re: Mecca’s Grand Mosque plagued by swarm of locusts

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What's really odd is early Islam had Byzantine style art.

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Not that odd. Removing the mythic stuff from it, what you had was a group of people, traders mainly, but also nomadic people, who had been stuck between the Roman (and then Byzantine) wars against the Sasanian Empire, wars that last popped up pretty regularly in West Asia. Tired of the constant wars, a militant group rose up out of the Arabian Peninsula to displace the Byzantines and the Sasanians, absorbing numerous cultural and administrative features while spreading a new religion. There is lots of Greek-Arabic overlap during that era, into the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, with some features remaining well into the Ottoman Empire. Without the constant warring, it's unlikely that the early Muslim conquests would have happened, as populations all along West Asia welcomed the Muslim invaders, with many not putting up a fight, as many were tired of the constant fighting. Those wars weakened both empires to a degree that the Sasanians were destroyed, and the Byzantines were confined to Asia Minor.

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Jesus was born on a palm tree if I recall correctly. Divine birth on a tree.

Muhammed took a Donkey with a woman's head and a peacocks tail into heaven and talked with God, whatever. Went back and married an underage relative.

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They aren't the same religion but to a Muslim, Allah is the god of the old testament, to a jew, Yaweh is the God of the old testament. To Christians God is the God of the old testament, his Earth form is the basis of the New Testament.

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You should use his real name.


To Muslims, God’s name is Allah
To Jews, it is Yaweh,
To Christians it is Howard

Mock God, you shall not.

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Yaweh is God because Christianity came from Judaism. No one deny that. Same God. Well Moses, Abraham, Noah, Jesus and Muhammed are the five profits of Islam. So by default they also have the same God. They just interpret him differently. It amazes me the three great religions can't at least agree they have God.

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Islam teaches that Abraham was the first Muslim, but, the Jews corrupted Allah's message and Abraham's message of submission to Allah. Islam teaches that Jesus was a prophet of Allah, but, that the Christians that followed corrupted Jesus's message of submission to Allah.

Islam teaches that the Torah and the New Testament are complete corruptions and distortions of the original Islamic messages that were originally in those books.

Because the Jews and the Christians completely distorted the will of Allah and Allah's words, Allah chose Muhammad, and through Muhammed, Allah transmitted the Quran directly from Allah to Muhammed, in order to ensure that the Quran reflected Islam perfectly.

As such, Allah is not the same as Yahweh, because Islam teaches that Yahweh is a distortion and not God.

It is foolishness of the highest order to hold fast to the notion that Islam can be reconciled with Christianity or Judaism, because Islam will never alter its conviction that those other two religions are corrupt distortions, UTTER UNBELIEF, and not worthy of any sort of equivalency with Islam.

Islam will always hold fast to the notion that ALL other religions MUST BE suppressed and made subservient to the superior faith of Islam -- by any means necessary -- and the Quran says this clearly.

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Not that odd. Removing the mythic stuff from it, what you had was a group of people, traders mainly, but also nomadic people, who had been stuck between the Roman (and then Byzantine) wars against the Sasanian Empire, wars that last popped up pretty regularly in West Asia. Tired of the constant wars, a militant group rose up out of the Arabian Peninsula to displace the Byzantines and the Sasanians, absorbing numerous cultural and administrative features while spreading a new religion. There is lots of Greek-Arabic overlap during that era, into the Umayyad and Abbasid eras, with some features remaining well into the Ottoman Empire. Without the constant warring, it's unlikely that the early Muslim conquests would have happened, as populations all along West Asia welcomed the Muslim invaders, with many not putting up a fight, as many were tired of the constant fighting. Those wars weakened both empires to a degree that the Sasanians were destroyed, and the Byzantines were confined to Asia Minor.

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Good stuff on a topic that is not well-known here in the USA.

Like a certain Christian prophet did?