Hala Sultan Tekke: Shrine of the Mother's Breast

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, darlings! HIStory speaks to us - if only we will listen.

While doing the prior posts on the Hind of Hinds and the Ka'bah of Mecca (a/k/a the Goddess Kybele/Cybele and the Vesica Piscis) I came across a reference to the Hala Sultan Tekke. Upon doing further research, as I had no idea what the Hala Sultan Tekke was, I discovered that this third most sacred spot of the Islamic religion (located on Cyprus) is a shrine to Umm Haram, who is accounted, historically, as Mohammed's wet nurse.

The old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words" is so very true in this case. The dome of this shrine is obviously a breast.

Okay, slap my face for being sacriligeous. BUT - early descriptions ascribe the shrine as "the Old Woman's tomb" - and who is the Old Woman but Shaybah - Sheba, the Hind of Hinds, one of the titles of Artemis (see prior posts on Hind of Hinds). A further clue to the pre-Islamic origin of this shrine is that it was considered a sacred spot to Christians as well -- probably a relic from pre-Christian days. We all know that in the presently accepted chronology of HIStory, the Christians pre-dated the Muslims. My conclusion is that this is an ancient sacred place dedicated to a goddess - since it is on Cyprus, probably Artemis or Diana.

The site was/is? also sacred to the Sufis - a "heretic" sect of Islam who worshipped the goddess principle in all creation: The term tekke (convent) applies to a building designed specifically for gatherings of a Sufi brotherhood, or tariqa, and may have referred to an earlier feature of the location. Coincidence? I think not...

"Tariqa" means "path, way, or method" according to this entry at Wikipedia. The early Christians called their system of beliefs "The Way," - but "The Way" is much more ancient than the earliest Christians.

The Way to The Truth is a recurring theme in religion. According to Charles Muses in his essay "The Ageless Way of Goddess; Divine Pregnancy and Higher Birth in Ancient Egypt and China," the "theurgy" (literally, a divine working - theo + urg) - showed the way to a divine rebirth while still carnate, a method of creating an eternal body (he called it a "higher body") that would be available to one upon death. He called it "The Way Home." He stated:

The preparation and technique for that path, which transforms one as one treads it, exist in fragmentary form in the old human recors. But those insturctions, that operational method, are always available in great clarity to those who again reach that place of accessibility in awareness. Then one can start the heroic quest described in these lines from an obscure poet, Kyril Demys, three decades ago (who also wrote "Song of the Far Journey"):

The doors are many
but the key is one ...
that space has room
for a winged and wondrous child
and whirled a little world to being....
That child alone
shall fly the abyss
and reach the Second Sun.

Muses says that in ancient Egypt, this knowledge was incorporated into a system of belief called "The Lion Path," and in ancient China, it was called "The Way of the Tiger."

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.