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Baha'ism, the Penis Tree, and the Origins of Jesus!!!

spirit_of_dawn

Active Member
Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa’i and the Penis Tree

Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa’i was widely regarded a heretic by Shia scholars. Baha’is try to portray him as one of the forerunners to the Bab and Baha’u’llah who was hated by the Shia clergy because of his connections with the Babi and Baha’i creeds that they claim were prophesized in his writings. He is held with great respect and esteem by Baha’i figures and their followers and is praised greatly in Baha’i literature.

When one reads through the books of Shaykh Ahmad, it becomes evident why he was labeled as a heretic and rejected. Although he was a originally a Shia scholar himself and abided by Shia scripture, he later deviated and started uttering statements that even though were sometimes based on accepted Shia literature, were many times based on his own personal beliefs.
In this article we will translate a section of his book Jawami` al-kalim. The book is a lithographed manuscript held at the National Iranian Library Archives with the number: 1329670 distributed by Sulayman Khan ibn Shamkhan Afshar in 1273 AH (1856-7 AD), Tehran. The section being translated is from pages 150-151 of the section called Risaliyyi Qatiffiyya.
"مسئلة: ما الوجه فی تولد عیسی من غیر اب و هل الجنین من ماء الرجل ام من ماء المرءة او منهما او تارة کذا و اخری کذی؟
اقول: الم تعلم ان الله علی کل شیء قدیر. اراد ان یبین لعباده قدرته و کیفیة تولد آدم علیه السلام. و الاب انما یکون سببا للتولد لاجل نطفة التی هی فی صلبه و لیست هی نفس المنی و لکن المنی حامل للنطفة التی هی روح الحیوة المعبر عنها ظاهرا بالرائحة لانها لازمة للرائحة و هی التی تقع من شجرة المزن و من هذا کان اهل شهر زنان کلهم نساء و لیس فیهم ذکور و انما یحملن من شجر فی بلادهن یکون فی اصل الشجره غصن کهیئة ذکر الرجل و له رائحة کرائحة منی فتمضی المرءة و تستعمله فتحمل ببنت و ذلک للرائحة و لما اراد الله سبحانه اظهار قدرته ارسل جبرئیل الی مریم و نفخ فی جبینها او فی فمها علی اختلاف روایتین لهواء رائحته رائحة المنی فتولد منه عیسی علیه السلام.
The following question is asked:
“Question: What is the rationality in Jesus being born without a father and is the embryo (created) from the father’s water (semen) or the mother’s or from both of them or sometimes from one and sometimes from another?”
This is how Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa’i responds:
“I say: Do you not know that God is capable of doing anything. He intended to show His servants His power and the way that Adam was born. The father is the cause of birth because of the sperm that is in his loin. And that is not the sperm itself, rather the semen holds the sperm that is the spirit of life that crosses from it and appears with a smell, for the smell accompanies it [the translation of this last sentence was rather tricky and there might a better alternative]. And this is what falls from the Muzn tree and it is because of this that the inhabitants of the City of Women are all women and there is not a single male among them. These women are impregnated in their land by a tree. In the root of the tree there is a branch shaped like a man’s penis and it has an odor that smells like semen. The women will go (to the branch) and will use it and they become impregnated with a (baby) girl and this is caused by the odor. When God wanted to make manifest His power, he sent Gabriel (the Archangel) to Mary and he blew the air of its odor (from the tree) and the odor of the semen on her forehead-or according to a different narration in her mouth-and Jesus peace be upon him was born like that.”
Basically, this what Shaykh Ahmad is saying: There is a city filled with women that impregnate themselves using a penis which grows on a tree. When God wanted to create Jesus He sent Gabriel to the penis tree in the City of Women and he took from it what smelled like semen and he blew it on Mary’s face and that is how Jesus was conceived!

These are the beliefs of one of the forerunners to Baha’u’llah.

Source and scans of the manuscript can be found here (remove the '*' from w*w*w):
Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa'i and the Penis Tree: w*w*w.avazedohol.com/eng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&layout=edit&id=84
 
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Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
I've heard about the weirdness of Gabriel "blowing" into Mary's parts...but the "penis tree" crap is new to me.

My opinion on all of that: :areyoucra:areyoucra:areyoucra:areyoucra
 

xkatz

Well-Known Member
rdqI6Uc.gif
 

arthra

Baha'i
well I've been interested in Shaykh Ahmad and you have a brief introduction to him in wikipedia:

Shaykh Ahmad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henry Corbin and A.L.M. Nichols translated and wrote about him...

You can also read some articles on Shaykh Ahmad at

Shaykhism

Baha'is do not accept the writings of Shaykh Ahmad as scripture but he is known for his teaching that the appearance of the Qa'im would be immanent:

Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i was the founder of the Shaykhi school of Islam. He was followed by Siyyid Kazim-i-Rashti. Both taught their followers that the coming of the Promised One of Islam was at hand and prepared them for His advent. Most of the early Bábís were from the Shaykhi sect.] 170

(Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah v 1, p. 169)

Shaykhism is still a school in Iran but it has no connection with the Baha'i Faith:

Again wikipedia:

Relationship to Bábism and the Bahá'í Faith

Bábis and then Bahá'ís see Shaykhism as a spiritual ancestor of their movement, preparing the way for the Báb and eventually Bahá'u'lláh. In this view Shaykhism has outlived its eschatological purpose and is no longer anymore relevant.[11]
Modern Shaykhism

The current leader of the Shaykhiya is Ali al-Musawi, who heads a community with followers in Iraq - mainly Basrah and Karbala - Iran and the Persian Gulf. Basrah has a significant Shaykhi minority, and their mosque is one of the largest in the city holding up to 12,000 people. The Shaykhiya were resolutely apolitical and hence were allowed relative freedom under Saddam Hussein. Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq and subsequent Iraqi Civil War they have been targeted by Iraqi nationalists who accused them of being Saudis on the grounds that Ahmad al-Ahsai was from present-day Saudi Arabia[citation needed]. They responded by creating an armed militia and asking all local political groups to sign a pact allowing them to live in peace. This was done at the al-Zahra conference in April 2006.[12] In a move away from their traditional apolitical stance, a Shaykhi political party stood in the Basra governorate election, 2009; they came third, winning 5% of the votes and 2 out of 35 seats.[13]
In Iran Shaykhism is regarded as the third Twelver Shi'a denomination after Usulism and Akhbarism. In their public explanations the Shaykhis have come so close to normative Usuli doctrine that Usulis have expressed some wonder at why the Shaykhis have maintained their separate existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaykhism

I've never heard about what has been translated as a "penis tree"...
 
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spirit_of_dawn

Active Member
This is how Baha'u'llah praises Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa'i:

"[FONT=&quot]And now concerning this wondrous and most exalted Cause. Know thou verily that many an astronomer hath announced the appearance of its star in the visible heaven. Likewise, there appeared on earth Aḥmad and Kázim **, those twin resplendent lights—may God sanctify their resting-place!"[/FONT]
Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 65

** Sh
aykh Aḥmad-i-Ahsá’í and Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashtí.
 

arthra

Baha'i
This is how Baha'u'llah praises Shaykh Ahmad Ahsa'i:

"[FONT=&quot]And now concerning this wondrous and most exalted Cause. Know thou verily that many an astronomer hath announced the appearance of its star in the visible heaven. Likewise, there appeared on earth Aḥmad and Kázim **, those twin resplendent lights—may God sanctify their resting-place!"[/FONT]
Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 65

** Sh
aykh Aḥmad-i-Ahsá’í and Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashtí.

Thanks for your post...

The writings/teachings of Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kazim were respected because they told of the appearance of the Hidden Imam and "He who would arise" Qa'im and we believe this occurred in the year 1260 AH or 1844 CE.

Shaykh Ahmad also referred to the primal tree but in a metaphorical or spiritual sense. See the following:

The World as Text:
Cosmologies of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i


by Juan Cole

published in Studia Islamica, 80, pages 1-23
1994

[FONT=&quot]The symbol of the preexistent tree appears elsewhere in Shaykh Ahmad's writings. He says, for instance, that the Prophet and the Imams exist both on the level of unconstrained being or preexistence, wherein they are the Complete Word and the Most Perfect Man, and on the level of constrained being. On this second, limited plane, the cloud of the divine Will subsists and from it emanates the Primal Water that irrigates the barren earth of matter and of elements. Although the divine Will remains unconstrained in essential being, its manifest aspect has now entered into limited being. When God poured down from the clouds of Will on the barren earth, he thereby sent down this water and it mixed with the fallow soil. In the garden of the heaven known as as-Saqurah, the Tree of Eternity arose, and the Holy Spirit or Universal Intellect, the first branch that grew upon it, is the first creation among the worlds. He here invokes the saying of Imam Sadiq to the effect that the Intellect is the first-created of spiritual beings, and, for the idea of primal water, he quotes the verse, "and His Throne was upon the waters" (Qur'an 11:7). Shaykh Ahmad identifies the divine Will, a preexistent attribute essentially unconnected to the world, with the rain-cloud that irrigates limited being so as to produce the eternal tree, the first branch of which is the Universal Intellect.32 Above, the Universal Intellect was depicted as having the shape of a straight line, the letter A or alif, which is of course also the shape of a straight branch. The visual dimension to Shaykh Ahmad's symbology is essential to understanding its transformations.

In another essay he says that God created a tree beneath the Throne called al-Muzn (the Rain-Cloud). From this tree a drop of rain fell to the clay of corporeal matter below, causing plants to grow. Anyone who ate of the fruit of these plants, whether believer or unbeliever, produced a believer from his loins. (As an upholder of free will, he denies that this myth implies predestination). The heavenly, nourishing tree is contrasted to the evil tree of Zaqqum, which subsists in hell.33 As Wensinck noted, "The symmetrical features of this cosmological system become particularly prominent when we remember the tree Tuba which covers the upper part of the Universe downwards to the lowest heaven. The tree Zakkum, on the contrary, originates in the lowest pit of Hell and climbs upwards along its divisions. So the Universe is enclosed between these two cosmic trees."34

[/FONT]
 

spirit_of_dawn

Active Member
Arthra,

That was an informative post about Shaykh Ahmad's beliefs about the Muzn (rain-cloud) tree, but it is evident from what he says here that he is referring to two different trees: a-The Muzn tree that he gives no further explanation about and according to what you cited is located below the throne, b- The P tree that grows in the City of Women. Pay attention to the quote:

"And this is what falls from the Muzn tree and it is because of this that the inhabitants of the City of Women are all women and there is not a single male among them. These women are impregnated in their land by a tree. In the root of the tree there is a branch shaped like a man’s penis and it has an odor that smells like semen. The women will go (to the branch) and will use it and they become impregnated with a (baby) girl and this is caused by the odor."​
 

arthra

Baha'i
Yes... Thanks for your post. But it has little to do with the Baha'i revelation itself. The birth of Jesus for us was miraculous:

"First regarding the birth of Jesus Christ. In the light of what Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá have stated concerning this subject it is evident that Jesus came into this world through the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, and that consequently His birth was quite miraculous. This is an established fact, and the friends need not feel at all surprised, as the belief in the possibility of miracles has never been rejected in the Teachings. Their importance, however, has been minimized."

(From a letter dated December 31, 1937 written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer)

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 489)
 
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