GHAZAIYE AND BIBLICAL PROPHECY ABOUT KORAN

GHAZAIYE  AND  BIBLICAL  PROPHECY  ABOUT  KORAN

The discovery of the Biblical prophecy about Koran (isaurian.blogspot.com; 11.07.2012) let attribute the new – peace-making! – significance to the received by us results of the research of the poetic and theological inheritance of Ghazaiye. In this connection we put on this blog the material, earlier reported at the 1-st International Turkological Conference (Simferopol, 2008) and at the international conference “The Christian Worldview and a Man” (Alushta, 2008). 

 

Alyoshin N.E.

Alyoshina N.V.

Alyoshina N.N.

Alyoshin V.N.

____________

DOM ARM. Krasnodar. Russia

The Just War in Ghazaiye

1. The idea of the “Just war” (especially of jihad and ghazavat) is the modern, and very acute challenge to the world community, to which the reply must be given by the politicians and religious leaders, philosophers and missionaries.

2. Living on the territory of the former Crimean Khanate and developing the traditions of the Isaurian Gothenland metropoly (736 A.D.) and ZIH bishopric (757 A.D.; “Zih” – “Zelotes of Iisus Hristos”, i.e. “Zelotes of Jesus Christ” in English, descending from the preaching of Simon the Canaanite – Zelotes, Mt. 10:4, Lk. 6:15), we have chosen – for the inquisition of jihad and ghazavat senses – the famous ghazal of Ghazaiye.

3. Ghazal is a poetical form of the Eastern poetry: 6 to 26 lines, united with the monorhyme.

4. Ghazaiye is a poetical pseudonym, with which the Crimean Khan – Ghazi Gheray Khan the Second Bora (1554 – 1607; khan in 1588 – 1607) – was signing. The military – political nickname “Bora” means “Tempest” or “Hurricane”. (Bora, e.g., on 11.11.2007 for four hours, beginning from the noon, sank 10 Russian ships in the Kerch strait – between the European and the Asian parts of the former Crimea Khanate). The name – title “Ghazi” means “the warrior, leading the ghazavat” (note: the Splendid Porta named with this title only those, who had during ghazavat the triumphal successes). Bora was the sufi, sharing the ideas of the great Rumi, thus he could not but be the poet, too. All this was to give the name “Ghazaiye”, i.e. “ghazi, writing the ghazals”.

5. The being discussed Ghazaiye ghazal is the center of the poetical collection “The Dreams of Love” (Simferopol, ed. “DOLYa”, 2003, 72 pp., ill., trans. into Rus. of S. Druzhinin. The subtitle – “The poetry of the Crimean Khans and of their circle poets.” The supertitle – “The Bakhchisaray state history-culture reservation”, “The Society named after Saadi”, “The Series – “The Library of the Khan Palace”). The composition (and sense construction) of the collection, its’ afterword and comments belong to the splendid connoisseur of the Crimean-tatarian literature Nariman Abdulwaap. We express our thanks to him for the presented copy of the collection with the touching gift inscription. We thank also for the support of our research Mustafa-aga Jemilev, professor I.A. Kerimov, Aider-aga Emirov, I. Abdullaev, E. Seidametov.

6. Thus, this is the text of the ghazal (9 lines of the unequal size: a – b ... i) in our original translation.

                                         

a. The holy adoration of the banner

with charming waist of virgin it shall not replace.

b. And for the tail – ensign affection of the heart

with peri pleasant odour it shall not replace.

c. And for the sword and arrows ardent love,

which one cannot take off the heart,

neither with soul dissecting brows,

nor with the noose and arrows of the eyes

it shall not replace.

d. And nakedeness of blade, presenting joy

    and always following us,

with silver body false and luscious sweetness

it shall not replace.

e. The silky hair tie of ambler neck

    with the curled lock of  lover’s temple

and with the plaits of the young chamois

it shall not replace.

f. We love the stallion with the skilful training,

    with the resilient pace, as light, as wind,

whom neither with the beauty

nor with peri of the guzelle walk

it shall not replace.

g. We’ve trusted soul to jihad,

    preferred the war for faith over mistress

    with peri look and heaven glance.

The aim for us even she shall not replace.

h. The rigour of the military campaign

     to which it draws us always,

     with passion pangs for cruel maid,

not for the world, we will not replace.

i. We thirst for ghazavat with all the soul,

    and sharing the thirst with Ghazaiye,

    and slaking of that thirst demanding,

                                                                                          the blood of infidels for us

with water it shall not replace.

7. Let us not inquire the feministic point of view, interpreting the given poem, as the description of the Bora problems with women. Let us concentrate ourselves on the description of the war – it seems paradoxal. Indeed, frequently they look at the war in a different way. Take, e.g., Kipling. He, as it would seem, also is the singer of the “just war”, the singer of the “white man mission”. But in him the war is different. Let us allude to the known poem (“Boots. Infantry Columns”), which “certifies: in ‘Ell it – is – not – fire – devils – dark, or anything, but boots - boots – boots – boots – movin’ up an’ down again.” The hell horror appears in Kipling out of the fact, that “there’s no discharge in the war!” (here we have the Biblical allusion – KJV, Eccl., 8:8: “and there is no discharge in that war”; Russian Synodal text gives the other understanding: “and there is no deliverance in this struggle”; the Elithabeth Church – Slavonic text understands it in the quite another way: “no envoy in the battle day”; the Elizabethan interpretation ascends to the Septuagintal one, though more equivocal: “kai ouk estin apostolae en too polemoo”, in any variant, however, it is seen the pressing hell inevitability). In Kipling the human psychics is on the edge of the frustration; the hero of the “Boots” – on the edge of the madness.

    But Ghazaiye takes off the horror of the hell hopelessness of the war with the love allusions. The paradox is in the fact, that the war is depicted, as the act of love. However it is not such a paradox, indeed. Let us scrutinize, e.g., such a logical consistency: the first step – the chixistigmoidal indicator of the location of the wisdom (Greek – Sofia, in Eastern tradition, according to the interpretation of Avicenna – Sufia) (Rev.,  13:18); the second step – “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps., 111:10); the third step – the words of the Wisdom (taking into account, sure, who is the Wisdom): “Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men” (Pro., 8:31; Vulgata – in Escriva’s understanding – says, that the Wisdom “played” – “ludens in orbe terrarum et deliciae meae esse cum filiis hominum”); the fourth step – the sentence of the Wisdom: “all they that hate me love death” (Pro., 8:36); the fifth step – the description, straightly looking like the one of Ghazaiye: “love is strong as death; jealosy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame” (Song, 8:6); and, at last, the sixth step – the interpretation of the “Song of songs” by Gregory of Nyssa (the sinners are burning down in the oversurplus of the Lord’s love).

8. In Ghazaiye the thirst of the just war – the Spiritual thirst – is being slaked with blood. Note here, that the saint God’s prophets “have power over waters to turn them to blood” (Rev., 11:6). And the sinners rejoice, when the beast, coming out of the bottomless pit, murders the prophets, “because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth” (Rev., 11:10). But the killed saints resurrect, and the great fear falls upon the sinners.

9. The reasoning thinking, inquiring the groundings of the religious war, stumbles with the fact, that the Scripture prohibits the murder (the sixth commandment of the Decalogue – “Thou shalt not kill” – Ex., 20:13). Consequently, from the reasoning point of view, the grounding of any kind of war does not seem possible; and the text of Ghazaiye seems to be crazy. But they reply to the reasoning thinkers: “Not you were killing them – they were killed by by Allah!” (Quran, 8:17; we use here our original translations in English from the Russian translation of Porokhova, which is adopted and recommended with the Muftis Council of Russia and with the Spiritual Directorate of the Moslems of Adygeia and Krasnodar Territory). From this point of view the jihadist has not the personal action, but is the tool of the God. The warrior of the holy war believes, that he comes to the enemy “in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel”, whom the enemy has defied (1 Sam., 17:45). Thus, “the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands” (1 Sam., 17:47). The Psalmodist sings: ”The Lord Himself has sent His angel and anointment me with the oil of His anoinment... The stranger cursed me with his idols. But I have taken the sword off him, beheaded him and taken away the curse from the sons of Israel” (Ps., 151 – Sept., Eliz.; our original translation into English). The most important moment for understanding of the actions grounding logics is here the fact, that the idol-worshipper, cursing with his idols the warrior – the anointed of God (Sept.: “has anointed me ... with the anointment of His” – “aechrisen me an taes chriseos autu”), turns this curse on the very himself. “Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God” (Ez., 22:31).

10. Against such logical constructions they usually try to bring forward such an argument, that the Biblical and the Quranic positions are not comparable. Let us reply with two counter-arguments. At first, if you want to understand Ghazaiye, then the practice will make you compare the named positions. At second, the Quran itself is filled with such comparisons. Note, that, when Jesus said to the twelve: “Will ye also go away?” (Jn., 6:67), then the apostles in Quran answered Him, that they remained His helpers, because “we believe in Allah and only to him we give ourselves up” (Q., 3:52, the Porokhov’s tafsir, i.e. comment, says, that, if not translate, but to calk from the Arabic, then the last four words sound: “we are the Moslems”, - i.e. the apostles are those to be given up to the God, obedient to the God; and this is the meaning of the word “Moslem”).

11. If we throw off the traditionalistic and culturelogical heaps (and without it we shall not come to the conception of Islam, which is the only one to put the volitional impulses to move the ghazi), then we shall receive the clear confessional formula: “believe in Allah, in His envoys, in Scripture, in angels, in the Last Day” (i.e. in the Doomsday) (Q., 4:136).

12. Let us scrutinize the term “Scripture” in this formula. Astonishingly, but Mohammed himself named the being pronounced through him by the angel of God text with the word “Quran” – the verbal noun from the Arabic verb “qu’ra” – “to read”. “Quran” means “Reading”! And the Bible is the “Scripture”, in a latinized form – “Scriptura”. “Quran” in latinized form is “Lectura”. Through this “reading” – “Lectura” the rules are given how to read the “Scriptures” (Tovrat, Zabur, Injil – Torah, Psalms, Gospel). It is namely about how to read (understand) Tovrat, Zabur, Injil the Quran is saying constantly. Those, who are surprised, we are sending to Jesus: “What is written in the law? How readest thou?” (Lk., 10: 26).

13. It is namely non-understanding of the Jesus position in Quran, which leads to the non-understanding of the logics of ghazavat. Meanwhile, Jesus for dozens times is mentioned in Quran straightly and for much more times – hiddenly and indirectly. E.g., the indirect mentioning: “And We from Our Spirit have breathed into her and made her and her son the sign for all the worlds” (Q., 21:91). And here is the example of the mentioning, which is indirect, but passing into the hidden one: The Spirit of God says to Mariam (Q., 19:16 – 17) about Jesus: “We will make him the sign for human beings and our mercy” (Q., 19:21). The hiddenness of the sense here is in the fact, that every of the 114 suras of Quran is opened with the call: “Into the name of Allah, the All-Merciful and the Graceful!” And what and who is the mercy of Allah, it has been said above (Q., 19:21).

14. Those are in error (and do not understand the logics of ghazi), who thinks, that the Quran considers Jesus to be an ordinary human being. Quran does categorically reject the idea, that Jesus is a product of the physical copulation. Quran considers Jesus to be the Word of God, immersed into the flesh, into the dust: “Messiah Isa, the Son of Mariam, is the envoy of the Allah and His Word, which into Mariam He incarnated and the Spirit (as the mercy) from Him” (Q., 4:171). Christ – the Messaih – has died and resurrected: “was dead, and We returned him to the life” (Q., 6:122); Jesus himself says: “For me – the peace in that day, when I was born, and in the day when I shall die, and in the Day, when I will ressurrect to life” (Q., 19:33).

15. The most essential for the discussed theme difference of the Quranic Jesus from any human being, prophet, saint, etc. is the principle, that Jesus is mahdi – the Judge of the Doomsday. Let us leave sunna (“La mahdi ila Isa ben Mariam” – “There is no judge exept Jesus the Son of Mariam”), taking into account the Quran only: “Oh Isa! I Myself will send to you the rest, and then ascend to Myself, and liberate from the (blasphemies of) infidels; and those, who are serving you, I will exalt over the ones, who left themselves in unbelief, until the Resurrection (for the Doom), when all you shall return to Me, and  I will judge between you” (Q., 3:55); “And Isa – Son of Mariam – shall be the sign of Hour, and, thus, have no doubt in him and follow Me, - this is the straight way” (Q., 43:61); etc., etc.

16. And what is the place of ghazi on the Doomsday? This place is in the army of the mahdi. Jesus is on the white throne, on the judge place; around Him are His saints in white robes (Rev., 7:9); they were in His army (Rev., 19:14), when He had inflicted the defeat to the beast (Rev., 19:20). Now they are in the patience (Rev., 14:12) around the throne of the Lamb together with the Saint angels watching for ever the torments in the fire lake of the beast, and false prophet, and those, who worshipped the image of the beast (Rev., 14:9 – 12) (the Eliz. text gives the stronger expression, which is closer to the Greek: “Worshipped the icon of the beast”). The jihadist sees himself as the member of the army in white robes, as the fighter of the troops of mahdi, as the warrior of the host of Jesus. He believes, that “God is love” (1 Jn., 4:16); and here, as Bonhoeffer has very subtly noted, the logical stress falls on the first word: “God is love”, i.e. there is no love exept God; i.e. the battle to be led by the Lord is the very act of love. Here you have the sense of the Ghazaiye ghazal! Here you have the challenge to the politician, philosopher, priest, missionary. The sense of the challenge is understandable. But the question remains: how shall we talk with jihadist? How shall we preach to ghazi? How will one reply to the challenge?

17. Here the appeal to charity and the emphasis on the social ministry do not work, because the words are counterstood to them: “ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always” (Mt., 26:11).

18. Here the preaching of the communal life and of the temples’ beauty does not work. Because the Lord says: “the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting” (Is., 1:13); and about the temple He says: “there shall not be left here onr stone upon another” (Mt., 24:2).

19. Here the preaching of the “prosperity-worshippers”, promising the material values, and of the “healers”, curing with the exorcism or with the icons, does not work. The first are replied: “thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?” (Lk., 12:20). They say to the exorcists: “notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” (Lk., 10:20). And they reply to the icon-worshippers, that because of her love to the “Chaldean icons” (Sept.) Aholibah (KJV), i.e. Jerusalem, was cursed (Ez., 23:4, 14; Rus. Syn. text names her Ogoliva and says about the “Pictures of Chaldeans”); and those, who worshipped “the icon of the beast” (Eliz., Greek texts; Rus. Syn. text gives “the image of the beast”) should for ever be tormented in fire and brimstone (Rev., 14:9 – 10).

20. Here the appeal to the “family values” also does not work, because “and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household” (Mt., 10:36).

21. Here the idea about the necessity of the “saving of the creation” does not work. They reply to it, that the modern nature is not the beautiful creation of God, but the perverted and cursed world, the result of sin and damnation (Gen., 3:17; the discussion around the correlation of the creation and the nature watch, e.g., in Bonhoeffer’s “Ethics”). The cursed ones are the ‘fuel to the fire” (Ez., 21:32; Syn. – “food for fire”); while the Word of God “tried in a furnace of earth” (Ps., 12:6: Syn. – 11:7 – “purified from the earth in the furnace”), and the saints of God – over this bonfire – “a sweetsmelling savour to God” (Eph., 5:2).

22. Here the approach with the “four spiritual laws” does not work “for ye are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom., 6:14) (Note: Ac., 11:26 says about “mathaetas Hristianous”, that literally means “converted by grace”).

23. Here the liberal preaching of human rights and civil freedoms also does not work. The reply to it is : “a two-edged sword in their hand ... to bind their kings with chains ... to execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all saints” (Ps., 149:6, 8, 9).

24. Let us try to find the reply to the challenge from the other side. Ghazaiye writes about the “blood of infidels”. Who is the “infidel”? Is it the one to have the other traditions, cultural stereotypes, matrimonial, sexual, communal behaviour rules? No, for the sufis it is characteristic the other understanding, which is close to (Eph., 6:12): “we wrestle not against flesh and blood”. This verse is being interpreted not as the rejection of the just war, but as the understanding of the fact, that the battle against the fleshy enemy has the spiritual goal, which is the only one to have an importance. KJV names for such a spiritual aim of the just war “the rulers of the darkness of this world.” But the Greek original text says about “cosmocratoras tu skotu tu aionos tutu” (cosmocrators of the skotos – darkness – of this world, or of this age) (Eph., 6:12).

25. The Lord, who is the Light and Father of lights (Jas., 1:17) “gives light by nightt” to His elected ones, and to the sinners (the pharaoh – cosmocrator skotu). His Light is dazzling and is seen to them to be “a cloud and darkness” (Ex., 14:20).

26. The God’s Light has become shining out of darkness (Gen., 1:1 – 4; Sept. – skotos). It gives light by night to the God’ssaints (Ex., 14:20). The Lord does not need the handmade houses. “He would dwell in the thick darkness’ (2 Chr., 6:1; Sept. – gnofos). Namely this gnofos, shining for Israel, has dazzled the pharach (Ex., 14:20). And the fallen angels are kept by the Lord until the Judgment under the darkness (Jud., 6; Greek – zofos), having been delivered into chains of the hell darkness – zofos (2 Pet., 2:4, 17; Greek – “Tartar zofos”). Having been overthrown from the heaven, the cosmocrators of the darkness of this aionos are the very enemies of ghazi – even, if they are hiding themselves in human flesh and blood.

27. In spite of any hiding trick of the cosmocrator the jihadist is able to make out the spiritual foe. E.g., in 2006 the Chechen muftis, being the sufis, declared the jihad to wahabis.

The latters, correspondingly, declared the counter-jihad, during which proclaimed the North Caucasus (from the Azov Sea to the Caspian one) to be the emirate of the all-world halifate,

28. These processes touch not only Caucasus. It is enough to say, that one of the biggest researchers of sufism and master–sufi Alife – khanum Yashlavskaya (bikech of the Yashlav beilik, which was situated, according to Refat-aga Kurtiev, around the Bakhchisaray) has discovered in the tekiye-dervish (the abode of the dervishes) of the Mevlyaviya order (established by Rumi) in Ghezlev (Eupatoria) the grave of the spiritual successor of Shamil. After Shamil’s captivity one Chechen sufi to receive the spiritual power from Shamil some time was fighting in the North Caucasus, and then ran to Ghezlev, where he was hiding himself in the abode of Mevlyavia dervishes. He was murdered by the agents of the czar’s secret police and buried in the tekiye-dervish, and his grave has become one of the main azizes (sufi worshipping places) of Crimea. The authors express the deepest gratitude to Alife – khanum for the fact, that she in 2007 kindly acquainted them with her outstanding discovery.

29. It is clear, that no approach can be used to reply to the challenge of the bearers of the ideas of the “just war”, exept those ones, which conform to their logics. If ghazi believes, that he is the warrior of the army of mahdi; if jihadist believes, that he has put on the white linen, in order to stand in front of Jesus on the Doomsday, then it is necessary, indeed, to talk with him about the Quranic Doomsday, about Quranic Jesus! Jesus is the Judge of the Doomsday; we personally will stay in front of Him; thus, make a deal with the judge today! Comply with His demands, brother! The experience of our practical work shows, that studying and discussing of the Quran sayings about Jesus is the effective method of the reply to the discussed challenge.

30. Be ye followers of Paul (1 Cor., 4:16) – make yourselves all things to all men, that you might by all means save one (1 Cor., 9:22).