There’s something in my brain that keeps me up at night, thinking about ridiculously old religious history. I’ve tried massive amounts of Jack Daniel’s, but this only leads to thinking about ridiculously old religious history with bed spins and nausea. I don’t recommend it.
Anyway, I have decided to try blogging it.
Tonight I’m mulling over the original split between Islam and Judaism. One might figure (as Islam didn’t come into existence until the sixth century) that this split would have happened sometime after that. Amazingly enough, however, the official Muslim doctrine traces the split between Islam and Judaism to a couple thousand years before Islam existed. (And people wonder why this stuff keeps me up at night…)
The official story is that, up to a point, Islam and Judaism were the same religion. Theologically, they were the same people worshiping the same god up to the point where Abraham enters the picture.
For those of you who are anxiously looking to your bible to figure out where that is, you will find that the split happened in Genesis. [The book of the bible, not the “Lamb Lies Down on Broadway” ‘70s band.]
The story goes like this:
Among his other kids, Abraham supposedly had two sons, Ismail and Isaac that he loved very much. So, of course, God/Yahweh/Allah told Abraham that he should kill his most beloved son by traipsing him all the way up Mount Moriah, strapping him to an altar, and then gutting and burning him. (Note: There’s no real reason that you needed to know the name of the mountain, but it sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings, so I thought I would throw it in.)
Anyway…
The Christians and the Jews say it was Isaac who was to be sacrificed. The Muslims believe it was Ismail. In the bible, Genesis 22 says it was Isaac who was supposed to be filleted. The Quran never mentions which son it was. Long story short: The sacrifice was scrapped at the last second, and God told Abraham to sacrifice a goat instead. We will ignore for the moment how ridiculously unfair these bible stories are for the goat population. The important part is that this is where the faiths of Judaism and Islam supposedly diverged.
Jews believe that, after killing a rather confused and bewildered ram, Isaac and Abraham went off to found the nation of Israel.
Muslims believe that, after killing the rather confused and bewildered ram, Abraham and Ismail went off to modern day Saudi Arabia, where they remade the Kabah, the holiest artifact in Islam. They also believe that Ismail founded the Arab race, and that their prophet, Mohamed, was a descendant of Ismail. To the Muslims, this is the real start of their religion as a separate entity from the Jews.
The Jews kinda look at this as a fable. As far as they are concerned, Ismail was Isaac’s brother and they really have no idea what he did after Genesis 22. The one thing they believe he did not do, however, was take off to Saudi Arabia with Abraham. They know this because their stories tell tales of Abraham after the whole roast-a-goat episode on the mountain.
Me? I think the split happened far, far later. About the time when Mohammed was trying to take Mecca from the polytheists when he was just starting out. Back thenm the Jews and Muslims were fighting beside each other as monotheists against the evil polytheists who lived in Mecca.
Just before the final battle a group of Jews (who figured Mohamed was going to lose) secretly made plans to turn against Mohamed and side with his enemies. If it had worked, it would have divided Mohamed army at the height of battle, opening his ranks to Meccan offense.
It never happened.
Mohamed caught wind of the plan and, instead of letting on that he knew about it, he spread rumors through Medina that the Meccans were going to betray the Jews. He then had spies spread rumors through Mecca that the Jews were going to betray the Meccans.
By the time the battle happened, Mohamed had everybody so damn confused that they didn’t know what to do. Mohamed won the battle. As a special thank-you to the Jews for their disloyalty, he had the men beheaded and the women and children sold into slavery.
Seem to me that this is a far, far better guess at where the disparity between the faiths really started. I mean, let’s face it, beheading all the men and selling the women into slavery is slightly more antagonistic than trying to figure out which brother was supposed to be sacrificed on Mount Moriah.
So why is this so important, you ask? Well, it’s not. It’s just 3am and I’m bored so I’ve been bouncing the idea around in my brain. But I thought “What the hell… people read my blog, they might as well know what I’m thinking about.”
Now I’m thinking about the leftover Italian sausage in the fridge. Third shelf, next to the mustard…
Heathen's Guide Blog 
July 7, 2009 at 8:04 am |
Hello mate. Interesting blog. I agree the battle at Mecca would have been provocative but the split did happen with Abraham and for a more complicated reason than the sacrifice and a trip to Saudi. Islam recognises Ismail as the head of Abraham’s bloodline because he was the first born son. Judaism favours Isaac in this respect because Ismail was illegitimate. Isaac was born to an aging Sarah, Abraham’s wife. Ismail was born to Sarah’s maid.
March 21, 2010 at 4:37 pm |
Your blog just helped me with a short paper for my philosophy class – thank you!
June 21, 2011 at 2:52 pm |
yes, what the world needs is YET ANOTHER Rachel Maddow style, bitter sad sarcastic commentary who is drunk off of his own (non-existent) cleverness; spewing forth more silly, cynical anecdotes instead of just being helpfully “dare i say it!!!!!” educated. Continue following the sheep. Who needs intelligence when we can blissfully pursue idiocracy. As a side note, is it any wonder America is now officially the dumbest and slowly becoming the poorest nation on earth??
June 21, 2011 at 4:12 pm |
Let’s see where to start… first off, I am not uneducated. Five years studying World Religions at Queen’s University at Kingston. Second, I am not American, I am Canadian. I was doing this religion critique ten years before Rachel Maddow started her show. As to helpful… The world puts up with religions causing resentment, war, mutilations, and cruelty, all the while listening to them tell us how we’re all eternally damned if we don’t agree with them. They appeal to the lowest form of ego, and make simpletons into saintly warriors. You’ll get no apology from me for taking them on.
As to the economics of the USA, prior to Reagan the USA was the biggest CREDITOR nation on the planet. Everybody owed you folks money. It was Reaganomics and it’s policy of borrowing instead of taxing that caused the USA to falter. In fact, the only reason you folks aren’t in bigger economic trouble is because your creditors are very aware that the vast majority of your debt can be quickly paid off if the taxation rates were returned to pre-1980 levels.
As to education, I agree. Too many politicians have stolen money from what used to be a very good education system so that they can fund pet projects. A serious re-investment in both education and a ‘culture of education’ has to be made soon.
June 21, 2011 at 2:53 pm |
PS…
lets see if you have the guts to not delete my post
June 21, 2011 at 4:15 pm |
Sorry mate.. I’ve had far, far worse criticism that I always allow to be posted. Yours didn’t even phase me. I couldn’t do what I do if I wasn’t able to back up what I say and defend my reasons for saying it.
August 9, 2011 at 8:10 am |
One thing you might want to consider, is that every belief is only sucessful in proving itself, if the followers adhere to their faith, living it in front of others. When someone claims to practice a faith in lipservice but not in heart, the witness is lost completely. So, when a nation, or a people, or a person falters those who don’t understand their faith, blame the God they worship, instead of seeing human fallability to be the cause.
Ghandi said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found wanting and left untried.”
An age old dispute between brothers, is nothing new. Look all the way back to everyone’s joint ancestors, Cain and Able. Jealousy, pride, anger, murder. Human error was once again the cause, the fallable, sinful flesh, not the God who created them. These two factions started out observing and attempting to follow the same God, but more human error rushed in, over many centuries so now they are lost to each other. Sad really, because if either understood the God they claim to worship, they would practice LOVE and not hate, mercy and not malice, justice and not judgment. The poor would be fed, the naked would be clothed, the sick would be helped, and the prisoner, widow and fatherless would have help and refuge. When you have a God who is LOVE, but also a consuming fire, nothing unholy can stand in His presence. Wood, hay, stubble, works of men’s corruption, all burn up, but if from a pure heart, our works turn into spiritual gold, silver, iron, brass, the smelting heat purges impurities, until the metal itself glows with the radiance it was originally designed to bear, with the person bearing the glistening reflection of His maker. Perfect Love casts out all fear, and if ancient brothers could look past dogma and all the doctines of men that have come down and changed them over the years, if they could search back to their roots, they might find their real God again, and see that He’s given both sides free will to chose or reject Him, but if they continue to reject Him, they shouldn’t be too suprized that they continue to reap the violence they sow. Pray for both.
August 10, 2011 at 7:53 am |
As an atheist, I don’t tend to pray a lot.
August 9, 2011 at 8:11 am |
PS. Anything interesting on the other shelves of the fridge? Now, I’m hungry… lol…
August 9, 2011 at 8:14 am |
Minor typo correction, but it matters…
Ghandi said, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been WANTED and left untried..” slip of the finger.. see fallable human error. Sorry about that.. …
August 22, 2011 at 3:22 pm |
Where’s your proof that Jews fought in the Conquest of Mecca?? That was split tribal war, blood ties PRE-Islamic, between Muhammed’s people and the Quraysh…lead by Abu ibn Harb. No mention in any REAL historical document of any Jew EVER wanting to help Muhammed?
August 22, 2011 at 5:48 pm |
So, a little one-sided in your history education are we?
First off, the main thing that Mohamed was supposed to do was ‘unite the peoples of the book’, which included Jews. So he either failed miserably in this, or some Jews did in fact side with Mohamed.
As for documents, you could start by reading Mohamed’s Treaty with the Jews, written in 622 and preserved to this day. It was the provisions of this treaty that allowed Jews to fight alongside Muslims [and remain Jews] and provide material support for the Muslim wars, including the Battle for Mecca. It was also because of this treaty that (according to Muslims) the Jews were able to plan to betray Mohamed during the battle. (Actually, Moe did accuse the Jews of betraying him in the Battle of the Ditch, but it didn’t turn into wholesale slaughter and slavery until after the final battle for Mecca).
November 10, 2011 at 11:02 am |
Interesting read. Thank you. One issue though: above you said that the split happened around the time of the battle for Mecca, but in your comment to Eliyahu you said Muhammad’s treaty with the Jews allowed Jews to fight with Muslims.
Now if the split took place around the time of the battle, this would imply that the Jews and Muslims were one people before, so why was a ‘treaty with Jews’ needed if Muslims and Jews were one?? Could you clear up my misunderstanding?
December 29, 2011 at 10:47 am |
jews…
[…]The Split between Islam and Judaism « Heathen’s Guide Blog[…]…
September 1, 2013 at 8:30 pm |
What’s always bugged me is trying to figure out at what point southwestern Native Americans and indigenous people of Mexico, who intermarried with with the Spanish, begin to consider themselves primarily Latinos or Mexican. I know so many of them on both sides of the border who look native, for the most part, but have Spanish last names and speak Spanish as a first language. At what point in the history of their families was the self conception changed? There probably is no answer and it’s probably different for every family. But I’ve always wondered about it.
September 2, 2013 at 6:54 pm |
Jews and Muslims and Israel
” The jews are the peoples who were living in Islamic countries and nations since when the other nations and peoples hated them, the Roman and Christian persecuted them, The jews were not allowed to enter into the city of Jerusalem in the Roman and later in the Christian Era, but it were muslims who allowed them in Jerusalem, The III rd Caliph Hz. Umar Bin Khattab (RA) and Sultan Salahoddin Ayyubi allowed them to worship in jerusalem, and the Jews were living a prosperous life in the islamic Empire, the turks treated them with nicely, and the Jews flourished in Islamic era, they learned science, medicine, engineering in Islamic Era only, but at last in the beginning of 20 th century Muslims and Jews became victims of the British conspiracy and Muslims started hating them for the small piece of land”.
The Land which According to Quran “was for the Jews”.
Perhaps This is One of the the biggest mistake of Muslims.
The peoples who had persecuted the jews since millenia became their friends, took hold of their scientific knowledge, developed atomic energy from
the scientific research of jewish scientists, and the peoples who had given the jews shelter for one thousand years in islamic countries became their enemies, this is biggest conspiracy against muslims and jews together.
The British and the Americans and their Christian allies identified the jewish scientists very early and sided with them covertly and sewed the seed of hatred in the hearts of these two children of Abraham.
The peoples who helped and sheltered helpless jews for complate one thousand years in Islamic Empire and the Jews who lived in the Islamic countries fell prey to the satanic conspiracy, now Arab muslims and Israeli Jews are fighting each other because they both have same DNA and brains, they could not realize the conspiracy behind this sewn hatred, the Jewish scientific knowledge has been Stolen and looted by the satanic European allies, and the allies realized the fact, that if muslims and jews who had been favoured and obliged by the muslims became friends then the new atomic knowledge will pass to the ottoman empire and then the ottomans will once again become invincible.
But muslims and Jews both did not realize the satanic conspiracy and for a piece of land both parties became enemies of each other, the jews had never seen any land since millenia, so they became obsessed even for a very small piece of land and the muslims other hand think at that time that the British are the real friends of Muslims and Islam.
The peoples who Sheltered in difficult times became enemy and those peoples who persecuted the Jews stollen the Fruits of science and technology from the hands of the jews.
The jews, other hand became happy with a torn apart and small piece of land, the example of the jews is just like an infant who becomes quiet when some body inserts a honey nipple (Toothie) in his mouth.
And this mistake of Muslims is now became Nasoor of Ummate Rasool Allah (SM), this mistake is the root cause of every cause and problem of muslims, the British sowed a poisonous seed in the heart of Muslims, and now every blame of terrorism and every bad thing is the result of this poisonous seed or its germination.”
Now every act of terrorism and every bad thing is created by the enemies of Islam and blamed on muslims, because muslims and jews are enemies, so they can do it.
The present time is not for hatred and enemity, but the present time is to realize the conspiracy and the present time is for peace and justice.
We must forgive each other and we must remember the favors and we must live with wise thinking and in friendship and with confidence.
Now we must realize it, and we must understand it.
Engg. Ishrat Hussain Mohammad
Engg. Ishrat Hussain Mohammad.
http://www.funnyurdutips.blogspot.com
November 12, 2013 at 2:25 am |
Whatever truly encouraged you to publish “The Split between Islam and Judaism | Heathen’s Guide Blog”? I personallyabsolutely liked it! Thanks ,Elijah
April 7, 2014 at 5:32 pm |
Great Job.
LOL