded traditional claim, since nobody today can claim to known the correct spelling of the 4 letters, even among those who trace their lineage to the priestly clan. Legend says that the mystery shrouding the correct spelling of the name will continue until the Messianic era where the 4 consonants will be made known to all, and without any restriction.

In addition to due reverence, there are other pragmatic reasons to avoid pronouncing the 4 letters. It only consists of consonants, which can only result in an incorrect pronunciation to anyone who tries. There is nothing more insulting than mispronouncing someone's name, let alone one used for God. 

The pronunciation "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" is based on that used by some of the Church Fathers but even among biblical scholars there is no certainty at all in this matter which is why most prefer to render it simply as YHWH without the vowels. In fact the pronunciation "Yahweh" is a Christians blunder, who took the vowelization which Jews use for ADNY (The aleph has the vowel "ah", the daled has "o", the nun has "ah" and it ends with a yud = AhDoNahY) and applied it to YHWH (They gave the first "ah" to the Y, then the "o" to the H, and finally the last "ah" to the letter vav = YaHoVah, regularly pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah).

Seeing God's name as so sacred that it shouldn't be mentioned is condemned as a great injustice in the Quran 2:114. The remembrance of God, praising Him by His name and attributes is an important part of a worshiper's rituals, continuously commanded in the Quran
87:1"Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High".
See here how the Quran immediately corrects and elevates Judaism's defective monotheism.

Another forceful way the Quran does so is when it revisits the events at the "burning bush". In the Quran God reveals Himself to Moses, with words evoking universal, indiscriminate Lordship, words which Moses would later communicate throughout his prophetic career whether in his confrontation with the Egyptian elite, or the Israelites; He is the One Lord besides Whom there are none, the Lord of all worlds/aalamin, a word encompassing in its meaning all human beings in all ages. He will gather and judge every soul indiscriminately based on its individual merit 20:12-16,28:30. The version of the HB again reveals the deep inclination pervasive throughout the Jewish writings, for monolatry and its depiction of an ethno-centered tribal deity
Ex3:6"I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob".
In another context, when the Queen of Sheba at last opened her eyes and heart, she said
27:44"My Lord i have been inflicting much wrong on myself. Now I submit myself with Solomon to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds".
In the racially prejudiced and monolatrous mindset of the scribes of the HB, this queen who had nevertheless recognized Solomon's wisdom, who had left her land, abasing herself to come and seek knowledge from another king, recognized and blessed the ethno-centric "Lord your God" and His "eternal love for Israel", but inexplicably remained a heathen 1Kings10. After all, you do not want some far away nation to come and claim their rights in the land as part of the "chosen race". The NT in Lk11 similarly doesnt indicate whether she eventually abandoned her polytheistic ways, but hints at her being higher in righteousness than the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus. It is also interesting how in the Biblical account, she praises the tribal "Lord your God" while in the Quran she submits herself, together with Solomon, to one and the same God, Lord of all worlds.

This is the consistent Quran pattern of exposing and correcting the manipulations of the scriptures of the past. 

Similarly, in contrast to Ex34:14 neither did Moses report God's name as "the jealous One" nor did he call Him a jealous God (in Numbers 5:14 the same word is used for human jealousy between spouses). Moses instead said that
14:8"if you disbelieve, you and whoever (is) in the earth together, then indeed, God is Self-sufficient, Praiseworthy".
God is Omnipotent and is not in any need of His servants or their worship. This is a major Quranic theme, again in contrast with the pervasive Biblical depiction of God as the jealous husband, going after a treacherous Israelite bride that prostitutes itself to other gods. The Quran makes it clear, it is His servants that need Him. Therefore, He has absolutely no requirement to be jealous. Further, all beautiful and best names belong to Him
7:180,20:8"Allah, there is not god but He. His are the very best names".
The best name is one that possesses the pure and sheer reality of perfection without any mix of its opposite. For example life without death or dominance without defeat
17:110"Call upon Allah or call upon the Beneficient, whichever you call upon, He has the best names".
"HE" refers to the divine Essence, which is not restricted to any name, like Allah or al Rahman/the Beneficient, so long as such a name is the most superior and perfect like the 2 names given in the verse to illustrate -Allah, and al Rahman/the Beneficient-. Also, each and every one of those names refers exclusively to the same Divine Essence. Whether the Essence is addressed as Allah, al Rahman, al Athim, al Ghafur etc. it is still one and the same Being worthy of worship that is being called upon. This is how the Quran intricately and comprehensively restores mankind's original monotheism.

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