Abraham the godless

This brief montage tells the story of Abraham, the legendary patriarch of Hebrews and the archetypal monotheist, who is buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Abraham came from Mesopotamia, which means ‘between the two rivers’; namely, the Nile and Euphrates; that is, the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:10-14 & 15:18), aka the “cradle of civilization”, where civilized man (Adam) began; also, the fertile crescent” where wheat—the ‘tree of life’, aka the “mother of all sciences”—was first cultivated, together with the ‘forbidden fruit’; namely, wine (Ibn Majah 30:5).

The term “Hebrew” in the Bible does not refer to modern ‘Israelis’ or the modern Hebrew language, said to be ‘revived’ in 1948, since the oldest Hebrew language according to the Bible is Arabic: the language of Joktan (Ar. Qahtan) and Abraham’s firstborn son Ishmael, associated with the antediluvian and angelic tongues (Genesis 10:25, Bava Metzia 86b:16 & Bereshit Rabbah 48:14). Rather, “Hebrew” in the Bible refers to the children of Abraham, who crossed the Euphrates from a land of idolatry to a land where they would establish monotheism. “Hebrew” is thus a toponym that means “Transeuphratian” (Genesis 14:13 & Joshua 24:14-15).

The language called Hebrew today is what the Bible calls the “language of Canaan” (Isaiah 19:18), whom it curses (Genesis 9:25). That is, Phoenician. Modern “Hebrew Bibles” are written in the Aramaic (Persian) script, which Moses couldn’t read, that Jews adopted in captivity centuries later, like Phoenician (Sanhedrin 21b:22).

Moses, for his part, was married to the daughter of Jethro, an Ishmaelite prophet, and spoke Arabic (Qur’an 28:27, Exodus 2:21 & Galatians 4:25). Hebrews today are tribes of Palestinians and Arabs (biblical Israelites and Ishmaelites) who are native to the Middle East and North Africa, which Abraham, Sarah and Hagar represent. They have nothing to do with imposters from Nazi Europe who seek to violently replace them.

Try as Abraham’s enemies may to burn him and his household, the truth they embody—and the garden in them, which they spread without—is fertile and indestructible, despite appearances to the contrary. Though kings threaten Abraham (“father of many”) with war and fire, nothing can save them from their ultimate defeat, retribution and the ravage of time; that is, God’s greater (black) fire that includes profane fire (Tirmidhi 39:18, Bukhari 9:14, etc.) and obliterates all but the Eternal One (Qur’an 45:24; cp. 28:88 & 103), who is time itself (Mishkat al-Masabih 1:20). Whereas God’s law gives rise to paradise on earth, disobedience raises hell on earth. God’s fire should therefore be feared and its garden sought after more than those of tyrants (Qur’an 18:32-44), whom God rules as the true King of Kings.

Abraham’s story is symbolic, historical and prophetic. Most importantly, it is prophetic, which is why the scriptures omit other details. Whoever walks the walk of Abraham, disavowing gods and kings and their made-up rules and rulers for the unforgeable law and God of nature, and calls their people and family to do the same, will ultimately succeed. As Abraham exemplifies, those who are willing to sacrifice for the sake of truth and justice will not be sacrificed by truth and justice, but honored and multiplied.

Abraham opposed idolatry, which is materialism, notably the belief that the stars and planets (which the ancient gods represent) are the source of everything. This doctrine is still promulgated by the New (or Jew) Atheists, who claim “We are stardust” and that humans sprang from the scattered guts of the stars; see, e.g., Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “The Most Astounding Fact” (2 Mar 2012) YouTube at 0:43. This is analogous to the Mesopotamian creation myth where Marduk (the sun god) slays Tiamat (the chaos dragon) causing humans to spring from the blood of its scattered guts. In the modern West, this thinking began with Descartes’ formula “I think therefore I am” (Discourse on Method 1637 Part IV) instead of “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14) culminating in today’s “absurdism”, as Albert Camus called it, where men think they’re women, Vikings think they’re Israelites, and nothing means anything.

Science isn’t antithetical to God; rather, as Abraham’s argument with Nimrod emphasizes, it is the foundation and origin of science, which necessarily assumes and proves God (Qur’an 2:258); namely, that a singular principium rationis governs the universe, as opposed to gods. Atheists like Simon-Laplace merely replaced God with an all-knowing “Laplace Demon” and bootstraps cosmology based on the false assumption that dead matter is the source of intelligent life. Nietzsche called this the principle of “the smallest possible force and the greatest possible stupidity” and characterized the notion of a causa sui as a “rape of logic” with (Baron) Munchhausen audacity (Beyond Good and Evil 1886).

As Newton concluded in Principia (1687), which he proffered as a proof of God, blind metaphysical necessity, which is the same always and everywhere, can give rise to no variety of things. In fact, Newtonian mechanics, developed in his Optics, which was plagiarized from Ibn al-Haytham’s (Alhazen’s) Optics, refutes Aristotelian hylozoism (living matter or animism): a pseudo-scientific theory that the uneducated David Hume later adopted, calling the world a ‘great vegetable’. Put simply, the animistic and polytheistic assumptions of “New” Atheists are nothing more than neo-pagan ideology with no scientific basis. Rather, Abraham is and remains the original and prototypal atheist and anti-theist, as the Qur’an explicitly calls him Abraham the Haneef (Syr. godless). He is also called a Muslim (Ar. Musallam, meaning perfect) because he submits (Ar. Istislam) to the law of God or nature (Qur’an 30:30 & Muslim 46:34).

Finally, it bears emphasizing that Abraham was not chosen, nor is he revered by Muslims, for his ethnic or cultural background or lineage. Rather, he chose God. Thus, God chose him. Anyone else can make the same choices. It’s finally worth observing that Abraham was compassionate toward the people of Lot, who represent the antithesis to the law of God; namely, “Do as thou wilt”, which is doomed to destruction.