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Story of Lilith

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Story of Lilith

2021. március 28. - 19:02

How to incorporate a míth into the methaphor of the Scripture

Lilith is a mythological character purported to have been Adam's first wife. According to the myth, God has created her from earth similarly as Adam. The Bible and Quran contains no such account nor even hints at such a possibility. According to the legend, Lilith was headstrong and independent, and didn't want to submit to Adam, so she divorced him. How the Lilith legend came to be is a circuitous tale on its own.

The legend of Lilith originated in the last chapter of the Epic of Gilgamesh

A chapter which was probably not original to the rest of the text. In the story, the goddess Inanna finds a tree in a river and plants it in her garden. She cares for it for ten years, but finds that it's been infested with "the serpent who could not be charmed," "the Anzu-bird," and "the dark maid Lilith." Inanna cannot get rid of the squatters, so she asks her brother Gilgamesh. He strikes the serpent, leading the Anzu-bird to flee with its young and Lilith to smash her home and escape to "the wild, uninhabited places." Gilgamesh chops up the tree and makes a throne and a bed for Inanna.

The Aleppo National Museum is in possession of an amulet with the engraving of a sphinx and a shewolf that includes the words "O, Demoness-that-flies in a dark chamber, Get on your way at once, O Lili!" The amulet is thought to be Syrian, from the 6th or 7th century BC, but it's also possible it's a forgery from the 1930s.

It's possible that the Bible references Lilith as a pagan character. Isaiah 34:14 reads, "And wild animals shall meet with hyenas; the wild goat shall cry to his fellow; indeed, there the night bird settles and finds for herself a resting place." The night bird (some translations say "screech owl") is the Hebrew Liyliyth. It is derived from layil, which means "night." "Lilith," literally, means "night maid," so it's unclear if the verse refers to the Sumerian goddess or if it's a poetic way to describe a female nocturnal bird.

Extra-biblical writings of Judaism hold to this account. The midrash Genesis Rabba (AD 300—500) infers that Adam had a first wife. The Babylonian Talmud says that Lilith has wings, that she can cause birth defects, that she is a succubus, and that she used the nocturnal emissions of sleeping men to conceive demon babies. The first text that clearly connects Lilith as Adam's first wife is The Alphabet of Ben Sira. In this text, Lilith is said to have left Adam when he demanded she be submissive in sex. When Adam asked angels to bring her back, she said she wouldn't. The angels told her they would kill her demon children, so she responded that she would in turn kill the babies of the descendants of Adam.

Further legend says that she is responsible for diphtheria, stillborn children, and babies who die of SIDS. It was a short leap to go from Lilith as "night maid" to "night hag," and blame her for sleep paralysis. Some, including Michelangelo, associate her with the serpent that tempted Eve. In this incarnation, she is the wife of Satan and provides the body so that he can be the voice that talks to Eve.

More recently, feminists and New Agers have claimed Lilith as a role model. They praise her independence and sexual freedom and use her as an example when refusing to submit to their husbands. She has leant her name to "Lilith Fair," a touring concert of female singers and female-led bands, and Lilith Magazine, a feminist magazine.

The only verified part of all this is that Lilith was a character in ancient Sumerian/Akkadian folklore. Any "evidence" found in the Bible is easily dismissed. The bulk of literature defining her role in history comes from Kabbalah, a Jewish-based cult which is not verified by Judaism. In short, Lilith was a figure of ancient mythology who has since been used to represent death to innocents, sexual predation on men, and feminist independence. She was never real, and she certainly was never married to Adam.

Lilith’s entry into the scene of Paradise - which even within Islam is professed by a few small sects (not on the basis of the Quran!) - is not unintentional. During the colonization, the English and the French gained not only territories but also knowledge. They had vast information about the religions, traditions and epics of different peoples. This information was not only acquired, but manipulated, in some cases mixed up, causing confusion among those outside them. So, it is no wonder that even those who are not born in British or French land are researching their own culture in Britain and France. Lilith was merely a snatched example on the “mixing” project which was intended to prove that Islam, or rather Mohammed (peace be upon him), “copied” particular chapters from previous cultures that played a role in the creation of Quran. Later, America also got involved in collecting and manipulating information. Without them, the anti-Islamic ideology of Al Qaeda and ISIS would never have emerged.

If we examine previous cases, Islamic distortions were born in the defense of Christianity in general and in the US mainly for protecting Protestantism.

Islam has existed in North America for hundreds of years, ever since enslaved people captured in Africa brought their religion over. In the 1700s, an English translation of the Quran (or Koran) actually became a bestseller among Protestants in England and its American colonies. One of its readers was Thomas Jefferson. When Jefferson bought his Quran as a law student in 1765, it was probably because of his interest in understanding Ottoman law. It may have also influenced his original intention for the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom to protect the right to worship for “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination,” as he wrote in his autobiography. Jefferson’s Quran was a 1734 translation by a British lawyer named George Sale. It was the first direct translation of the Quran from Arabic to English (the only other English version was a translation of a French translation published in 1649), and would remain the definitive English translation of the Quran into the late 1800s. In his introduction, Sale wrote that the purpose of the book was to help Protestants understand the Quran so that they could argue against it. (https://www.history.com/news/thomas-jefferson-quran-rashida-tlaib-keith-ellison)

Let us not forget that the first editions of Quran in Hungarian were not aimed the objective acquaintance of Islam either. The first full Hungarian translation of Quran was published in 1831 in Kosice (Slovakia today). The title of the 516-page book, which is unusually long for today's reader, was as follows: "Alkoran, the Islamic creed of the false prophet Mohammed, the son of Abdalla." Imre Buzitay-Szedlmajer - György Gedeon are nominated as publishers and is based on a European, presumably Latin language explanation. It is introduced with a long preface, the main purpose of which is to debate and criticize Islam.

So, the falsification and distortion of Islam is an internationally done industry, since who likes to have the veil fall and clairvoyance come?

Let’s go back to what we Muslims consider original. The paradise scene is also made up of ayas, i.e. Signs. And Signs form a metaphor.

The name "Eve" (Arabic: حواء ,Ḥawā') is never revealed or used in the Quran. In Islam the man is responsible for the household. Including the safety of the family etc. Therefore, when Allah (SWT) addresses Adam it's also addressing his family. Which of course includes His wife. Allah for example said Adam sinned, however, of course his wife also sinned. But Adam represents his wife also before Allah (SWT).

O mankind! reverence your Guardian-Lord, who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, His mate, and from them twain scattered (like seeds) countless men and women; - reverence Allah, through whom ye demand your mutual (rights), and (reverence) the wombs (That bore you): for Allah ever watches over you. (Quran 4:1)

All starts from Adam and Eve where Adam was created as a single person and Eve was created from him. We all follow their example. We are also creatures and our wives are part of us. This is marriage the basement of the society and our next generation. All our mutual rights and duties are referred to Allah. We are His creatures: His Will is the standard and measure of Allah; and our duties are measured by our conformity with His Will. Among ourselves (human beings) our mutual rights and duties arise out of Allah's Law, the sense of Right that is implanted in us by Him. Among the most wonderful mysteries of our nature is that of sex. The unregenerate male is apt, in the pride of his physical strength, to forget the all-important part which the female plays in his very existence, and in all the social relationships that arise in our collective human lives. The mother that bore us must ever have our reverence. The wife, through whom we enter parentage, must have our reverence. Sex, which governs so much of our physical life, and has so much influence on our emotional and higher nature, deserves-not our fear, or our contempt, or our amused indulgence, but-our reverence in the highest sense of the term. With this fitting introduction we enter on a discussion of women, orphans, and family relationships.

In Islam marriage is not sainthood like in the Christianity. Love and human emotions cannot be prescribed in institutional forms. However, the material relation between man and woman has to be legalized and regulated, therefore the marriage in Islam is prescribed in a form of civil contract where rights and obligations of the parties are laid down in the frame of the agreement between the two families.

The same is in Quran 20:116:126.

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