For Henrik: great observation and the word Akbar

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Oct 28, 2006 at 08:20

Hi Henrik: great observation.

You are very correct. As a matter of fact I would translate "God is great" as: "Allahu kabirun" and not as "Allahu akbar."

The word akbar in the Allahu akbar thing means: greater, bigger, older, senior-ranking (see Hans Wehr Dictionary page 810B notice that in the same page the "Allahu Akbar" thing is not translated, because it is obvious that it menas: Allah greater, bigger, older etc... and the obvious questions would be:

1. "Greater older bigger" than what?

2. And if so this could mean that Muhammad was ranking Allah in relationship to other Gods. So who are these other Gods? But again Muhammad was a poor theologian.

I urge you to read Patricia Crone's "Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam" where she really gets into who is really Allah (no this book is not about polemics. It is great historical work).

Wellhuasen and Crone believed that Allah was no other than Hubal the chief Arabian deity. As for the so called banat Allah of the daughters of Allah, Allat, al-3Uza wa al-Manat, they are in actual fact the daughters of Hubal aka Allah or so we are told.

Notice that the deity Allat (female Allah) is mentioned by Herodotus and he calls her Allilat. But notice that Herodotus' Arabia is not the Hijaz but the Syrian desert which is a long way from the Hijaz.

So what do I make of this Allahu Akbar? I suspect that this could very well be a trace of pre-Islamic Arabian religions that was left untouched by Muhammad who was a poor theologian and a poor grammarian anyway.

And this brings me to the final observation by Crone: "religions do not spring fully fledged from the heads of prophets, old civilizations are not conjured away" not by Abul Qasim (this is Muahmmad's funny kunya in his biography and who on earth is Qasim? we have no idea and only Allahu A3lam!) and not by Islam.

Again, great observation.

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