The Fake Persianization Of The Abbasid Caliphate

The Fake Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate

By Prof. Muhammet Şemsettin Gözübüyükoğlu

(Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis)

Pre-publication of Part Eight and Chapter XXII of my forthcoming book “Turkey is Iran and Iran is Turkey - 2500 Years of indivisible Turanian - Iranian Civilization distorted and estranged by Anglo-French Orientalists”; Part Eight (The Distorted Term 'Persianate') consists exclusively of Chapter XXII. The book is made of 12 parts and 33 chapters.

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With the aforementioned, one can understand that, despite its vast territory and its broad ethnic base (wider than the Umayyads'), the Abbasid Caliphate was a very weak imperial institution that could be challenged practically speaking by any small group of dissidents. Its rise in terms of spiritual-intellectual breakthrough, cultural diversity, academic-scientific knowledge, artistic-architectural creativity, economic wealth, and military strength was conditioned by one critical prerequisite: the caliphs should be able to compose an unprecedented imperial universality out of all these diverse elements that were being incessantly multiplied by the genius of Islam. Quite unfortunately, very few Abbasid caliphs proved able to pass this test. Then, the fact that this state lasted more than 500 years is rather a miracle!

In fact and to use an anachronism, the Abbasid Caliphate only 100 years after its establishment (850) was already the Sick Man of Eurasia! Neither the short-lived Umayyad Caliphate nor the Abbasid Empire that definitely eclipsed its predecessor in every sense were formed like the Roman (Republic and later) Empire, gradually prevailing over neighboring states and progressively expanding territorially over the span of 250 years (from the First Punic War, 264-241 BCE, until the annexation of Egypt, 30 BCE). Quite contrarily, Harun al-Rashid, 150 years after the early Islamic conquests, was ruling over a territory larger than that of the Roman Emperor Trajan, commanding lands between China and India in the East and the Atlantic Ocean in the West.

As regards its immense territory, linguistic multitude, and cultural–spiritual diversity, the Abbasid Caliphate can be compared only to two earlier empires: that of Alexander the Great and that of Darius I the Great. However, Alexander's empire was split to four kingdoms only 20 years after his death, and the Achaemenid Empire of Iran did not last more than 220 years after its establishment. In fact, 100 years after Darius I the Great's death, Iran was in decay. Pretty much like the Achaemenid Empire of Iran, which was not a Zoroastrian state, but a vast empire with many different religions and with Zoroastrianism as its official religion, the Abbasid Caliphate was not an Islamic state; it was a vast empire with many different religions and with Islam as its official religion. Even more strikingly in the case of the Abbasid Caliphate, new dogmas, doctrines, spiritual orders, mystical groups, theological interpretations, apocalyptic eschatological schools, and transcendental concepts were appearing almost like mushrooms. It is a terrible oversight not to take this reality into account.

Harun al Rashid's legendarily lavish baths

What happened to the Abbasid Caliphate was however a historical particularity. Few decades after the death of Harun al-Rashid (786-809), who marked the peak of Abbasid power, several parts of the empire started seceding. One must clarify from the beginning that this was a really new type of 'secession', because it also involved approval by the caliph himself. This phenomenon took the appearance of imperial entrustment of an administrative province to a formidable military combatant, who instantly and voluntarily recognized the imperial authority. The name of the Abbasid caliph was mentioned first in the acclamations and wishes made in all sermons given during Friday prayers in all the mosques of the 'seceded' territory; taxes were paid to Baghdad and coordination was effectual, but in reality, the caliph had only nominal power over the 'seceded' province(s). More importantly, the formidable military rulers who bore significant royal titles (emirs, sultans or even caliphs) formed hereditary dynasties and engaged in various wars with local rebels, occasional invaders, foreign belligerents, neighboring secessionist rulers, and new spiritual, mystical or theological adversaries in a way that truly made of their territories fully independent states typified by their own interests and distinct characteristics.

In fact, after the first decades of the 9th c. the Abbasid Caliphate totally ceased to function as a centralized imperial institution and authority. The weakened caliphs did not have sufficient stability in Baghdad and ample military force in the provinces to quench the incessant uprisings and to avert this type of secessions. Even worse, sometimes the caliphs needed the voluntarily offered help of experienced warriors, who came with a well-trained military force to save the caliphate and eliminate its enemies. What occurred then is a situation almost similar to the appanage, a well-attested practice in Christian times' Europe. This term (from Latin adpanare 'to give bread') involves the grant of an estate as a reward for, or in recompense of, services offered or rights claimed. The final result was that the Abbasid caliph ended up as a totally powerless, decorative figure; of all of these secessionist rulers, the Buwayhi (or Buyids) achieved the unthinkable: they made of Baghdad, the capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate, their own … capital! No blood involved; no blackmail used; no threat issued!

This happened in 945; Ahmad ibn Buya, usually known in modern historiography under his regnal name Mu'izz al-Dawla, i.e. 'Fortifier of the State' (and in this case, as 'state' was meant the Caliphate itself), invaded Baghdad and made of the Abbasid capital his own capital too in the name of the caliph. It may sound odd, but it was the impotent caliph Al-Mustakfi who gave Ahmad ibn Buya the aforementioned regnal name. There is more 'paradox' to it; Ahmed ibn Buya had thoughts, ideas and beliefs close to (but not identical with) those of the followers of the descendants of Prophet Muhammad and Ali. And of course, the Abbasid caliph opposed the idea that the title of caliph was rightfully claimed by the family of the Prophet.

Of course, no one named at the time the caliph Al-Mustakfi a 'Sunni' and Ahmad ibn Buya a 'Shia', and today, it would be ridiculous to brand Ahmed ibn Buya a 'Shia' and the impotent caliph Al-Mustakfi a 'Sunni'. Only modern Western Orientalists and 'Sunni' or 'Shia' militants carry out similar distortions, the former due to their malignancy and the latter because of their ignorance and idiocy. It is definitely noteworthy that this divergence did not prevent Ahmed ibn Buya and Al-Mustakfi from finding common ground. It was however a period of very high messianic and eschatological fever, enthusiasm and fascination.

Muhammad ibn al-Askari, son of Hasan al-Askari {846-874; the 11th imam of those among the Muslims who accepted Musa al-Kadhim as the 7th imam (aforementioned section M 4 i)} and of the Eastern Roman princess Narjis ibnat Yashua (i.e. 'daughter of Jesus'), was born in 869 only to enter his Minor Occultation in 874 (one day after his father's passing away) and then his Major Occultation in 941; after that date and down to our times, the followers of this group expect the termination of the Major Occultation and the appearance of the 12th imam (Muhammad ibn al-Askari), an event prophesied to coincide with the End of Times. This means that the followers of this group identify the 12th imam with the Mahdi of Prophet Muhammad's Hadith (oral tradition). Mahdi is the Islamic Messiah, who was prophesied to lead the battle, along with Prophet Jesus (who will also reappear then), against the forces of Evil (under Masih al-Dajjal, the Antichrist, lit. 'the most fake Messiah') and eliminate them once for all. I mention the above only to show that the rise of the Buyids coincided with a time of immense apocalyptic, eschatological and messianic expectations, as people believed that developments would follow within short time (similarly with early Christians at the end of the 1st c. CE and with believers of other religions in different moments).

Of course, when describing the above, one must be watchful not to fall into the traps of modern states' pseudo-historical dogmas, fanatic pseudo-theologians' inconsistent doctrines, and Western Orientalists' intentional fallacies. It is therefore greatly important to take into account two points:

First, the various secessionists, seceding emirs, and revolting warriors were not Iranians or Persians; they were of Iranian (Persian included), Turanian, Berber, Arab and other origin. Secessions did not start in what is known as historical Iran and they were never limited there. During that period, there was never an ethnic divide 'Iranians vs. Arabs', because most of the Iranians sided with some Arabs (notably the Alids, i.e. the descendants of Prophet Muhammad and of Ali), most of the Arabs sided also with the Alids, and more importantly, most of the Arabs were already dispersed among Aramaeans, Yemenites, Iranians, Turanians, Egyptians, Berbers of North Africa, and other nations and, due to this fact, they never consisted in an 'ethnic group' properly speaking within Islam after 750 CE. Last, there was no ethnic dimension attributed to these secessions, revolts, wars or splits.

Fallacious Western Orientalists start their presentation of the fragmentation and collapse of the Abbasid Caliphate with the Samanid dynasty, which was established supposedly in 819; in fact, this is a lie, because at that time, the four sons of (the newly converted to Islam) Asad ibn Saman were rewarded by the governor of Khorasan Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri and by the Abbasic caliph al-Ma'mun for their bravery in combatting the Samarqand garrison commander Rafi ibn al-Layth who had revolted. Asad ibn Saman's four sons - Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, and Ilyas - were then appointed as governors of four important Central Asiatic cities. Their positions were inherited by their respective sons and only after a 'civil' Samanid war (in fact, a family internal conflict), a unified entity emerged in 892 under Ismail Samani and the then weakened caliph was forced to recognize him as the local ruler. Speaking of a Samanid 'dynasty' before 892 is sheer nonsense, whereas calling the emerged state (one should just call it an 'administrative institution') an 'empire' is ridiculous. Even more absurd is to describe the Samanid state as ethnically 'Iranian'. Its population was almost totally Turanian.

However, this was not the first, gradually emerged secessionist entity. At this point, we have to also take into consideration the fact that few marginal Iranian rulers (of the Qarinvand and the Dabuyid dynasties), who controlled parts of the southern shore of Caspian Sea (in the almost inaccessible region of the Elburz (Alborz) range of mountains) already before the demise of the Sassanid Empire (636-651), continued existing under the early caliphs, the Umayyads and the Abbasids, although having tormented relations with them.

As a matter fact, the first rulers, who seceded from the Islamic Caliphate, were the Rustamids, who established their rule in parts of today's Algeria, Tunisia and Libya as early as 761. Even more importantly, they institutionalized the Ibadi theological, jurisprudential school of Islam, which survived down to our days, being unrelated to what is wrongly defined as 'Sunni' and 'Shia'; they were instrumental in diffusing Islam among the Berbers who made the quasi-totality of the populations of Northern and Northwestern Africa. Not quite differently from the Ibadi Rustaminds, the Muhallabids controlled parts of the caliphate's African provinces from 768 to 795; however, they were known for their animosity against the Berbers and their rule was soon terminated.

Also before the Samanids, the Idrisids (claiming descent from Ali, as Idriss I was indeed the great grandchild of Hasan, the 2nd imam) founded their own kingdom (emirate) with first capital at Volubilis (Walili, in today's Northern Morocco) in 788, acting in full opposition to the Abbasids and in synergy with various forces of the anti-Abbasid opposition. Furthermore, the Justanids (followers of Zayd ibn Ali, who are nowadays mistakenly called Zaydi or Zaidi Shia) were established in the almost unreachable province of the southwestern shores of Caspian Sea (in 791). In addition, the Aghlabids formed their state in parts of today's Algeria, Tunisia and Sicily in 800 (when Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab as hereditary emir of the Abbasid province of Africa/Ifriqiya) and promoted a theological – jurisprudential particularity, namely an amalgamation of Mu'talizite theology with Hanafi school of Figh.

So, the fragmentation of the Abbasid Caliphate was not due to Iranians or Persians and did not have any Iranian or Persian character.

Second, there is no 'Shia' character or dimension in the overwhelmingly apocalyptic, eschatological and messianic fever, enthusiasm and fascination of the 8th, the 9th, and the 10th c. It is wrong to imagine that, at those days, the Sunni Muslims did not have a messianic fever and the Shia Muslims did. There were no Sunni and Shia at those days; practically speaking, all the populations of the Caliphate, Muslim or not, were characterized by an apocalyptic fascination. However, this fascination had no ethnic and no religious background; it was general and overwhelming, and it would take an independent study to explore its reasons, which may eventually be related to the complete disappointment from - and the total disgust about - the Islamic Caliphate's methods of rule and administration.

Long before the 12th imam (of today's Twelver Shia) went in Occultation (Minor Occultation in 874 and Major Occultation in 941), and already before Ja'far al Sadiq's eldest son Isma'il ibn Ja'far (of today's Sevener Shia) died (762), Abu Muslim al-Khorasani, a formidable combatant and a gallant general of Iranian origin (possibly Turanian, but surely not a Persian from Fars, because most of the people in Khorasan were Turanians), died in 755; his military action and imperial advice proved to be determinant in overthrowing the Umayyad dynasty and in integrating non-Muslim Manichaeans, Nestorians, Gnostics, Mazdakists, Zervanists, Mazdeists (wrongly described as Zoroastrians), Buddhists and the followers of many new mystical doctrines into the early Abbasid Empire. So, he immediately became a legendary and occult personality for various groups, who claimed that Abu Muslim al-Khorasani had not actually died, but would come back as the prophesied Mahdi. This means clearly that what was later developed as Sevener Shia messianic eschatology and as Twelver Shia apocalyptic occult doctrine were merely some aspects and dimensions of a far more general phenomenon that took place across the Islamic Caliphate during the 8th, the 9th, and the 10th c., involving Muslims, non-Muslims, and followers of mystical orders at the confines of every strict doctrine.

Of course, Abu Muslim al-Khorasani was not the only case of occult literature and messianic eschatological fascination and indoctrination; he was only one. The Khurramites were an 8th c. spiritual, mystical order and rebellious group that accepted a doctrine established by rebellious mystics like the Iranians Sunpadh, Behafarid, and Ustadh Sis and the Turanian Ishaq al-Turk. All of them were Muslims with a strong impact of earlier apocalyptic, messianic and eschatological traditions (Manichaean, Gnostic, Nestorian, Mazdakist, Mazdeist, Zervanist, and other) and all of them performed impressive spiritual exploits and magnificent transcendental acts.

An obscure figure named Hashim al-Muqanna (the 'Veiled'), probably a Turanian, organized the Khurramites into a successful military unit characterized by spiritual discipline; he appeared as the incarnation of God and as spiritual continuity of Prophet Muhammad, Ali and Abu Muslim al-Khorasani. His posthumous fame through the Nizari Isma'ili (Assassins), the Knights Templar, and several Western European Freemasonic orders reached Napoleon, who even wrote an envisioned conversation between himself and the mystical visionary al-Muqanna (named "Le Masque prophète").

More determinant role in the transformation of the Khurramites into a formidable military force and major challenge for the Abbasid armies was Babak Khorramdin (795-838), a Turanian from Azerbaijan, i.e. pre-Islamic Iran's most sacred province, which was the center of monotheistic Zoroastrian doctrine and tradition. In fact, due to his military mastership, the Babakiyah (as the Khurramites were renamed) were practically invincible. Based in their famous and almost inaccessible castle known as Kale-ye Babak (Babak Castle), which is one of Modern Iran's most spectacular monuments (in the mountainous region of Southern Azerbaijan, near Kaleybar), the Babakiyah attacked the armies of the Caliphate and tormented many northern provinces in the Caucasus and Central Asia regions.

Having organized a clandestine network of affiliated groups, they were able to get insightful and be prepared for devastating hits against the forces of the Abbasid caliph. All major historians of Islamic times dedicated long pages to describe their valor, exploits, heroic deeds, doctrinal particularities, and mystical visions. At the end, Babak Khorramdin suffered an excruciating death at the hands of the monstrous soldiers of the cruel, pseudo-Muslim Abbasid caliph; the tortures described by illustrious historians as applied to the master of the Babakiyah order are all strictly prohibited in Islam.

However, Babak Khorramdin's messianic legend survived for centuries; his clandestine organization endured and carried out subversive activities and frontal wars against the Abbasid caliphs across vast territories spanning between the Eastern Roman Empire and China; and the ramifications of the Babakiyah order's mystical doctrine and military practices can be attested later among various Islamic traditions and groups, involving the Isma'ili Assassins and the Qizilbash of the Ottoman – Safavid times.

What is falsely described by Western Orientalists as Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate is an effort to

i- distort the nature, character and dimensions of the Golden Era of Islamic Civilization,

ii- depict it as a 'Persian' (not even Iranian) cultural by-product,

iii- culturally subordinate numerous Central Asiatic (Turanians), Western Asiatic (Aramaeans, Caucasians, and Eastern Romans), and South Asiatic nations (Dravidians, Malay) to Persians,

iv- erase the extensive Turanization of the entire Eurasia,

v- conceal the majestic role played by the Aramaeans in the formation of the Islamic Civilization

vi- develop and detail the next historical stage of the fallacious Orientalist divide 'Iran vs. Turan' (1037-1501: from the emergence of the Slejuk to the rise of the Safavids),

vii- avert any possible reference to the impact that Manichaeism exerted on the Islamic Civilization,

viii- depict as non-Islamic the peak of Islamic Civilization (and in the process promote Western propaganda related to Islamism, Wahhabism and Islamic Terrorism),

ix- advance a global, racist, Indo-European agenda, and

x- promote a certain number of fake divides and mistaken identifications that would be politically and geopolitically useful.

Dar al Hikmah ('House of Wisdom') in Abbasid Baghdad: the World History's Foremost University, Academy, Library, Scientific Research Center, Museum, and Translation House, and Archival Institution

The underlying concept of this historical falsification is the fallacy that 'Shia Persians' took the upper hand in the Abbasid Caliphate only to be later superseded by – the already Persianized (!?) – Turks, starting with the Seljuk dynasty. For this purpose, there are many fabricated terms, such as Iranian Intermezzo or Iranian Renaissance and Sunni Revival. These fake terms help distort the presentation of

A- the period from the rise of the Samanid dynasty (892) to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks (1037) and the demolition of the Buyid parasites in Baghdad (1055); this period is falsely called 'Iranian Intermezzo', and

B- the period from the rise of the Seljuk (1037-1055) to the rise of the first Sufi dynasty in Iran, i.e. the Safavids, in 1501.

Several determinant historical facts are enough to refute the fallacy of the Persianization of the Caliphate:

i- The presence of Turanians as basic component of the Achaemenid, Arsacid and Sassanid empires refutes the nonsensical distortion as per which 'Turks' (Turanians) appear in Iran only with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks. The same is valid for the early Islamic period until the peak of the Abbasid Caliphate. In all the parts of the unit VI (from A to L), I expanded on this highly concealed topic.

ii- The terms of Turanian – Persian interaction within the wider Iran – Turan were known since the Achaemenid times and they were only repeated across the ages and during the various periods of Islamic History. In the aboce unit VI (part D. Iranian and Turanian nations in Achaemenid Iran), I wrote: "The Persians, among all Iranians and Turanians, had an inclination to poetry, literature, epics, lyricism, arts and symbolism, whereas the Turanians were known for their tendency to martial arts, military discipline and life, asceticism and religious mysticism. The Turanians found it therefore normal to write in Old Achaemenid Iranian in the 1st millennium BCE, in Middle Persian (Parsik) during the 1st millennium CE, and in Arabic and Farsi after the arrival of Islam".

iii- One very well-known fact is comfortably forgotten, when Orientalists, Iranologists and Islamologists study the Early History of Islam between Tigris and Indus. Similarly with the invasion of Alexander the Great, the early Islamic conquest caused an overwhelming destruction of Fars (Persia). The principal Iranian capital Istakhr was totally erased from the surface of the Earth. Alexander the Great's destruction of Persepolis pales in comparison of the Islamic armies' pulverization of Istakhr. This can be easily noticed by any non-specialist traveller who happens to visit the two sites. Whereas other provinces of Iran, notably Atropatene / Adhurbadagan – Azerbaijan (also known as Abakhtar in Sassanid times), were not destroyed at all, Fars was left in ruins already before 651, when the Islamic armies reached Merv in today's Turkmenistan. And Persians were slaughtered to the last, except for those who were lucky enough to flee to the southeast, reach Sistan and Baluchistan (in today's SE Iran and SW Pakistan), and settle there.

iv- This is exactly what happened: Turanians preserved Middle Persian (Parsik) and developed Farsi after the arrival of Islam, because the Persian language had always been their means of cultural-literary expression, pretty much like Turanian (Turkic) was the language of the army. With this I don't mean that all Persian Iranians disappeared with the arrival of Islam; there were Persians living in Mesopotamia, in the Northeast (Khurasan), the Middle Zagros (Khwarawaran), and other southern regions except Fars, but they were few. The bulk of Persian populations lived in Fars and most of them were slaughtered, as they were viewed as the most polytheistic element of the Sassanid Empire.

v- Of course, the terms Iranian Intermezzo and Iranian Renaissance are not wrong if understood properly, i.e. if considered as involving the contribution of Iranians, Turanians and other nations, notably the Aramaeans, in the formation of the Islamic Civilization. Furthermore, these terms must be totally deprived of any religious or denominational connotation.

It is absurd to portray the anti-Caliphate forces, arbitrarily called 'Shia', as the driving force of the Iranian-Turanian-Aramaean Renaissance, because there were also many pro-Caliphate elements that participated in the rise of the Islamic Civilization.

And it is totally wrong to view the Seljuk Turks and other Turanians either as 'Sunni' or as the driving force of an otherwise nonexistent 'Sunni revival' during the following period 1055-1501. As a matter of fact, Turanians were the major force behind the rise of the apocalyptic, messianic, eschatological mysticism of the 8th, 9th and 10th c., which is viciously distorted (by Western Orientalists and today's silly, uneducated and intoxicated 'Sunni' and 'Shia' theologians) as 'Shia doctrine'.

As conclusion one can simply say that, as early as 651, there were not enough Persians left to possibly 'persianize' or 'indo-europeanize' the Islamic Caliphate.

As a matter of fact, the terms 'persianization' and 'persianate' or 'persianate society' were introduced only in the 1970s by Marshall Hodgson, but within a totally diverse context and with a greatly different connotation. In fact, Marshall Hodgson was an erudite scholar and a pioneer intellectual who took a staunch anti-Eurocentric stance and introduced several new terms in an effort to demolish the fake colonial model of historiography. Rejecting the fallacy of Western, colonial, racist Orientalism, in his celebrated "The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization" (3 vols.), Marshall Hodgson tried to offer to the Islamic Civilization something that almost all earlier Western Islamologists and Orientalists worked hard to deprive it of: its universality.

Marshall Hodgson contributed greatly to an improved viewpoint over China's contribution to World History, again rejecting earlier Eurocentric fallacies of demented Western Orientalists and Sinologists. Marshall Hodgson coined the term 'persianate society' in a – very correct – effort to reject and rebut the fallacy of the so-called 'Arab-Islamic' civilization and the deprecatory presentation of Islam as an 'Arab religion' (see above parts 1, 2 and 3 of the unit M. Western Orientalist falsifications of Islamic History: the Arabization of Islam and the Persianization of the Abbasid Caliphate: 1. Identification of Islam with only Hejaz at the times of the Prophet; 2. The fake, Orientalist Arabization of Islam; 3. The systematic dissociation of Islam from the Ancient Oriental History).

But as it usually happens, when evil gangsters are allowed to control Western European and North American universities, libraries, museums, foundations and associated research institutions, the original scope of the new term was removed, the term was decontextualized, and its further use proved to be totally erroneous and in striking opposition to the original use (by Marshall Hodgson).

Then, the decontextualized and distorted term was used for the above mentioned purposes i-x. Many tricks have been used for this purpose, especially false etymology of various names (to present them as of Persian origin) and incongruous linguistics. The foundation of Beit al Hikmah (House of Wisdom) in the first years of Abbasid rule played a tremendous role in the promotion of the academic life, the scientific exploration, and the intellectual advancement across the caliphate. This tendency was mainly based on Aramaean scholars of Tesifun (Ctesiphon), Nusaybin (Nisibis), Urhoy (Edessa of Osrhoene), Antioch, Gundeshapur (the greatest Sassanid library, university, archives and research center, museum and scriptorium), who were variably Muslims, Manichaeans, Gnostics or (Monophysitic or Nestorian) Christians. Iranian, Turanian, Yemenite, Egyptian, Berber and Indian scholars flocked to the House of Wisdom, which was located in Baghdad. The whole movement was supported by great Iranian families that had sooner or later abandoned Mazdeism and accepted Islam, like the Naubakht family (originating from Nemroz, i.e. the Sassanid Empire's southern administrative region) and the Barmak family, which was native to Khorasan.

The name of the Barmak family is evidently of Turanian origin (Parmak) and it was turned to al-Baramikah (البرامكة) in Arabic and Barmakian (برمکیان‎) in Farsi. However, paranoid Western historians and racist Orientalists attempted to distort this family name enormously in order to depict as … Indian and Buddhist. The ridiculous effort reached the point of even associating the historical name with the Sanskrit word Pramukha; this was suggested by the irrelevant English Indologist Harold Walter Bailey, who tried to indo-europeanize everything he studied in Central and South Asia. This idiotic and racist pseudo-scholar, who was shamelessly venerated in colonial England, forgot that first, Sanskrit was never used in Khorasan; second, it was already a dead language in the 8th c. CE; third, if truly the influential family's name were Pramukha, it would never be vocalized as al-Baramikah in Arabic and as Barmakian in Farsi.

Even more absurd is the Western Orientalists' effort to portray the prestigious Islamic family as having Buddhist affiliations prior to their adhesion to Islam. Nothing proves that the Barmakids were Buddhists and not Mazdeists (the late form of Zoroastrianism that was the official religion of the Sassanid Empire). Plenty of Islamic historical sources describe the pre-Islamic family members of the Barmakids as priestly, which means Mazdeist mobedh. Their homeland was Balkh which was a major Zoroastrian religious center since the Achaemenid times.

The ridiculous association of the Barmakian with the so-called Nawbahar Buddhist monastery (reconstructed as Nava Vihara in Sanskrit) is totally unsubstantiated because such a monastery is delusional and unsubstantiated, as it has never been identified, let alone excavated. Many Islamic sources it describe the Nawbahar temple as a fire place (so, evidently a Mazdeist shrine), and not one colonial Orientalist published a single article to refute these historical sources. Although there are certainly Chinese historical sources testifying to the existence of a Buddhist temple in the wider region of Balkh (Bactra), nothing proves that they refer to the Nawbahar shrine. All the same, if the Barmakian were Buddhists, this only strengthens the argument in favor of the Turanian ancestry of the said family, because the Persians in Khorasan were all followers of the official religion of the Sassanid Empire (Mazdeism) and the only eventual followers of Buddhism in Khorasan and Central Asia were Turanians.

The only correct term to describe the real nature of the Abbasid Caliphate until the arrival of the Seljuk Turks (1055) is 'Turanian – Iranian – Aramaean Renaissance of Islam'. About:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Caliphate#Abbasid_Golden_Age_(775%E2%80%93861)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As-Saffah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid_Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barmakids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_Barmak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahya_ibn_Khalid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Muslim

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasr_ibn_Sayyar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Harith_ibn_Surayj

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wisdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nawbakhti

https://iranicaonline.org/articles/nawbakti-family

http://www.orientalstudies.ru/eng/index.php?option=com_publications&Itemid=75&pub=47

Armillary sphere of later (Ottoman) period

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarinvand_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabuyid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustamid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibadi_Islam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhallabids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghlabids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justanids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idrisid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanid_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahirid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-Khanid_Khanate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habbari_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffarid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banijurids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulunids

http://alamahabibi.net/English_Articles/The_Al-Ferighun.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sajid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamdanid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uqaylid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid_Caliphate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziyarid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27izz_al-Dawla

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mustakfi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_al-Askari

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narjis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hujjat-Allah_al-Mahdi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultation_(Islam)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Occultation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Occultation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwanids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallarid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikhshidid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Chaghaniyan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhtajids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Ilyas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rawadid_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qarmatians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasanwayhids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrighids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%27munids

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizari_Ismaili_state

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soomro

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soomra_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuq_dynasty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tughril

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Muslim

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunpadh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behafarid

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustadh_Sis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishaq_al-Turk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Muqanna

http://www.bmlisieux.com/archives/bonapart.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khurramites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babak_Khorramdin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babak_Fort

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleybar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persianization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persianate_society

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Hodgson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turco-Persian_tradition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Persian_culture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Intermezzo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Revival

Benedict XVI and today's Muslims opposite Manuel II Palaeologus and his Turkic Interlocutor

Or why I defended Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 against the thoughtlessly irascible Muslims

When a Muslim writes an Obituary for the Catholic Church's sole Pope Emeritus…

Benedict XVI And Today's Muslims Opposite Manuel II Palaeologus And His Turkic Interlocutor

Table of Contents

I. From Joseph Ratzinger to Pope Benedict XVI

II. The theoretical concerns of an intellectual Pope

III. Benedict XVI: A Pope against violence and wars

IV. Manuel II Palaeologus and the Eastern Roman Empire between the Muslim Ottoman brethren and the Anti-Christian Roman enemies

V. The unknown (?) Turkic mystic interlocutor and the Islamic centers of science and reason that Benedict XVI ignored

VI. Excerpt from Benedict XVI's lecture given on the 12th September at the University of Regensburg under title 'Faith, Reason and the University–Memories and Reflections'

VII. The problems of the academic-theological background of Benedict XVI's lecture

VIII. Benedict XVI's biased approach, theological mistakes, intellectual oversights and historical misinterpretations

IX. The lecture's most controversial point

X. The educational-academic-intellectual misery and the political ordeal of today's Muslim states

Of all the Roman popes who resigned the only to be called 'Pope Emeritus' was Joseph Ratzinger Pope Benedict XVI (also known in German as Prof. Dr. Papst), who passed away on 31st December 2022, thus sealing the circle of world figures and heads of states whose life ended last year. As a matter of fact, although being a head state, a pope does not abdicate; he renounces to his ministry (renuntiatio).

Due to lack of documentation, conflicting sources or confusing circumstances, we do not have conclusive evidence as regards the purported resignations of the popes St. Pontian (235), Marcellinus (304), Liberius (366), John XVIII (1009) and Sylvester (105). That is why historical certainty exists only with respect to the 'papal renunciation' of six pontiffs; three of them bore the papal name of 'Benedict'. The brief list includes therefore the following bishops of Rome: Benedict V (964), Benedict IX (deposed in 1044, bribed to resign in 1045, and resigned in 1048), Gregory VI (1046), St Celestine (1294), Gregory XII (1415) and Benedict XVI (2013).

I. From Joseph Ratzinger to Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI (18 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was seven (7) years younger than his predecessor John Paul II (1920-2005), but passed away seventeen (17) years after the Polish pope's death; already on the 4th September 2020, Benedict XVI would have been declared as the oldest pope in history, had he not resigned seven (7) years earlier. Only Leo XIII died 93, back in 1903. As a matter of fact, Benedict XVI outlived all the people who were elected to the Roman See.

Benedict XVI's papacy lasted slightly less than eight (8) years (19 April 2005 – 28 February 2013). Before being elected as pope, Cardinal Ratzinger was for almost a quarter century (1981-2005) the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which was the formal continuation of the Office of the Holy Inquisition, and therefore one of the most important sections ('dicasteries'; from the Ancient Greek term 'dikasterion', i.e. 'court of law') of the Roman administration ('Curia').

A major step toward this position was his appointment as archbishop of Munich for four years (1977-1981); Bavaria has always been a Catholic heavyweight, and in this regard, it is easy to recall the earlier example of Eugenio Pacelli (the later pope Pius XII), who was nuncio to Bavaria (and therefore to the German Empire), in Munich, from 1917 to 1920, and then to Germany, before being elected to the Roman See (in 1939). Before having a meteoric rise in the Catholic hierarchy, Ratzinger made an excellent scholar and a distinct professor of dogmatic theology, while also being a priest. His philosophical dissertation was about St. Augustine and his habilitation concerned Bonaventure, a Franciscan scholastic theologian and cardinal of the 13th c.

II. The theoretical concerns of an intellectual Pope

During his ministry, very early, Benedict XVI stood up and showed his teeth; when I noticed his formidable outburst against the 'dictatorship of relativism', I realized that the German pope would be essentially superior to his Polish predecessor. Only in June 2005, so just two months after his election, he defined relativism as "the main obstacle to the task of education", directing a tremendous attack against the evilness of ego and portraying selfishness as a "self-limitation of reason".

In fact, there cannot be more devastating attack from a supreme religious authority against the evilness of Anglo-Zionism and the rotten, putrefied society that these criminals diffuse worldwide by means of infiltration, corruption, mendacity, and simulation. Soon afterwards, while speaking in Marienfeld (Cologne), Benedict XVI attacked ferociously all the pathetic ideologies which indiscriminately enslave humans from all spiritual and cultural backgrounds. He said: "absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism". This is a detrimental rejection of Talmudic Judaism, Zohar Kabbalah, and Anglo-Zionism.

It was in the summer 2005 that I first realized that I should study closer the pre-papal past of the Roman Pontiff whom St Malachy's illustrious Prophecy of the Popes (12th c.) described as 'Gloria olivae' (the Glory of the olive). I contacted several friends in Germany, who extensively updated me as regards his academic publications, also dispatching to me some of them. At the time, I noticed that my Christian friends already used to question a certain number of Cardinal Ratzinger's positions.

But, contrarily to them, I personally found his prediction about the eventuality of Buddhism becoming the principal 'enemy' of the Catholic Church as quite plausible. My friends were absolutely astounded, and then I had to narrate and explain to them the deliberately concealed story of the Christian-Islamic-Confucian alliance against the Buddhist terrorism of the Dzungar Khanate (1634-1755); actually, it took many Kazakh-Dzungar wars (1643-1756), successive wars between Qing China and the Dzungar Khanate (1687-1757), and even an alliance with the Russian Empire in order to successfully oppose the ferocious Buddhist extremist threat.

Finally, the extraordinary ordeal of North Asia {a vast area comprising lands of today's Eastern Kazakhstan, Russia (Central Siberia), Northwestern and Western China (Eastern Turkestan/Xinjiang and Tibet) and Western Mongolia} ended up with the systematic genocide of the extremist Buddhist Dzungars (1755-1758) that the Chinese had to undertake because there was no other way to terminate once forever the most fanatic regime that ever existed in Asia.

Disoriented, ignorant, confused and gullible, most of the people today fail to clearly understand how easily Buddhism can turn a peaceful society into a fanatic realm of lunatic extremists. The hypothetically innocent adhesion of several fake Freemasonic lodges of the West to Buddhism and the seemingly harmless acceptance of Buddhist principles and values by these ignorant fools can end up in the formation of vicious and terrorist organizations that will give to their members and initiates the absurd order and task to indiscriminately kill all of their opponents. But Cardinal Ratzinger had prudently discerned the existence of a dangerous source of spiritual narcissism in Buddhism.

III. Benedict XVI: A Pope against violence and wars

To me, this foresight was a convincing proof that Benedict XVI was truly 'Gloria olivae'; but this would be troublesome news! In a period of proxy wars, unrestrained iniquity, and outrageous inhumanity, a perspicacious, cordial, and benevolent pope in Rome would surely be an encumbering person to many villainous rascals, i.e. the likes of Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Nicolas Sarkozy, and many others so-called 'leaders'. The reason for this assessment of the situation is simple: no one wants a powerful pacifier at a time more wars are planned.

At the time, it was ostensible to all that a fake confrontation between the world's Muslims and Christians was underway (notably after the notorious 9/11 events); for this reason, I expected Benedict XVI to make a rather benevolent statement that evil forces would immediately misinterpret, while also falsely accusing the pacifist Pope and absurdly turning the uneducated and ignorant mob of many countries against the Catholic Church.

This is the foolish plan of the Anglo-Zionist lobby, which has long served as puppets of the Jesuits, corrupting the entire Muslim world over the past 250 years by means of intellectual, educational, academic, scientific, cultural, economic, military and political colonialism. These idiotic puppets, which have no idea who their true and real masters are, imagine that, by creating an unprecedented havoc in Europe, they harm the worldwide interests of the Jesuits; but they fail to properly realize that this evil society, which early turned against Benedict XVI, has already shifted its focus onto China. Why the apostate Anglo-Zionist Freemasonic lodge would act in this manner against Benedict XVI is easy to assess; the Roman pontiff whose episcopal motto was 'Cooperatores Veritatis' ('Co-workers of the Truth') would apparently try to prevent the long-prepared fake war between the Muslims and the Christians.

IV. Manuel II Palaeologus and the Eastern Roman Empire between the Muslim Ottoman brethren and the Anti-Christian Roman enemies

And this is what truly happened in the middle of September 2006; on the 12th September, Benedict XVI delivered a lecture at the University of Regensburg in Germany; the title was 'Glaube, Vernunft und Universität – Erinnerungen und Reflexionen' ('Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections'). In the beginning of the lecture, Prof. Dr. Ratzinger eclipsed Pope Benedict XVI, as the one-time professor persisted on his concept of 'faith', "which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole", as he said. In a most rationalistic approach (for which he had been known for several decades as a renowned Catholic theologian), in an argumentation reflecting views certainly typical of Francis of Assisi and of Aristotle but emphatically alien to Jesus, Benedict XVI attempted to portray an ahistorical Christianity and to describe the Catholic faith as the religion of the Reason.

At an early point of the lecture, Benedict XVI referred to a discussion that the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (or Palaiologos; Μανουήλ Παλαιολόγος; 1350-1425; reigned after 1391) had with an erudite Turkic scholar (indiscriminately but mistakenly called by all Eastern Roman authors at the time as 'Persian') most probably around the end of 1390 or the first months of 1391, when he was hostage at the Ottoman court of Bayezid I. In the historical text, it is stated that the location was 'Ancyra of Galatia' (i.e. Ankara).

This Eastern Roman Emperor was indeed a very controversial historical figure; although undeniably an erudite ruler, a bold diplomat, and a reputable soldier, he first made agreements with the Ottomans and delivered to them the last Eastern Roman city in Anatolia (Philadelphia; today's Alaşehir, ca. 140 km east of Izmir / Smyrna) and then, after he took control of his ailing kingdom thanks to the sultan, he escaped the protracted siege of Constantinople (1391-1402) only to travel to various Western European kingdoms and ask the help of those rather reluctant monarchs (1399-1403).

At the time, all the Christian Orthodox populations, either living in the Ottoman sultanate or residing in the declined Eastern Roman Empire, were deeply divided into two groups, namely those who preferred to be ruled by Muslims (because they rejected the pseudo-Christian fallacy, evilness and iniquity of the Roman pope) and the fervent supporters of a Latin (: Western European) control over Constantinople (viewed as the only way for them to prevent the Ottoman rule); the former formed the majority and were called Anthenotikoi, i.e. 'against the union' (: of the Orthodox Church with the Catholics), whereas the latter constituted a minority group and were named 'Enotikoi' ('those in favor of the union of the two churches').

V. The unknown (?) Turkic mystic interlocutor and the Islamic centers of science and reason that Benedict XVI ignored

Manuel II Palaeologus' text has little theological value in itself; however, its historical value is great. It reveals how weak both interlocutors were at the intellectual, cultural and spiritual levels, how little they knew one another, and how poorly informed they were about their own and their interlocutor's past, heritage, religion and spirituality. If we have even a brief look at it, we will immediately realize that the level is far lower than that attested during similar encounters in 8th- 9th c. Baghdad, 10th c. Umayyad Andalusia, Fatimid Cairo, 13th c. Maragheh (where the world's leading observatory was built) or 14th c. Samarqand, the Timurid capital.

It was absolutely clear at the time of Manuel II Palaeologus and Bayezid I that neither Constantinople nor Bursa (Προύσα / Prousa; not anymore the Ottoman capital after 1363, but still the most important city of the sultanate) could compete with the great centers of Islamic science civilization which were located in Iran and Central Asia. That's why Gregory Chioniades, the illustrious Eastern Roman bishop, astronomer, and erudite scholar who was the head of the Orthodox diocese of Tabriz, studied in Maragheh under the guidance of his tutor and mentor, Shamsaddin al Bukhari (one of the most illustrious students of Nasir el-Din al Tusi, who was the founder of the Maragheh Observatory), before building an observatory in Trabzon (Trebizond) and becoming the teacher of Manuel Bryennios, another famous Eastern Roman scholar.

The text of the Dialogues must have been written several years after the conversation took place, most probably when the traveling emperor and diplomat spent four years in Western Europe. For reasons unknown to us, the erudite emperor did not mention the name of his interlocutor, although this was certainly known to him; if we take into consideration that he was traveling to other kingdoms, we can somehow guess a plausible reason. His courtiers and royal scribes may have translated the text partly into Latin and given copies of the 'dialogues' to various kings, marshals, chroniclers, and other dignitaries. If this was the case, the traveling emperor would not probably want to offer insights into the Ottoman court and the influential religious authorities around the sultan.

Alternatively, the 'unknown' interlocutor may well have been Amir Sultan (born as Mohamed bin Ali; also known as Shamsuddin Al-Bukhari; 1368-1429) himself, i.e. none else than an important Turanian mystic from Vobkent (near Bukhara in today's Uzbekistan), who got married with Bayezid I's daughter Hundi Fatema Sultan Hatun. Amir Sultan had advised the sultan not to turn against Timur; had the foolish sultan heeded to his son-in-law's wise advice, he would not have been defeated so shamefully.

Benedict XVI made a very biased use of the historical text; he selected an excerpt of Manuel II Palaeologus' response to his interlocutor in order to differentiate between Christianity as the religion of Reason and Islam as the religion of Violence. Even worse, he referred to a controversial, biased and rancorous historian of Lebanese origin, the notorious Prof. Theodore Khoury (born in 1930), who spent his useless life to write sophisticated diatribes, mildly formulated forgeries, and deliberate distortions of the historical truth in order to satisfy his rancor and depict the historical past according to his absurd political analysis. Almost every sentence written Prof. Khoury about the Eastern Roman Empire and the Islamic Caliphate is maliciously false.

All the same, it was certainly Benedict XVI's absolute right to be academically, intellectually and historically wrong. The main problem was that the paranoid reaction against him was not expressed at the academic and intellectual levels, but at the profane ground of international politics. Even worse, it was not started by Muslims but by the criminal Anglo-Zionist mafia and the disreputable mainstream mass media, the likes of the BBC, Al Jazeera (Qatari is only the façade of it), etc.

I will now republish (in bold and italics) a sizeable (600-word) excerpt of the papal lecture that contains the contentious excerpt, also adding the notes to the text. The link to the Vatican's website page is available below. I will comment first on the lecture and the selected part of Manuel II Palaeologus' text and then on the absurd Muslim reaction.

VI. Excerpt from Benedict XVI's lecture given on the 12th September at the University of Regensburg under title 'Faith, Reason and the University–Memories and Reflections'

I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.[1] It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor.[2] The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to some of the experts, this is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”[3] The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".[4]

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.[5] The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.[6] Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.[7]

Notes 1 to 7 (out of 13)

[1] Of the total number of 26 conversations (διάλεξις – Khoury translates this as “controversy”) in the dialogue (“Entretien”), T. Khoury published the 7th “controversy” with footnotes and an extensive introduction on the origin of the text, on the manuscript tradition and on the structure of the dialogue, together with brief summaries of the “controversies” not included in the edition; the Greek text is accompanied by a French translation: “Manuel II Paléologue, Entretiens avec un Musulman. 7e Controverse”, Sources Chrétiennes n. 115, Paris 1966. In the meantime, Karl Förstel published in Corpus Islamico-Christianum (Series Graeca ed. A. T. Khoury and R. Glei) an edition of the text in Greek and German with commentary: “Manuel II. Palaiologus, Dialoge mit einem Muslim”, 3 vols., Würzburg-Altenberge 1993-1996. As early as 1966, E. Trapp had published the Greek text with an introduction as vol. II of Wiener byzantinische Studien. I shall be quoting from Khoury’s edition.

[2] On the origin and redaction of the dialogue, cf. Khoury, pp. 22-29; extensive comments in this regard can also be found in the editions of Förstel and Trapp.

[3] Controversy VII, 2 c: Khoury, pp. 142-143; Förstel, vol. I, VII. Dialog 1.5, pp. 240-241. In the Muslim world, this quotation has unfortunately been taken as an expression of my personal position, thus arousing understandable indignation. I hope that the reader of my text can see immediately that this sentence does not express my personal view of the Qur’an, for which I have the respect due to the holy book of a great religion. In quoting the text of the Emperor Manuel II, I intended solely to draw out the essential relationship between faith and reason. On this point I am in agreement with Manuel II, but without endorsing his polemic.

[4] Controversy VII, 3 b–c: Khoury, pp. 144-145; Förstel vol. I, VII. Dialog 1.6, pp. 240-243.

[5] It was purely for the sake of this statement that I quoted the dialogue between Manuel and his Persian interlocutor. In this statement the theme of my subsequent reflections emerges.

[6] Cf. Khoury, p. 144, n. 1.

[7] R. Arnaldez, Grammaire et théologie chez Ibn Hazm de Cordoue, Paris 1956, p. 13; cf. Khoury, p. 144. The fact that comparable positions exist in the theology of the late Middle Ages will appear later in my discourse.

VII. The problems of the academic-theological background of Benedict XVI's lecture

It is my conviction that Benedict XVI fell victim to the quite typical theological assumptions that Prof. Dr. Ratzinger had studied and taught for decades. However, the problem is not limited to the circle of the faculties of Theology and to Christian Theology as a modern discipline; it is far wider. The same troublesome situation permeates all the disciplines of Humanities and, even worse, the quasi-totality of the modern sciences as they started in Renaissance. The problem goes well beyond the limits of academic research and intellectual consideration; it has to do with the degenerate, rotten and useless mental abilities and capacities of the Western so-called scholars, researchers and academics. The description of the problem is rather brief, but its nature is truly ominous.

Instead of perceiving, understanding, analyzing and representing the 'Other' in its own terms, conditions and essence and as per its own values, virtues and world conceptualization, the modern Western European scholars, researchers, explorers and specialists view, perceive, attempt to understand, and seek to analyze the 'Other' in their own terms, conditions and essence and as per their own values, virtues and world conceptualization. Due to this sick effort and unprecedented aberration, the Western so-called scholars and researchers view the 'Other' through their eyes, thus projecting onto the 'Other' their view of it. Consequently, they do not and actually they cannot learn it, let alone know, understand and represent it. Their attitude is inane, autistic and degenerate. It is however quite interesting and truly bizarre that the Western European natural scientists do not proceed in this manner, but fully assess the condition of the object of their study in a rather objective manner.

In fact, the Western disciplines of the Humanities, despite the enormous collection and publication of study materials, sources and overall documentation, are a useless distortion. Considered objectively, the Western scientific endeavor in its entirety is a monumental nothingness; it is not only a preconceived conclusion. It is a resolute determination not to 'see' the 'Other' as it truly exists, as its constituent parts obviously encapsulate its contents, and as the available documentation reveals it. In other words, it consists in a premeditated and resolute rejection of the Truth; it is intellectually barren, morally evil, and spiritually nihilist. The topic obviously exceeds by far the limits of the present obituary, but I had to mention it in order to offer the proper context.

It is therefore difficult to identify the real reason for the magnitude of the Western scholarly endeavor, since the conclusions existed in the minds of the explorers and the academics already before the documentation was gathered, analyzed, studied, and represented. How important is it therefore to publish the unpublished material (totaling more than 100000 manuscripts of Islamic times and more than one million of cuneiform tablets from Ancient Mesopotamia, Iran, Canaan and Anatolia – only to give an idea to the non-specialized readers), if the evil Western scholars and the gullible foreign students enrolled in Western institutions (to the detriment of their own countries and nations) are going to repeat and reproduce the same absurd Western mentality of viewing an Ancient Sumerian, an Ancient Assyrian, an Ancient Egyptian or a Muslim author through their own eyes and of projecting onto the ancient author the invalid and useless measures, values, terms and world views of the modern Western world?

As it can be easily understood, the problem is not with Christian Theology, but with all the disciplines of the Humanities. So, the problem is not only that a great Muslim scholar and erudite mystic like Ibn Hazm was viewed by Benedict XVI and Western theologians through the distorting lenses of their 'science', being not evaluated as per the correct measures, values and terms of his own Islamic environment, background and civilization. The same problem appears in an even worse form, when Ancient Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian-Babylonian, Hittite, Iranian and other high priests, spiritual masters, transcendental potentates, sacerdotal writers, and unequaled scientists are again evaluated as per the invalid and useless criteria of Benedict XVI, of all the Western theologians, and of all the modern European and American academics.

What post-Renaissance popes, theologians, academics, scholars and intellectuals fail to understand is very simple; their 'world' ( i.e. the world of the Western Intellect and Science, which was first fabricated in the 15th and the 16th c. and later enhanced progressively down to our days) in not Christian, is not human, and is not real. It is their own delusion, their own invalid abstraction, their abject paranoia, and their own sin for which first they will atrociously disappear from the surface of the Earth (like every anomalous entity) and then flagrantly perish in Hell.

Their dangling system does not hold; they produced it in blood and in blood it will end. Modern sciences constitute a counter-productive endeavor and an aberration that will terminally absorb the entire world into the absolute nothingness, because these evil systems were instituted out of arbitrary bogus-interpretations of the past, peremptory self-identification, deliberate and prejudicial ignorance, as well as an unprecedented ulcerous hatred of the 'Other', i.e. of every 'Other'.

The foolish Western European academic-intellectual establishment failed to realize that it is absolutely preposterous to extrapolate later and corrupt standards to earlier and superior civilizations; in fact, it is impossible. By trying to do it, you depart from the real world only to live in your delusion, which sooner or later will inevitably have a tragic end. Consequently, the Western European scholars' 'classics' are not classics; their reason is an obsession; their language and jargon are hallucinatory, whereas their notions are conjectural. Their abstract concepts are the manifestation of Non-Being.

VIII. Benedict XVI's biased approach, theological mistakes, intellectual oversights and historical misinterpretations

Benedict XVI's understanding of the Eastern Roman Empire was fictional. When examining the sources, he retained what he liked, what pleased him, and what was beneficial to his preconceived ideas and thoughts. In fact, Prof. Dr. Papst did not truly understand what Manuel II Palaeologus said to his Turkic interlocutor, and even worse, he failed to assess the enormous distance that separated the early 15th c. Eastern Roman (not 'Byzantine': this is a fake appellation too) Emperor from his illustrious predecessors before 800 or 900 years (the likes of Heraclius and Justinian I) in terms of Christian Roman imperial ideology, theological acumen, jurisprudential perspicacity, intellectual resourcefulness, and spiritual forcefulness. Benedict XVI did not want to accept that with time the Christian doctrine, theology and spirituality had weakened.

What was Ratzinger's mistake? First, he erroneously viewed Manuel II Palaeologus as 'his' (as identical with the papal doctrine), by projecting his modern Catholic mindset and convictions onto the Christian Orthodox Eastern Roman Emperor's mind, mentality and faith. He took the 'Dialogues' at face value whereas the text may have been written not as a declaration of faith but as a diplomatic document in order to convince the rather uneducated Western European monarchs that the traveling 'basileus' (βασιλεύς) visited during the period 1399-1403.

Second, he distorted the 'dialogue', presenting it in a polarized form. Benedict XVI actually depicted a fraternal conversation as a frontal opposition; unfortunately, there is nothing in the historical text to insinuate this possibility. As I already said, it is quite possible that the moderate, wise, but desperate Eastern Roman Emperor may have discussed with someone married to a female descendant of the great mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi (namely Bayezid's son-in-law, adviser and mystic Emir Sultan). Why on Earth did the renowned theologian Ratzinger attempt to stage manage a theological conflict in the place of a most peaceful, friendly and fraternal exchange of ideas?

This is easy to explain; it has to do with the absolutely Manichaean structure of thought that was first diffused among the Western Fathers of the Christian Church by St Augustine (in the early 5th c.). As method of theological argumentation, it was first effectively contained, and it remained rather marginal within the Roman Church as long as the practice introduced by Justinian I (537) lasted (until 752) and all the popes of Rome had to be selected and approved personally by the Eastern Roman Emperor. After this moment and, more particularly, after the two Schisms (867 and 1054), the Manichaean system of thinking prevailed in Rome; finally, it culminated after the Renaissance.

Third, Benedict XVI tried to depict the early 15th c. erudite interlocutor of the then hostage Manuel II Palaeologus as a modern Muslim and a Jihadist. This is the repetition of the same mistakes that he made as regards the intellectual Eastern Roman Emperor. In other words, he projected onto the 'unknown', 15th c. Muslim mystic his own personal view of an Islamist or Islamic fundamentalist. Similarly, by bulldozing time in order to impose his wrong perception of Islam, he fully misled the audience. As a matter of fact, Islam constitutes a vast universe that Prof. Dr. Papst never studied, never understood, and never fathomed in its true dimensions.

In fact, as it happened in the case of the Eastern Roman Emperor, his interlocutor was intellectually weaker and spiritually lower than the great figures of Islamic spirituality, science, wisdom, literature and intuition, the likes of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Al Qurtubi, Mohyi el-Din Ibn Arabi, Ahmed Yasawi, Al Biruni, Ferdowsi, Al Farabi, Tabari, etc., who preceded him by 150 to 500 years. But Benedict XVI did not want to accept that with time the Islamic doctrine, theology and spirituality had weakened.

The reason for this distortion is easy to grasp; the Manichaean system of thinking needs terminal, crystallized forms of items that do not change; then, it is convenient for the Western European abusers of the Manichaean spirit to fully implement the deceitful setting of fake contrasts and false dilemmas. But the 15th c. decayed Eastern Roman Orthodoxy and decadent Islam are real historical entities that enable every explorer to encounter the multitude of forms, the ups and downs, the evolution of cults, the transformation of faiths, and the gradual loss of the initially genuine Moral and vibrant Spirituality. This reality is very embarrassing to those who want to teach their unfortunate students on a calamitous black & white background (or floor).

All the books and articles of his friend, Prof. Theodore Khoury, proved to be totally useless and worthless for the Catholic theologian Ratzinger, exactly because the Lebanese specialist never wrote a sentence in order to truly represent the historical truth about Islam, but he always elaborated his texts in a way to justify and confirm his preconceived ideas. Prof. Khoury's Islam is a delusional entity, something like the artificial humans of our times. Unfortunately, not one Western Islamologist realized that Islam, at the antipodes of the Roman Catholic doctrine, has an extremely limited dogmatic part, a minimal cult, and no heresies. Any opposite opinion belongs to liars, forgers and falsifiers. As a matter of fact, today's distorted representation of Islam is simply the result of Western colonialism. All over the world, whatever people hear or believe about the religion preached by Prophet Muhammad is not the true, historical, religion of Islam, but the colonially, academically-intellectually, produced Christianization of Islam.

Fourth, in striking contrast to what the theologian Ratzinger pretended through use of this example or case study (i.e. the 'discussion'), if Benedict XVI shifted his focus to the East, he would find Maragheh in NW Iran (Iranian Azerbaijan) and Samarqand in Central Asia. In those locations (and always for the period concerned), he would certainly find great centers of learning, universities, vast libraries, and enormous observatories, which could make every 15th c. Western European astronomer and mathematician dream. But there he would also find, as I already said, many Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and other scholars working one next to the other without caring about their religious (theological) differences. This situation is very well known to modern Western scholarship, but they viciously and criminally try to permanently conceal it.

This situation was due to the cultural, intellectual, academic, mental and spiritual unity that prevailed among all those erudite scholars. Numerous Western European scholars have published much about Nasir el-Din al Tusi (about whom I already spoke briefly) and also about Ulugh Beg, the world's greatest astronomer of his time (middle of the 15th c.), who was the grandson of Timur (Tamerlane) and, at the same time, the World History's most erudite emperor of the last 2500 years. However, post-Renaissance Catholic sectarianism and Western European/North American racism prevented the German pope from being truthful at least once, and also from choosing the right paradigm.

IX. The lecture's most controversial point

Fifth, if we now go straight to the lecture's most controversial point and to the quotation's most fascinating sentence, we will find the question addressed by Manuel II Palaeologus to his erudite Turkic interlocutor; actually, it is rather an exclamation:

- «Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached»!

This interesting excerpt provides indeed the complete confirmation of my earlier assessments as regards the intellectual decay of both, Christian Orthodoxy and Islam, at the time. Apparently, it was not theological acumen what both interlocutors were lacking at the time; it was historical knowledge. Furthermore, historical continuity, religious consciousness, and moral command were also absent in the discussion.

The first series of points that Manuel II Palaeologus' Muslim interlocutor could have made answering the aforementioned statement would be that Prophet Muhammad, before his death, summoned Ali ibn Abu Taleb and asked him to promise that he would never diffuse the true faith by undertaking wars; furthermore, Islam was diffused peacefully in many lands outside Arabia (Hejaz), notably Yemen, Oman, Somalia, and the Eastern Coast of Africa. In addition, there were many Muslims, who rejected the absurd idea of the Islamic conquests launched by Umar ibn al-Khattab and actually did not participate.

We have also to take into consideration the fact that, in spite of the undeniable reality of the early spread of Islam through invasions, there has always been well-known and sufficient documentation to clearly prove that the Aramaeans of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine, the Copts of Egypt, and the Berbers of Africa, although fully preserving their Christian faith, preferred to live under the rule of the Caliphates and overwhelmingly rejected the Eastern Roman imperial administration, because they had been long persecuted by the Constantinopolitan guards due to their Miaphysite (Monophysitic) and/or Nestorian faiths.

On another note, the Eastern Roman Emperor's Muslim interlocutor could have questioned the overall approach of Manuel II Palaeologus to the topic. In other words, he could have expressed the following objection:

- «What is it good for someone to pretend that he is a follower of Jesus and evoke his mildness, while at the same time violently imposing by the sword the faith that Jesus preached? And what is it more evil and more inhuman than the imposition of a faith in Jesus' name within the Roman Empire, after so much bloodshed and persecution took place and so many wars were undertaken»?

Last, one must admit that the sentence «Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new!» would have been easily answered by an earlier Muslim mystic of the Golden Era of Islam. Actually, this statement is islamically correct and pertinent. The apparent absence of a spectacular response from the part of Manuel II Palaeologus' Muslim interlocutor rather generates doubts as regards the true nature of the text. This is so because he could have immediately replied to Bayezid I's hostage that not one prophet or messenger was sent by God with the purpose of 'bringing something new'; in fact, all the prophets from Noah to Jonah, from Abraham to Jonah, from Moses to Muhammad, and from Adam to Jesus were dispatched in order to deliver the same message to the humans, namely to return to the correct path and live according to the Will of God.

Related to this point is the following well-known verse of the Quran (ch. 3 - Al Imran, 67): "Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian but he was (an) upright (man), a Muslim, and he was not one of the polytheists". It is therefore odd that a response in this regard is missing at this point.

It is also strange that, at a time of major divisions within Christianity and more particularly among the Christian Orthodox Eastern Romans, the 'unknown' imperial interlocutor did not mention the existing divisions among Christians as already stated very clearly, explicitly and repeatedly in the Quran. Examples:

"You are the best community ever raised for humanity—you encourage good, forbid evil, and believe in Allah. Had the People of the Book believed, it would have been better for them. Some of them are faithful, but most are rebellious". (ch. 3 - Al Imran, 110)

"Yet they are not all alike: there are some among the People of the Book who are upright, who recite Allah’s revelations throughout the night, prostrating in prayer".

(ch. 3 - Al Imran, 113):

To conclude I would add that elementary knowledge of Roman History, Late Antiquity, and Patristic Philology would be enough for Benedict XVI to know that

- in its effort to impose Christianity on the Roman Empire,

- in its determination to fully eradicate earlier religions, opposite religious sects like the Gnostics, and theological 'heresies' like Arianism,

- in its resolve to exterminate other Christian Churches such as the Nestorians and the Miaphysites (Monophysites),

- in its obsession to uproot Christian theological doctrines like Iconoclasm and Paulicianism, and

- in its witch hunt against Manichaeism, …

… the 'official' Roman and Constantinopolitan churches committed innumerable crimes and killed a far greater number of victims than those massacred by Muslim invaders on several occurrences during the early Islamic conquests.

So, when did the Christian Church encounter Reason and when did it cease to be 'unreasonable' according to the theologian Pope Ratzinger?

One must be very sarcastic to duly respond to those questions: most probably, the Roman Church discovered 'Reason' after having killed all of their opponents and the so-called 'heretics' whose sole sin was simply to consider and denounce the Roman Church as heretic!

If Benedict XVI forgot to find in the Quran the reason for the Turkic interlocutor's mild attitude toward the hostage Manuel II Palaeologus, this is a serious oversight for the professor of theology; he should have mentioned the excerpts. In the surah al-Ankabut ('the Spider'; ch. 29, verse 46), it is stated: "And do not argue with the followers of earlier revelation otherwise than in a most kindly manner".

Similarly, the German pope failed to delve in Assyriology and in Egyptology to better understand that the Hebrew Bible (just like the New Testament and the Quran) did not bring anything 'new' either; before Moses in Egypt and before Abraham in Mesopotamia, there were monotheistic and aniconic trends and traits in the respective religions. The concept of the Messiah is attested in Egypt, in Assyria, and among the Hittites many centuries or rather more than a millennium before Isaiah contextualized it within the small Hebrew kingdom. Both Egypt and Babylon were holy lands long before Moses promised South Canaan to the Ancient Hebrew tribes, whereas the Assyrians were the historically first Chosen People of the Only God and the Assyrian imperial ideology reflected this fact in detail. The Akkadian - Assyrian-Babylonian kings were 'emperors of the universe' and their rule reflected the 'kingdom of Heaven'.

If Etana and Ninurta reveal aspects of Assyrian eschatology, Horus was clearly the Egyptian Messiah, who would ultimately vanquish Seth (Satan/Antichrist) at the End of Time in an unprecedented cosmic battle that would usher the mankind into a new era which would be the reconstitution of the originally ideal world and Well-Being (Wser), i.e. Osiris. There is no Cosmogony without Eschatology or Soteriology, and nothing was invented and envisioned by the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans that had not previously been better and more solemnly formulated among the Sumerians, the Akkadians - Assyrian-Babylonians, and the Egyptians. There is no such thing as 'Greco-Roman' or 'Greco-Christian' or' Greco-Judaic' civilization. Both, Islam and Christianity are the children of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

And this concludes the case of today's Catholic theologians, i.e. the likes of Pope Benedict XVI or Theodore Khoury; they have to restart from scratch in order to duly assess the origins and the nature of Christianity before the serpent casts "forth out of his mouth water as a river after the woman, that he may cause her to be carried away by the river". All the same, it was certainly Prof. Ratzinger's full right to make as many mistakes as he wanted and to distort any textual reference he happened to mention.

X. The educational-academic-intellectual misery and the political ordeal of today's Muslim states

Quite contrarily, it was not the right of those who accused him of doing so, because they expanded rather at the political and not at the academic level; this was very hypocritical and shameful. If these politicians, statesmen and diplomats dared speak at the academic level, they would reveal their own ignorance, obscurantism, obsolete educational system, miserable universities, nonexistent intellectual life, and last but not least, disreputable scientific institutions.

The reason for this is simple: not one Muslim country has properly organized departments and faculties endowed with experts capable of reading historical sources in the original texts and specializing in the History of the Eastern Roman Empire, Orthodox Christianity, Christological disputes and Patristic Literature. If a Muslim country had an educational, academic and intellectual establishment similar to that of Spain or Poland, there would surely be serious academic-level objection to Benedict XVI's lecture. It would take a series of articles to reveal, refute and utterly denounce (not just the mistakes and the oversights but) the distorted approach which is not proper only to the defunct Pope Emeritus but to the entire Western academic establishment; these people would however be academics and intellectuals of a certain caliber. Unfortunately, such specialists do not exist in any Muslim country.

Then, the unrepresentative criminal crooks and gangsters, who rule all the countries of the Muslim world, reacted against Pope Benedict XVI at a very low, political level about a topic that was not political of nature and about which they knew absolutely nothing. In this manner, they humiliated all the Muslims, defamed Islam, ridiculed their own countries, and revealed that they rule failed states. Even worse, they made it very clear that they are the disreputable puppets of their colonial masters, who have systematically forced all the Muslim countries to exactly accept as theirs the fallacy that the Western Orientalists have produced and projected onto them (and in this case, the entirely fake representation of Islam that theologians like Ratzinger, Khoury and many others have fabricated).

If Ratzinger gave this lecture, this is also due to the fact that he knew that he would not face any academic or intellectual level opposition from the concerned countries. This is so because all the execrable puppets, who govern the Muslim world, were put in place by the representatives of the colonial powers. They do not defend their local interests but execute specific orders in order not to allow

- bold explorers, dynamic professors, and impulsive intellectuals to take the lead,

- proper secular education, unbiased scientific methodology, intellectual self-criticism, free judgment, and thinking out of the box to grow,

- faculties and research centers to be established as per the norms of educationally advanced states, and

- intellectual anti-colonial pioneers and anti-Western scholars to demolish the racist Greco-centric dogma that post-Renaissance European universities have intentionally diffused worldwide.

That is why for a Muslim today in Prof. Ratzinger's lecture the real problem is not his approach or his mistake, but the impermissible bogus academic life and pseudo-educational system of all the Muslim countries. In fact, before fully transforming and duly enhancing their educational and academic systems, Muslim heads of states, prime ministers, ministers and ambassadors have no right to speak. They must first go back to their countries and abolish the darkness of their ridiculous universities; their so-called professors are not professors.

Here you have all the articles that I published at the time in favor of Benedict XVI; the first article was published on the 16th September 2006, only four days after the notorious lecture and only one day after the notorious BBC report, which called the Muslim ambassadors to shout loud:

academia.edu

Benedictus XVI may not be right, but today's Muslims are islamically wrong! By Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Republication of a text initially published in Buzzle - 16 September 2006 The wrong question is: "Did Benedictus XVI insult Islam and M

academia.edu

What Benedict XVI should say, admonishing Muslim Ambassadors - by Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Republication of an article initially published in http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pope-benedict-xvi-admonishing-muslim-ambassadors.html on 2

academia.edu

Can Benedict XVI bring Peace and Concord? - by Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Originally published in Buzzle on 2 October 2006 ..................... Around 1600, all the important intellectuals of the Ottoman Empire re

academia.edu

Lord Carey, Benedictus XVI, and today's decayed Islam - Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Republication of an article initially published in http://www.buzzle.com/articles/lord-carey-benedictus-xvi-decayed-islam.html on 23 Septemb

academia.edu

Benedict XVI between Constantinople and Istanbul, by Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

When, within a few hours, the Pope will land in Istanbul, he will find himself for a few days outside Time; the evenly balanced gravitation

academia.edu

Benedictus XVI between Istanbul and Nova Roma - by Prof. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

Walking for a brief span of time in the capital of Justinian, Heraclius and Manuel II Paleologus, Benedict XVI has the rare possibility to s

-----------------------------

Download the obituary in PDF:

megalommatiscomments

Benedict XVI and today’s Muslims opposite Manuel II Palaeologus and his Turkic Interlocutor

Or why I defended Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 against the thoughtlessly irascible Muslims When a Muslim writes an Obituary for the Catholic C

academia.edu

Benedict XVI and today's Muslims opposite Manuel II Palaeologus and his Turkic Interlocutor

Or why I defended Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 against the thoughtlessly irascible Muslims When a Muslim writes an Obituary for the Catholic Ch

vk.com

VK.com | VK

Cosmas Megalommatis, Nabu: World Mythology, Greek Pedagogical Encyclopedia, 1989

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία, Ελληνική Εκπαιδευτική Εγκυκλοπαίδεια, 1989

Кузьма Мегаломматис, Набу: мировая мифология, Греческая педагогическая энциклопедия, 1989

Kosmas Megalommatis, Nabu: Weltmythologie, Griechische Pädagogische Enzyklopädie, 1989

Kosmas Gözübüyükoğlu, Nabu: Dünya Mitolojisi, Yunan Pedagoji Ansiklopedisi, 1989

قزمان ميغالوماتيس، نبو : اساطیر جهانی، دایره المعارف آموزشی یونانی، 1989

Côme Megalommatis, Nabû: Mythologie mondiale, Encyclopédie pédagogique grecque, 1989

1989 قزمان ميغالوماتيس، نابو : الأساطير العالمية، الموسوعة التربوية اليونانية،

Cosimo Megalommatis, Nabu: mitologia mondiale, Enciclopedia pedagogica greca, 1989

Cosimo Megalommatis, Nabu: mitología mundial, Enciclopedia pedagógica griega, 1989

Cosmas Megalommatis, Nabu: World Mythology, Greek Pedagogical Encyclopedia, 1989

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osf.io

OSF

calameo.com

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία 1989

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία, Ελληνική Εκπαιδευτική Εγκυκλοπαίδεια, 1989 Кузьма Мегаломматис, Набу: мировая мифология, Г

docdroid.net

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία 1989.pdf

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figshare

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία, 1989

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία, Ελληνική Εκπαιδευτική Εγκυκλοπαίδεια, 1989Кузьма Мегаломматис, Набу: мировая мифология, Гр

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Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία-1989

Κοσμάς Μεγαλομμάτης, Ναμπού: Παγκόσμια Μυθολογία-1989 - Download as a PDF or view online for free

Sumerian Taxes

Whenever spring rolls around and I do my taxes, I think of the Sumerians. Cuneiform may have been used to write literary works, hymns of praise, and personal letters, but a massive chunk of the texts in Sumerian we have today are account ledgers, business records, and especially tax documents. It’s been theorized that the earliest writing was, in fact, developed for the purpose of keeping track of property and taxation records.

This tablet, from the Indiana State Library, is a list of taxable produce from about 2350 BCE. It predates what was probably the pinnacle of the Mesopotamian tax system, called bala taxation, in the 22nd and 21st centuries. Under the bala system, tens of millions of liters of grain were moved around Mesopotamia to support a population of state workers possibly numbering as many as 500,000, using an accounting system of thousands of tablets a year. More than ten thousand such tablets have been found at Puzrish-Dagan, an administrative center founded by King Shulgi at which tax records from across the Neo-Sumerian Empire. When I send my tax forms in to the IRS center in Austin, Charlotte or Kansas City, I think of it as a modern Puzrish-Dagan.

Though the damage on the right side of the above tablet is probably more recent, I like to imagine someone got frustrated with the local tax-collector-scribe and tried to deface their documentation. So when you fill in those tax forms, think of the Sumerians, and the connections we have across millennia, with love, and sometimes just a touch of frustration.

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s-afshar

2 years ago