Odd. If this is really a sign from Allah, why does it make the baby so uncomfortable? In this it is reminiscent of Muhammad's first revelation, in which -- according to Bukhari, the collection of Hadith considered most reliable by Muslims -- Gabriel left Muhammad in a state of terror and confusion:
The Prophet added, "The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read and I replied, 'I do not know how to read.' Thereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it any more. He then released me and again asked me to read but again I replied, 'I do not know how to read (or what shall I read)?' Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me, and then released me and said, 'Read in the name of your Lord, who has created (all that exists) has created man from a clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous." (96.1, 96.2, 96.3) Then Allah's Apostle returned with the Inspiration and with his heart beating severely. Then he went to Khadija bint Khuwailid and said, "Cover me! Cover me!" They covered him till his fear was over and after that he told her everything that had happened and said, "I fear that something may happen to me."
Here again we see turbulence and discomfort accompany an alleged revelation from Allah -- belying in indirect but unmistakable terms the supposedly peaceful content of those revelations.
"Miracle or hoax? Russians puzzled as phrases from the Koran start appearing 'spontaneously' on baby's skin," from the Daily Mail, October 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):
A baby is sparking a wave of speculation in Russia after phrases from the Koran allegedly began appearing on his skin.Sayings from the Muslim holy book are said to appear on nine-month-old Ali Yakubov's back, arms, legs and stomach - before apparently fading away and being replaced with new sayings.
Russian medics claimed they are puzzled over the cause of the marks on a baby's skin, which started when the word Allah apparently appeared on his chin within weeks of his birth. [...]
Local MP Akhmedpasha Amiralaev said: 'This boy is a pure sign of God. Allah sent him to Dagestan in order to stop revolts and tension in our republic.'
The boy's mother claimed: 'Normally those signs appear twice a week - on Mondays and on the nights between Thursdays and Fridays.
'Ali always feels bad when it is happening. He cries and his temperature goes up. It's impossible to hold him when it's happening, his body is actively moving, so we put him into his cradle. It's so hard to watch him suffering.'
The phrases regularly replace each other on the baby's skin, she said.
Local imam Abdulla has told locals that the Koran forecasts that before the end of the world, there may be people with its sayings on their bodies....
Miracle? Or just anther example of Muslim child abuse?
That's the best Allah can do? What a weakling...torturing a helpless baby with pointless holy(?) messages...Why not some winning lottery numbers?...Allah could make himself useful, but he would rather torture children...You never see YHVH writing self serving slogans on a child's skin...
There are images in the video @ 1:45_153 and more here.
If that's vascular, I'm Anjem Choudary.
Maybe it's an allergic reaction to Islam.
Stupid parents torturing their baby by writing on his skin in Arabic. What are the authorities waiting for, the child should be immediately placed under proper care, away from those lunatics.
Maybe the buraq (sp?) was onto something, when he wouldn't allow Muhammed to climb aboard. Animals sense trouble, and maybe the ass didn't want to get any nearer to Allah than was necessary. Or, maybe he didn't like the looks of Muhammed...
"Ali always feels bad when it is happening. He cries and his temperature goes up. It's impossible to hold him when it's happening, his body is actively moving, so we put him into his cradle. It's so hard to watch him suffering".
Poor child abused by a clear work of Satan.
I just hope the boy recovers the health again.
Some of that "writing" looked like bruising, to me.
Indeed, Allah is most Merciful...
That is called Dermographism, a condition well known in medicine.
If this is really a sign from Allah, why does it make the baby so uncomfortable?
I think this is self-explationary. Cursed from birth - poor child :(
I read a couple of articles on deromographism, and sure enough--that's exactly what it sounds like! Great de-bunking, plotino!
"Sayings from the Muslim holy book are said to appear on nine-month-old Ali Yakubov's back, arms, legs and stomach - before apparently fading away and being replaced with new sayings."
But a picture is worth a thousand words. And we in the Infidel West will always have Lydia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4zRe_wvJw8
I'm glad that allacadabra remembered to include the orthographic symbols to indicate proper pronunciation of the quranic arabic on this baby's skin. I think the first time around (with Muhammad in the cave), allacadabra must have forgotten to include the orthographic symbols since it was Arab grammarians who devised the system (after the Hebrew system which was developed in Tiberias and Safed in the year 600).
Called Greg House:
""Those mast cells must be amazingly smart to know the Shahada AND the correct Arabic typography.... Noooo.. Occam's Razor says it's a temporary irritant applied by chancer parents. Onset appears triggered by proximity to the media. Foreman, call Social Services and see if you can get them to give the kid to Cuddy.... Thirteen, you come with me..."
Spencer writes:
"If this is really a sign from Allah, why does it make the baby so uncomfortable? In this it is reminiscent of Muhammad's first revelation, in which -- according to Bukhari, the collection of Hadith considered most reliable by Muslims -- Gabriel left Muhammad in a state of terror and confusion:"
I'm afraid I'm going to have to go Ego Quoque (or "Nos Quoque") on this one:
1. Jacob wrestling with an angel of the Lord (though denoted a "man" the context makes clear it was with a representative of God, if not with God himself that Jacob "wrestled") (Genesis 32:24-32; Hosea 12:4).
2. Jeremiah's various suffering he endured all his life as a prophet of God (from the book of Jeremiah):
4:19 - 21 - "Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain. Oh, the agony of my heart!"
10:19-25 - "Woe to me because of my injury! My wound is incurable! Yet I said to myself, "This is my sickness, and I must endure it." ...Correct me, LORD , but only with justice- not in your anger, lest you reduce me to nothing. Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you, on the peoples who do not call on your name..."
15:10-11 - "Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth, a man with whom the whole land strives and contends! I have neither lent nor borrowed, yet everyone curses me."
15:15-18 - "...Why is my pain unending and my wound grievous and incurable? Will you [God] be to me like a deceptive brook, like a spring that fails?"
20:9 - "If I speak I am terribly persecuted - If I don't it's as if my heart is a burning fire shut up in my bones - I cannot hold it in and endure it."
And in 20:14, 18 Jeremiah curses the day of his birth, wishes that God had killed him in his mother's womb so "that my mother might have been my grave" because "Wherefore came I forth out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?"
3. St. Paul's theophany (or more precisely Christophany) on the road to Damascus, when he was still "Saul", this event marking his conversion to Christianity), recounted in Acts 9:3-9.
"And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:
And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest:
And he [Saul/Paul] trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord [said] unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."
This vision being obviously terrifying and disconcerting in and of itself, also left Saul/Paul blind for three days, and unable to eat or drink for that long.
In fact, it is a common trope in the history of Judaeo-Christianity (if not, indeed, in the history of all religions) for God to inspire fear, awe and dread in addition to joy, faith, hope and love. Mohammed's disconcerting experience with angel Gabriel as Spencer recounts is not, thus, unusual. More to the point is the problem of the Satanic Verses, as well as the generally, devastatingly evil fruits that Mohammed's supposedly divine revelations have wrought for the past 1400 years and right into our own hot present.
In relation to this, on a lighter note, Garrison Keillor had an amusing aside in one of his Lake Woebegone monologues around Christmas time when he recounted Joseph being accosted by an angel of God telling him of his son Jesus:
And an angel of the Lord appeared suddenly to Joseph saying "Do not fear!" -- scaring the crap out of Joseph...
Muhammadunchausen by Proxy. Film the parents with the child without their knowledge and there won't be any doubt how this is happening.
Slovak, (or is it Czech) press reports that the name "Allah" written in Arabic appears on the posterior of a she-baboon in the local zoo each time the ape is in heat.
Hesp -
Welll, it's not as all bad as that. The people you mentioned were adults, for one thing.
Jacob's fight was probably indeed with another man, the messenger of an important person, perhaps. We use the same sort of metaphorical phrases that could be taken oddly in the future (perhaps stuff about there being a gathering of "stars" in one place on "Oscar's Night", say. .. "Oscar? Who the hell was Oscar?" "Well, he's this little dude, see, that all the stars loved .." Fill in the amusing twisting of things the future could bring for that stuff.
As for Jeremiah, my chronically-depressed/pathological narcissist ex sounded a lot like him. Moan, and groan, and whine and complain ... cripes, should I ever find the time and energy and interest to peruse the bible again, remind me to skip that mook.
And I've come across the idea that Paul was possibly an epileptic, which might explain lots about him, particularly if he had other problems related to it being untreated.
Mohammed, on the other hand, was quite obviously deliberate in his thoughts and actions, and motivated by power, sex, greed, and revenge (not necessarily in that order.) His type can be seen in would-be cult leaders today, self-styled prophets who usually only lead their followers to destruction. Only no one was there to stop Mohammed.
As for this kid, yeah, that's obviously abuse. What happened to crying statues (explainable, but hurting no one)? The most amazing thing I ever saw along those lines was milk coming out of the trunk of an elephant statue representing Ganesh in a Hindu temple. Explainable too, but really cool to see. :)
No excuse for a Marx Bros clip can be too slight. Thanks, Hugh.
As for the skin writing I'm betting on a fairly common condition sometimes known as redmarkerpenitis.
Un:dhimmi-- my bad. You're right; no wonder the kid is miserable when it "happens."
This is horrifying.
As a Christian I have no doubt that Islam is demonically inspired. It's fruits bear that out. I do not know whether that's the case here, or if it's abuse by the parents or a medical condition being exploited.
Whatever the case, this poor child needs to be helped!
This is clearly a demonic manifestation that highlights the demonic origins of Islam, which was clearly borrowed from the pagan culture which existed in Arabia during Muhammad's time. There is an excellent book which covers the subject, discussing the fact that Allah is one and the same with the "moon god" which was the reigning deity in the pre-Islamic culture of 7th-century Arabia:
http://www.amazon.com/Islamic-Invasion-Robert-Morey/dp/1931230072/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256069045&sr=1-1
More moslems abusing children. Nothing unusual in that.
Sick... that is just sick. [If it really was allah, it would simply be confirming that he was some sort of evil guy, not a good one.]
What kind of evil person does that? Oh, I forgot..... Muslims. It's nothing unusual.
Poor kid. And, I'm sorry, but that dad just looks like the sort of guy who would do that.
Sorry.... you're GLAD that this is being done to a helpless infant? Really! Babies should not be tattooed- it's painful and a disgusting thing to do, especially on a child.
Remember about the story of Jesus raising Lazarus in the Bible?
Did the Jews believe in Jesus?
Did they become the followers of Jesus?
It's the same here.
(Also Christians seem to accept that God had tortored his Son)
Good point to Hesp about the people concerned being adults.
Just to elaborate a little.
In the Jacob-and-the-angel episode (Genesis 32: 24-31) - No words are spoken until the end of the encounter. It is the stranger who asks to be released; but Jacob declares he will not let go, until he is given a blessing. Jacob is re-named, by the mysterious stranger: 'Israel' 'a prince of God', 'for thou hast striven with God and with man and hast prevailed'; Jacob/ Israel then demands the stranger's name, but is not given it (Moses will have better luck, in the Burning Bush encounter).
The Genesis account concludes: 'And Jacob called the name of the place, Peniel ['Face of God']: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
It is no accident that the Islamic versions of the story of Jacob, whether in the Koran or in the Hadith, totally omit this numinous wrestling-match. No Muslim could accept for a moment the Genesis vision of god and man locked in intimate combat, or conversing 'face to face'.
Jeremiah is neither a narcissist nor a depressive; he's not being self-indulgent. He had *reasons* to feel frustrated, angry and sad. Jeremiah was the biblical equivalent of Cassandra - trying to warn people - a whole nation, with its rulers - who were in real, imminent danger; and no-one was listening. Like the Islamosavvy in the modern west today, he could *see* disaster coming down the pike, barrelling toward his people like a runaway train; and no matter how he shouted and yelled and leapt up and down to try to warn people they were making the wrong decisions, *no-one would listen*. I've heard people at this website, talking about the Islamification of europe, who sounded not unlike Jeremiah. And the book of Lamentations...think about a survivor of the jihad genocide of the Armenians, and of the southern Sudanese, or for that matter, a survivor from the killing fields of Cambodia, or the Shoah; Lamentations is the voice of every human being whose world has just been laid waste by appalling violence. It's not self-indulgence. He'd seen his city - his holy place - ruined, and people killed in the streets.
As for Paul/ Saul - the interesting thing about *his* theophany, is that we're told that the people who were with him experienced something also, though *what* they experienced is described differently in Acts chapter 9:7 and in Acts chapter 22: 9.
There's another thing - in Isaiah 6, and in the episode in the Gospel where Peter falls on the ground and tells Jesus, 'Get away from me, for I am a sinful man', God, or the Son of God, seems to have no particular interest in people wallowing in self-flagellation. When Isaiah wails, 'Woe is me., for I am a man of unclean lips...', the angel flies down with the divine fire from the altar and says, briskly 'Lo, this has touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin is purged'; next thing, Isaiah hears god saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' and jumps up like the kid at the back of the class, hand in the air: 'Here am I! Send me!'. Peter wails, 'depart from me, for I am a sinful man!'; Jesus replies bracingly, 'Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men'. In other words: quit wallowing, we've got work to do.
(Worth remembering: Elijah who, after wind and earthquake and fire, in none of which God is found, recognises the Presence of God in 'a still small voice').
All the major Biblical theophanies are distinguished by something else - they are conversations. Very typically, God calls a person by their name - 'Abraham!' 'Moses!' 'Samuel, Samuel!', or in Acts, 'Saul, Saul'; and equally, the person responds with, 'Who are you?' All the way through from Abraham to Mary and Saul/ Paul, the Hebrews and then the Jews, encountering God and/ or angels, are never too scared to talk back, they even dare to ask questions.
And this is where Mohammed's experience (or for that matter, that of the kid in the posted article) differ from even the most tumultuous and overwhelming Biblical theophany. Because no matter how frightening it may be, the encounter with YHWH is never about compulsion; it is never a spiritual rape (in the Jacob wrestling-match, it is the Other who is trying to get away, at the end, and Jacob who is grimly hanging on!). God calls; declares himself; then the conversation begins.
One of the first things I noticed, when I read the Qur'an, being already very familiar with the Bible, was the way in which stories I knew from the Bible got 'flattened out' in their Quranic retellings. It wasn't just that they were garbled dreadfully. They went flat; lost all their energy. Then I realized what was wrong, what was missing: pretty nearly all the *dialogues*, the conversations, such as that of Jacob with the Angel at the brook, or Abraham bargaining God down to just ten righteous men as the condition for NOT destroying Sodom and Gomorrha, or Moses arguing with God at the Burning Bush and trying to wiggle out of being sent back to Egypt to rescue the slaves, had been cut, and replaced by monologues.
The Bible stories are personal and lively and dramatic; the Quranic retellings (indeed, they are not so much retellings as reversals, foe-fic) are by comparison *impersonal* and curiously flat. Unlike YHWH, who is interested in people, and calls them by their particular names, individually, Allah doesn't converse; he monologues.
And that takes us back to basics: *the* paradigm for the divine-human relation, in Islam, is master-slave (and the slave is a thing, not a person). Slaves aren't allowed to talk back, to say anything for themselves. Both Mohammed in the story Mr Spencer recounted, and this poor kid (probably victim of parental abuse) are objects not subjects; they're simply grabbed, and used.
Whereas the persons in the Biblical accounts talk back to God all the time; and God seems to *expect* that they will, and allows them space to do so. However much holy terror YHWH may at times inspire, there is this sense, already there in the most archaic and ancient parts of the TaNaKh, that he *can* be known and spoken with, 'face to face', like a *friend*.