The Fertile Crescent - The Cradle of civilisation

Christ Is From My Country

The Literary Comrade Mohammad Yousof Hammoud

 December 1948

The hearts, tongues, pens, and ears became accustomed to believing, saying, writing, and hearing that the immortal verses of the prophets along with their miracles and victories were merely inspirations inspired, wills dictated, and victories achieved by God.  This belief became fixed in the hearts and minds of the people as a deep, reassuring faith, which strips the "messenger" of his personal genius, individual will, and heroic deeds.  Thus for every messenger an idea was imprinted in the minds of the people that he is an ordinary person sent by divine providence, repeating its instructions and implementing its orders.  And that without these instructions and orders he would not have been the great heroic genius that he was!

The likelihood is that the heavenly inspiration was nothing more than a cosmic revelation and that the guiding, superior prophets were nothing more than world greats and leaders of humankind.  And if credit should be given to God for inspiring the prophets, these prophets should be given credit for proving His existence to humans and persuading them to have faith in the unknown.  Thus, the prophet is not merely the inspired executor, but also the superior human, the reforming leader, and the brave commander.

 In light of this reality of the human messenger we say: if we imagine all world scholars without exception as prominent summits in the mountain chain of history, we will see two high peaks in the atmospheres of the spirit and of glory, in the heaven of religion and horizons of the earth, unequalled by any peak and unsurpassed by any height, as they are the two shining beacons: The Christ Jesus and Mohammad the Chosen!

The peak at whose foot the world stands today looking upon it in remembrance of its birth, its genesis, its eminence, and its immortality, is Christianity as a man, a religion, and an extent.   And if any human from this world has the right to stand, look, and remember, it is the human from our country that not only has this right before others, but also has the right to ascend from the foot to the peak, and to sit at its throne, on the zenith of the heavens and on top of the universe, proud and self-confident, knowing that this peak rose from our land and was heightened in our skies, and that this beacon shined from our Levant, with the light of our sun, the glow of our shores, the marvel of our hilltops, and the majesty of our plains. 

If any region has a duty to remember the day of Christ's birth, the day of faith, awareness, liberation, departure, and life, it is primarily our Levantine region that has this duty.  It is the obligation of Jerusalem, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, and Baghdad, before Rome, Paris, London, Washington, and Moscow to sanctify this day and to immortalize it as a Levantine promising national day!

Is there a better claimant to our pride and haughtiness for this birth that is our birth and this messenger who is our messenger?  And is there a glory that supersedes our Levant's glory in that it is the creator, emitter, feeder, native land, inspirer, and proponent of Christ?  Or does our country not have the right to raise its head in exaltation and boastfulness over the rest of the entire world, when half the world today, every morning and evening, follow with their hearts and their sights in obedience, humbleness, and submission to the message of the son of our country, which is one of the messages of the Canaanites, the Arameans, and the Hittites who taught humankind with a letter, unified the world with a boat, and built the earth with innovation?!

Or is it not our national right, we the people of the Levant, to vie in glory with the east, the west, the north, and the south, in a manger in the small town of Bethlehem, before which kneel the capitals of the empires, kingdoms, republics, states, and princedoms of the world?  Just as the worlds in the past knelt before a cave in Arwad, Jbeil, and Tyre, or a stone in Damascus, Babylon, Nineveh, and others of the beacons of science, work, and unity.  It is not a heresy if humans worship God in a man from amongst us, as in olden times they worshipped God in a stone from our country!

O Faithful Levantines!

Christ, from whom we learned the principles of utmost forgiving, pardoning, mercy, gentleness, and giving, which we memorized and knew about alone in our homes, also wanted us to be proud and haughty as well as fighting heroes, drawing strength as a weapon and fighting falsehood in combat.  Do not say that I am straying or committing a heresy, for our Christ was the messenger of reforming principles, the teacher of social studies, the leader of Levantine renaissance, and the commander of the heroic campaign against corruption, chaos, evil, and sins, the epidemics of the corrupt, evil, sinful children of Israel, which were spreading across the Levant and afflicting all Levantines.  Thus, this hero was victorious over these epidemics as divinity is victorious in the heavens and humanity is victorious on earth, after becoming furious with the "children of Israel" and dispersing them and cursing them.  Hence they were displaced as steered slaves falling in their arrogance.

Yes O Faithful Levantines!

Our Christ was a hero in his faith, a hero in his words, and a hero in his deeds.  He persevered before the enemies and the arrogant, sometimes with violence and other times with tenderness, in order to create the most beautiful society and the most ideal human in our country!

Thus O Christ!

In our hearts from you is the gentleness of the lamb, and in our hands from you is the strength of the hero.  And you are in our eyes and our minds a humanistic Levantine paradigmatic messenger and a fighting societal hero.  Your entire course is in our consciences, from the time you uttered your first words and brought down the thorns with patience, until the time you spoke your last words, carrying the crown triumphantly.  And the "people of Israel" whose epidemics you combated and eradicated its spread with cursing, dispersal, slavery, and arrogance, have returned today to your country in order to ravage it with corruption.  What's more is that they were returned by those who declare their faith in your Christianity and pray to your image!

Return to us O Christ, in order to eradicate the corrupt, chaotic, evil sinners, and to expel the scribes and Pharisees from your house which you wanted to be a house of worship, and which the Christians of the West turned into a grotto for thieves.