From: hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Re: Turk(iye) gelenekleri
Date: 31 Dec 92 23:57:54 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

In article <29862@castle.ed.ac.uk> emev02@castle.ed.ac.uk (H Oral) writes:


> "Christmas day" is NOT the birthday of Hz. Isa (peace be upon him).
> It is the birthday of JAZEUS, The Babylonian Sun God.  The name Isa
> is Joshua in Hebrew, not Jesus.

I think December 25 was a Roman holliday.  It's not clear to
me that it's related to Babylonians. Neither does it make much
difference. Cultures borrow from one another. Herakles (Hercules) is the
Greek version of the Phoneocian god, Melqart. The tradition of the
virgin birth of a half-human half-god is also from the Hercules
tradition.


> It was not until 400 A.C. that Christians finally accepted the dogma
> of trinity and the "Christmas" day as the birthday of "Jesus."
> In fact Christmas have been celebrated since centuries before
> Hz. Isa (peace be upon him) the same as Easter, Halloween and all
> other Pagan traditions.

Old pagan traditions can be found in many places.

Hizirelles (Hidrilyas), I think, is an old Persian tradition.

Ahir-zaman is a distortion of Ahura-Mazda from the Zoraestrian
tradition/myth.

The 'flood' story (Noah) goes back to the Sumerians--Epic of
Gilgamish.

The universal seven days of the week also goes back to the
Sumerians, in whose tradition the gods created the world and
rested.

Nevruz is from the Persians.

There is evidence that indicates that the Abraham and the Ram
story might have been brought to the Middle East by Sumerians,
and probably from India. It was widespread in the Middle East
and predates the beginning of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
traditions.

The idea of good-evil, Satan, hell-heaven was probably also
borrowed from the Persians-i.e. the tradition of the Devil
lording over hell & fire, etc comes from the fire-worshipping
Zoraestrians. Zoraester shows up as Zarathustra sometimes,
as in the works of Nietsche.


Furthermore, if I recall correctly, the word Allah was already
in use by pagan Arabs. It was one of their deities. It's related
to the word 'ilah'. The word also pops up in the Bible under
the Hebrew name 'Elohim' which is Hebrew equivalent of the 
the plural of 'ilah' i.e. gods.


> Yes, they just follow the foot steps of their forefathers, even if
> they are wrong.   Or you do not think that there is anything wrong
> in imitating a primitive culture which used to worship Sun?

Doesn't everyone (maybe most people) also follow the traditions
of their forefathers ?

As far as the Babylonians go, they also bequethed to us the 
sexagesimal system (base 60). The use of the 60 minutes,
60 seconds, and the 360 degrees comes from them.

> I see the imitation of other nations as a proof of infriority.
> There are 365 days/354 days in a year, why do they have to choose
> this particular day for "showing kindness to the loved ones"?

In that case, maybe Turks can start up some other traditional
holidays--such as celebrating the birthday of Mete Han,
celebrating the start of the Seljukids, celebrating the start
of the Ottomans, celebrating the establishment of the first
Turkic Empire in Central Asia, etc etc.

It's not necessary to know the exact dates either.


> How can we preserve our Muslim identity while in the same time
> imitating the ignorants and/or rejecters? 

The Muslim identity is reflected in the Muslim holidays. How about
the Turkic/Turkish identity ?

And there's nothing wrong with adding a little international flavor
such as celebrating the French Revolution and the birth of modern
democracy. You won't become French by celebrating the birth
of democracy. Even if you wanted to be, the French will not
let you become one of them :-).. Don't worry.

And just because nobody has done it doesn't mean it can't be
done. If you only do what others do, then you're an imitator.
If you do new/different things, then you're original.

> Whoever imitates a nation becomes one of them.  (Hadith)

Exactly. Whoever imitates the Americans becomes one of them. Whoever
imitates the 7th century Beduoins becomes one of them.

And if you put it all together what do you have ?

Let's see. "If you copy from one book, it's plagiarism. If you
copy from many books, it's called writing a new book."

If you want to read about all these, try Bethel, "What does
the Bible really say".
-- 

	mark	

   hubey@amiga.montclair.edu         hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
   hubey@pilot.njin.net               ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey    
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish