The True Origins of the Koran

From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" (Image: The Goddess Kore, from the PARTHENON, temple of the goddess Athena on the Acropolis. From the 6th century BCE. Photo Greek National Museum, Athens. Notice the artistry - are those just braids in her hair, or are they intertwined with serpents?) Koran Mohammedan scriptures, often erroneously thought to have been written by Mohammed. Moslems don't believe this.(1) But many don't know the Koran was an enlarged, revised version of the ancient Word of the Goddess Kore, revered by Mohammed's tribe, the Koreshites (Children of Kore), who guarded her shrine at Mecca. The original writing was done long before Mohammed's time by holy imams, a word related to Semitic ima, "mother."(2) Like the original mahatmas or "great mothers" in India,the original imams were probably priestesses of the old Arabian matiarchate. It was said they took the scriptures from a prototype that existed in heaven from the beginning of eternity, "Mother of the Book" - i.e., the Goddess herself, wearing the Book of Fate on her breast as Mother Tiamat wore the Tablets of Destiny. Sometimes the celestial Koran was called the Preserved Tablet.(3) There was some resemblance between this and other legendary books of divine origin, such as the Ur-text, the Book of Thoth and the Emerald Tablet of Hermes. As in the case of the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Koran was much rewritten to support new patiarchal laws and to obliterate the figures of the Goddess andher priestesses. See Arabia. Notes: (1) Encyc. Brit., "Mohammed." (2) Campbell, Oc.M., 443. (3) Budge, A.T., 52. *************************************************************** Kore Greek Holy Virgin, inner soul of Mother Earth [Demeter - The Divine Mother, she of the mare's head whose mane was entwined with serpents -- see earlier entry on Delphi]; a name so widespread, that it must have been one of the earliest designations of the World Shakti or female spirit of the universe. Variations include Ker, Car, Q're, Cara, Kher, Ceres, Core, Sanskrit Kaur or Kauri, alternate names for the Goddess Kali. Neolithic Asia knew a mysterious Goddess Ker, or Car, ancestress of the Carians.(1) Her city in the Chersonese was Cardia "the Goddess Car." Kardia became the Greek word for "heart," as cor became the Latin; both descended from the Goddess who was the world-heart. The same syllable is found in words for maternal blood relationships: Gaelic cairdean, kinship; Turkish kardes, maternal siblings.(2) The Goddess became Kardia ton kosmos: "Heart of the World."(3) Shrines of Karnak in Egypt and Carnac in Brittany were sites of gigantic temples and funerary complexes over 5000 years ago, dedicated to Kar or Kore. France had similar shrines in similarly-named locations, Kerlescan, Kercado, Kermario.(4) The last name combined the pagan Virgin with the Goddess Mari, who was sometimes her daughter, her mother, or herself, like Kali embodied in Kel-Mari.(5) Inhabitants of Carnac, and of Carnantum on the Danube, called themselves in Roman times the Carnutes, "people born of the Goddess Car."(6) In Egypt's early dynastic period there was a place called Kerma (Mother Ker) in Nubia, where mass sacrifices took place. A similar name, Kara, was held in reverence by several early Egyptian rulers. Egyptians spoke of an eastern land called Kher [possibly - Kehmet? -- land of the Mother Kar?], and called Palestine the country of Kharu.(7) Car or Carna was known to the Romans as "a Goddess of the olden time," whose archaic worship was connected with Karneia festivals of Sparta and the classic Roman Carnival.(8) Sometimes she was Carmenta, "the Mind of Car," who invented the Roman alphabet.(9) An extremely old temple on the Caelian Hill was dedicated to her.(1) A later variation of her name was Ceres, origin of such words as cereal, corn, kernel, core, carnal, cardiac. In the east this ancient Goddess was everywhere. Some said she was Artemis Caryatis, mother of the Caryatides of the Laconian temple of Caryae.(11) The Tyrian seaport of Caraalis (modern Cagliari) was sacred to her.(12) One of Israel's oldest shrines, the "garden" called Mount Carmel, was her place and that of her baalim (gods).(13) Kore was a great power in Coptic religion, with a flourishing cult at Alexandria in the 4th century A.D. Her festival, the Koreion, was held each January 6 , later assimilated to Christianity as the feast of Epiphany. [I believe this is the date the Holy Spirit in the form of "tongues of fire" was said to have descended upon the heads of loyal disciples of the LORD Jesus Christ who had gathered together in a room in Jerusalem to commemerate the 40th day after his death. This is an extremely ancient tradition that pre-dates Christianity and Islam. We have seen recently in Iran that people gather together to mourn the loss of a decedent 40 days after his or her death. The number "40" is mentioned several times in the Bible - according to Jewish tradition, this denotes a "long indeterminate period of time" but this is probably a later gloss-over of this number sacred to the Goddess]. Kore's festival celebrated the birth of the new year god Aeon to the Virgin, whose naked image was carried seven times around the temple, decorated with gold stars and the sign of the cross. The priests announced to the public that the Virgin had brought forth the Aeon.(14) The Koreion passed into British tradition as the Kirn, or Feast of Ingathering, which the church later changed to the Feast of Our Lady of Mercy. Kirn was a cognate of the Greek kern or sacred womb-vase in which the grain god was reborn.(15) [I assume this is also related to cairn, sacred burial place of the dead, and to the word corn - a food of the gods in the New World, and related words such as kernel. I find it very interesting that earlier this evening I blogged an article about an intact Elamite "jar burial" -- perhaps another ancient tradition that is related to this equally old Mother Goddess.] Here again, the Kore or Ker was a virgin mother. The Goddess's harvest instrument, a moon-sicle, represented even the Christian versin of the festival.(16) The classic myth of Kore's abduction by Pluto was another instance of a god's usurpation of the Goddess's power, according to Gnostic sources. "Plutonius Zeus...does not possess the nourishment for all mortal living creatures, for it is Kore who bears the fruit."(17) Kore's resurrection represented the seasonal return of vegetation. She was also the World Soul animating each human soul, and looking out of the eyes. Reflection in the pupil of an eye was known as the Kore or "Maiden" in the eye. To the Arabs, it was the "baby" in the eye. The Bible calls either a daughter or a soul "the apple of thine eye" (Proverbs 7:2); and of course, every apple had a Kore. [Perhaps this belief is the source for the phrase in Bryan Adams' mega-hit song from "Don Juan DeMarco" When You Really Love a Woman, "...when you can see your unborn children in her eyes, you know you really love a woman... ." Notes: (1) Graves, W.G., 373. (2) Farh, W.P., 144. (3) Cumont, A.R.R.P., 72. (4) Encyc. Brit., "Carnac." (5) Braffault I, 474. (6) J.H. Smith, D.C.P., 39. (7) Erman, 228, 278. (8) Dume'zl, 386, 389. (9) Graves, G.M., 1, 280; 2, 137. (10) Encyc. Brit., "Carna." (11) Graves, W.G., 372. (12) Masa, 43. (13) Encyc. Brit., "Carmel." (14) Campbell, M.I., 34. (15) Neumann, G. M., 132. (16) Brewster, 424. (17) Robinson, 305.

The Hind of Hinds - Continued

From Woman’s Encyclopedia, pages 51-54: Arabia

Before Islam arrived in the 7th century A.D., Arabia was matriarchal for over a thousand years of recorded history. The Annals of Ashurbanipal said Arabia was governed by queens for as long as anyone could remember.(1)

The land’s original Allah was Al-Lat, part of the female trinity along with Kore or Q’re, the Virgin, and Al-Uzza, the Powerful One, the triad known as Manat, the Threefold Moon.(2) [Side Note: Annals of Ashurbanipal – Assyrian royal chronicles on cuneiform tablets, dating form the 7th century B.C., found in the king’s famous library at Nineveh by 19th-century archaelogists.]

At Mecca the Goddess was Shaybah or Sheba, the Old Woman, worshipped as a black aniconic stone like the Godess of the Scythian Amazons.(3) The sacred Black Stone now enshrined in the Kaaba at Mecca was her feminine symbol, marked by the sign of the yoni, and covered like the ancient Mother by a veil.(4) No one seems to know exactly what it is supposed to represent today. [Yeah, but all those Arab dudes still kiss it as part of their worship ritual!]

The Black Stone rests in the Haram, "Sanctuary", cognate of "harem," which used to mean a Temple of Women: in Babylon, a shrine of the Goddess Har, mother of harlots.(5) Hereditary guardians of the Haram were the Koreshites, "children of Kore," Mohammed’s own tribe.(6) The holy office was originally held by women, before it was taken over by male priests calling themselves Beni Shayban, "Sons of the Old Woman."(7)

Mohammed’s legends clearly gave him a matriarchal family background. [He would not have been seen as legitimate, otherwise, by the people of the time unless he HAD the necessary matriarchal lineage!]  His parents’ marriage was matrilocal. His mother remained with her own family and received her husband as an occasional visitor. Mohammed lived with his mother until her death, because she was his true parent according to the ancient system; "children belonged to the woman’s family … paternity in the biological sense was relatively unimportant."(8) She may well have been one of the "aged priestesses" who served the temple in Mecca.(9) The traditions of such priestesses may well date back to Assyro-Babylonian um-mati or "mothers," the only people permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. Archaic Arabian shrines were usually served by seven high priestesses, recalling the lawgiving Seven Sages, who were women.(10) The first collection of the books of law called Koran – the Word of Kore, or Q’re – was attributed to them. [Side Note: Seven Sages – Legendary figures in both Greek and Arabian lore, identified with a variety of seers and philosophers, the earliest ones usually female, confused with the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades.]

Pre-Islamic Arabia was dominated by the female-centered clans. Marriages were matrilocal, inheritance matrilineal. Polyandry – several husbands to one wife – was common. Men lived in their wives’ homes. Divorce was initiated by the wife. If she turned her tent to face east for three nights in a row, the husband was dismissed and forbidden to enter the tent again.(11)

Doctrines attributed to Mohammed simply reversed the ancient system in favor of men. A Moslem husband could dismiss his wife by saying "I divorce thee" three times. As in Europe, the change from matriarchate to patriarchate came about only gradually and with much strife.

Many Koreshites remained faithful to the Goddess and to their queen, Hind al-Hunud: the Hind of Hinds, similar to the title of Artemis. She was also called Lady of Victory. But her victories came to an end with one of the last queens, whose husband betrayed her and surrendered her city of Makkah to the enemy.

Legend claims the stepdaughter of the divine Hind married Mohammed himself.(12) However, the history of early-medieval Arabia is nearly all legend. Like Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and other founders of patriarchal religions, Mohammed lacks real verification. There is no reliable information about his life or teachings. Most stories about him are as apocryphal as the story that his coffin hangs forever in mid-air "between heaven and earth," like the bodies of ancient sacred kings.(13)

Footnotes omitted. 

See also The Hind of Hinds, February 28, 2008, Goddesschess blog.