Good artcile Bashir. I guess spirituality & intent could be lost.

Interesting mix of comments (including the Pinocchio team).

More about the Kaaba:

Muslims fantacise that Abraham was the first muslim - and he and Ishmael built the Kaaba as a memorial for where Allah asked Abraham to sacrifice his son (or according to islam the son asked his father to kill him?)

Here are the facts:

Abraham, was a Jew, and NOT an Arab.

In pre-Islamic Arabian genealogies, Ishmael is nowhere mentioned as the father of the Arabs.

According to Arab history, the Kaaba at Mecca was built by Kosia, the pagan great-grandfather of Muhammad.

Hagar, Abraham's servant, the mother of Ishmael, was an Egyptian and thus not an Arab.

Since his mother and his father were not Arabs, Ishmael was not an Arab.

Ishmael could not be the "Father" of the Arabs because they already existed before he was born

According to the historical and literary evidence, Abraham and Ishmael lived in Palestine.

They never lived or been to Mecca, never mind build the Kaaba.

So they never established the rituals connected with the Kaaba such as the pilgrimage.

All a hoax folks.

Hey, Coach, you old Devil Dodger you. You are so certain that Christianity is the one true way, aren't you. So are the Muslims, Jews Hindus etc similarly convinced of the correctness of their religions. Trouble is, they are all just a collection of ancient superstitions whose records have been corrupted over time to preserve the power of ecclesiasts. Don't try to throw up hair splitting interpretations about the Quoran, all other religions' holy books also have inconsistencies and passages that could best be described as 'a good idea at the time'. All religions have appropriated to some extent the customs and often buildings of religions that previously existed. None of the age old conflict between Christianity and Islam has ever done any good. It never will. No religions sufficiently serve the needs of the modern world, they instead tend to divide us and accentuate differences. Cast off age old superstition-based faith and adopt your own moral code aimed at living in peace, prosperity and care for your neighbours and the planet in this life, and let the next life, if any, take care of itself.

Hey PK you old truth dodging relativist you. If you think truth is relative to the individual, and everyone ought to believe this to be true. You have found one absolute truth. But hold on, a relativist doesn’t believe something can be true independent of a person’s wishes, desires and will.

Relativism contradicts itself.

Just as you believe EVERY individual constructs their own truth (which is an absolute statement about the facts of the universe) a Christian believes that God took up humanity into himself and lifted everyone up when he rose from the dead. Why? Reason proclaims its truth.

Without God you forget how dependent you are on the good conscience of those in charge. Am I to trust you who recognizes no authority but the one you yourself create?

“You must know that nothing is good or evil, but I am teaching you that some things are good and some are evil, in order to induce in you conditioned reflexes which are useful for the maintenance of solidarity in communal life which is neither good nor evil but must be seen as good” .

“The natural social self defense against education so conceived (that is an which employs authority while at the same time proclaiming its fictitiousness) is understandable. Since an effective inheritance of values is always the work of authority, and every act of emancipation from authority may arise only in the name of values absorbed thanks to authority, a scientistic upbringing is therefore an absurd utopia.”

What you would have us do is reject Christ, the religious tradition of our culture, the genius of our greatest philosophers and saints, and the collective wisdom of millions of holy men and women And put in its place a silly doctrine held by a small fraction of pseudo intellectuals from western countries where it has been fashionable in the last 30 years.

You’re on the cusp of some great liberation from an irreplaceable part of human culture? You’re on the cusp of the implosion of one of the silliest intellectual fads known to humanity.

Hey PK and Hey Coach :)

PK first.. can you tell me how this is designed to enhance ecclesiastical power ?

"If anyone would be first among you, he must become SERVANT of all"

Coach.. can you provide sources for your claim about Ishmael not being father of the Arabs ? Im pretty sure Genesis actually says something like he 'is'.

Hagar being Egyptian and Abraham not so much a 'Jew' at that time, but just one in a line descending from Shem. The idea of 'Jew' or Israelite arose after Jacob/(Israel)

Hagars ethnicity and Abrahams does not mean their offspring cannot be called 'Arab', which I presume is a name which arose as Ishmael grabbed as many females as he could and made his own tribe.
The existence of 'Arabs' pre Ishmael, may just mean 'people'..other sons of the sons of etc Noah who were populating the area ...

I met a Saudi guy in Kuala Lumpur who agreed his people were descended from Ishmael, though he pointed to a particular geographical area. (northern Arabia)

[Ishmael took an Egyptian wife (Genesis 21:21) and became the father of 12 tribes which are listed in Genesis 25:12-16. These tribes were to become the nucleus of the Arab peoples, a people with a mixture of Semitic and Egyptian blood.

Other Arab tribes trace their origin to the six sons of Abraham who were born to him by his second wife, Keturah. They are listed in Genesis 25:1-4. Finally, some Arab tribes were to emerge from the descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob who sired the 12 tribes of Israel]

On your other points about the Kaaba etc.. no argument.

BD, thanks for coming in with some correction to coaches claims.

We might get further around here with more of that approach.

R0bert