Islam = offshoot of Shaivism?

[Gauracandra]

Anyone have any insight into this? A while back (over 1 year I'd guess) I read a report on the internet by an Indian lady who said that Islam was based on Shaivism. I'm just going from memory so here are a few points she made:

 

- Allah is another name for Durga in Sanskrit

- The Crescent Moon is the symbol of Islam, and is found in Shiva's hair.

- Apparently, Mohammed's grandfather (or perhaps father) actually wrote poetry dedicated to Mahadeva and that this still exists. This to me was the most interesting and I'd be curious as to its validity.

- As part of Mohammed's early conquests he apparently went to one temple and destroyed all the idols. People at the time were polytheistic and worshipped the deity form of the Lord. According to this lady, one of the idols smashed was from his own family and was a Shiva Linga. He had attachment to this and so had it put back together. This is apparently what is to be found in the Kabba (as I understood the report). Apparently, I think this is in Mecca and is the most holy shrine to the Muslims. They circle it as a sort of parikrama.

- Also, apparently on every Koran is a design that in Arabic is some sort of number (3 digits as I recall). Not knowing what this looks like, the lady says that it is an exact mirror image of the symbol OM (but since it is backwards it is kind of like anti-om). No one has been able to explain why these numbers would be on the cover of the Koran.

 

Anyways these were some points that I remember. Any comments?

 

Gauracandra

[JRdd]

Well this intrigued me so I did a search. so far I got:

 

"Omkar or Om is a totality of all sounds that issue from the human larynx. Om is present in Christianity as 'Amen' and in Islam as 'Amin'. Interestingly, even the Islamic letter for 'Allah' if turned to its side, is quite similar to the letter Om in Devanagri script of Sanskrit as it shown in the graphic above."

The site for the above quote, where more is written, is:

http://members.tripod.com/~sudheerb/omkar.html

 

 

I found even more interesting stuff on the following site, where there is a lot of material I have excerped a small portion here:

 

"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....

 

"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.

"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."

 

Here's the url:

 

http://www.swordoftruth.com/swordoftruth/archives/

byauthor/aditichaturvedi/vpopia2.html

 

(edited to break up the long url)

 

 

[This message has been edited by JRdd (edited 09-15-2001).]

[Gauracandra]

Thanks for the research Jayaradhe. This was probably the source material for the one I read (as this is much longer than the one I originally read through). Alot of really interesting pieces.

 

The one thing that doesn't surprise me is the extent of Vedic culture in the Middle East. This has always made perfect sense to me. A while back I showed how some Vedic gods like Mithra and Varuna were worshipped in ancient Rome. And of course we have the Zoraoastrians from that same region. It has always made sense to me that this region was polytheistic, with the worship of demigods from Vedic scriptures.

 

Anyways, thanks again for the research.

 

Gauracandra