Note: I have removed the picture of Prophet Muhammad’s
grave. While researching the picture of the grave actually belonged to Him, I found that some of the pictures pointed out that the grave was the Prophet’s. But further along I found that one website pointed about that the grave did not belong to the Prophet . Because of the unsureness if the picture belongs to the grave of prophet Muhammad  I will be removing that picture. Jazakullah khair to Arsalan for pointing that out.
MV: Aselamualaikum my dudes!
In an attempt of searching for something new to post, I found a picture of Prophet Muhammad’s sandal (on facebook of course). So a thought came in mind, well first I was just repeatedly thinking, “this is so cool”. Once that was over I started searching for other artifacts of the Prophet Muhammad . I found many but they were all scattered in different sites, so what I then planned to do was put a lot of them on my site, as they are truly “really cool”.
And also, for the first time ever a book has been released with over 600 pictures of belongings from including Prophet Muhammad and other Prophets!


This is so cool! Prophet Muhammad’s sandal.

Prophet Muhammad’s Sword

Muhammad’s(pbuh) letter to the Muqawqas, Topkapi Palace Museum, Istanbul

Prophet Muhammad’s Tooth

Prophet Muhammad’s Bow

Prophet Muhammad’s Cloths

Prophet Muhammad’s Footprint

Cave of Hira

The Prophet’s Grave

Various Belongings

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Monday, November 15, 2010 Posted in | | 0 Comments »

I saw at Yahoo Answers, in comments or other social networks that many people want to know what is Mecca and it’s importance in Islam and for Muslims. If you are from any Muslim country then this looks like a very simple question but for those who want to know about Islam or they are planning to convert or those who just dig into Islam. They want to know more, so I decided to tell them briefly.

What is Mecca?

Actually Mecca also written as Makkah situated in Saudi Arabia and one of the holiest city in religion Islam. Name Kabah comes from the Arabic word meaning ‘cube’, it refers to the cube-shaped stone inside the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. The word “Mecca” is so popular that it is also added in English dictionary meaning something that is most important. Holy city laid near the coast of the Red Sea. and it has total population of 1,290,000.

Mecca History:Mecca History

According to Islamic tradition, Mecca history was goes back to Prophet Abraham who built the Kaaba with His son, Prophet Ishmael in around 2000 BCE. Mecca is the place that links to many of the Prophets that Almighty Allah sent to us. So it is in news and history books from long time.
At first Masjid al-Haram constructed by Prophet Abraham which stands upright bearing evidence of various events which took place. The Holy Quran says that Mecca was attacked by the Ethiopians in the year when Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) born.
Mecca in the ancient era was a major trade hub. There were Idols everywhere before Islam arrived. If we say that Prophet Muhammad open His eyes in Idol world, then it is not wrong. before emergence of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the city was under the rule of Banu-Quraish.

Why Mecca Important For Muslims

New Mecca
As we talked earlier that it is a busy place and in history from thousands of years. But why Mecca is important for Muslims. Actually the thing is Islam started it’s ground level there. Mecca was the birthplace of Muslim’s last messenger Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He spent his earlier 40 years there. Then He went to Madina and after building authority, He came back as a victories and live rest of His life in Mecca as well.
Secondly, Holy Kaaba also present in Masjid al-Haram which present in Mecca. Millions of Muslim visited Masjid al-Haram to perform Hajj. It is also the world largest unity place for people, where millions of people gather from all races, community, countries without any difference and pray to their God. Every Muslim must need to perform Hajj at least once in life. So Mecca is every important.
There are many other things that are also rememberable for Muslims such as many Prophet Muhammad’s companions also buried in Mecca. Many Mosques that built with Prophet Muhammad hands. The Zamzam Well, the holy well which sprung into existence with Prophet Ishmael heels when He was rubbing them with thrust. It was also in Mecca, just next to Kaaba in Masjid al-Haram. There are also many other things that is why Mecca is important and so holiest for Muslims.
As mentioned earlier, kaaba built by Prophet Abraham. There is a large black stone inside it. Confirmed by Muslims/Christian historian that Angel Gabriel gave this to Prophet Abraham at Allah’s will. It is the focal point for worship during daily prayers, it unifies all Muslims, direction of every Muslims during prayers is towards Kaaba known as Qibla.
Hopefully you understand what is Mecca and it’s importance for Muslims. Write below if you still have any question or comment for me.

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Mecca before Islam

The town of Mecca, in a rocky valley with no agricultural resources, develops in the centuries immediately preceding Islam into a place of considerable prosperity. There are two good reasons. It is a trading post on the caravan route from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. And it has become Arabia's most important place of pilgrimage.

By at least the 4th century AD large numbers of pilgrims arrive in Mecca to perform a ritual act of walking seven times round a small square building known as the Ka'ba (Arabic for 'cube'). The building is full of idols, which are the objects of worship. It also includes a sacred black stone, possibly in origin a meteorite.









Mecca and Muhammad: AD c.570 - 622

A child, Muhammad, is born in a merchant family in Mecca. His clan is prosperous and influential, but his father dies before he is born and his mother dies when the boy is only six.

Entrusted to a Bedouin nurse, Muhammad spends much of his childhood among nomads, accompanying the caravans on Arabia's main trade route through Mecca.










It is on Mount Hira, according to tradition, that the archangel Gabriel appears to Muhammad. Muhammad describes later how he seemed to be grasped by the throat by a luminous being, who commanded him to repeat the words of God.

From about 613 Muhammad preaches in Mecca the message which he has received.








When Muhammad reveals his message from God, he meets increasing hostility from the traders of Mecca. He is preaching one God. They are making their living from a profusion of idols.

Eventually, in 622, there is a plot to assassinate him. He escapes with his followers to the town of Medina, about 300 kilometres to the north.







The Muslims and Mecca

Relations with Mecca deteriorate to the point of pitched battles between the two sides, with Muhammad leading his troops in the field. But in the end it is his diplomacy which wins the day.

He persuades the Meccans to allow his followers back into the city, in 629, to make a pilgrimage to the Ka'ba and the Black Stone.










On this first Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad's followers impress the local citizens both by their show of strength and by their self-control, departing peacefully after the agreed three days. But the following year the Meccans break a truce, provoking the Muslims to march on the city.

They take Mecca almost without resistance. The inhabitants accept Islam. And Muhammad sweeps the idols out of the Ka'ba, leaving only the sacred Black Stone.








An important element in Mecca's peaceful acceptance of the change has been Muhammad's promise that pilgrimage to the Ka'ba will remain a central feature of the new religion.

So Mecca becomes, as it has remained ever since, the holy city of Islam. And Muslim tradition locates in Mecca many of the events described first in the biblical book of Genesis (see Biblical events in Mecca).








The preaching of Muhammad and the founding of Islam turn Mecca from a local place of pilgrimage to one of world-wide significance - though only Muslims are allowed to enter the city. Where pagan pilgrims once walked seven times round a Ka'ba filled with idols, Muslims now walk seven times round the same Ka'ba - but empty now, and sacred to the one God ('Allah' is God in Arabic).

The Ka'ba is not only the central shrine of Islam, and the focus of every pilgrimage to Mecca. It has also been, since Muhammad's time, the place towards which all Muslims turn when praying (see Ka'ba - description of the shrine).











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For Muslims, Jerusalem is the third most holy site in Islam. The name of Jerusalem derived from its original Jebusite name Ur-Salem or Urishalim. For Muslims the name suggests "peace" and corresponds closely to the Muslim concept of the sacred; a place where peace reigns and conflicts is excluded.
Going back to Jerusalem's history we find that it marked more by conflict than by peace. Hadrian destroyed the city, replacing it by a Roman creation from which Jews were banned.
Then the Sassanids came and laid it waste. Under the Islamic era, Jerusalem enjoyed 13 years of peace until the Seljuk Turks came between 1070 and 1090 AC, in addition to the Crusader Kingdom between 1099 and 1187AC. All that led to a sort of chaos and it brought a constant conflict between the conquerors in the city.
So the question that comes is how did Jerusalem become important in Islam, and to Muslims? Jerusalem was in the middle of Trade routes. Most of the merchants used to pass from there heading towards Asia Minor and the west. Not to forget Arabs from Mecca too. Islam holds a great estimation as the location of many vents associated with the life of Jesus. From that day, Jerusalem has had a very important spiritual meaning for Muslims, not only being the first Qibla but also the mystical experience of the prophet's ascendance to heaven. Jerusalem tried to be focused by Muslim Pilgrimage, but the significance of Jerusalem thereafter declined in favor of Mecca and Medina.
When Saladdin recaptured the city from the Crusaders, Jerusalem regained once again its glory, where Christians were guaranteed rights of worship, Muslim places of worship which had been desecrated were restored, even a small Jewish community returned to the city, and Jewish culture has seldom flourished as they did under Muslim rule, that's how the spiritual significance of Jerusalem has been absorbed by all three religions.
Muslims on the other hand have an obligation to honor other religions. There is recognition, a respect for both Judaism and Christianity as people of the book, mentioned in the holy Quran. I guess it would be a pity for Jerusalem, the supposed city of peace, were to be transformed into a city of war as a result of Israeli plans, which ignore its significance for Muslims.

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Sunday, November 14, 2010 Posted in | | 0 Comments »

slm, Muslim, Qur'an, Koran, Shi'a'Ali, Isra, Mi'raj

The word “Islam” comes from the Arabic root slm, meaning “to be whole and at peace”. A Muslim is a person who surrenders to the order and peace that is the law of Allah as described in the holy book, the Qur'an (Koran). Islam was founded in Arabia by the Prophet Muhammad, the “Messenger of Allah,” in the seventh century c.e. In 630 c.e. (a.h. 8), Muhammad and his followers took control of Mecca, the holy city of the Ka'bah (“cube”) or “House of Allah,” in the eastern corner of which is located the Black Stone. In theory, the Muslim does not pray to the stone as an idol but to God (Allah) at the stone. The Ka'bah, however, was considered a sacred place by Arabs even before the rise of Islam and probably was worshipped as a place holy to various deities of Arabian mythology.
In the Holy Book we are told of five aspects of the Muslim faith: belief in Allah, angels, the Qur'an, the messengers of God (prophets), and the Day of Judgment. Based on these five beliefs are the “Five Pillars of Islam”: the public expression that “there is no god by Allah and Muhammad is his prophet,” the obligation of prayer five times a day while facing Mecca, almsgiving, fasting during Ramadan (the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar), and the hajj, or once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to the Ka'bah at Mecca. Islam is a religion that is more concerned with social order than with religious ritual or myths.
There are, however, Islamic myths: myths of creation, myths of the afterlife, and myths of the end of the world, as in the other Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism. And there are myths surrounding the Prophet Muhammad's life. But the primary concern has always been practical and rational Islamic Law in this world. Its very simplicity and directness has always made Islam a religion with great appeal. The religion has traveled easily, in Africa, for example, and, with special success, in Asia.
From the time of Muhammad's death in 632, however, Islam's history has been marked by a great schism and resulting wars. After the Prophet's death, a committee of prominent Muslim figures named Muhammad's longtime friend and father-in-law, Abu Bakr, as his successor and leader (Caliph) of the Muslims. This decision was challenged by members of Muhammad's family and their supporters. These people, the Shi'a'Ali (“Followers of Ali,” and later simply the Shi'a Muslims, as opposed to the Sunni Muslims), believed that the Prophet had named his cousin and son-in- law Ali, who was married to his daughter Fatima, as his successor. Much violence followed, and after the murder of the Caliph Uthman in 656, Ali (for the Shi'a, the “Lion of Allah”) did, in fact, become Caliph. After more wars, Ali was apparently murdered by a poison weapon. Ali's successors among the Shi'a were given the title Imam. The most important of these Imams was Ali's son Husayn, who was killed by rivals in Karbala (in Iraq) and who became, with Ali, a significant Shi'a “martyr” and focus of religious zeal. Today Shi'a Muslims and the much more numerous Sunni Muslims exist in sometimes uneasy proximity in the Muslim world.
At first, Muslims maintained good relations with the older Abrahamic Monotheists, fellow people “of the Book,” but struggles with Christians and Jews, who shared the Islamic sense of exclusivity, were inevitable. Like that of the Jews, especially, the nationalism of the Arabs was a tribal and religious nationalism for which certain compromises were impossible. Before long, in spite of internal struggles between factions such as the Ummayids and the Abbasids, led by different Caliphs, Muslim armies, now no longer exclusively Arab, advanced in all directions, forming a great empire that would take in all of the Middle East, including Egypt and Persia. Muslim traders and settlers came to the Indian subcontinent within a generation of the Prophet's death. By the end of the seventh century c.e., Muslims had conquered parts of Afghanistan. In the early eighth century they had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain and in 732 they crossed the Pyrenees into France. By the middle of the eighth century c.e. Islam dominated Turkistan, and under the Samanids in the ninth and tenth centuries Islam made inroads into the domains of the Shamanistic and Christian peoples of the steppes of Central Asia. From the tenth century, Muslims began to conquer parts of the North Indian plain.
European Christians had long seen the march of Islam as both a territorial and religious threat. Holy wars against Muslims took place almost from the earliest period of Muslim expansion—in Spain, in Sicily, and in the Byzantine struggle for survival against the Turks. The fall of Jerusalem to the Selcuk Turks in 1077 set off waves of horror among Christians. Armed crusaders set out in waves to liberate Jerusalem and the “Holy Land” as a whole from the “Infidel” during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Several crusades led to varying degrees of success, but failure usually followed. In 1229, for instance, Frederick II of Hohenstaufen won a victory and had himself crowned King of Jerusalem, but the city was retaken in 1244. Muslims ruled essentially all of the Middle East for several centuries after that. Parts of Bengal, Assam, and Orissa were taken early in the thirteenth century, and parts of Kashmir in the fourteenth. With the invasions of the Mongols and their tolerant attitude toward Muslims in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Muslims became part of the ruling class in China.
In the early sixteenth century, the Muslim Mughal dynasty was established on the ruins of the Muslim sultanate of Delhi by Babur, a descendant of Tamerlane and Ghengis Khan. The dynasty would rule northern India and eventually control most of the south as well until the last Mughal emperor was expelled by the British in 1858. Perhaps the greatest of the Mughals was Akbar, who reigned from 1556 to 1605 and was able, through tolerance and generosity, to win over his Hindu subjects. It was Akbar's grandson, Shah Janan, who built the Taj Mahal. Muslim armies would later move east and west, conquering much of the world, including parts of Christian Europe, where the Ottoman army was finally stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683.
After the defeat of the Ottomans at Vienna, Muslim power was diminished. The advent of European colonialism occurred in the eighteenth century and continued in various degrees until the years following World War II, when a still deeper rift developed between the Muslim Middle East and the West. With the formation of the state of Israel in what Arabs saw as their land, the rift became more profound and more specifically oriented. In 1967 Jews once again took power in all of Jerusalem, and today the struggle between Semitic peoples for the city that is holy to the three Abrahamic religions and for the land that was once Canaan is still running its course.
Islam remains the dominant religion of the Middle East, Central Asia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as much of Africa, and Muslims are a significant minority in India.
Islam is dominated by the person of Muhammad. Muhammad's biography is historically fairly clear, and Islam depends less on mythology than do Judaism and Christianity. Mythological tales of the Prophet did emerge from folklore, however, and two essential myths, that is, extraordinary or supernatural events, do mark his canonical life. These are the passing to him by Allah of the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, making him literally God's messenger; and his Night Journey, the journey to Jerusalem (Isra) and the Ascension (Mi'raj) from there to the Seventh Heaven.
Of course, the concept of Allah, the god of Ibrahim (Abraham), worshipped also by Christians and Jews, is central to Islam. An important Islamic myth concerns the “House of Allah,” the old Ka'bah of Mecca, taken over by Muhammad and his followers from the old pre-Islamic Arabian religions as the focal point of Islamic worship. The Ka'bah is represented by every mosque, as synagogues everywhere represent the ancient Temple of Judaism and churches represent the place of Crucifixion for Christians. The Ka'bah is said to have been originally built by Ibrahim and left under the guardianship of his son Ismail (Ishmael), the founder of the Arabs. The Ka'bah remained for a time a holy place to Jews and Christians and people of other religions, too. But when the Prophet took control of Mecca, he destroyed all of the idols that surrounded the sanctuary and it became primarily a goal of the Islamic pilgrimage, the hajj, and the focus of the spiritual hajj that is the act of prayer.
At first, under the influence of Judaism and Christianity, and especially later, due to the teachings of Muhammad, the Arabs moved from a Polytheistic mythology to what the outsider might call a hero-based Monotheistic one. As in the case of the development of Judaism, there is an early struggle before and during Muhammad's career between a monolatry in which a High god presides as the most important god among many others, including important goddesses, and monotheism, which saw the high god as the only god.
It is possible that for some time before Muhammad the Meccans had associated the term al-Lah with the supreme divinity behind the old tribal gods of Arabia. These Meccans apparently believed that the Ka'bah had in the beginning been dedicated to this deity. In fact, Muhammad's first biographer, Muhammad ibn Ishaq, records the possibly apocryphal story of several of Muhammad's tribe, the Quarysh, traveling north to discover the ancient pre- Jewish, pre-Christian religion of Ibrahim. Ibrahim was considered a prophet and the first Muslim, because in his willingness to sacrifice his own son he demonstrated islam, total obedience to God.
Allah is identifiable as the god of Abraham and the creator god of Christians and Jews, but as he reveals himself to his messenger Muhammad— for Muslims the “Seal of the Prophets,” the interpreter with the last word, as it were—he projects different emphases than the god of Moses or Jesus. Like Jews and Christians, Muslims see this god as, above all, unique: “It has been revealed to me that your god is one god” (Qur'an 41:6). But the Qur'an (2:267, 4:171) specifically rejects the kind of theology that involves a divine intermediary between God and humans (e.g., a divine Jesus or “Son of God”) or a God of more than one aspect (e.g., the Christian doctrine of the Trinity). Allah is less personal than in his Judeo-Christian aspect, a more mysterious power that is nevertheless behind all aspects of the universe. He is knowable only through his creation, through the signs of nature, through the metaphorical stories of the prophets, and especially through the Qur'an, his great gift to humankind. And though he is al-'Azim (the “inaccessible”), he is al-Rahman (the “compassionate” and the “merciful”). For the Islamic mystics or Sufis, especially, he is al-Haqq (the “real” and the “true”) and al-Hayy (the “living”), in some sense the god within.
Goddesses played an important role in pre-Islamic Arabian religion and mythology. Together these goddesses were the banat al- Lah (the “Daughters of God”) and were much revered by the Meccans. When Muhammad forbade the worship of the banat al-Lah, many of the first Muslims revolted. The historian Abu Jafar al-Tabari, in the tenth century, wrote that Muhammad was so upset by the split in his followers over the goddesses that he gave in and created some false or “Satanic verses,” verses inspired by Satan, that allowed the banat al-Lah to be thought of as intercessors, like angels. Many Islamic scholars doubt that the incident of the Satanic verses ever occurred, but according to al-Tabari, the angel Gabriel instructed Muhammad to do away with the lines and to replace them with a condemnation of the worship of these “empty names” (Qur'an 16: 57–59, 22:52, 52:39, 53:19–26).
As for the story of creation, Muhammad essentially accepted the Genesis version of creation, with some alterations. In the hadith of Islam, the collection of traditional sayings, acts, and stories of Muhammad, Allah says, “I was a hidden treasure; I wanted to be known. Hence, I created the world so that I might be known”. In short, humans, through an experiencing of the natural “signs” of Allah's creation, the most important of which is the Qur'an, would know Allah.
The Qur'an does not present the creation in a single unit the way it is presented in Genesis. Rather, the story comes in bits and pieces in various sura (“chapters”). As in Genesis, Allah created the world himself (36:81, 43:9– 87, 65:12). What was once a solid mass he tore apart, and he made living things from water (21:30, 24:45). As for the creation process itself, it is said to have taken six days (7:54, 10:3, 25:59, 32:4). Allah created the dark and the light, the heavens and the earth, the astral bodies (7:54, 6:1, 21:33, 39:5). He said “Be” and it was (6:73). He created the beasts of burden and those that could be used for meat (6:142), animals and plants of all kinds (31:10– 11). He created Adam in his image out of dust or clay or by a small seed (semen) and said “Be” and he was (3:59, 6:2, 15:26, 16:4, 22:5, 32:7, 35:11, 40:67). He created woman (traditionally Haiwa = Eve) out of the same material (4:1, 39:6). He also created Hell for evil spirits (jinns) and bad humans (7:179). Allah ordered the angels themselves to bow down to his human creation, and all did except for Iblis (the Devil), who claimed to be better than humans because he had been created from fire rather than dust (7:11–12, 15:27, 17:61, 38:75–76). For his disobedience, Iblis was banned from Paradise (7:13–18) but had permission to tempt humans (15:36–37, 17:62–63) until Doomsday, when he and his followers— that is, unbelievers, who are also shaitans (devils, satans)—would be sent to Hell (7:27, 26:95).
Allah made a Garden—a paradise—for the man and his wife but ordered them not to eat from a particular Tree (2:35). But the Shaitan (Satan, Iblis, the father of all shaitans) convinced them that the fruit of the tree contained the power that made angels and gods (7:19–22, 20:120), and the couple ate the fruit. It is noteworthy that it was the couple, not the woman first and the then the man, who committed this sin. After eating the fruit, the man and the woman became conscious of their nakedness and sexual feelings and covered their Genitals (7:27). Allah scolded them for listening to his enemy, and their life became hard (20:115– 121). Later, as in Genesis, God sent a great flood, during which the prophet Nuh (Noah) and his family, representing believers, were saved in an ark (11).
Islam, of course, has its heroes or prophets who existed before Muhammad. Traditionally, Ibrahim (Abraham) was thought to be the father of Islam in the sense that he “knew” the true God—al-Lah, the God later revealed as such to Muhammad—before there were Jews or Christians. The Qur'an and Islamic tradition contain many myths of this Khalilu'llah or “Friend of God”. One story says that Ibrahim cut up a crow, a vulture, and a peacock and then revived them simply by calling to them (2:262). It is believed that Ibrahim threw stones at the devil at Mina, near Mecca, where to this day pilgrims on the hajj commemorate the act by throwing stones at a pillar of stone. Islamic tradition holds that Hajar (Hagar) was the first wife of Ibrahim and the mother of his first son, Ismail (Ishmael). Hajar and Ismail were sent away by the jealous second wife, Sarah, mother of Ibrahim's second son, Ishak (Isaac), also a prophet (4:163). While Hajar and Ismail were wandering in the desert, the angel Jibril (Gabriel) opened the well of Zamzam for them so that they could survive. This well is in the place now called Mecca, and pilgrims still drink from it. Pilgrims also run between two hills representing Hajar's search for water. The story says that later Ibrahim, feeling guilty about having expelled Hagar and Ismail, found his wife and child at the well and with Ismail built the Ka'bah (2:124–140) according to Allah's specifications, as revealed by Jibril.
In the Qur'an, it is Ismail who would have been Sacrificed by Ibrahim had Allah not substituted a ram. When Ibrahim, his face drenched in tears, pressed the knife against his willing son's throat, it would not penetrate the flesh. In fact, the knife spoke to the distraught father, telling him that the Lord had forbidden it from cutting Ismail (37:102–107). Ismail is the symbol of the perfect Muslim child, one fully obedient to God. Not surprisingly, Muhammad was said to be a descendant of Ismail.
Another important prophet for Muslims was Musa (Moses). It is recognized that God called Musa and that he revealed the Tawrat (Torah) to him (19:52, 20:9–23, 27:7–12, 28:29–35, 79:15–16). The Quaranic stories of Musa are essentially the same as those of Moses in the Bible.
Isa (Jesus) was the penultimate prophet of Islam. He is believed to be Al-Maih (the Messiah) and kalima-t-allah, “the Word of God,” but not the Son of God (3:40, 4:169, 4:171). Capable of miracles, Isa was especially successful at curing the sick (3:49, 5:30). In some sense, Isa was “raised up by God” (3:55), and many believe that he will come back.
Isa's birth was miraculous. Maryam (Mariam, Mary), for whom Sura 19 of the Qur'an is named, was visited by the angel Jibril (Gabriel), who lifted her dress and blew on her body, making her pregnant with the breath— the word—of God's spirit. Maryam gave birth to Isa next to a withered date palm and washed the child in a well placed there by Allah. The date palm tree suddenly flourished, and Jibril came back and advised Maryam not to make excuses for her mysterious pregnancy and birth-giving but to allow the young prophet to speak for her. Miraculously, Isa, although a newborn baby, could speak; he announced himself as a prophet, and people accepted his mother and him (3:45–46, 4:171, 19:16–27, 21:91, 23:50, 66:12).
The Islamic equivalent of Exodus, the story of the journey from lowliness to power of a people chosen of God, is the story of Muhammad. In the hadith and in folklore Muhammad became much more than a discontented merchant of Mecca, much more than a religious reformer; he became the world hero to whom God spoke directly and who could break the barriers of space and time in a journey to God's heaven. Muhammad is the great hero of Islam, the Prophet, the Messenger of Allah, the perfect man (insan al-kamil), the founder of the ummah, the Muslim community. This was a community that was to transcend barriers of race and ethnicity. Islam was to become, like Christianity before it, a universal religion. The ummah would replace the older Arabic community ideal of the muruwab that stressed utter and complete obedience to the clan chief and the validity of the blood feud. Muhammad replaced the loyalty of muruwab with the ideal of islam, total obedience to Allah. Not surprisingly, however, since both muruwab and islam stress the importance of the group over the individual, elements of the old muruwab way sometimes surface in Islam even today.



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It is now time to experience the climax of Baalbek, and this requires retracing our steps to the entrance, and skirting around the outer walls of the acropolis. On the way we see the stark contrast between more 300-ton megaliths and the much smaller fortifications of the Arabs.
At last we turn a corner and see, in the western (strictly south-western) wall of the platform, the great Trilithon.
The Trilithon is the lighter-coloured course in the wall and comprises three granite stones beautifully fitted together at a height of 20 feet above present ground level.
The angle of this photograph - compromised by the fence and woods which now obstruct the view of this wall, hardly does justice to the huge size of these blocks, which are 14 feet 6 inches in height, 12 feet thick, and a staggering 64 feet in length (on average).
These three stones are slightly smaller than the Stone of the South, which we saw earlier, and are estimated to weigh approximately 800 tons each.
Now feast your eyes once again on the awesome 1000-ton Stone of the South, which weighs approximately as much as three Boeing 747 aircraft:
 
Give your imagination a little exercise by mentally trimming this 1,000 ton megalith into an 800-ton block - that is four fifths of this size - and now, keeping that image in your mind, take another look at three such stones in the Trilithon. Can it be true? Are these stones really there? Yes, sir. I have seen it with my own eyes.
The locals call this the 'Miracle of the Three Stones'. I, on the other hand, prefer to call it 'the Archaeologist's Nightmare', for our minds immediately begin to reel with questions - who built this megalithic wall, when did they build it, how did they build it, and, more importantly, why did they build it in the way that they did?
This is one of the most amazing sights in the ancient world - the three 800-ton blocks of the mighty Trilithon (the lighter-coloured course), situated in a wall of the great acropolis of Baalbek in Lebanon.
Michel Alouf, the former curator of the ruins, once wrote of the Trilithon:
    '... in spite of their immense size, they [the Trilithon stones] are so accurately placed in position and so carefully joined, that it is almost impossible to insert a needle between them. No description will give an exact idea of the bewildering and stupefying effect of these tremendous blocks on the spectator'. [4]

Analysis of the Baalbek Platform

Observe in the above photograph the impressive platform of stones which underpins the Trilithon. Each of these stone blocks (the fifth visible layer of the wall) measures 33 by 14 by 10 feet and thus, according to my calculations, weighs approximately 300 tons. Note the outward tapering of these blocks. In my view this was once the platform's uppermost layer, with the Trilithon being a later addition.
Observe, too, the supporting layers beneath the 300-ton blocks - at least four layers of carefully constructed smaller stones.
Now look closely at the adjoining wall, i.e. the south-eastern wall of the acropolis.
 
Here we see another row of 300-ton megaliths, measuring 33 feet in length and 14 feet in height. This layer of megaliths is quite ill-matched; some blocks are tapered, others are not, and the cut of the tapering does not match, even on adjacent blocks. It is as if this south-eastern side of the platform (perhaps the uppermost layer of the original platform) has at one time sustained serious damage and been subsequently reconstructed.
The significant fact, which is not readily apparent without a visit to Baalbek, is this: the rows of 300-ton blocks in the adjoining south-western and south-eastern walls are at exactly the same level - in other words, the Trilithon layer rises above any of the other megalithic stones and does not form part of a level terrace. This fact has led me to a conclusion which is shared by some conventional researchers - that the Baalbek platform as it stands is incomplete, perhaps being part of an unfinished defensive wall.
Such a conclusion is supported by the Stone of the South, which is still attached to the rocky floor of the quarry. Whilst it is possible that the block was considered faulty, it is perhaps more likely that the Stone of the South was abandoned when the project as a whole was suddenly cancelled.
 

How was Baalbek built?

This view from the quarry shows that the distance to the Baalbek acropolis is not huge - no more than a third of a mile. Nor is the elevation very different between the two points. Although we do not know the topography of the site at the time the wall was constructed, it does seem feasible that the stones might have been dragged up a ramp to the position where they now lie. Theoretically, then, the lifting of the stones would have been limited only to positional adjustments.
Nevertheless, when we consider the size and weight of the Baalbek stones and the fact that the route to the acropolis is not entirely flat, transportation via non-technological means would have presented the builders with formidable problems.
So, how was the job done? How were three 800-ton stones cut, moved and erected in the Baalbek acropolis?
This is a question which must be tackled with great caution, for it is not at all clear who the builders of Baalbek actually were.
If you ask an archaeologist, he will tell you that the Romans built the temples of Baalbek and he or she might well point out that there are work gang inscriptions which date the construction of the Temple of Jupiter to the 1st century ad, i.e. to the Roman era. The archaeologist might also point out to you that the Romans did know how to move and lift heavy stones; after all, we know that they transported a large number of multi-hundred ton obelisks to Rome from Egypt, and that was no mean feat two thousand years ago.
The archaeologist will thus suppose that the platform of Baalbek, on which the Roman temples stand, must also belong to the Roman era. And he or she will thus explain the construction of the Trilithon by reciting what is known about Roman construction techniques. Thus the explanation involves the erection of the Trilithon by push-and-shove methods, with the Romans probably using nothing more than wooden rollers, ropes, wooden lifting frames and human muscle power.
Archaeologists typically overlook the fact that experiments with stones much lighter than 800 tons have crushed the wooden rollers. And even if such a method was feasible, it would, by one estimate, have required the combined pulling power of 40,000 men to move the Stone of the South.[5] Incredible indeed.
Is there any evidence that the Romans built the platform of Baalbek as well as the temples upon it? One text book assures us that: 'Part of a [Roman] drum or column similar to those found in the Temple of Jupiter was used as a block in the foundation under the Trilithon'.[6] But where is the evidence for this Roman drum? I myself have been to Baalbek and I can show you dozens of photographs of the foundation walls, but I cannot show you the alleged Roman drum. It seems to have vanished into thin air.
A good counter argument lies in the fact that the Baalbek platform is out of all proportion to the temples which stand upon it, being thus suggestive of two different phases in construction.[7] This same observation was made by Professor Daniel Krencker of the German archaeological mission, although it led him to the conclusion that the Temple of Jupiter was originally planned on the same colossal scale as these foundations.[8] In other words, Krencker believed that the Roman builders must have had a change of mind. (How many times have we heard this before? Call me a sceptic but it seems to me that 'a change of mind' is archaeologist-speak for anything which the archaeologist cannot comprehend!)
In the absence of any proof as to who built the platform of Baalbek, it becomes very difficult to draw any firm conclusions as to the construction methods used. What we can do, however, is demonstrate the scale of the job by explaining how the Trilithon would be erected using today's technology.



The Baldwins Challenge

In 1996, I posed the problem of the Baalbek stones to Baldwins Industrial Services - one of the leading crane hire companies in Britain. I asked them how they might attempt to move the 1,000-ton Stone of the South and place it at the same height as the Trilithon.
Although it is sometimes claimed that modern cranes cannot lift stones as heavy as 800-tons,[9] this is actually incorrect. Bob MacGrain, the Technical Director of Baldwins, confirmed that there were several mobile cranes that could lift and place the 1,000-ton stone on a support structure 20 feet high. Baldwins themselves operate a 1,200 ton capacity Gottwald AK912 strut jib crane,[10] whilst other companies operate cranes which can lift 2,000 tons. Unfortunately, however, these cranes do not have the capability to actually move whilst carrying such heavy loads.
How, then, might we transport the Stone of the South to the Baalbek acropolis?
Baldwins suggested two possibilities. The first would use a 1,000-ton capacity crane fitted with crawler tracks. The disadvantage of this method would be the need for massive ground preparation works - to provide a solid, level roadway for the crane to move.
The alternative to a crane would be a series of modular hydraulic trailers, combined to create a massive load carrying platform. These trailers raise and lower their loads using hydraulic cylinders built into their suspension. The initial lift at the quarry would be achieved by the use of a cut-out section beneath the stone, which the trailer would drive into. The final positioning in the wall, at a height of 20 feet, would be achieved by using an earth ramp.
This is all very interesting, and gives us some feel for the scale of the engineering challenge, but there is, of course, one slight problem with the Baldwins scenario, namely that none of this twentieth century technology was supposedly available when Baalbek was built.
 

The Puzzle of Baalbek

Here is a fascinating question. Why did the builders of the Trilithon struggle with 800-ton weights when it would have been far easier to split the giant monoliths into smaller blocks? Why not use 4 x 200-ton stones rather than a cumbersome 800-tonner?
According to my engineer-friends, it was very risky to use 800-ton blocks in the way seen at Baalbek. This is because any vertical defects running lengthwise through the stone might have led to a critical structural weakness. In contrast, a similar fault in a smaller block would not have affected the overall construction. Either the builder was incompetent and just plain lucky or he was competent and supremely confident in his materials.
Whichever way we look at it, however, it makes no sense to imagine tens of thousands of men struggling to move and erect three of these monstrous 800-ton stones.
So the question is "why did they not split the stones?".
One possible answer to this puzzle is that the builders moved the stones in huge sizes simply because they could. In other words, it might have been the case that, with a high technology available, the builders found it more expeditious to cut and move one large stone rather than several smaller ones. This presupposes the kind of high-tech 'lost civilisation' which has been mooted by writers such as Bauval, Hancock and West, or the more plausible 'lost race' as advocated by myself in 'The Phoenix Solution' (1998).[11]
 

The Megalomaniac Theory

What possible motive could there have been for the Romans to drag three shapeless stone blocks, weighing 800-tons each, and place them into the wall of a structure in a remote region of the Roman empire?
Here is a possible scenario. Let us imagine that the distant Roman empire wished to stamp its authority on one of the most sacred sites of the Near East. Let's say an instruction was issued from the central bureaucracy to erect the world's largest temple. An over-zealous Roman governor at Baalbek then conceived a temple plan on an unimaginable scale and ordered the local people to comply. Thousands of workers were drafted in from all around the Bekaa Valley. Then, as the platform neared completion, even bigger stones were dragged to the site. The workers became exhausted, time and resources became a problem, and the megalithic layer was abandoned. A new official then arrived and blew the whistle, stopped the brutality and brought a sense of realism to the enterprise; the order was thus given for a massive down-grading of the yet-to-be-built temples.
This is a purely hypothetical and imaginative scenario, and there is a problem with it, because there is no historical evidence for it. Where, for example, is the record of a megalomaniac Roman governor at Baalbek? Surely such a man would have been notorious for one of the greatest acts of folly ever witnessed. And yet we find no recollection of this mad dictator among the Romans and no recollection where we would most expect to find it - in the legends of the local people...



The Local Legends of Baalbek

Curiously, it would seem that not one Roman emperor ever claimed credit for the Baalbek temple complex or for the construction of its massive foundations.[12]
Similarly, we find no evidence for Roman construction among the local people. What we do find instead are legends which suggest that Baalbek was built by super-human powers in an epoch long before human civilisation began.
The Arabs believed that Baalbek once belonged to the legendary Nimrod, who ruled this area of Lebanon. According to an Arabic manuscript, Nimrod sent giants to rebuild Baalbek after the Flood. Another legend states that Nimrod rebelled against Yahweh and built the Tower of Babel here, in order to ascend to Heaven and attack his God. According to one version of this legend, Nimrod ascended to the top of the Tower but found himself as far from his objective (Heaven) as when he had begun; after the Tower collapsed, Nimrod attempted to scale the heavens in a carriage drawn by four strong birds, but the carriage, after wandering for a long time in space, eventually crashed on Mount Hermon, thus killing Nimrod. Earlier in this tale, Nimrod had been visited by Abraham, who came as a messenger of God to warn Nimrod of punishment for his sins. But Nimrod, vexed by these threats, had cast Abraham into a blazing furnace (from which the latter somehow emerged unscathed).[13]
The local Muslims believed that it was beyond the capability of humans to move the enormous stones of Baalbek. Instead of giants, however, they credited the work to demons or djinn. Muslim tradition states that Baalbek was once the home of Abraham, and later of Solomon. It is also suggested that the prophet Elijah was taken into Heaven from Baalbek - upon a steed of fire.[14]
Other legends associated Baalbek with the Biblical figure of Cain - the son of Adam - claiming that he built it as a refuge after his god Yahweh had cursed him. According to Estfan Doweihi, the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon: 'Tradition states that the fortress of Baalbek... is the most ancient building in the world. Cain, the son of Adam, built it in the year 133 of the creation, during a fit of raving madness. He gave it the name of his son Enoch and peopled it with giants who were punished for their iniquities by the flood.'[15]
 

Modern Theories of Baalbek

Few modern writers have dared to tackle the enigma of Baalbek, perhaps because Lebanon was off-limits to tourists during the troubled decades at the close of the second millennium.
One writer to take an interest is Andrew Collins, whose articles suggest the possibility that Baalbek was some kind of astronomical observatory.[16]
The best known 'alternative' theory, however, is that of ancient astronaut writer Zecharia Sitchin, who asserted that Baalbek was a space centre, built by a visiting race of 'Anunnaki' gods as a launching pad for their space rockets.[17] An intriguing aspect of Sitchin's theory was the connection between Baalbek-Heliopolis - the City of the Sun - and the ancient legend of the Sun-god who used to park his chariot at Baalbek. This rather appealing theory is, however, sunk (in my mind at least) by the revelations in my book 'When The Gods Came Down' (April 2000). In this book I revealed that the Sun-god and the Anunnaki had nothing whatsoever to do with ancient astronauts.[18]
To close with an amusing anecdote, the prize for the most imaginative theory of Baalbek must undoubtedly be awarded to the English traveller, David Urquhart, who suggested that the builders of Baalbek had used mastodons - huge extinct elephant-like mammals - as mobile cranes to help them move the stones![19]
 

Conclusions

Why did successive Roman emperors travel thousands of miles to Baalbek to receive oracles? Why did the Romans build the grandest of all their temples so far away from Rome? What motivated them to ship red granite columns all the way from Aswan in Egypt to the port of Tripoli, and from there to Baalbek via Homs, a detour which, in order to circumnavigate the mountains, required a journey of 200 kilometres? This was certainly a most inconvenient place to erect the greatest Roman temple in the world, so why did it have to happen here, in the Bekaa Valley, of all places?
If we can answer this question, we can perhaps solve the mystery of Baalbek. As one authority on Baalbek commented, however, 'nowhere is it clearly stated to what cause the religious importance of this town is attributed'.[20]
Ultimately, one suspects that the answer to the sanctity of Baalbek lies in a decoding of its ancient religion, for it is religion which has been the driving force at Baalbek since time immemorial.
The sanctity of Baalbek in Roman times has already been mentioned and one's attention is drawn inevitably to the trinity of gods who were worshipped here: Venus, Bacchus and the mighty Jupiter. The latter - equivalent to the Greek god Zeus - embodied all the symbolism of the archetypal Storm God. The fifth century writer Macrobius described the statue of Jupiter as follows:
    'The statue of the god is of gold, representing a person without a beard, who holds in his right hand a whip, charioteer-like, and in his left a thunderbolt with ears of corn.' [21]
What was the meaning of this Storm-God with thunderbolt? To modern scholars, Jupiter was a god of thunder and lightning and nothing but thunder and lightning. If modern scholars are to be believed, our quest for religious meaning at Baalbek culminates anti-climactically in the primitive worship of mundane weather-gods.
However, readers of my book 'When The Gods Came Down' will recognise in the statue described by Macrobius a crucial esoteric meaning in the connection between the thunderbolt and the 'ears of corn'.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the Roman gods are only part of the answer to the sanctity of Baalbek, for the town was in fact named after Baal, the Storm-God of the Canaanites/Phoenicians. And the legends of the god Baal provide numerous fascinating parallels to the gods of the ancient Mesopotamian exploded planet cults (as decoded in my books). Indeed, my own private research suggests that the Canaanite/Phoenician religion could itself be described as an exploded planet cult.
Inevitably, then, we must ask whether the importance of Baalbek might have resulted from a celestial event - perhaps the impact of a meteorite - during the pre-literate era. Might a meteorite be the key to the importance of Baalbek - the northern 'Heliopolis' - just as the meteorite called 'the Benben Stone' was the key to the importance of Annu - the southern 'Heliopolis' in ancient Egypt?
And what about those gigantic stones in the Trilithon? Were they constructed deliberately, perhaps to evoke the idea of the meteorites - the giant seeds of life - lying embedded in the foundations (or Womb) of Mother Earth? Or were they simply the remains of an unfinished defensive wall?
Perhaps we will never know the answer to this question or to the question of how the stones of the Trilithon were moved. The problem is that everyone sees at Baalbek what they want to see, based on their own preconceptions and their own paradigm. Perhaps it will always be so.
One final thought to close. If the mysterious stones of Baalbek are impelling us to exercise our minds, then perhaps the ancient builders are partly achieving their objectives. But in order for us to pass, as initiates, the Test of the Trilithon, it is necessary for us to do something more than merely exercise our minds. It is necessary first to challenge everything that we have ever been taught about the meaning and origins of religion...
 

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Part 1 of 5
The mysterious ruins of Baalbek. One of the great Power Places of the ancient world. For thousands of years its secrets have been shrouded in darkness, or bathed in an artificial light by those who would offer us a simplistic solution to its mysteries.
You are looking at the columns of the Temple of Jupiter - the grandest temple that the Romans ever built - one of the wonders of the ancient world. To this remote location in the Bekaa Valley of modern-day Lebanon, Roman emperors would travel 1,500 miles to make offerings to their gods and receive oracles on the destiny of their empire.
Much has changed in two thousand years. The magnificent temple is ruined, its gods abandoned, its secrets forgotten. Even the ruins have been neglected, wiped off the tourist map by twenty years of terrorism, war, hostages and hijackings.
Some archaeologists might well wish that Baalbek had been buried forever. For it is here that we find the largest dressed stone block in the world - the infamous Stone of the South, lying in its quarry just ten minutes walk from the temple acropolis. This huge stone weighs approximately 1,000 tons - almost as heavy as three Boeing 747 aircraft.[1]
Back at the temple acropolis, three stones not much smaller than this, weighing 800 tons each, have been miraculously fitted together in a wall, forming a Trilithon at a height of 20 feet.
I personally seized the opportunity to visit Baalbek in May 1995, shortly after tourists began returning to the bombed-out ruins of Lebanon. This e-tour will mirror my real life tour, which climaxed at the mighty Trilithon and the Stone of the South. In due course I will attempt to provide some personal insights into the enormous scale of this construction and the motivations of its builders.
First, however, I offer you the rare opportunity to see the entire Baalbek, of which the mighty Trilithon is only a part. As we progress through our e-tour, reflect on the glorious splendour that was once here and ask yourself "why here?". What was it that caused the original sanctity of this remote site? What was it that prompted the Romans to quarry, move and erect literally millions of stone blocks?
We begin at the main acropolis by considering first this bird's eye view of how it might have looked in Roman times, before its fortification by the Muslims. A monumental staircase leads up to the entrance or Propylaea, beyond which we find the Hexagonal Courtyard, the Great Courtyard, the Temple of Jupiter, the smaller Temple of Bacchus, and the much smaller Temple of Venus. Note the unusual fact that the acropolis of Baalbek is not aligned to the cardinal points of the compass.
The Temple of Venus can be dealt with briefly. Situated in what is now a field of rubble, its former elegance can no longer be seen, and only four of its ten columns remain standing. Being outside the fortified acropolis, this temple was swallowed up by an Arab town, to such an extent that the German Archaeological Mission had to remove five metres of debris to clear the first step of the monumental staircase at its entrance. The remains of the temple were dismantled and re-erected in the early 1930s, but they now threaten to collapse again.
We now enter the main acropolis via the Propylaea - what we see here is a reconstruction by the German archaeological expedition in 1905. The original staircase was destroyed by the Arabs to fortify the site and they dismantled the 12 granite columns which they re-used for defensive purposes. Only the bases of those columns survived, and they bore inscriptions identifying their Roman origin.
Having come through the entrance, we find ourselves in the middle of the impressive Hexagonal Courtyard, which is a unique feature for a temple of this period (it may well have been a concession by the Romans to local customs and traditions). Roman inscriptions are found here in abundance, but the purpose of the Hexagonal Courtyard remains unknown.
We now proceed into the Great Courtyard...

The Mystery of the Stones at Baalbek (2)

Part 2 of 5
We now proceed into the Great Courtyard - an immense square court, thought to have housed the statues of the pantheon of the twelve Great Gods. The photograph shows the remains of the Altar of Sacrifice. Although constructed by the Romans, it apparently supersedes a much earlier altar which was dedicated to the god Baal-Hadad, and is built over a natural crevice some 150 feet deep, at the bottom of which is a small rock-cut altar. There are few tourists around to provide a comparative scale of measurement, but such a person would in fact be no taller than the base of this altar.
Behind the Altar we can see the foundation of the Great Tower, which was an even more impressive structure, 50 feet high, with two independent flights of stairs. Both the Altar and Tower were destroyed by the Christians who erected a basilica here. In 1934-5 it was decided to tear down the basilica which was hindering archaeological excavation. Only then were the ancient Altar and Tower rediscovered. The Great Tower which once stood here was not a Roman tradition, but probably a concession to local traditions of worship in 'high places'. Note the excavations to the left of this picture. The dig uncovered middle bronze age houses, from the 2nd millennium BC and evidence of earlier occupation back to 2900 BC.[2]
On the other side of the Great Courtyard lies a truly monumental staircase leading up to a raised platform on which the Temple of Jupiter once stood. In this picture we can see the bases of the now fallen columns - the bases alone are 8 feet high. If we wished, we could climb these stairs and stand in awe beneath the six remaining columns, which rise to a spectacular height of 66 feet. But the best view of these columns comes not from this angle but from the nearby Temple of Bacchus.
This is the Temple of Bacchus, and it is undoubtedly the best preserved Roman temple in the world. Its 46 columns included 15 on each side and 8 on the ends, most of which are intact in this picture, although the eastern end here is clearly missing a few.
 
The southern side of the Temple of Bacchus, in contrast, has suffered badly. Here I am setting the scale of the infamous leaning column - a tourist favourite - which was probably felled by the earthquake of 1759. This massive column, formed of three parts, stands 60 feet high including the base and the capital. Incidentally, the drums are held together by dowels made of bronze, embedded in lead.
 
 
Let's now enter the Temple of Bacchus...
We now climb 33 steps to the Temple of Bacchus and enter a large court with an imposing doorway 40 feet high. Note the slipped keystone which was once propped up by a crude tower of bricks, but has now been properly renovated.
Proceeding through the doorway, we are surrounded by further columns and niches which once housed the pantheon of the gods. At the far end, nothing remains of the beautiful shrine which once stood against this far wall and housed the statue of the god Bacchus.
The main temple of Baalbek, however, was reserved for the chief deity himself - Iovi Optimo Maximo Heliopolitano 'Jupiter the Most High, the Most Great'. This is the view of what remains from the staircase we saw earlier. The destruction of this magnificent temple is thought to have begun with the earthquake of 526 or 551. Curiously, the chronicler Michael the Syrian records the popular belief that the temple was destroyed by fire from the sky.[3] Historians assume this is a misunderstanding and think that the fire was a consequence of the earthquake.
Following that 6th century earthquake and fire, Byzantine and Arab occupants ravaged the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter, using its stone as building material elsewhere on the acropolis. Further earthquakes, such as in 1158, 1203, and 1664  increased the devastation.
The last really big quake in 1759 brought down three columns, leaving only the six that we see here. The Temple was so utterly destroyed that it has never been possible to accurately reconstruct its ground plan, and little can be gleaned from visiting the site.
We do know that 58 columns once graced this Temple, 19 down each side and 10 at each end, enclosing an area twice as large as the Temple of Bacchus. Each column soared to a height of 66 feet, built on a platform which was raised 26 feet higher than the surrounding buildings.
Here was a building which stretched to the limit the ingenuity of man, in which ancient man literally reached out to the heavens and communicated to the gods. To imagine the pride felt by those who took part in this magnificent achievement, even down to the humblest workman, is to recognise a greatness that is rarely found in modern society.
However, as magnificent as the Temple of Jupiter certainly was, it stood on a terrace of colossal stones which was, and still is, even more impressive. If you look carefully at the photograph above you will see me, 6 foot one inch in height, standing on a block which measures approximately 33 by 14 by 10 feet, and weighing an incredible 300 tons. There are nine such blocks visible in this wall.
Now, it is time to experience the climax of Baalbek...

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