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The Ancient Islamic Empire (History)
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Ishmael


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The Ancient Islamic Empire

Moderator's Note:
The following thread was initially begun in The Fate of the Great Powers Reading Room on the Quest site.

The title for this thread is a bit of a misnomer. What is actually being posited is that there is a cultural link between the ancient Carthaginians and Modern Muslims. Islam is a post-Christian-era version of a more ancient religion that once held sway from its centre in the Middle East, across North Africa to Spain and the South of France in western Europe, and even to Bohemia in eastern Europe.

Their empire was split by the Roman Empire but never truly disappeared. It was revived in the Middle Ages when the lands were reunited after the fall of Rome.

Mick Harper, in The Fate of the Great Powers wrote: Hence the best known of the heresies--Catharism--was adopted by the Languedoc magnates in their struggles against Paris

Not by my model. I say the South of France was part of the old Carthaginian Caliphate and was thus, always Islamic...err....I mean "Cathar."

Similarly the Patarist movement of Northern Italy

Northern Italy was also part of the original Carthaginian Caliphate (might Patar = Catar = Cathar?). This is, after all, where the great Islamic warrior "Hannibal" crossed the Alps with the aid of local mountain guides (another famous "Hannibal" was one of the founders of the Sunni Muslim sect).

...movement was extirpated in England itself, it became a genuinely insurrectionary (and military) force in Bohemia.

Bohemia = Bogemia = Bulgaria (Khazars = Cathars) = Bogomils = Original Carthaginian Caliphate.

All of the anti-Catholic movements of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (except that of England) emerged in areas formerly part of the original Carthaginian Caliphate. After the fall of Carthage, the Carthaginian empire was split with Persia and later Baghdad becoming the centers of the so-called "First Caliphate."

By the way...another idea I am toying with: might the origin of the world "Muslim" lie in the city of Mosul in Iraq? Just outside Baghdad?

While I'm on this subject -- Nazarea in Iraq...OBVIOUSLY a city founded by Nazarite Jews (Nazarenes) -- the "Jesus" sect.
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Ray



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It's always easy to find words and names that happen to sound similar. There aren't that many permutations after all.

Let's take Muslim, since you already have. It may sound like Mosul (and even more like Musselman) but anyone who knows something of the structure of classical Arabic can see that it derives from the SLM root. Islam means surrender, or submission, A Muslim is one who surrenders or submits. Associated with it are the words Salamat = safety, security; Salama = to be made whole through safety, submission; Dar as-Salaam = Abode of peace = Heaven; Salim = having been made whole or sound; Sullum = a ladder, stairway, tool = aspiration - etc.

All Arabic words have a three-letter root and the consequent range of associations that give them great depth of meaning. It's inconceivable that a word of great significance in itself could be casually picked up in the way you suggest. The Arabic language structures Arabic thought and vice versa.
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Ishmael


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It's always easy to find words and names that happen to sound similar. There aren't that many permutations after all.

As you yourself argue, a mere three letters lie at the root of all Arabic words, the conventional association of "Islam" with "submission" (and here I thought Islam meant "peace") is just as spurious.

I picked up the Mosul thing only after noting the obvious connection between Nazarea and Nazarite. If I could place one sectarian faction of mid-east theology in Nazarea, the Mosul/Muslim connection seemed also possible.

MOREOVER -- This hypothesis does not compete with the conventional origin story. The towns themselves may have been named for the sects that made those places their headquarters or local base of operation. This is almost certainly the case with Nazarea -- which was surely named for the Nazarenes who settled there.

I think Islam is older than Islam. I think modern Islam (post-Mohammed -- whoever he was) was just a particular brand of a wider faith -- a religion similar to that of the Bogomils and Cathars. I therefore expect to see that brand in existence somewhere in the Middle East in proto-form, before it swept the "Islamic" world.

One fact points to this: the medieval empire of the Muslims shares essentially the same borders as the ancient empire of the Carthaginians. I therefore conclude that we are dealing with the same Empire. All that stuff about conquering the world through Jihad was made up. The Carthaginians simply never disappeared.

I think the Arabs suspect as much. The Egyptian calendar had two months renamed in the 20th century. One was named for Nasser. The other, for Hannibal.
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Ishmael


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It all gets much more interesting once you realize that the differences between Christians, Jews and Muslims were all once a lot less stark.

At one time, the dominant form of Christianity in Europe, outside Italy (apparently) was Arianism.

Let's compare Arian beliefs with those of Muslims and Jews.
1) Arians believe in an eternal struggle between good and evil and think Jesus was a mortal prophet.
2) Muslims believe in an eternal struggle between good and evil and think Jesus was a mortal prophet.
3) Jews believe in an eternal struggle between good and evil and think Jesus was (perhaps) a mortal prophet.
Taking a look at the Cathars and Bogomils and all those other sects that are supposedly so unorthodox, what do we find?
4) They believe in an eternal struggle between good and evil and think Jesus was a mortal prophet.

What we really have here is one religion. Just one. However, there are three basic divisions.
Jews revere Moses.
Christians revere Moses and Jesus.
Muslims revere Moses, Jesus and Mohammed.
Yet something is missing. I am maintaining that the Cathars and Bogomils etc. belong in the "Islamic" camp -- though they did not revere Mohammed. How do we get them there?

I think we do so by introducing a fourth prophet, Zoroaster, and by relocating the timeline to the pre-Christian era.
Central Europe, including Italy and Greece = Pagan
The Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Spain and Southern France = Zoroastrian

Jews, Muslims, Cathars, Bogomils are sects of Zoroastrianism. Christians are a sect of Paganism (Christianity is Paganism dressed up to look like Zoroastrianism).

The Muslim theology of the Christian era peacefully swept the existing Zoroastrian world. The stuff about holy war was a complete fiction.

I also suspect that Judaism was always a Zoroastrian Sect -- like a priest class or a clerical caste. Everywhere you find Zoroastrians, you find Jews side by side -- ussually handling imperial administration (though rarely ruling as monarchs). I find it very difficult to draw even a theological dividing line between Zoroastrians and Jews. Their chief difference seems only to be that Zoroastrians believed the good and evil gods were co-equal while the Jews maintained that the evil god was a servant of the good. Even that however, may reflect a modern theology telescoped into the past.

I am nearly convinced that the so-called Jewish diaspora did not originate in Judea. Rather, Judea was a theological heartland for a people who were always spread over the whole of the world -- working hand in hand with the Zoroastrians.

Hannibal probably had several Jewish generals -- or administrative assistants.

Another question I have concerns "Mysticism." In all the major religions you will find Mystery schools -- or mystics (Suffis and Kabalists and Gnostics). Here is the question:

What is more likely: that all three religions developed their own schools of mysticism -- or that a single, pre-existant "mystic" religion took on the trappings of (or even gave rise to) three later-introduced, non-mystical religious movements?
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Mick Harper
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Child sacrifice (one's own child that is) is a recurring theme between Jews and Punics. Perhaps this is all related to the "alphabeticals" as Mediterranean trading groups. (Mohammed-ism was also originally a trading religion and Classical Arabic clearly an artifical language....three roots indeed!)

PS Just read that ALL civilisations started in 1000 BC so better be quick with this bit of historical revisionism before it all gets swept away in an even gianter cataclysm.
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Ishmael


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Who Were the Visigoths?

According to the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (a book whose central thesis I cannot accept, as I do not accept the historicity of Jesus), during the Middle Ages, the term 'Goth' was used interchangeably with 'Jew.' I would suggest, therefore, that the word 'Goth' is an ancient pagan (French?) term for a certain type of Semitic people that we would identify as Jews.

If this is true, it invites the question, 'What was meant by the term "Visi"?'

I suggest that the word 'Visigoth' should more properly be written, 'Visi-Goth' and that it refers to two distinct peoples, 'Visis' and 'Goths', who were living and functioning side-by-side. If Goths are Hebrews, the obvious candidate for 'Visis' are Muslims, or Moors.

Also according to the same authors, Visi-Goth personal names are uniformly Middle Eastern in character. This too then conforms to the model.

If true, in the fourth century AD, when Rome was sacked by Visi-Goth invaders led by Alaric (Alah-ric?), the force that invaded Greece and Italy from the north consisted of Muslims and Jews.
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Ishmael


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The Barbary Coast

The Barbary Coast is the region of North Africa formerly associated with Carthage. It runs from Egypt to Gibraltar -- which is of course, just south of Spain.

What name would be given to a man from Barbary?

Oh sure, History calls them the Barbars (or Berbers -- but the terms are even officially interchangeable). But what would you call someone who visited you from the land of the Barbars?

Well...a 'Barbarian' of course!

So when the Romans tell us that Barbarians live north of the Alps, why don't we take them literally? Barbarian is not a generic term for 'non-Roman'. It refers to a specific ethnic group: the 'Barbars'.

And to this day, the 'Bar' syllable remains prominent in Jewish, middle-eastern and Muslim words and names.
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Mick Harper
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Some random bits to put in the pot.

1.Arianism (and Monophytism) are deeply implicated in all this.
2. Ole! is a Spanish corruption of Allah
3. The Gypsy culture in Spain, in the old Bogomil heartlands of south-eastern Europe and in Ireland might have to be re-assessed.
4. The Merovingian Kings (Franks not Visigoths) used to claim Jewish connections.
5. Goths = Gotts?
6. The origins of the Sephardi Jews should be looked at.
7. The Parsees in India are still Zoroastrian, perhaps they might feature. They have the oddly mercantile habit of featuring their profession as their surname.
8. It is true that there is a north-south distinction in European heresies between Dualism (i.e. the existence on earth of a Good God and a Bad God) which corresponds with Punical areas in the south and Protestantism (i.e. strict monotheistic Christianity) in the north.
9. On the other hand Islam is more Protestant than Dualist.
10. Allah will be upset if Ishmael carries on mis-spelling His name, yeah, even unto the heading on the title page.
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Oakey Dokey



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Zoroaster was the birth place of Gnostic historic writing. His arrival in Babylon is our modern day first introduction to Gnostic beliefs which were essentially wiped out and sent underground by the Catholic and Orthodox literalist establishment.

The implications aren't JUST historic. The struggle is continuing today all across the world under new management.

Zoroaster wasn't the first either, there was a long line of this tradition and it had many names but the main point is we have the Catholic literal history which gives rise to our type of historic view and then there is the non-literal historic view of the abundant Gnostic traditions.

When I visited Fuertaventura in the Canaries about 4 years ago the locals were convinced that the original islanders were Berbers and rather light-skinned to boot. So the story goes for some of the inhabited islands around Spain and even some of mainland Spain before the Muslim invasion.

Even Judaism says that the lost tribes of Israel were spread to far corners of the earth. Could the Judaic religion be the seeds of literalist Christianity and the other tribes be the original 'gnostic' sects of that same root? Could they have migrated and inhabited many places constituting the Barbarians/Judaism/Israelite connection to the Romans? After all the Kabbalah is rooted in Gnostic tradition and was further elaborated on when Jews settled amongst Catharism. AMAZING coincidence? Well I don't think so, more like they just 'came home'.

It's an interesting point but well worth mentioning, that Muslims themselves have the same dichotomy of beliefs that literalist and gnostic Christians do. Take the Sunni and Shiite sects from Iraq. Both argue over whether or not the Twelve Imams were killed or an 'Emanation'. Quite a similar argument was put forward by the Bogomils as to what Jesus was, Christians say he was man and died, the Bogomils say he was an emanation and not man at all therefore could never die. Interestingly the most holy city to the Shiites is called Karbala. Is this a coincidence? I don't know, to be fair, but a lot of similar things pop up.

http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/islam/blfaq_islam_twelver.htm

http://www.rafed.net/towns/english/karbala.html

The more I read about such things and the more we learn about the peoples' beliefs but not their appearance, the more convinced I am that it's not all higgledy-piggledy but a vast story of the spread of an idea. The story is more or less telling us about the corruption of the original idea.
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Oakey Dokey



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Could it not be that the ancient heart of our modern Judaism/Christianity/Moslem beliefs was at Babylon. The very meaning of the city name of Karbala. It's an interesting city in that it is an alternative to poor Muslims for a pilgrimage to Mecca (which was costly). These non-materialistic views are echoed in Catharism/Bogomilism/Gnosticism.

Maybe Islam never arrived. Maybe it was in the region of Babylon since Zoroaster?
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Hatty
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What name would be given to a man from Barbary?

Oh sure, History calls them the Barbars (or Berbers -- but the terms are even officially interchangeable). But what would you call someone who visited you from the land of the Barbars?

To me, Barbar/Berber suggests 'bearded'. In Judaism beards are of great religious significance, maybe their facial hair was what distinguished them in the eyes of the Romans rather than their denomination. To an outsider, their beards could well appear 'barbaric'.

Ole! is a Spanish corruption of Allah

Ole is used in bull-fighting as encouragement. The word hola is "hallo", possibly derived from Allah too; does that mean that all hallo/hail words have a similar origin? And ojala means 'would that', 'hopefully' but I'd guess it's a compound of 'ojo' (eye) and Allah, i.e. Allah's eye as opposed to the 'evil eye'.
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DPCrisp


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a more ancient religion that once held sway from its center in the Middle East, across North Africa to Spain and the South of France

What makes you say the centre was the Middle East? Just as the centre of the Roman Empire shifted east from Rome to Byzantium, perhaps Carthage was the centre, until they set up shop just out of Roman reach.

Displaced people need somewhere to go, which means nomansland; and to thrive in nomansland, you need cultural cohesion and all that. What I know of the history of Islam can be written on a postage stamp: Mohammed brought disparate (desperate?) tribes together with a sense of identity and unity under the "new" religion, a while after the collapse of the western empire.

the term 'Goth' was used interchangeably with 'Jew.'

But "Hun" is used interchangeably with "German": Goth for Jew could just be derogatory.

Nevertheless, the connections between Goths, Moors, Spain, Mozarabs and barbarians are pretty rife.

But then, if the Visigoths really did invade Spain from the north, they would be.

I suggest that the word 'Visigoth' should more properly be written, 'Visi-Goth' and that it refers to two distinct peoples, 'Visis' and 'Goths', who were living and functioning side-by-side. If Goths are Hebrews, the obvious candidate for 'Visis' are Muslims, or Moors.

Visi = west. Ostra = east

Unless you can factor in a third group to take part in the Ostra-Goth alliance, this part of your argument is weakened.

If true, in the fourth century AD, when Rome was sacked by Visi-Goth invaders led by Alaric (Alah-ric?), the force that invaded Greece and Italy from the north consisted of Muslims and Jews.

Something is bugging me in this area: we're led to believe the classical Romans and Greeks were light-skinned and the typical Mediterranean swarth is the result of the Muslim invasion. But the nothing-ever-really-changes-while-the-rulers-come-and-go school of revisionist history suggests they must have been dark all along. (There's a fine painting from Herculaneum, I think, that's as Italian as Italian can be...)

Can we identify various waves and echelons of light and dark people, or is it all hooey?

What name would be given to a man from Barbary? Well...a 'Barbarian' of course!

Maybe the chief barbarians in early Roman eyes were the Berbers; and the term was applied, like "Hun", to others as well.

The way I heard it (not from my dictionary), "barbarian" was Roman mockery of the sheep-like baaing of these foreign tongues. But where did we get sheep from...?

"Barbarians" could be direct references to Berbers, or to someone else with only a convoluted allusion to Berbers.

So when the Romans tell us that Barbarians live north of the Alps, why don't we take them literally? Barbarian is not a generic term for 'non-Roman'. It refers to a specific ethnic group: the 'Barbars'.

Where are they now?

5. Goths = Gotts?

As in the people who brought Homeric tales of the Gods to Greece, per the Troy thread?

All of this might be quite right, but we're turning European history so far inside-out that I can't keep up.
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DPCrisp


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A picture is emerging in just a few broad strokes, but I still need help. Of the three groups:

i) the Christians were the swarthy Mediterranean and Balkan Romance-speakers;

ii) the Muslims were the swarthy Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern Arabic/ Phoenician/ Berber...speakers;

iii) the Jews were... where? Were they really a separate group or is the distinction from Christians really just a theological/political one?

These two swathes together pretty much comprised the Roman Empire. Irish Christianity is southern, Carthaginian Christianity, seen immediately (by them) to be similar to but different from northern, Roman Christianity? The Romans hated Carthage and the Druids as one?

An aside: Why were the Romans so keen on the Greeks? If Latin was an invention based on the Italian spoken round those parts, then we know nothing of the mother tongue of the inventor(s). It could just as well have been Greek as Italian. Was Rome a Greek enclave? (Did so much Greek get into English in exactly the same way as Latin?)

Did the Basques really get there first, from north Africa, later to be surrounded by Romantix? Or did they gain a foothold among them as the Celts (later?) did in several places?

Another aside: I gather Rh- is common among the Basques, the Celts and the Norwegians. I'm still thinking Picts and Scandinavians...
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Ishmael


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DPCrisp wrote:
What makes you say the centre was the Middle East? Just as the centre of the Roman Empire shifted east from Rome to Byzantium, perhaps Carthage was the centre, until they set up shop just out of Roman reach.

Yes. Actually I do think Carthage was the original center. The center shifted east after the fall of Carthage. Presuming the history of Carthage's fall is accurate.

Mohammed brought disparate (desperate?) tribes together with a sense of identity and unity under the "new" religion, a while after the collapse of the western empire.

Or did he? Was Mohammed even a real person? Perhaps it is all made-up history.

Maybe everyone made up their own creation myths: Jews, Christians and Muslim. I am (and I presume, most of us are) convinced that Christianity invented its foundational history (The Gospels, Acts and the writings of early-Church "historians"). I once presumed they did this, inspired by the real history of the Hebrews -- now I am not so sure that even the Jews have a (mostly) correct historical account (though I still think this likely). Nevertheless, Moslems may have mimicked the Christians and gave themselves a founding myth and made-up prophet.

the term 'Goth' was used interchangeably with 'Jew'.

But "Hun" is used interchangeably with "German": Goth for Jew could just be derogatory.

Fair point. But let's presume the words are synonymous and see where it leads us. Is there any Hebrew word cognate with "Goth" or "Gott"?

Elsewhere, others have pointed out that "g" sometimes seems confused with "w." Goth or Gott might well have actually been Woth or Wott. Does that help?

Then of course, the word "Jew" with a "j" could actually be a "y" as in "Juda" or "Yehuda." Still...I don't see anything here yet.

But then, if the Visigoths really did invade Spain from the north, they would be.

I presume the Visigoths were always there. They are, however, ethnically related to North Africans or "Barbars" -- which is why the Romans tell us there were "Barbar-ians" north of the Alps!

Visi = west. Ostra = east

Phonetically, "Visi" is "u(w)is(i)" or "wis." I guess then that "Visi-Goth" means "Western Goths." Who were the Eastern Goths or Ostragoth?

Something is bugging me in this area: we're led to believe the classical Romans and Greeks were light-skinned and the typical Mediterranean swarth is the result of the Muslim invasion. But the nothing-ever-really-changes-while-the-rulers-come-and-go school of revisionist history suggests they must have been dark all along. (There's a fine painting from Herculaneum, I think, that's as Italian as Italian can be...)

I agree. However there is something else to consider: the presence of slaves in Rome. I believe some accounts suggest slaves outnumbered free citizens in the city itself by as much as ten to one. Perhaps the city of Rome itself was founded by a foreign elite who were more Caucasian? Who knows. But perhaps there is no reason to to believe they were white at all. Without a good reason to think so, we must presume them darker-skinned.

Maybe the chief barbarians in early Roman eyes were the Berbers; and the terms was applied, like "Hun", to others as well.

That's sort-of what orthodoxy says. But what happens if you take the Romans literally? Barbar-ians (Barbary-coast natives) lived both south and north of Italy. Doesn't history perhaps make a little more sense this way? We don't need some "invasion" then to get the Visi-goths in place.

The way I heard it (not from my dictionary), "barbarian" was Roman mockery of the sheep-like baaing of these foreign tongues. But where did we get sheep from...?

I think they were named for the Barbary coast, ie. North Africa. Barbarian = Moor.

So when the Romans tell us that Barbarians live north of the Alps, why don't we take them literally? Barbarian is not a generic term for 'non-Roman'. It refers to a specific ethnic group: the 'Barbars'.

Where are they now?

Still there! Spain, Morocco, Southern France and North Africa.

5. Goths = Gotts?

Who are the "Gotts?" Not familiar with these people.
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This post is from Komorikid, still on his travels

Another aside: I gather Rh- is common among the Basques, the Celts and the Norwegians. I'm still thinking Picts and Scandinavians...

You left one ethnic group out, Dan, the Berbers.

Rh spread from south to north. The strongest concentrations are in Morocco followed by the Atlantic Islands, Basque Spain, West Ireland, West Scotland, Hebrides, West Coast Norway then slowly petering out through the rest of Scandinavia with minute traces in Poland.

A more complete assessment of Rh factors can be found here.

http://www.highspeedplus.com/~edonon/rh.htm
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