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Friday, September 14, 2012

Islam Facts: Not Found On A Stupid Video

Nadene Goldfoot
I just braved watching about 10 minutes of the 14 minute trailer of the most stupid video I've ever forced myself to watch.  I could not even give such a video a D-.  It's a definite F.  It bears no resemblance to any facts about Mohammad and only shows up the stupidity of the writers and actors who were in it.  Somebody said the creator was an Israeli by the name of Sam Bacile. They are presuming  that it  is a pseudonym.  The person is not Jewish nor Israeli and definitely is not known in movie making circles in Israel.  A spokesman of the industry in Israel said that whoever made this video is a complete loose cannon and unspeakable idiot.  It's thought it was created by some Middle East Christians.

I know a lot about Muhammad, and I'm not Muslim.    Here in the USA we have such things as encyclopedias of worth, books we can get at local libraries and even amazon.com where we can buy books online.  We don't even have to leave our homes to do such things.  It should have just made any Muslim who knows his own religious history to scratch his head and wonder about the intelligence of American video makers.  It is not worth the money to make it as it has no academic value.  It should have been ignored.  It's trash.  Whoever on earth even brought  Muslims to its attention should feel shame, and those that have reacted so violently should also feel shame.  

For starters, Muhammad was born in about 570 and died in 632 CE.  He is the prophet of Islam.  In his early days he accompanied the Meccan trade caravans and often met Jews and Christians who probably first turned his interest to religious questions.  When he was about 40 years old he started meditating about G-d., the Hereafter and the Day of Judgement which he believed to be close at hand.

Just from the time period, one can see that his ideas came after Judaism, which started with Abraham as the father of Monotheism in  the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE or 2,000 BCE and continued with Moses, lawgiver and Great Prophet and founder of the Jewish religion who lived in 1391-1271 BCE.  We know he died according to our Jewish calendar in 2488 at the age of 120.   Christianity  was spread by Jesus starting around 16 CE.  He died in 29 CE on the cross put there by the Romans.

Muhammad  became convinced that he was chosen as the Arab prophet and publicly proclaimed the revelations which he claimed to experience through the intermediation of the angel Gabriel.  These revelations were used to create the Koran.

The following are estimated dates:  
570 Muhammad is born in Mecca
595 Muhammad married Khadija, who later becomes the first Muslim  -Khadija died in 619
610 Muhammad received what he comes to believe as his first visitation from the angel Gabriel and revelation from Allah (God)
613 Muhammad begins preaching Islam publicly in Mecca
615 Friction with the Quraysh causes some Muslims to leave Arabia for Abyssinia
620 The Night Journey:  Carried to Paradise on his horse and met with other prophets.

Muhammad and Islam is a very interesting subject.  One can usually check out the Koran from your city library as well to see what's in it.

I did watch a real honest to gosh movie on TV about Mohammad about a month ago on one of the channels.  I really needed an outline to follow what was happening, and after doing more reading saw they were following history.  It was called: "THE MESSAGE:  Story of Islam"  It starred Anthony Quinn, Irene Pappas and Michal Ansara.  You can't get a great cast like this in any old movie.  Get some background information first before you watch.

If I were still teaching, I would ask my students to do a paper which contrasts how each of the 3 religions were spread.  Then have a discussion about it.

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
The Truth about Muhammad by Robert Spencer
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/maker-of-video-that-incited-libya-attack-may-not-be-israeli-after-all-1.464585?localLinksEnabled=false
http://www.jewfaq.org/moshe.htm

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