| Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice The Complete Layman’s Guide to the Koran Epilogue Lawrence, Montagne and an Arab Spring In Allah and the Ptolemaic Universe I write that the sun and the moon "float" back and forth in a 180 degree arc above a flat earth. In Alexander and A Flat Earth I provide a verse where Allah reveals that the sun ends its flight across the sky in "a spring of black mud". 18:86 Then, when he (Alexander) reached the setting-place of the sun, he found that it sets in a spring of black mud and found, by it, a people. We said: “O Dhul-Qarnayn, either you punish them or show them kindness.” Could a spring large enough to engulf the sun also connect via an equally large tunnel to the eastern edge of a flat earth permitting the sun to rise again in the East the next morning, with nobody the wiser as to the journey our star made during the night. 18:89 Then he followed [another] course. 18:90 But when he reached the rising-place of the sun, he found it rising on a people whom We have not provided with any screen against it. Probably not! A conclusion that is supported by the Prophet, who is quoted as saying that the sun makes its way to Paradise, at sunset, (after the plunge into the mud spring one must assume) to prostrate itself under Allah’s Throne. Narrated Abu Dhar: “The Prophet asked me at sunset, ‘Do you know where the sun goes [at the time of sunset]?’ I replied, Allah and His Apostle know better." He said, ‘It goes till it prostrates itself underneath the Throne and takes the permission to rise again, and it is permitted… For the sun to rise in the East, after setting in the West, Allah’s Throne has to be in the eastern part of Heaven, the second (or first) East, which would imply a second West (55:17 The Lord of the two Easts and the two Wests). Which of course begs the question: Why don’t we see the sun streaking across the sky after sunset, on its way to cower under Allah’s Throne? In the unfinished quote narrated by Abu Dhar, God's Messenger said that on Judgement Day, Allah would not allow the sun to prostate itself under His Throne, and the sun would be forced to return from whence it came and rise in the West; further evidence that Allah’s Throne is in the other eastern part of Paradise. ... and then [a time will come when] it will be about to prostrate itself but its prostration will not be accepted, and it will ask permission to go on its course but it will not be permitted, but it will be ordered to return whence it has come and so it will rise in the west. And that is the interpretation of the Statement of Allah: And the sun runs its fixed course for a term [decreed]. That is The Decree of [Allah] The Exalted in Might, The All-Knowing.’" Bukhari I have not proven anything here. I have simply speculated about events for which there is no physical evidence e.g. sun setting in a mud hole, reaching what T. E Lawrence would consider an absurd conclusion, which contradicts other absurd conclusions on the same topic, and which he claims the Arabs he encountered did all the time. This people was black and white not merely in clarity, but in apposition. Their thoughts were at ease only in extremes … they never compromised; they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity. T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom Religion changes not only the way people perceive the world around them, but how they behave and how they think. Robert Montagne tells us what the Arabs were like before religion changed them: I am not aware in the entire history of civilisation of a more gracious, more loving, more vibrant society than that of the Arabs before Islam … [it was a time] … of unbound freedom, lofty sentiments, a nomadic and chivalrous way of life, [a land] of fantasy, joy, mischievousness, bawdy impious poetry, refined love-making … Ernest Renan, cf. Robert Montagne, La Civilisation du désert It may be wishful thinking, but I see more signs of the Arabs of Montagne than I do of Lawrence's in the Arab Spring. In the Arabs of Montagne is the fate and hope of humanity.
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