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The
Mystery Of The "Mispa"
In this article, as the title shows, I
shall try to give an exposition of the ancient Hebrew Cult
of Stone, which they inherited from Abraham, their great
progenitor, and to show that this Stone-Cult was
instituted at Mecca by that Patriarch and his son Ishmael;
in the land of Canaan by Isaac and Jacob; and in Moab and
elsewhere by the other descendants of Abraham.
By the term "Stone-Cult," let
it be understood, I do not mean stone-worship, which is
idolatry; by it I understand the worship of God at a
specially consecrated stone meant for that purpose. In
those days, when the chosen family were leading a nomadic
and pastoral life, it had no settled habitation where to
build a house, especially dedicated to the worship of God;
they used to erect a particular stone around which they
used to make a hajj; that is to say, to turn round seven
times in the form of a dancing-ring. The word hajj might
frighten the Christian readers and they might shrink at
its sight because of its Arabic form and because of its
being at present a Muslim religious performance. The word
hajj is exactly identical in meaning and etymology with
the same in the Hebrew and other Semitic languages. The
Hebrew verb hagag is the same as the Arabic hajaj, the
difference being only in the pronunciation of the third
letter of the Semitic alphabet gamal, which the Arabs
pronounce as j. The Law of Moses uses this very word hagag
or haghagh (1) when it orders the festival ceremonies to
be performed. The word signifies to compass a building, an
altar or a stone by running round it at a regular and
trained pace with the purpose of performing a religious
festival of rejoicing and chanting. In the East the
Christians still practice what they call higga either
during their festival days or at weddings. Consequently,
this word has nothing to do with pilgrimage, which is
derived from the Italian pellegrino, and this also from
the Latin peregrinus - meaning a "foreigner."
------------- Footnotes: (1)
Unlilke the Arabs, both the Hebrew as well as the Aramaic
peoples have no j sound in their alphabet; their third
letter, gamal, when hard has a g sound and when soft or
aspirate becomes guttural and sounds gh. ------------End
of footnote
Abraham during his sojourns frequently
used to build an altar for worship and sacrifice at
different places and on particular occasions. When Jacob
was on his way to Padan Aram and saw the vision of that
wonderful ladder, he erected a stone there, upon which he
poured oil and called it Bethel, i.e. "The House of
God"; and twenty years later he again visited that
stone, upon which he poured oil and "pure wine,"
as recorded in Genesis xxviii. 10-22; xxxv. A special
stone was erected as a monument by Jacob and his
fatherin-law upon a heap of stones called Gal'ead in
Hebrew, and Yaghar sahdutha by Laban in his Aramaic
language, which means "a heap of witness." But
the proper noun they gave to the erected stone was Mispa
(Gen. xxxi. 45-55), which I prefer to write in its exact
Arabic form, Mispha, and this I do for the benefit of my
Muslim readers.
Now this Mispha became later on the most
important place of worship, and a center of the national
assemblies in the history of the people of Israel. It was
here that Naphthah - a Jewish hero - made a vow
"before the Lord," and after beating the
Ammonites, he is supposed to have offered his only
daughter as a burnt offering (Judges xi). It was at Mispha
that four hundred thousand swordsmen from the eleven
tribes of Israel assembled and "swore before the
Lord" to exterminate the tribe of Benjamin for an
abominable crime committed by the Benjamites of Geba' and
succeeded (Judges xx. xxi.). At Mispha all the people were
summoned by the Prophet Samuel, where they "swore
before the Lord" to destroy all their idols and
images, and then were saved from the hands of the
Philistines (I Sam. vii). It was here that the nation
assembled and Saul was appointed king over Israel (1 Sam.
x) . In short, every national question of great moment was
decided at this Mispha or at Bethel. It seems that these
shrines were built upon high places or upon a raised
platform, often called Ramoth, which signifies a
"high place." Even after the building of the
gorgeous Temple of Solomon, the Misphas were held in great
reverence. But, like the Ka'aba at Mecca, these Misphas
were often filled with idols and images. After the
destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Chaldeans,
the Mispha still maintained its sacred character as late
as the time of the Maccabees during the reign of King
Antiochus (l).
Now, what does the word Mispa mean? It
is generally translated into a "watch-tower." It
belongs to that class of Semitic nouns - Asma Zarf - which
take or drive their name from the thing that they enclose
or contain. Mispa is the place or building which derives
its name from sapha, an archaic word for
"stone." The usual word for stone in Hebrew is
iben, and in Arabic hajar. The Syriac for stone is kipa.
But safa or sapha seems to be common to them all for some
particular object or person when designated as a
"stone." Hence the real meaning of Mispa is the
locality or place in which a sapha or stone is set and
fixed. It will be seen that when this name, Mispa, was
first given to the stone erected upon a heap of stone
blocks, there was no edifice built around it. It is the
spot upon which a sapha rests, that is called Mispa.
Before explaining the signification of
the noun sapha I have to tax again the patience of those
of my readers who are not acquainted with the Hebrew. The
Arabic language lacks the p sound in its alphabet just as
much as do the Hebrew and other Semitic languages, in
which the letter p, like g, is sometimes soft and is
pronounced like f or ph. In English, as a rule, the
Semitic and Greek words containing f sound are
transliterated and written by the insertion of
"ph" instead of "f," e.g. Seraph,
Mustapha, and Philosophy. It is in accordance with this
rule that I prefer to write this word sapha to safa.
------------- Footnote: (1) The
Bible which I consult does not contain the so-called
deutro- canonical or Apocryphal books of the Old
Testament. This Bible is published by the American Bible
Society (New York 1893 ) . The title runs thus Kthahhi
Qaddishi Dadiathiqi Wadiathiqi Khadatt An Shad-wath
Poushaqa dmin lishani qdimaqi. Matha 'ta d'dasta.
Biblioneta d' America [The Holy Books of the Old Testament
and of the New Covenant (Testament), with the concordance
or witnesses. Translated from the ancient languages.
Published at the Press of the American Bible Society].
------------- End of footnote
When Jesus Christ surnamed his first
disciple Shim'on (Simon) with the significant title of
"Petros" (Peter), he must evidently have had in
his mind this ancient sacred Sapha which had been lost
long ago! But, alas! we cannot positively set out the
exact word which he expressed in his own language. The
Greek form Petros in the masculine gender - Petra in the
feminine - is so unclassical and unGreek, that one is
astonished at its being ever adopted by the Churches. Did
Jesus or any other Jew ever dream of calling the fisherman
Bar Yona, Petros? Decidedly not. The Syriac version called
Pshitta has frequently rendered this Greek form into Kipha
(Kipa). And the very fact that even the Greek text has
preserved the original name "Kephas," which the
English versions have reproduced in the shape of
"Cephas," shows that Christ spoke the Aramaic
language and gave the surname "Kipha" to his
principal disciple.
The old Arabic versions of the New
Testament have frequently written St. Peter's name as
"Sham'un' as-Sapha"; that is to say, "Simon
the Stone." The words of Christ: "Thou art
Peter," etc., have their equivalent in the Arabic
version in the form of "Antas-Sapha" (Matt. xvi.
18; John i. 42, etc.).
It follows, therefore, that if Simon is
the Sapha, the Church which was to be built on it would
naturally be the Mispha. That Christ should liken Simon to
Sapha and the Church to Mispha is very remarkable; but
when I come to divulge the mystery hidden in this
similitude and the wisdom embodied in the Sapha, then it
must be accepted as the most marvelous truth of Prophet
Muhammad's merit to his glorious title: 'THE MUSTAPHA'!
From what has been stated above, our
curiosity would naturally lead one to ask the following
questions: -
(a) Why did the Muslims and Unitarian
descendants of Abraham choose a stone to perform their
religious service on or around it? (b) Why should this
particular stone be named sapha? (c) What is the writer
driving at? And so on - perhaps several others.
The stone was selected as the best
suitable material upon which a traveling devotee offered
his sacrifice, poured his pure oil and wine, (1) and
performed his religious services around it. It was more
than this; this stone was erected to commemorate the vows
and certain promises which a prophet or righteous man made
to his Creator, and the revelation he received from God.
Consequently, it was a sacred monument to perpetuate the
memory and the sacred character of a great religious
event. For such a purpose no other material could surpass
the stone. Not only does the solidity and durability of
the stone make it suitable for that purpose, but its mere
simplicity, cheapness, worthlessness in a lonely place
would guarantee it against any attraction of human avarice
or enmity to steal or destroy it. As is well known, the
Law of Moses strictly forbids to hew or carve the stones
of the altar. The stone called Sapha was to be absolutely
left natural; no images, inscriptions, or engravings were
to be wrought upon it, lest any one of these should be
worshipped in time to come by the ignorant people. Gold,
iron silver, or any other metal, could not answer all
these qualities required in the simple stone. It will be
understood, therefore, that the purest, the most durable,
eligible, and the safest material for a religious and
sacred monument could be none other than the stone.
------------ Footnote: 1. Wine was
not forbidden to the people of Israel. ------------end of
footnote
The molten bronze statue of the Jupiter
worshipped by the heathen Roman Pontifex Maximus, was
taken away from the Pantheon and recast into the image of
St. Peter by order of a Christian Sovereign Pontiff; and
indeed, the wisdom embodied in the Sapha is admirable and
worthy of all those who worship no other object besides
God.
It should also be remembered that not
only is the erected Sapha a sacred monument, but the very
spot and the circuit in which it is situated as well. And
it is for this reason that the Muslim hajj, like the
Hebrew higga, is performed round the building where the
Sacred Stone is fixed. It is known fact that the
Karamatians who carried the Black Stone from the Ka'aba
and kept it in their own country for some twenty years,
were obliged to bring and put it back in its former place
because they could not draw the pilgrims from Mecca. If it
had been gold or other precious object, it could not have
existed, at least, for some five thousand years; or even
if it had had on it some carvings or images of art, it
would have been destroyed by the Prophet Muhammad himself.
As to the meaning - or rather meanings -
of the Sapha, I have already referred to them as qualities
of the stone.
The word consists of the consonants
"sadi" and "pi" ending with the vowel
"hi" both as a verb and noun. It means, in its
qal form, "to purify, to watch, to gaze from
distance, and to choose." It also has the meanings of
"to be firm and sound"; in its pi'el paradigm,
which is causative, it simply means "to make a
choice, to cause to elect," and so on.
A man who watched from a tower was
called Sophi (2 Kings ix. 17, etc.). In ancient times -
that is, before the building of the Temple of Solomon -
the Prophet or the "Man of God" was called Roi
or Hozi, which means the "seer" ( 1 Sam. ix. 9).
The Hebrew scholars are, of course, familiar with the word
Msaphpi, or rather Msappi, which is equivalent in
orthography to the Arabic musaphphi, which signifies
"one who endeavors to elect that which is pure,
sound, firm," and so forth. The watchman on the Tower
of Yizrael, as quoted above, was gazing and watching
sharply from a great distance to distinguish a company of
persons coming on towards the town. He saw the first
messenger of the King who arrived and joined the group but
did not return. The same was the case with the second and
the third envoy. It was later on that the Sophi could
distinguish the chief of the group as Jehu. Now, what then
was the business and the office of that watchman? It was
to look out sharply from some distance to distinguish one
among the others with a view to understanding his identity
and his movements, if at all possible, and then to inform
his king. If you ask: What was the business and the office
of the solitary Sophi of the Mispa? the answer - which
would merely be that he used to watch from the minaret of
the Misppha (Mispa) in order to distinguish the identity
of the pilgrims in the desert, or that he used to keep
watch against some danger - could not satisfy an eager
inquirer. If so, the Mispha would lose its religious and
sacred character, and would rather seem to assume that of
a military watchtower. But the case with the Sophi of the
Mispha was quite different. Originally the Mispha was only
a simple shrine on a solitary high place in Gal'ead where
the Sophi with his family or attendants used to live.
After the conquest and occupation of the land of Canaan by
Israel, the number of the Misphas increases, and they soon
become great religious centers and develop into
institutions of learning and confraternities. They seem to
be like the Islamic Mevlevi, Bektashi, Neqshbendi, and
other religious confraternities, each one of them being
under its own Sheikh and Murshid. They had schools
attached to the Mispha, where the Law, the religion, the
Hebrew literature and other branches of knowledge were
taught. But over and above this educational work, the
Sophi was the supreme head of a community of initiates
whom he used to instruct and teach the esoteric or mystic
religion which we know under the name of Sophia. Indeed,
what we term to-day Sufis were then called nbiyim or
"prophets," and what is called, in Islamic
takkas, zikr or invocation in prayer, they used to term
"prophesying." In the time of the Prophet
Samuel, who was the head of the State as well as that of
the Mispha institutions, these disciples and initiates had
become very numerous; and when Saul was anointed and
crowned, he joined the zikr or religious practice of
invocation with the initiates and was announced
everywhere: "Behold Saul also among the
Prophets." And this saying became a proverb; for he
was also "prophesying" with the group of
prophets (1 Sam. x 9-13). The Sufism among the Hebrews
continued to be an esoteric religious confraternity under
the supremacy of the Prophet of the time until the death
of King Solomon. After the division of the kingdom into
two, it appears that a great schism had taken place among
the Sufis too. In the time of the Prophet Elias, about 900
B.C., we are told that he was the only true Prophet left
and that all others were killed; and that there were eight
hundred and fifty prophets of the Baal and Ishra who
"ate at the table of Queen Izabel" (1 Kings
xviii. 19). But only a few years later, Elias's disciple
and successor, the Prophet Elisha, at Bethel and at
Jericho is met by scores of the "sons of
Prophets" who foretell him about the imminent
ascension of his master Elias (2 Kings ii.).
Whatever may have been the real position
of the Hebrew Sufis (or Sophees) after the great religious
and national schism, one thing is certain, namely, that
the true knowledge of God and the esoteric science of
religion was preserved until the appearance of Jesus
Christ, who built his Community of the Initiates in the
Inner Religion upon Simon the Sapha, and that the true
Sophis or seers of the Christian Mispha perpetuated this
knowledge and watched over it until the appearance of the
Elect of Allah, Prophet Muhammad al-Mustapha - the Hebrew
"Mustaphi"!
The Bible mentions - as I said above -
numerous prophets attached to the Misphas; but we must
well understand that, as the Qur'an clearly declares,
"God best knows whom He shall appoint for His
Messenger" that He does not bestow the gift of
prophecy on a person on account of his nobility, riches,
or even piety, but for His own pleasure. The faith and all
works of piety, meditations, spiritual exercises, prayers,
fasting, and divine knowledge may raise a novice to become
a spiritual murshid or guide, or to the rank of a saint,
but never to the status of a prophet; for prophecy is not
procured by effort, but is a gift of God. Even among the
Prophets there are only a few who were Messengers favored
with a special book and commissioned to direct a certain
people or with a particular mission. Therefore the term
"prophets" as used in the Hebrew Scriptures is
often ambiguous.
I must also remark in this connection
that probably the majority of the material of the Bible
was the work or production of these Misphas before the
Babylonian Captivity or even earlier, but afterwards has
been revised by unknown hands until it has taken the shape
which we nowadays have.
It now remains to say few words about
the Muslim Sufism and the Greek word Sophia (wisdom or
love of wisdom); and a discussion of these two systems of
high knowledge does lie outside the scope of this article.
Philosophy, in the wider sense of the term, is the study
or science of the first principles of being; in other
words, it transcends the limits of physics to study the
pure being, and leaves behind the study of causes or laws
of that which happens or is seen in nature trying to reach
the metaphysics which deals with faith, ethics and law
known now as the spiritual aspects of civilization, while
the physic is considered the material aspects of
civilization. Thereby it takes the greatest pains to find
the truth.
The difference between the Greek Sophia
and the Muslim Sufi is that the Greek have mixed between
the materialistic and spiritual areanas and at the same
time, they failed to received revelation as their top
philosophers i.e. Aristotle and Socrates admitted that
dealing in the metaphysics without receiving revelation
from the Creator is like crossing the ocean on a piece of
wood! Whereas the lucky Muslim Sufis concentrated on the
area of ethics and following the footsteps of Prophet
Muhammad and his companions in disciplining one's heart
and self in sailing to reach the High Assembly of the
Angels and so forth.
Muslim Sufism is the contemplation on
the deeds of Allah and His Creation and ones self and
avoiding the contemplation on Allah Himself because the
human is made of his environment and sooner use their five
senses to describe Allah which becomes exceedingly
dangerous as it happened with the Egyptians when they
imagined the Sphinx that has head, paws, body etc.
The superiority of the Islamic Sophia to
the Greek philosophy is manifest from the object it views
at. And it is decidedly superior to the Christian celibacy
and monasticism in its indifference towards the
consciences and the beliefs of other people. A Muslim
Sophi (Sufi) always entertains respect for other
religions, laughs at the idea of "heresy" and
abhors all persecutions and oppressions. Most of the
Christian Saints were either persecutors of or the
persecuted by heretics, and their celebrity consists in
their excess of intolerance. This is, alas but only too
true.
It is also worthy noting that in the
time of the first era of Islam, Muslim Sufis were referred
to as "Zahid" or "Zohad" and at that
time they had no methodology, but they had a complete
fellowship of faith and jurisprudence to their respective
school. They concentrated on the ethics and thinking. The
following generation established the methodology of
courses to be taken by beginners, the intermediate and the
advanced based on the Qur'an and Prophetic Quotations. It
is very clear that the daily rectition of Qur'an, the
remembrance of the Names of Allah and the prayer on
Prophet Muhammad together with asking Allah for
forgiveness and praying at night, fasting during the day
are some of the important characteristics. On the other
hand, the authentic Muslim Sufi reject any insincere
members who fail to keep the way of Prophet Muhammad.
Admittedly, many ignorant people were exposed, thinking
that these insincere cases are representative of Muslim
Sufism. They fail to understand that the (Ihsan) which is
one third of the Religion, as demonstrated in the answer
of Prophet Muhammad to the question "What is Islam?,
What Is Iman, and What is Ihsan? when Prophet Muhammad
commented that the one who asked the questioner was the
angel Gabriel and that he had come to teach you the
Religion. Also, Islam was served by the four schools of
jurisprudence while iman was served by faith schools such
as Salaf and Asharia and of course Sufi served Ihsan. If
some one doubts this let him name the scholars of Ihsan,
because if you go to an Islamic Court which belongs to the
section of Islam, or go to a Faith school and admit that
he has jeouslousy and malice in his heart etc. of the
disease of the soul both schools will admit that they have
nothing to do with this aspect and refer him to an Abid,
worshiper, or Sufi, Shaykh.
As a secondary remark I should like to
add that the Muslim authors have always written the Greek
word "philosophy" in the form of Phelsepha with
sin instead of sadi or tzadi, which is one of the
constituent letters in the Hebrew and Arabic words Sapha
and Sophi. I think this form was introduced into the
Arabic literature by the Assyrian translators who formerly
belonged to the Nestorian sect. The Turks write the name
St. Sophia of Constantinople with sadi, but philosophy
with sin, like the samekh of the Hebrews. I believe that
the Greek Sophia is to be identified etymologically with
the Hebrew word; and the idea that the Muslim word sophia
(sowfiya) is derived from the soph, which means
"wool," ought to be abandoned.
The true Sophia - or wisdom - the true
knowledge of God, the true science of religion and
morality, and the infallible selection of the Last
Messenger of Allah from among all His Messengers, belonged
to the ancient institution of Israel called Mispha, until
it was transformed into the Mispha of the Nassara or
Christian. It is indeed marvelous to see how complete is
the analogy and how the economy of God concerning His
dealings with man is carried on with absolute uniformity
and order. The Mispha is the filter where all the data and
persons are filtered and strained by the Musaphphi
(Hebrew, Mosappi) as by a colander (for such is the
meaning of the word); so that the genuine is distinguished
and separated from the false, and the pure from the
impure; yet centuries succeed each other, myriads of
Prophets come and go, still the Mustapha, the Elected One,
does not appear. Then comes the Holy Jesus; but he is
rejected and persecuted, because there existed no longer
in Israel that official Mispha which would have recognized
and announced him as a true Messenger of God who was sent
to bear witness to the Mustapha that was the Last Prophet
to follow him. The "Grand Assembly of the
Synagogue" convoked and instituted by Ezra and
Nehemiah, the last member of which was "Simeon the
Just" (ob 310 B.C.), was succeeded by the Supreme
Tribunal of Jerusalem, called the "Sahedrin";
but this latter Assembly, whose President was the Nassi or
the "Prince," condemned Jesus to death because
it did not recognize his person and the nature of his
divine mission. A few Sophis, however, knew Jesus and
believed in his prophetical mission; but the crowds at one
time mistook him for the Mustapha or the
"elected" Messenger of Allah, and seized and
acclaimed him king, but he vanished and disappeared from
among them. He was not the Mustaplta, otherwise it would
be ridiculous to make Simon the Sapha and his Church the
Mispha; for the office and the duty of the Mispha was to
watch and look for the Last Messenger, so that when he
came he would be proclaimed as the Elected and Chosen One
- the Mustapha. If Jesus were the Mustapha, there would be
no need for the institution of the Mispha any longer. This
is a very deep and interesting subject; it deserves
patient study. Prophet Muhammad al-Mustapha is the mystery
of the Mispha, and the treasure of the Sophia.
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