Mecca is a city of mestery




Mecca is a city in the Hejaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located 70 km  inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of 277 m (909 ft) above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was 2 million, although visitors more than triple this number every year during Hajj period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhu al-Hijjah.

As the birthplace of Muhammad and a site of the composition of the Quran, Mecca is regarded as the holiest city in the religion of Islam and a pilgrimage to it known as the Hajj is obligatory for all able Muslims. The Hijaz was long ruled by Muhammad's descendants, the sharifs, either as independent rulers or as vassals to larger empires. It was absorbed into Saudi Arabia in 1925. In its modern period, Mecca has seen tremendous expansion in size and infrastructure. Because of this, Mecca has lost many thousand-year-old buildings and archaeological sites. Today, more than 15 million Muslims visit Mecca annually, including several million during the few days of the Hajj. As a result, Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the Muslim world, although non-Muslims remain prohibited from entering the city

There have been many serious incidents during the Hajj (the Muslim pilgrimage to the city of Mecca) that in total have caused the loss of thousands of lives. Every follower of Islam is requested to visit Mecca during the Hajj at least once in his or her lifetime, but only if they can afford or are able to do so. During the month of the Hajj, Mecca must cope with as many as four million pilgrims.

Jet travel makes Mecca and the Hajj more accessible to pilgrims from all over the world. As a consequence, the Hajj has become increasingly crowded. City officials are required to control large crowds and provide food, shelter, sanitation, and emergency services for millions. Unfortunately, they have not always been able to prevent disasters. The stoning of the devil ritual is the most dangerous part of the pilgrimage because of the huge crowds, particularly as they cross the massive two-layer flyover-style Jamarat Bridge that affords access to the pillars




The True dates for the Construction of the Temple of Mecca, the Digging of the Well of Zamzam, and the Transfer of the Black Stone to Mecca


Islamic claims that Abraham and Ishmael founded the temple in the city of Mecca are recognized as false, when we study the black Stone, which was the heart of the temple.

    Abraham never went to where Mecca was eventually built, nor did his son, Ishmael, or Ishmael’s son, Nabaioth. Despite these facts, Ibn Ishak, Mohammed’s biographer, claimed Abraham was responsible for building the temple at Mecca, and that it was then run by Ishmael, and eventually Nabaioth. The story, created by Ibn Ishak and his companions, goes on to say that after Nabaioth, the tribe of Jurhum, which they claim inhabited Mecca at the time of Abraham, took the responsibility to serve the Temple at Mecca. According to the story, they served until the tribe of Khuzaa'h came from Yemen. This was after the dam at Ma'rib began to show signs of damage and drove them away. The story continues that, when the tribe of Khuzaa'h came to Mecca, they defeated Jurhum. Jurhum then left Mecca to hide the black Stone of the temple and two golden gazelles. They hid them in the water spring called Zamzam, then covered the spring, the stone and the gazelles with dust so they would escape detection. The date these things supposedly happened is critical.  According to the stories, Jurhum lived in Mecca until the Ma'rib dam was damaged, and the tribe of Khuzaa'h left Yemen. We know these things occurred around the year 150 A.D.
Islamic tradition is illogical when it talks about Jurhum and the hiding of a spring of water and the Black Stone.

If Jurhum’s story were true, why did the classical authors, who visited and wrote about western Arabia mention all the tribes who were living there, even the tiny ones, but never once mention Mecca or the tribe of Jurhum? Second, after being defeated, how could Jurhum bury two precious golden gazelles and a revered stone belonging to Mecca’s temple without any of the inhabitants noticing?   Any tribe leaving Mecca would surely take its golden treasure and not bury it in a public place, well-known to all.  And this spring of water was the only spring in Mecca. Third, the black Stone was  a revered stone. It is not easy to move it from its location in the temple, without people noticing where it was placed. According to Islamic claims, the war erupted over who should be responsible for the temple. How could a defeated Jurhum tribe succeed in moving the stone without the winning Khuzaa'h tribe intervening, or at least noticing where the stone had been hidden? The fourth argument concerns the spring of water itself. If it existed in western Arabia, its location would be important to remember. After all, water was especially important for the Arabians living in the desert. Islamic tradition claims this spring existed since the time of Abraham. If it were miraculously brought into existence when the angel Gabriel gave water to Hagar and her child, Ishmael, then its existence would have been known, not just in Mecca, but in many other cities around Mecca. Bedouins would have come to the spring to water their sheep.  Area inhabitants would have come to refresh themselves. No one could hide the spring, even if it were possible to cover it with dust.
    The story of Jurhum hiding items in the spring during the 2nd century A.D. continues by claiming that Abdel Mutaleb, the grandfather of Mohammed, rediscovered the spring near the end of the 5th century. We can only conclude that the spring never existed before the time of Abdel Mutaleb,  and that digging by  finally the Mecchians found underground water, which eventually became a spring. This phenomenon of digging to find water which comes in the form of a spring is common in the Middle East. To claim that a spring existed in a city for 2,500 years before Jurhum succeeded in covering it for another three centuries is an impossible assertion,  since the springs of Arabia were significantly more important to the Bedouins than the Red Sea itself. You may hide the sea from the eyes of thirsty tribes, but you cannot hide a spring and its location for that amount of time.
    It is also impossible to believe that the black Stone was hidden for three or four centuries. The stone was considered the main shrine, or sacred element, in each temple, called Kaabah in Arabic. This revered stone, which represented the moon, was considered to be divine. The worship of the Arabian Star Family with Allah, who was the moon as its head, revolved around the black stone. Ellat, Allah’s wife, was the sun, and al-'Uzza and Manat, his daughters, represented two planets. The Muslims believe the black Stone divinely came from Allah, who was the moon before the planet Venus replaced it in Allah’s title. How could a black stone, greatly worshipped and revered by the people, be hidden while they were fighting to preserve the prestige they found in serving it?  It is implausible to suggest that they could hide their greatly-worshipped stone, without any of the people who chased the defeated Jurhum noticing where it was hidden, especially when the place where it was claimed to be hidden was the spring of water from which they drank every day of the battle. Hiding the worshipped stone in such a way is more implausible than hiding the spring of water itself.
    The story of the black Stone has some important implications. The black Stone was not in existence near Mecca until, perhaps, the end of the 5th A.D. century. That’s why Islamic tradition tried to justify the absence of the stone by inventing implausible stories. Therefore, we can estimate that the black stone, which was the main element of worship in all Kaabahs of Arabia, was brought  from another area – most probable Yemen – toward the end of the 5th century A.D.
Asa’d Abu Karb was the True Builder of Kaabah in the Beginning of the 5th century A.D.

It is said that prior to the construction of the Kaabah, a tent existed on the spot where it was built. The tribe of Khuzaa'h came from Yemen around the 2nd  century A.D.  In the 4th century A.D., they moved toward the area where Mecca was eventually built. Since they didn’t find a temple there in which to worship, they pitched their tent in a field.
    Information from the writers of the 8th century A.D., who depended on information from the time of Mohammed, indicates the Kaabah was built at the beginning of  the 5th century A.D. by a  Himyarite pagan Yemeni leader named Asa’d Abu Karb. He is also called  Abu Karb Asa’d, and he reigned in Yemen from 410 to 435 A.D.  The fact that the Islamic historians admit that Asa’d Abu Karb was the first ruler in history to dress the Kaabah is a significant indicator that he was the true builder of the Kaabah. Dressing a temple in Arabia was the second stage of its construction. It included decoratively finishing the inside walls, putting carpets on the walls and the floor, and adding textured and crocheted items on various parts of the interior building. (Arabians will not pray in a temple which is not dressed.) Asa’d Abu Karb used Amer from Azed to build the inside walls of the Kaabah. (Azed is a tribe which came from Yemen at the same time Khuzaah’s tribe came.)  So Asa’d Abu Karb, the first to build and dress the Kaabah, must have first built it when there was just a tent where the Yemeni tribe of Khuzaa'h worshipped. Asa’d Abu Karb, also called Tubb'a, occupied the city of Yathrib before coming to Mecca.  It seems he found many temples in Yathrib, but when he came to Mecca, he didn’t find any temple there. Because the inhabitants were recent emigrants from Yemen, Asa’d Abu Karb built them a modest temple in the Yemeni style. He did this to connect the people with himself. He also wrote a poem in which he described the sun setting in a spring of black mud, something Mohammed included in the Qur’an.
Additions by Quraish to the Building Which Asa’d Abu Karb Built

Quraish, the tribe Mohammed came from, later occupied the city. They acquired a black stone from Yemen so that their temple would be like all the other Kaabahs which, according to the worship of the Star Family of Arabia, were built around a black stone. Family Star worship started in Yemen, the place from which the Quraish emigrated. The first Kaabah built by Asa’d Abu Karb, had a wood roof. That roof burned, so next they used wood carried by a Byzantine ship, which stopped on the coast of the Red Sea at a place called  “al-Shaebieth “. The owner of the ship was a Coptic Egyptian named Bachum. He sold the wood to them and made the roofing for the Kaabah.  Later, when Mohammed was still young, further elements were added to the simple building.
    These facts about the construction of the temple at Mecca should cause Muslims to question all that Ibn Ishak and his companions said about the city, in their attempt to back Mohammed’s claim in the Qur’an that the temple was built by Abraham and Ishmael.
YEMENI RESPONSIBILITY IN BUILDING THE TEMPLE OF MECCA
The Yemeni tribe of Khuzaa'h built the city of Mecca in the 4th century A.D. Yemeni pagan religious worship has left its fingerprints all over the temple, showing that Abraham and Ishmael could not have built it.

We will discuss why the marks of Yemeni worship characterized the temple of Mecca. The sayings and customs of Mohammed are called Hadith. “Sahih Muslim” and “Sahih Buchari” are considered the main authoritative books which contain the words or Hadith of Mohammed. In those books, we read about Mohammed’s custom  to embrace and kiss two stones, “the Yemenite Rukun” and “the Black Stone”.  Ibn Abbas the cousin of Mohammed and the reporter of his authoritative Hadith, says that Mohammed customarily embraced the two Yemeni Rukuns. By “Yemeni Rukuns,” he meant the Black Stone and the other stone, also called Rukun. From this we know that Kaabeh had two main elements, also called Rukuns, which were considered sacred. Those were the stones around which the Kaabeh was built. These were the true elements revered by the inhabitants of Mecca and by Mohammed.  
    It seems that the Black Stone was brought from Yemen at the time of Abdel Mutaleb, the grandfather of Mohammed. Islamic tradition claimed it was hidden with the spring of Zamzam for centuries prior to Mohammed.  I demonstrated previously that such a claim could not be true. The fact is that Mohammed and Islamic tradition endeavor to connect the pagan Yemeni worship of the ancestors of Mohammed, which transferred from Yemen to the Temple of Mecca, with Ishmael and Abraham, even though there are historical evidences that point to the contrary. We will look at some of them.
    First, the confirmed date of the construction of the city of Mecca is sometime after the 4th century A.D.  Abu Karb Asa’d was the first to consecrate the Kaabah, which reveals that he was the builder of the Kaabah. He did this during his reign in Yemen, which was between 410 and 435 A.D. The two Rukuns, or stones, which were the main elements of worship in the temple, were of Yemeni origin. The date on which the Black Stone first appeared in Mecca was at the time of Mohammed’s grandfather, sometime between 495 and 520 A.D. Though Islamic tradition was aware of these facts, people invented unreliable stories to fill the historical gaps. I’ve already proved such stories are not logical, and are easily refutable.
     An important factor in tracing Yemeni responsibility for constructing the Temple at Mecca, and in establishing the true date of construction for such Temple, is found in the Himyarite kingdom of Yemen. Abu Karb Asa’d, the reigning monarch of Himyarite kingdom, tried to extend his empire over central western Arabia in order to control the spice route from Yemen to North Arabia, and then to the Fertile Crescent. Abu Karb Asa’d, also called Tubb'a, occupied the cities of central western Arabia at the beginning of the 5th century A.D. Among those cities were Mecca and Yathrib, also called al-Medina. The occupier’s strategy was to bind these cities to his kingdom by reinforcing the Yemeni religious system which the inhabitants of Mecca and Yathrib were already embracing. The inhabitants of Mecca had emigrated from Yemen, so they were of Yemeni origin.  Yathrib was formed by two Yemeni tribes, Oas and Khazraj. They, too, emigrated to Yathrib after the dam at Yemen was damaged around 150 A.D. These tribes were living with two Jewish tribes, Beni Kharithah and Beni Nathir, which were already established. Abu Karb Asa’d was of Yemeni origin. He built the Kaabeh at Mecca to reinforce his rule over the city, and to show favor to the citizens of Mecca who were without a temple of worship. They, like him, shared the same pagan beliefs.
Tubb'a's ideas of Jewish and Yemeni pagan myths and their influence on the Arabians of central western Arabia, and consequently on Mohammed.

Tubb’a also tried to build bridges with the Jewish community in Yathrib. He learned their religious thoughts and rites. He learned the Jewish myths, such as the legend of the hoopoe bird  that announced the kingdom of Saba to Solomon. This myth came from the Jewish mythological book called the Second Targum of Esther. Mohammed incorporated the same myth into the Qur’an.
    To accomplish his ends, Tubb'a brought two Jewish rabbis to Yemen.  They added to his knowledge by teaching him many Judaic religious rites and myths, enabling him to mix various items in his own Yemeni pagan background with Jewish mythology and religious tradition. For example, he combined Arabian star worship with Jewish myths.  With mixed knowledge like this, he thought he could control the regions in central western Arabia, where people of Jewish and Arabian origin lived. He then claimed himself to be a prophet, expounding many thoughts which the Yemeni people considered indisputable about the sun, the earth and the cosmos. At Mecca, in an attempt to convince his listeners that he was a prophet, he taught that the sun sets in a spring of black mud. This myth, too, was incorporated by Mohammed in the Qu'ran.
    After his death, Tubb'a’s claim left an impression on many groups, even on groups that lived until the time of Mohammed. Mohammed considered him as a Muslim and almost as a prophet. There have been myths about Tubb'a among the Arabians. Al-Taberi attributed victories to him in China and Tibet. This is unhistorical, but it shows how great an impact Tubb'a left on the Arabians at the time of Mohammed,  to the point that many considered him to be a prophet.
The Kaabah of Mecca was built for the Arabian Star worship and it shares all the characteristic of the Kaabahs that were built for their worship.

The fact that the temple at Mecca was built as a Kaabah for Arabian star worship is shown in many ways. First, it was built in the same architectural style as other Kaabahs in Arabia. They were all temples for the same Arabian Family Star religion, in which Allah is considered the head and Ellat is his wife. All the Kaabahs had a  Black Stone as the most revered element. It represented the star deity in Arabia. Many of the black stones were meteorites which the Arabs saw descending to earth. They thought the meteorites they were envoys from the moon, which was considered to be Allah himself. This is before that title was given to Venus, who replaced the moon as head of the star family.
    Another thing which shows that the Kaabah of Mecca  was built as a temple for Arabian star worship is that the Kaabah of Mecca reflects members of the star family in many of its elements. The main door of the Kaabah was called  “the door of worshippers of the sun, the wife of Allah.

Mohammed confirmed that the origin of the Kaabah's faith was Yemeni.

The role of Yemeni religious paganism in building the temple at Mecca, and its religious nature, cannot be hidden. Even Mohammed recognized the origin of the religious system of Mecca as Yemeni. Mohammed uttered many Hadiths about the Yemeni origin of the Kaabah faith.  Such teachings are reported in the authoritative Hadith, the book of al-Bukhari, in which Mohammed says: “the faith is Yemeni and the wisdom is Yemeni.” In another Hadith, he says: “the doctrine and jurisprudence is Yemeni.” Therefore, not just the Rukuns, the sacred stones in the Kaabah, were from Yemen, but also religious laws, doctrine and faith are Yemeni. It is undeniable proof that the temple of Mecca was constructed by a Yemeni leader according to a Yemeni pagan style and specification. He established Yemeni religiosity at Mecca, and it was known in other parts of Arabia. How, then, could Abraham have built the Kaabeh, if what we have learned about its construction is true? How did the Black Stone come from heaven, and how did Abraham sacrifice on it, and build the Kaabah around it, if the stone was not in Mecca before the 5th century A.D.?    How could Mohammed’s teaching come from  Allah through the angel Gabriel and still be of Yemeni origin?
    The important Egyptian scholar, Tah Hussein, has criticized Islamic tradition for linking the construction of Mecca’s temple to Abraham and Ishmael Tah said :

The case for this episode is very obvious because it is of recent date and came into vogue just before the rise of Islam. Islam exploited it for religious reasons.

If Muslims search diligently in history, like this great Egyptian scholar did, they will reach the same conclusion.
Establishing the Date the Tribe of Khuzaa'h Built Mecca
Many historical elements help us determine the true date Mecca was built.  One major factor is the damage which occurred to the dam of Ma'rib in Yemen around the year 150 A.D. It caused the emigration of many families and tribes from Yemen to the north. One of these families was the family of Amru bin Amer, a Yemeni individual whose progeny fostered many tribes. Among them was Khuzaa'h, which settled in central western Arabia.  Later, they built the city of Mecca.
    Other tribes which came from  Amru bin Amer were Oas and Khazraj. They settled in Yathrib, also called al-Medina, where the Jewish tribes of Beni Kharithah and Beni Nathir were already located.
    From the writings of Tabari, the famous Arabic historian, we understand that this happened at approximately the same time the Lakhmids moved from Yemen to Mesopotamia. It is also the same time Amru bin Amer, the father of Khuzaa'h, moved from Yemen. The Lakhmids came from Yemen in the 2nd  century A.D. They lived in a region of Mesopotamia later known to be the city of Hira. Later the Persians used them to protect Persian borders with the Byzantine Empire, which was dominating Syria. The first Lakhmid king was Amr I bin Adi, who ruled from 265-295 A.D. The serious collapse of the dam of Ma'rib precipitated the emigration of tribes such as Ghassan, which settled in the Byzantine border; Shammar which inhabited the Syrian Desert; and other tribes which emigrated to the north of Arabia and the Fertile Crescent.  Some of these tribes were related to each other because they were progeny of Amru bin Amer. Other tribes who came out of Yemen at the time the dam collapsed were Oas and Khazraj. They went to live in al-Medina. Ozd al-Sarat went to al-Sarat, a location near Orfeh, which is near where Mecca was built. The tribe of Khuzaa'h inhabited a place called Mur, also called Mur al-Thahran, another place near where Mecca was built.
Mecca was Built by Khuzaa'h as a Desolate Station on the Spice Route

There was no city named Mecca in that area; otherwise, Khuzaa'h and Ozd would have inhabited it, as Oas and Khazraj inhabited the city of Yathrib. For more than a century and a half Khuzaa'h remained in the area near where Mecca was later built. They then decided to build a station on the caravan route where traders could rest and conduct business.  If Mecca had existed before Khuzaah’s emigration from Yemen, Mecca would have been the city to which they would go to search out a living, even as their sister tribes, Oas and Khazraj, went to Yathrib to benefit from commerce and agricultural activities of the Jewish tribes there. But neither Khuzaa'h nor Ozd, as new emigrants in semi-deserted areas around the area where Mecca eventually built, found a city to host them when they left Yemen. They waited more than 170-200 years before building a city on the caravan route, which became a station for the caravans competing with Yathrib, which was about 200 miles away. The station they built, was called Mecca.
    It is important to note that none of the tribes who came from Yemen inhabited Mecca. If Mecca was in existence at the time the dam was seriously damaged, around the year 150 A.D.,  we would find many tribes locating in Mecca, because it is closer to Yemen than Yathrib is to Yemen. But, because the area where Mecca was eventually built was desolate and had no cities, it induced the tribes of Ozd and Khuzaa'h to live there. They did so, although they  previously lived in a civilized city in Yemen which was Ma'rib, the capital of Saba. This is an important argument which points out that Mecca could not have existed before Khuzaa'h built the city in the 4th century A.D.
    Let’s review these historical facts. I’ve shown that the Yemeni tribe of Khuzaa'h built the city of Mecca in the 4th century A.D. We’ve seen the connection between the temple of Mecca and Yemeni pagan religious worship.  All this shows that the claim of Islam about Abraham and Ishmael building the temple of Mecca contradicts the true historical facts. Building faith on the sand is unwise. I pray that our Muslim friends will return to true faith as found in history and announced in the Bible.  In the Bible they can find a solid foundation, documented in the writings of the prophetic books, and considered by historians to be the accurate resource for ancient history.



Arabia is an abbreviation. The original word even today
is Arbasthan. It originates in Arvasthan. As observed earlier
Sanskrit "V" changes into "B". Arva in Sanskrit means a horse.
Arvasthan signifies a land of horses, and as we all know Arabia
is famous for its horses.

In the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. a wave of effecting a
complete break with the past spread over West Asia. All links
with the past were broken, images smashed, scriptures des-
troyed, education discontinued and the entire West Asian
region took a plunge in abyssmal ignorance which lasted for
centuries thereafter and perhaps persists to a certain extent
even today because if in the whole world modern scientific and
educational developments find stubborn and entrenched resis-
tance anywhere it is in the West Asian countries. It is said
that the late Saudi Arabia ruler could not permit a radio
broadcasting station opened in his own capital because of
oposition from his Maulavis. He then resorted to a stratagem.
Once while he had his council of Maulavis in attendance he had
a radio set switched on to a program of Koranic recitation
broadcast from a small transmitting station set up earlier
without much ado. The Maulavis were delighted, so goes the
report, to hear the word of Allah coming to them as if from
nowhere. The king told them that what objections could they
have to a mechanism which broadcast the word of Allah. The
Maulavis agreed and the small radio broadcasting project was
at last ratified.

According to Encyclopaedia Britannica and Encyclø-
paedia Islamia the Arabs are ignorant of their own history of
the pre-Muslim era. By a strange euphemism they call it a
period of ignorance and darkness. Probably no other country
in the world has deliberately written off a 2,500 year period of
their own history by systematically stamping out and snapping
all links with the past. They have wiped the memories of pre-
Muslim era off their minds. So while they chose to remain
ignorant of their past ironically enough it is they who dub the
pre-Muslim era as a period of ignorance.

Fortunately we can still trace the history of that pre-
Islamic Arabia. It is a well known adage that there is no such
thing as foolproof destruction of all evidence. The pre-Islamic
history of Arabia is the story of Indian Kshatriyas over that
land, with the people following the Vedic way of life.

In our attempt to reconstruct the story of pre-Islamic
Arabia we begin with the name of the country itself. As
explained earlier the name is fully Sanskrit. Its central
pilgrim centre, Mecca is also a Sanskrit name. Makha in
Sanskrit signifies a sacrificial fire. Since Vedic fire worship
was prevalent all over West Asia in pre-Islamic days Makha
signifies the place which had an important shrine of fire
worship.

Coinciding with the annual pilgrimage of huge bazaar
used to spring up in Makha i.e. Mecca since times immemorial.
The annual pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca is not at all an
innovation but a continuation of the ancient pilgrimage. This
fact is mentioned in encyclopedias.

VIKRAMADITYA

Evidence is now available that the whole of Arabia was
part of the great Indian King Vikramaditya's vast empire. The
extent of Vikramaditya's empire is one of the main reasons for
his world wide fame. Incidentally this also explains many
intriguing features about Arabia. It could be that
Vikramaditya himself had this peninsula named Arvasthan if
he was the first Indian monarch to capture it and bring it
under his sway.

The second intriguing aspect is the existence of a
Shivalinga or the Mahadeva emblem in the Kaaba shrine in
Mecca. Before going into further details about the ancient
Vedic rituals and names still clinging to Muslim worship at
Mecca we shall see what evidence we have about Arabia
having formed part of Vikramaditya's dominions.

ANTHOLOGY OF ANCIENT ARABIC POETRY: SAYAR-UL-OKUL

In Istanbul in Turkey, there is a famous library called
Makteb-e-Sultania which is reputed to have the largest
collection of ancient West Asian literature. In the Arabic
Section of that library is an anthology of ancient Arabic
poetry. That anthology was compiled from an earlier work in
A.D. 1742 under the orders of the Turkish ruler Sultan Salim.

The 'pages' of that volume are made of HAREER - a kind
of silk used for writing on. Each page has a decorative gilded
border. It may be recalled that gilding pages of sacred books is
an ancient custom associated with old Sanskrit scriptures
found in Java and other places. The anthology itself is known
as SAYAR-UL-OKUL. It is divided into three parts, the first
part contains biographic details and the poetic compositions of
pre-Islamic Arabian poets. The second part embodies accounts
and verses of poets of the period beginning just after Prophet
Mohammad up to the end of Banee- Ummayya dynasty. The
third part deals with later poets up to the end of Khalifa
Harun-al-Rashid's times. Incidentally "Banee" means "Vanee"
and Ummayya as in Krishnayya are Sanskrit names.

Abu Amir Abdul Asamai, a distinguished Arabian bard
who was the Poet Laureate of Harun-al-Rashid's court has
compiled and edited the anthology.

The first modern edition of Sayar-ul-Okul anthology was
printed and published in Berlin in A.D. 1864. A subsequent
edition was published in Beirut in A.D. 1932. This work is
regarded as the most important and authoritative anthology of
ancient Arabic poetry. It throws considerable light on the
social life, customs, manners and entertainment forms in
ancient Arabia. The book also contains an elaborate descrip-
tion of the ancient Mecca shrine, the town and the annual fair
known as OKAJ which used to be held there every year. This
should convince readers that the annual Haj of the Muslims to
the Kaaba is only a continuation of the old fair and not a new
practice.

But the OKAJ fair was far from a carnival. It
provided a forum for the elite and learned to discuss the
social, religious, political, literary and other aspects of the
Vedic culture then pervading Arabia. Sayar-ul-Okul asserts
that the conclusions reached at those discussions were widely

respected througout Arabia. Mecca, therefore, followed the
Varanasi tradition of providing a seat for important discussions
among the learned while the masses congregated there for
spiritual bliss. The principal shrines at both Varanasi in India
and at Mecca in Arvasthan were Shiva temples. Even to this
day the central object of veneration at both Mecca and
Varanasi continues to be the ancient Mahadeva emblems. It is
the Shankara stone which Muslim pilgrims reverently touch
and kiss in the Kaaba.

ENTRY OF NON-MUSLIMS FORBIDDEN

A few miles away from Mecca is a big signboard which
forbids entry to any non-Muslim in the area. This is a
reminder of the days when the Shrine was stormed and
captured solely for the newly established faith of Islam. The
object obviously was to prevent its recaptue.

As the pilgrim proceeds towards Mecca he is asked to
shave his head and beard and to don a special sacred attire.
This consists of two seamless sheets of white cloth. One is to
be worn round the waist and the other over the shoulders.
Both these rites are remnants of the old Vedic practice of
entering Hindu shrines, clean shaven and with holy seamless
spotless white sheets.

The main shrine in Mecca which houses the Shiva emb-
lem is known as the Kaaba. It is clothed in a black shroud.
This custom could also originate from the days when it was
thought necessary to discourage its recapture. According to
encyclopaedias Britannica and Islamia the Kaaba had 360
images. Traditional accounts mention that one of the deities
among the 360 destroyed, when the shrine was stormed, was
that of Saturn, another was of the moon and yet another was
one called Allah. In India the practice of Navagraha puja that
is worship of the nine planets is still in vogue. Two of these
nine are the Saturn and the moon. Besides, the moon is always
associated with Lord Shankara. A Crescent is always painted
across the forehead of the Shiva emblem. Since the presiding
deity at the Kaaba shrine was Lord Shiva i.e. Shankara, the
crescent was also painted on it. It is that crescent which is
now adopted as a religious symbol of Islam. Another Hindu
tradition is that wherever there is a Shiva shrine the sacred
stream of Ganga that is the Ganges must also co-exist. True
to that tradition a sacred fount exists near the Kasba. Its
water is held sacred because it was regarded as but another
Ganga since pre-Islamic times. Muslim pilgrims visiting the
Kaaba shrine go around it seven times. In no other mosque
does this perambulation prevail. Hindus invariably perambu-
late around their shrines. This is yet another proof that the
Kaaba shrine is a pre-Islamic Shiva temple where the Hindu
practice of perambulation is still meticulously observed.

Allah is a Sanskrit word. In Sanskrit Allah, Akka and
Amba are synonyms. They signify a goddess or mother. The
term Allah appears in Sanskrit chants while invoking goddess
Durga i.e. Bhavani. The Islamic word Allah for God is
therefore not an innovation but the ancient Sanskrit appella-
tion retained and continued to be used by Islam.

The seven perambulations too are significant. At Hindu
wedding ceremonies the bride and bridegroom go round the
sacred fire seven times. the practice of seven perambultions
around the Kaaba shrine in Mecca is, therefore, a Hindu Vedic
custom. It is also a proof that Mecca was Makha or the shrine
of the sacred fire around which worshippers made seven
perambulations.

SAYAR-UL-OKUL tells us that a pan-Arabic poetic
symposium used to be held in Mecca at the annual Okaj fair in
pre-Islamic times. All leading poets used to participate in it.
Poems considered best were awarded prizes. The best poems
engraved on gold plate were hung inside the temple. Others
etched on camel or goat skin were hung outside. Thus for
thousands of years the Kaaba was the treasure house of the
best Arabian poetic thought. This tradition was of im-
memorial antiquity. But most of the poems got lost and
destroyed during the storming of the Kaaba by prophet Moham-
med's forces.

SAYAR-UL-OKUL is a poem by UMAR-BINE-HASSNAM
(Poetic Title: ABBUL-HIQAM meaning Father of Knowledge).
He was an uncle of prophet Mohammed. He refused to get
converted to Islam. He died a martyr at the hands of Muslim
fanatics who wanted to wipe out non-Muslims. This poem was
adjudged as the best in the annual fair at Kaaba.

QAFA VINAK ZIQRA MIN ULUMIN TAV
ASERU KALUBAN AYATTUL HAWA VA TAZAKKARU

A man who has spent all his life in sin and immorality and has
wasted away his life in passion and fury,

VA TAZAKEROHA AUDAN ELALVADAE LILVARA
VALUK YANK ZATULLA HE YOM TAB ASERU

If he repents in the end and wants to return to morality, is
there a way for his redemption?

VA AHLOLAHA AZAHU ARMIMAN MAHADEV O
MANAZEL ILAMUDDINE MINJUM VA SAYATTARU

Even if only once he sincerely worships Mahadeva, he can
attain the highest position in the path of righteousness.

VA SAHABI KEYAM FEEM QAMIL HINDE YOMAN
VA YAQULOON LATAHAZAN FAINNAK TAVAJ3ARU

Oh Lord! Take away all my life and in return pray grant me
even a single day's stay in Hind (India) as a man becomes
spiritually free on reaching that holy land.

MAYASSAYARE AKHALAQAN HASNAN KULLAHUM
NAJUMUN AZAAT SUMM GABUL HINDU

By dint of a pilgrimage of Hind a man attains the merit of
noble deeds and gets the privilege of pious touch with ideal
Hindu teachers.

NOW ABT THE BLACK STONE THE SHIVA LINGA

In 570 AD, the year of Muhammad's birth, Arabia was a thriving, rich and varied Vedic culture. Although monotheism in the forms of Christianity and Judaism were known to the people of Arvasthan, they were undeterred in their uncompromising faith to the religion of their ancestors: Hinduism . Every household had an idol of a Hindu god or goddess. There were hundreds of sacred groves, places of pilgrimage, and temples which were sanctuaries containing images of the entire range of Vedic gods. The temples in addition to being the religious focus of the Arabs, were also the cultural centres of learning. It was the temples that were the venues of literary and poetry competitions, of glorious festivals.

The virtues most highly prized by people of Arvasthan were bravery in battle, patience in misfortune, loyalty to one's tribe, and generosity to the needy and the poor. They proudly upheld the value of tolerance in matters of religious practice and belief. The respect they showed towards other people's religions was fully in keeping with their Vedic spiritual tradition.

The status of women was that of pride and equal respect. How could it be otherwise with a people whose chief deity was the goddess Durga (Alla). Women married men of their choice and were financially independent. They were entrepeneurs, artisans, poets and even warriors! Later on Muhammad would marry Khadija, who was not only a wealthy merchant but also in the position to choose her own husband. This clearly demonstrates the level of freedom women enjoyed in Vedic Arabia. Hind, who was the wife of Muhammad's chief enemy Abu Sufyan, herself participated in the battlefield.

Hind opposed Muhammad tooth and nail. She followed her husband to the battlefield and when Abu Sufyan surrendered Mecca to Muhammad without a fight she caught hold of him in the marketplace and cried:

"KILL this fat greasy bladder of lard! What a rotten protector of the people"

When Muhammad tried to baptise her & asked her not to commit adultery , She spat out the bitter words:

"A free woman does not commit adultery!"



How proud this woman was of the rights and privileges that her Vedic society had invested to her!

It was Islam that extinguished the light of knowledge in Vedic Arabia. It is ironic that the man who brought about such darkness himself belonged to the Qurayshi Tribe of Mecca. The Qurayshi were particularly devoted to Allah (Durga) and the famous Shivling of the Kaaba Temple. The fact that the Shivling remains to this day in the Kaaba is solely due to the fact that it happened to be the Qurayshi tribe's faceless Family Deity. As I mentioned before Muhammad's name itself came from Mahadeva, which is another cognate for Lord Shiva. Muhammad's own uncle, Umar-Bin-E-Hassham was a staunch Hindu and fervent devotee of Lord Shiva. He was a renowned poet and wrote many verses in praise of Shiva. One of these has survived on page 235 of Sair-Ul-Okul and reads as follows:

Kafavomal fikra min ulumin Tab asayru
Kaluwan amataul Hawa was Tajakhru
We Tajakhayroba udan Kalalwade-E Liboawa
Walukayanay jatally, hay Yauma Tab asayru
Wa Abalolha ajabu armeeman MAHADEVA
Manojail ilamuddin minhum wa sayattaru
Wa Sahabi Kay-yam feema-Kamil MINDAY Yauman
Wa Yakulum no latabahan foeennak Tawjjaru
Massayaray akhalakan hasanan Kullahum
Najumum aja- at Summa gabul HINDU



which translates as:



The man who may spend his life in sin
and irreligion or waste it in lechery and wrath
If at least he relent and return to
righteousness can he be saved?
If but once he worship Mahadeva with a pure
heart, he will attain the ultimate in spirituality.
Oh Lord Shiva exchange my entire life for but
a day's sojourn in India where one attains salvation.
But one pilgrimage there secures for one all
merit and company of the truly great.



Muhammad's uncle was one of the resident priests of the Shiv temple known as "Kaaba". This sacred sanctum was decorated in an extremely rich and beautiful fashion. The Kaaba was astronomically oriented to face the winds. The minor axis of the rectangular base of the Kaaba was solistically aligned towards summer sunrise and winter sunset. It contained 360 statues of Vedic deities and was a shrine primarily associated with sun worship. The temple was an architectural representation of an interlocking set of theories covering virtually all creation and comprehending chemistry, physics, cosmology, meteorology and medicine. Each wall or corner of the Kaaba was associated with a specific region of the world. Thus this glorious Hindu temple was made to symbolically represent a microcosm of the universe. The Arabs would face east when praying. This representation of a microcosm demonstrated by the eight directional structure was derived from the Tantric pattern (Refer to Figure 1) of Hinduism. Right at the centre of the Kaaba was the octogonal pedestal of Bramha the creator. Today this very pedestal is called Maqam-E-Ibrahim by the Muslims.


Figure 1.
A tantric pattern which defines the structure of Kaaba



However, more significant was the fact that the Kaaba was an extremely rich and ornate temple. On its walls hung innumerable gold plaques commemorating the winners of the annual poetry competition known as the Okaj fair. There were gold, silver and precious gems everywhere. It is no wonder that Muhammad armed with his facade of a new brand of religion set out to capture the immense wealth of the Vedic shrine of Mecca. After plundering the riches of the Kaaba, the wealth enabled him to systematically destroy all traces of the religion that threatened him so directly. It is an indisputable fact that money will make any low criminal devoutly religious in a hurry.

Despite the fact that Muhammad had to destroy all traces of Hinduism in order to make his "new religion" work, he knew that in order to fool people convincingly he would have to borrow from the Vedic culture that surrounded him. Being illiterate he picked out rituals and symbols that he didn't understand and distorted and falsified them for his own ends. Here is a list of these distortions:

1. Muhammad destroyed all 360 idols, but even he could not summon the courage to completely obliterate the Shivling in the Kaaba. He entered the temple and kissed the black stone. The Shivling was so sacred that the man who so detested idol- worship ended up kissing the largest idol in the Kaaba. Later his followers in a fit of piety broke the Shivling and then out of remorse repatched it together again. Today it lies broken at seven places and held together by a silver band studded with silver nails, bearing the name "Sangey Aswad" which came from the Sanskrit Ashwet meaning non-white or black stone.
2. He jumbled up the Sanskrit words Nama and Yaja (which meant "bowing and worshipping" respectively) into a combination word Namaz and used that to describe his prescribed method of prayer.
3. Because the Vedic custom was to pray facing the East, in his hatred for all things Hindu, he directed his followers to pray facing only the west.
4. The method of circling around a shrine seven times in a clockwise direction is an ancient Vedic custom. Muhammad with his lack of originality decided that the 7 ritual perambulations should be retained but again in his hatred of all things Vedic decided the direction of the perambulations should be anti-clockwise.
5. With his phobia of all things Vedic, Muhammad knew that the greatest reminder and threat to his forced brand of religion were the beautiful Vedic idols of Arabic temples. Thus he destroyed every idol he could find and made idol worship the greatest crime for a Muslim. Such a man could never have comprehended how an abstract concept can be conveyed through a symbolic representation in the form of an image. Thus he made all image representation a sin as well.
6. Vedic religion is known for its ancient oral tradition. It is well known that the Vedic culture emphasized oral debate and expression far more than the written word. In adition the oral recitation of Vedic scriptures was always done in a lyrical fashion, utilizing music and thus reaching a height of expression. In fear of this musical tradition Muhammad decided to forbid Music.
7. All Arabic copies of the Koran have the mysterious figure 786 imprinted on them . No Arabic scholar has been able to determine the choice of this particular number as divine. It is an established fact that Muhammad was illiterate therefore it is obvious that he would not be able to differentiate numbers from letters. This "magical" number is none other than the Vedic holy letter "OM" written in Sanskrit (Refer to figure 2). Anyone who knows Sanskrit can try reading the symbol for "OM" backwards in the Arabic way and magically the numbers 786 will appear! Muslims in their ignorance simply do not realise that this special number is nothing more than the holiest of Vedic symbols misread.


Figure 2.
Read from right to left this figure
of OM represents the numbers 786



There are many such instances where the symbols and rituals of Vedic culture were completely distorted and falsified by Muhammad in his bid to "create" his brand new religion. However in his haste to deceive and because of his ignorance and illiteracy, thousands of Vedic symbols still remain. Although they have been distorted beyond imagination, they still remain as solemn reminders of Arabia's glorious Vedic past. They can never be supressed.

In fact the rise of Islam put a full stop to all the previous knowledge of Arabia. The imperialistic message of Islam diverted all energies into raiding, looting and destruction. The incentive to learn and preserve the Vedic wisdom that had thrived in Arabia for so many centuries, was wiped out by the brutal pressure of Islam. Making easy money through loot and massacre was far more appealing than upholding the tenets of ancient knowledge. Gone were the schools, teachers, libraries, poets, artists, philosophers and scholars that had littered the Vedic landscape of Arabia like stars. Everyone had to become a raider if not from choice then for the sake of surviving the absolute intolerance of dissenters, that Islam preached. Thus was the light of learning extinguished in Arabia. All that remained was the Koran, the Kalma and the murderous hatred of anything Non-Muslim.