Gideon was named as “Jerub-Ba’al”, the one who contends with Ba’al the moon god. Gideon was a type of the warring Messiah because he fought Ba’al. Likewise Christ, the ultimate Jerub-Ba’al will fight Ba’al in the flesh, and bruise his head, completing what was promised in Genesis 3:15.
Dr. Arthur Jeffrey, professor of Islamic and Middle East Studies at Columbia University and one of the world’s foremost scholars on Islam, wrote that the name, “Allah” and its feminine form “Allat,” were well known in pre-Islamic Arabia and were found in inscriptions uncovered in North Africa. According to Jeffrey’s, Allah, “is a proper name applicable only to their peculiar god.” He adds, “Allah is a pre-Islamic name corresponding to the Babylonian god known as Bel.”15 “Bel simply means ‘lord’ and this is a title of reverence to the moon-god Sin.”16
But maybe you have not seen the significance of all of this. Perhaps Isaiah can add the convincing final piece to complete this puzzle on why this is the moon-god of Islam. Isaiah gives us a powerful picture of what Bel (a.k.a. Allah) will do at the end of the age. Most Westerners miss the hint in the famous passage: “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear” (Isaiah 45:23-46:1). This verse is later echoed in the New Testament: “every knee shall bow, every tongue shall confess… that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). A few verses later, Isaiah also tells of one being in particular who is among them: “Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle” (Isaiah 46:1). Bel will bow down before God. This is none other than the image of Allah-Satan, the crescent-moon. In the purest form of poetic justice, the demonic god of Islam will bow low before Jesus, the Mighty One of Israel which the beasts wore on their necks: “Their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle” the very symbol that Gideon removed—the crescent moon in Judges 8:21.
THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON THROUGH MESSIAH
The connection of this to the Harlot of Babylon can be found in the context of Isaiah 45-47: “The Lady of Kingdoms” (Isaiah 47:5); a place that lives in pleasures (Isaiah 47:8); which no one sees and sins in secret (Isaiah 47:10). Such references must be linked to the Harlot of Babylon in Revelation 17. Unlike the West, which sins in the open, Arabia practices its sins in secret. Yet the God of Prophecy challenges Islam, “Remember the former things of old, For I am God and there is no other, I am God and there is none like Me. Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying My council shall stand, And I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10). If Islam is true, then why has Israel returned as God declared, “For Israel My glory” (Isaiah 46:13). God declares to the heathen Muslims that Messiah will come down to destroy their Babylon through His Son: “He shall do His pleasure on Babylon; And His arm shall be against the Chaldeans” (Isaiah 48:14). God’s “arm” is Messiah.
CHRIST CONFRONTS ISLAM WITH THE TRINITY
Speaking to this Harlot “Lady of Kingdoms” and in a challenge to Islam, the Lord Jesus Christ declares what Islam denies; His part in the Trinity: “Come near to Me, hear this; I have not spoken in secret, from the beginning; From the time that it was, I was there, And now the Lord God and His Spirit Have sent Me” (Isaiah 48:16). Jesus is telling them (Mystery Babylon) of His nature and attributes that they have denied. In one solid verse, we see that, “From the time that it was (from the beginning was The Word), I was there; and now the Lord God (The Father) and His Spirit (The Holy Spirit) Have sent Me (The Son).”
It is amazing that few Westerners see the context of this—how the Messiah is denouncing Mystery Babylon and her denial of the Trinity. He confronts the Babylonian Antichrist spirit of I John 2:22.
CRESCENT MOON—SATAN’S IMAGE AND TITLE
In Isaiah 14, we find the story of the sin and the fall of Satan. What we will discover when we analyze the passage a bit closer are some very telling points. The passage reads as follows: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the North: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:12-14).
In this passage we are given the name Lucifer, which has through the ages come to signify Satan. In truth, the passage doesn’t so much give us a proper name as it provides us with a description of who Satan really is. In Hebrew, the name for this Lucifer is three words: Heylal Ben Shahar. Translated fully, this means “Shining One Son of the Morning Star”, or “the Shining Brilliant One.” “Etymologically, Hebrew Helel corresponds to the Ugaritic hll which occurs in the following expressions: bnt hll snnt, Daughters of Brightness, swallows, or perhaps ‘Shining Ones’ and bnt hll b’l gml, ‘Daughters of Brightness, Lord of The Crescent Moon.”17 Hilal is an Arabic word that means “Crescent Moon”.18 When we put the whole phrase together, Heylal Ben Shachar simply means “Crescent Moon, Son of the Morning Star” (or the Dawn)—or in simpler terms, a crescent moon with a star lingering over it. Of course, this is the very symbol and image of Islam. Remember, we are discussing the “image” of the Beast. Nearly every Islamic flag carries this symbol. Nearly every mosque displays this symbol on the pinnacle of its dome and/or its minarets. Consider the implications of this. Islam applies to itself the very description that the Bible uses to describe Satan. When it comes to Islam, everything is upside down. But what makes this so damning to Islam is that Hilal was the very name of the Lord of the Ka’ba, according to Mohammed’s biographer, Ibn Hisham. He admits that the pagan Kinanah tribe and Quraysh (Mohammed’s tribe) called the supervising god of the Kaaba IHLAL. They called the Kaaba “Beit-Allah”, the house of Allah!19
83
Both Bow To An Image
THE “BLACK STONE” AND APHRODITE
Both Antichrist’s followers and Muslims bow to an image. The great idol of Islam, the Black-Stone and its veneration has been around from time immemorial. Yet despite the very clear correlations, few prophecy Analysts have ever linked this to what has already been spoken of in the Book of Acts: “Everyone knows that Ephesus is the official guardian of the temple of the great Artemis, whose image fell down to us from heaven” (Acts 19:35), The image of Artemis is strikingly similar to the meteorite stone image in Mecca which Allah commands 1.3 billion Muslims to literally bow down and prostrate themselves toward at least seventeen times during their five daily prayers.
John of Damascus (676-749) who lived at the advent of Islam and served in the court of the Caliph, and was thoroughly familiar with Islam from it’s inception, writes in his work, Concerning Heresy, “So then, these were idolaters and reverenced the morning star and Aphrodite, who they indeed named Akbar in their own language, which means ‘great’” 20 The Islamic connection to Aphrodite is evident in the Muslim cry “Allah Akbar” (Allah is Great). Aphrodite is actually Allat, the feminine root of the name Allah. Even the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century B.C., considers Allat the equivalent of Aphrodite: “The Assyrians call Aphrodite Mylitta, the Arabians Alilat.”21 According to the Book of Idols (Kitab al-Asnām) by Hishām b. al-Kalbi, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed Allāt resided in the Kaaba and also had an idol for her inside the sanctuary: “The Quraysh, as well as all the Arabs, were wont to venerate Allāt. They also used to name their children after her, calling them Zayd-Allāt and Taym-Allāt.”22
Even the Bible confirms this style of naming. The name Sanballat (Nehemiah 2:19) is a derivative of two words; Sin (the Moon-god), and Allat (Aphrodite), the feminine of Allah and one of his three daughters. Such names existed long before Mohammed, whose father’s name, Abd-Allah, means “slave of Allah”, the Moon-god. Sanballat was known to have harassed Israel as they were attempting to build the Temple, alongside with Tobiah the Amonite and Geshem the Ar
ab. Nothing has changed. Today these same people with an evolved form of the same religion still harass Israel and are the main obstacle to the rebuilding of the Temple.
THE BLACK STONE AS SATAN’S STAR AND IMAGE
But what is this whole thing about venerating an asteroid? What is this whole image about? Does the Bible warn us of this? The Bible is so clear in exposing this issue. Jehovah simply wants us to dig deeper. Lucifer’s image is depicted in Revelation 8 and 9 showing Satan wanting to be worshipped. He is a star that fell from heaven: “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit” (Revelation 9:1). This “him” cannot be an object, but rather Satan himself, a living being (him) cast out of heaven as described in Isaiah 14 and Revelation 8:10.
The most important verse in the Qur’an that describes Allah is perfectly mirrored in Isaiah 14. In Isaiah 14, it is Satan or Lucifer that is described as the Bearer of Light, and in the Qur’an it is Allah that is depicted as a lamp (light, torch). In the chapter of the Star, we read: “Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth; a likeness of His light is as a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp is in a glass, (and) the glass is as it were a brightly shining star” (Qur’an 24:35-36). Compare this with Revelation 8:10: “And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers and upon the fountains of waters.”
Take note of the fact that the death of one-third of the earth’s population occurs during the rise of the eighth empire, which will be an Islamic empire. Satan, who is the fallen star, and the destroyer who is unleashed, will precede the “mountain” (empire) that will cause one-third of mankind to die. The Black Stone of Mecca owes its reputation to the tradition that it fell from the “heavens.” Like the Black Stone of Aphrodite, the Black Stone of Mecca is also clearly an “image” of Satan. Yet this Satanic image that is created by the Beast in Revelation 13:15 which can speak and cause all who do not worship it to be killed, is mentioned as a holy thing by Mohammed. In an Islamic tradition authenticated by At-Tirmidhi, Al-Abani notes, “Allah will raise up the stone [the Black Stone] on the Day of Judgment, and it will have two-eyes with which it will see and a tongue which it talks with, and it will give witness in favor of everyone who touched it in truth.” According to Muslim traditions, the Black Stone is even the redeemer of Muslims. Al-Tirmidhi notes that many years ago, the Black Stone was, “whiter than milk; it was only later that it became black as it absorbed the sins of those who touched it.”
The blasphemy doesn’t stop here. The Black Rock, the image of Satan, the Fallen Star, which attempts to take the place of Christ the Great Redeemer is called by Mohammed, the son of perdition Yameen Allah. This means that it is “the right hand of Allah” with which “he touches his servants.”23 It is the visible right hand of the invisible Allah.24 It is even the Shekina Glory, which dwells in all believers. Venerating it and rotating seven times around it will cleanse the Muslim of all prior sins.
The veneration of Satan through this act of rotating around an idol image is even alluded to in the Bible and rarely understood by Western Analysts. Ezekiel 31:3 declares: “Behold, the Assyrian (the Antichrist, Satan in the Flesh) was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.” If we exercise what we learned from Part IV (how to interpret allegoric symbols), we can apply what we learned in the following interpretative paraphrase: “Behold, Satan, a beautiful angel clothed in beautiful covering, an angel with high status. Peoples and multitudes from every nation made him great, and the underworld set him up high with the multitudes running round about his idol and sent out all the people to all the idols that were set for him.” This is exactly what we see in the Muslim Hajj, which Muslims do yearly to have their sins forgiven by the right hand of Allah. They come from all over the world to the Ka’ba and roam round about it. In addition, Jeremiah 51:44 tells us, “I will punish Bel in Babylon, And I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed; And the nations shall not stream to him anymore.” The nations will not flock to Babylon and Bel, the Moon-god, will be ashamed in her. No longer will the nations flock to Mecca to worship Satan. This punishment is not a historic one; it refers to Jerusalem and the invasion of the Temple Mount: “strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the Lord’s house” (Jeremiah 51:51). In the Last-Days, there will be two opposing houses, one dedicated to Jehovah and the other to Satan. The “shadowing shroud” in Ezekiel 31:3 could be the black cloth that covers the prostitute Ka’ba in Mecca and the streams perhaps refers to the hordes of people from all over the globe who come to worship Satan by running around his idol and bowing to it by the millions.
The Hajj (pilgrimage). In the center is the Ka’ba. One can see the multitudes spinning round about it. As they complete their spin (7 times around) others come in from the outer multitudes and continue the spin.
The reference to a prostitute in Revelation 17 regarding the “Whore of Babylon” is no coincidence, “And the woman (whore) was arrayed in purple and scarlet color” (v. 17) resembles the near copulating with the Ka’ba’s Black Stone, which historically was dedicated to Aphrodite the prostitute goddess that was called “Aphrodite Porne” (Aphrodite the Prostitute), “the goddess adorned in purple”, similar to the depictions given in Revelation 17:4.
John of Damascus notes, “After the Haj was reformed by Mohammed, the “rubbing and kissing the [of the Black Stone]…was extremely passionate.” Muslim tradition even perpetuates the blasphemy that, “Abraham had sexual intercourse with Hagar on it” (Sahas. Heresy, Pages 88-89). Francis Burton (Vol 3, page 295) writes regarding the Ka’ba, “the part of the cover (Kiswa), covering the door, is called [a Burka] just like the veil the Arabic women are wearing in front of their face…in fact, Arab mystics even compare the Ka’ba to a virgin, adorned with her finest wedding dress.”
During their Hajj pilgrimage, Muslims kiss, rub and caress the Black Rock.
Before Mohammed encountered the angel of light in the cave of Hira, he was engaged in what was known in Arabia as Tahannuth (religious devotion to pagan idols). “The Apostle would pray in seclusion on Hira every year for a month to practice Tahannuth as was the custom of the Quraysh in the heathen days. After praying in seclusion, he would walk around the Ka’ba seven times.”25 In other words, Mohammed was a heathen and the Islamic Pillar that requires fasting during the month of Ramadan was a purely pagan tradition, as was going around the Black Stone. Today Islam still practices Tahannuth with it self-justification and meditation during the pagan holy month of Ramadan.26 There is nothing new; but instead of calling it Tahannuth, now they just call it Hajj. There is an array of evidence that black stones were commonly worshipped in the Arab world. In 190 A.D., Clement of Alexandria mentioned, “The Arabs worship stone.” He was alluding to the black stone of Dusares at Petra. In the 2nd century, Maximus Tyrius wrote, “The Arabians pay homage to what god I know not, which they represent by a quadrangular stone.” Maximus was speaking of the Ka’ba (the Cube) that contains the Black Stone.27 Even the ancient worship of Cybele pronounced Kybele is interestingly the same word Muslims use for the direction of prayer towards the Black Stone called the Qibleh. The stone associated with Cybele’s worship likely originated at Pessinus, Pergamum, or on Mount Ida, “a small dark sacred stone not formed into any iconographic image that had fallen to the shrine of Pessinous from the sky.”28
Alongside Isis, Cybele retained prominence in the heart of the Roman Empire until the fifth century when the stone was lost. Her cult prospered throughout the empire and it is said that every town or village remained true to the worship of Cybele.29
Islam began as a heretical Arab Christian cult focused on Aphrodite and the Morning star. This was confirme
d during that era by John of Damascus (676-749), who called Islam a “superstition among the Ishmaelites that is the forerunner of Antichrist.” According to John, Muslims were, “idolaters [who] reverenced the morning star and Aphrodite, who they indeed named Akbar.”30 Today they call this idol Allah, but the same satanic spirit that was worshipped then is still worshipped today. Satan manifests himself in many ways, but today Satan’s greatest manifestation in the earth is through the “god” that is worshipped as Allah by over 1.3 billion people.
Section VII
Unlocking Mystery Babylon The Mother Of Harlots
84
The Harlot’s Connection To Arabia
For many years, the teaching that the Harlot of Revelation is Rome or the Catholic Church has reigned within many Protestant circles. Today, most Western Analysts have diverged from this theory, and rightly so. Yet the problem of searching for alternatives leaves many in the dark—most Western Analysts are looking for a global Harlot that combines all religious systems and is political in nature, like Rome was. Yet neither Rome nor this “combination universal religion” Harlot conforms to many of the basic Scriptural descriptions of the Harlot. I have compiled seven reasons to prove this point. The Harlot described in the Bible must be in Arabia.
ISAIAH’S ORACLE AGAINST BABYLON
The Harlot must be connected to Arabia, not Rome or New York or any other nation or city. In Isaiah 21:9, Isaiah levels a prophetic oracle against Babylon: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen,” is the same announcement used in Revelation 18:1-2. Yet this prophecy is not ultimately about ancient Babylon (Iraq), but the Mystery Babylon of Revelation. Ancient Babylon was simply a type of the Last-Days Babylon. The names in this prophecy are all areas in Arabia:
God's War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible Page 48
