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Salam All,

I'm just bump into this site, it has an interesting article and I want to know your opinion about it.

http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu_2/sabian.htm
http://www.geocities.com/spenta_mainyu/abram.htm

also that author research state that abram (Ibrahim) built "first house" in mount Moriah...

Regard,
Arista

Salam,

I have reviewed the entire site a long time ago and think it is quite informative. The author Kadhir Ghaznavi has some interesting points regarding Mandaeans, Sabians and Zoroasterians, and their impact on Judaism and of Mithraism on Christianity. However, I feel he is too biased towards Zoroasterianism and Sabianism being the "forefathers" of all semitic belief systems.

As well, though he provides ample evidence that Islam was "hijacked" by later-day Arabs (Abbasids?), in my opinion, he fails to put things into perspective. If he is wrong here, it is also possible he jumped the gun at other places, even if he did not mean to.

He also puts forth a case for the Quran actually being based on the Samaritan version of the Bible since the Hebrew Tanakh does not seem to have a well-developed concept of the afterlife (Aakhirah). Again, he does put up a good case but much of it is based on certain assumptions that are half baked.

Similar is his proposition on the origin on the exalted prophet Muhammad. He presents the prophet as someone who spoke Nabataean exclusively, however there is no evidence that Nabataean was a spoken language of that time. It may have been a religious language for the pagan elite, similar to the scenario in Pakistan where the spoken language in cities is Urdu while the religious languages are mainly Arabic and to some extent Persian. So we see he has left out certain details that are crucial to put things in the correct perspective.

I suspect that some of his analysis is extremely biased towards showing that Semitic religions have borrowed from Mesopotamian and Anatolian belief systems. I do think that there are certain similarities between the proto-Zoroasterian faith and Judaism in terms of the idea of God and the Angels, but it is difficult to determine which faith has had impact where. The true historical picture is sketchy from past eras and one has to start relying on archaeological evidence (which is too sparce at this time).

And as such, even if prophet Abraham had built the House of God in the Paran region, some of these beliefs may have trickled into the Sabian/Mandaean faith over time, and so must have been the concept of the the House of God and its origin. For example, there have been recent discussions on whether Solomon and David actually were from Jerusalem, or from Southern Arabia... howcome the city of David is then considered to be in Palestine?

So putting it all together, I think he has presented only a partial picture of Semitic religions and its origins.

I hope this helps.