Mar 13th, 2008
The man behind the prophet
Muhammad was one of the most influential figures in human history. But who was the man behind the icon?
A cask by losing centre-piece or cant
Was never shattered so, as I saw one
Rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind.
Between his legs were hanging down his entrails;
His heart was visible, and the dismal sack
That maketh excrement of what is eaten.
Who is this poor man who has just been chopped in half and is literally wearing his guts for garters? And what precisely has he done to deserve such a gruesome fate?
Well, this is not a scene out of the latest slasher film but describes the eternal punishment dreamt up for Muhammad by Dante in his Divine Comedy. The Muslim prophet was condemned by this Italian poet to the ninth bolgia (ditch) of the eighth circle of hell, reserved for “disseminators of scandal and of schism”.
Compare Dante’s words with those of the Sufi scholar Shah Abdul Lateef Bhitai:
Oh Moon, never mind if
I tell you the truth
Sometimes you are dim
Sometimes you are bright
Still, your brightness is not equal
To an atom of the dust
From the foot of Muhammad
Tags: called, man, norman
10 Responses to “The man behind the prophet”
I, too, am a member of a minority. And I take offense to your being offended by us for that statement I made!
Racists also love black “deep down in their heart”, they just don’t know how to show it..
Down vote it if you’re tired of people complaining that neocons control reddit, when even a cursory glance at political stories here show an overwhelming anti-Israel bias.
Just wondering…Why, per Reddit, if you’re a conservative who has an issue with how Mexico deals with it’s borders, you’re racist - while if you’re a liberal who has an issue with how Israel deals with it’s borders, you’re sympathetic?
First, this reaction was articulated and promoted by the US.Secondly, it was a retaliation to Israeli soldiers being kidnapped and unreturned, on top of the ensuing street firefights that ensued.Third, no one thinks Israel is a poor nation. If you want a fairly good example of how a middle class (a democracy nonetheless) in the middle east functions, look no further. People forget that the region prior to Israel was as advanced as it was 1600 years ago. It wasn’t until Israel that they irrigated the entire area, propped up infrastructure, and built a thriving metropolis, with a $100 billion dollar economy, more than every one of its neighbors combined (without the gift of oil beneath its feet no less).Israel is 1st in the world for degrees per-capita, 2nd in concentration of Start-up companies in the world (after Silicon Valley), and 1st in the world for Scientists per capita. The cell phone, voicemail, and AOL instant messenger? All Israeli inventions.The point of this thread is trying to show the clear and wide gap between Jews and Israelis, and the Israeli policies.Part of the reason that I feel like people jump to the ‘anti-semite card’, is that people will blindly cricticize Israel, its policy, and the US handouts it receives, instead of looking at what your own country is doing, which I will argue at any time is far worse. Sure, Israel pisses off most of the Arab middle east.USA pisses of the entire fucking world.
Voted down for antisemitism.:P
Roger Bacon or Francis Bacon?
There is no such thing as Semitic race. This has no basis in real science.The English word “anti-Semite” came in from a foreign language, German, meaning “Jew hater.” That is the sum total of its meaning. It has no relation to “Semite” in the same way that “antidote” (cure for poison) doesn’t relate to “dote” (excessive fondness).The words Aryan and Semite describe in real science language families. F. Max Muller invented the word “Aryan” and possibly even “Semite” in the last century. Even as early as the runup to the American civil war, pro-slavers were using the word “Aryan” to describe their “race” and Muller when he saw one of their pamphlets hit the roofHe said, “There is no Aryan race. Aryan is in scientific language utterly inapplicable to race. It means a language and nothing but a language. … I have declared again and again that if I say ‘Aryan’ I mean neither blood, nor bone, or hair, or skull. I mean simply those who speak an Aryan language. To me an ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolicocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar.”The same goes for Semite. The peoples of the Middle East 1,500 years old spoke Greek, an Aryan family language, mainly, and Aramaic, which had been kicking around since the Assyrians, a Semitic family language.Let’s say a meteorite had destroyed the Arabian peninsula at that time. The Arabians do not break out and spread their language, a Semitic language the same as Hebrew. The peoples of the Middle East continue to speak Greek. Today by the definition supplied by the pseudo-scientists they would be describing themselves as Aryans. Exact same people.
Nicely put. I couldn’t agree with you more.