Origins of Judaism and Islam

Origin of Judaism and Islam:

Judaism and Islam originated in between the great civilizations of the east and the west.

Judaism is considered the first religion to promote monotheism. However this is not entirely true. The first person to promote the idea of monotheism was Akhenaten. Akhenaten; meaning Effective spirit of Aten, was a Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, who died 1336 BC or 1334 BC. He is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population in the monotheistic worship of Aten.

The idea of Akhenaten as the pioneer of a monotheistic religion that later became Judaism has been considered by various scholars. One of the first to mention this was Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, in his book Moses and Monotheism. Freud argued that Moses had been an Atenist priest forced to leave Egypt with his followers after Akhenaten's death. Freud argued that Akhenaten was striving to promote monotheism, something that the biblical Moses was able to achieve.Following his book, the concept entered popular consciousness and serious research.

Akhenaten appears in history almost two-centuries prior to the first archaeological and written evidence for Judaism and Israelite culture is found in the Levant. Abundant visual imagery of the Aten disk was central to Atenism, which celebrated the natural world, while such imagery is not a feature of early Israelite culture, Although pottery found throughout Judea dated to the end of the 8th century BC has seals resembling a winged sun disk burned on their handles, presumedly thought to be the royal seal of the Judean Kingdom. Ahmed Osman has claimed that Akhenaten's maternal grandfather Yuya was the same person as the Biblical Joseph.

It is widely accepted that there are strong similarities between Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten and the Biblical Psalm 104, though this form is found widespread in ancient Near Eastern hymnology both before and after the period and whether this implies a direct influence or a common literary convention remains in dispute.

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud contradicts the Biblical story of Moses with his own retelling of events claiming that Moses only led his close followers into freedom and that they subsequently killed Moses in rebellion either to his strong faith or to circumcision. Freud explains that years after the murder of Moses, the rebels formed a religion which promoted Moses as the Saviour of the Israelites. Freud said that the guilt from the murder of Moses is inherited through the generations; this guilt then drives the Jews to religion to make them feel better. Also the persecution of this Judaic sect by the polytheistic Egyptians and later on by the Romans may form the historical reason for the hatred towards idolators.

This essentially formed the basis of Judaism. Also after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians the community began to become spread to various kingdoms and other regions. Jews went to Rome, Persia and some even came to India. There was a need to keep the followers of Judaism together in a tight set of rules so they do not assimilate with the local population. Thus there was a need to identify themselves distinct from the rest of the population. Thus the Jews came to put together a historical timeline starting from the very first human Adam and his descendants. There were numerous stories ranging from Cain the first criminal to Noah who built the Ark, Abraham and so forth.

These stories were borrowed from the local myths of the different regions that the migrant population was dispersed such as Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek and even Indian myths and tales were converted and formed the basis of the religious education of the stories in the Torah or the Penta-teuch. (5 books.)

Also Judaism came about putting a rigorous set of rules for the Jews. The rules started with the ten commandments which were given from God Himself. Also God is very personal to the Jews since He saved their community from the terrible slavery in Egypt and so forth. The rules ranged from eating habits, praying habits, worshipping habits etc. Pork and shrimp was forbidden. Also the animals have to be slaughtered a certain way. A Jew may not worship any God other than Yahweh. There is observance of various religious days such as Sabbath on Saturday since God rested on that day, a Jew doesn't involve him/herself with any work on that day. The rules are extremely detail oriented. No wonder Jews were the first accountants who came up with the double entry book keeping. Thus Judaism was more of a religion for a migrant community to prevent assimilation with the local population. Also the identify of the community was very critical for the future survival. And mixing with the native community was expressly forbidden.

Islam on the other hand started out in a similar landscape but different conditions. Before Islam the middle east was placed in between the great civilizations of the east and the west. They were sort of a gateway between the east and the west. The activities involved selling slaves from Africa and other places to Romans and Persians to looting and robbing the traders who had to pass through their lands.

These communities who were essentially bands of various tribes who would frequently fight with each other as expected in a lawless land such as the middle east. Since they were located in the middle of the Silk route they might have been rich from looting the traders who passed through their lands. Also each tribe had a different idol or a God the tribe would worship and it also formed to be an identity for that tribe. They were ruthless warriors who would rape women, kill innocent people and steal from other people who happened to pass by their lands.

In the book, "Why I am not a Muslim", Ibn Warraq has described the origins of Islam. The ideas of Judaism and Christianity were well known from the traders who would pass by their lands but not very respected in these communities. Muhammad was one of these people, and he wanted to unite these tribes and prevent them from fighting with one another.

When the Quran was revealed to Muhammad, he declared himself as the prophet and the messenger of the final word of God, Allah. Koran did the following, first it established a uniform religion for these ruthless tribal communities, it gave them the list of rules to follow for their daily life like Judaism and it also provided the legal framework which the land originally lacked. Muhammad tried to unify with the earlier ideas of Judaism and Christianity by calling the Arabs as descendants of Abraham but the children of Ishmael whereas the Jews were the children of Israel. Christ is mentioned as a messiah and he expressly forbids associating any God like attributes such as son of God to Christ.
Some scholars state this as the reason why the initial part of the Quran that was revealed in Mecca has more positive tones but the later part of the Quran the one revealed in Medinah happens to be pessimistic. Initially Muhammad may have been optimistic about the acceptance of his religion by the Jews and Christians and the native tribes, but later on as his religion was not well accepted despite the stating that it was the word of God, and he was exiled to Medinah. He formed an army and marched into Mecca and converted all the people in the middle east to Islam.

The various tribal communities thus combined now had a common army and it spread further east all the way to India and west all the way to Spain.