Notes on the Romans again (with additions)

The Romans,

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

[30:1]A. L. M.[30:2]The Roman Empire has been defeated-[30:3]In a land close by; but they, (even) after (this) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious-[30:4]Within a few years. With God is the Decision, in the past and in the Future: on that Day shall the Believers rejoice-[30:5]With the help of God. He helps whom He will, and He is exalted in might, most merciful.[30:6](It is) the promise of God. Never does God depart from His promise: but most men understand not.[30:7]They know but the outer (things) in the life of this world: but of the End of things they are heedless.[30:8]Do they not reflect in their own minds? Not but for just ends and for a term appointed, did God create the heavens and the earth, and all between them: yet are there truly many among men who deny the meeting with their Lord (at the Resurrection)![30:9]Do they not travel through the earth, and see what was the end of those before them? They were superior to them in strength: they tilled the soil and populated it in greater numbers than these have done: there came to them their apostles with Clear (Signs). (Which they rejected, to their own destruction): It was not God Who wronged them, but they wronged their own souls.[30:10]In the long run evil in the extreme will be the End of those who do evil; for that they rejected the Signs of God, and held them up to ridicule.[30:11]It is God Who begins (the process of) creation; then repeats it; then shall ye be brought back to Him.[30:12]On the Day that the Hour will be established, the guilty will be struck dumb with despair.[30:13]No intercessor will they have among their "Partners" and they will (themselves) reject their "Partners".[30:14]On the Day that the Hour will be established,- that Day shall (all men) be sorted out.[30:15]Then those who have believed and worked righteous deeds, shall be made happy in a Mead of Delight.[30:16]And those who have rejected Faith and falsely denied our Signs and the meeting of the Hereafter,- such shall be brought forth to Punishment.

When I examine the first few ayats of this Surah, the first thing I ask myself is why will the "muminun" (believers) rejoice at the victories and successes of the Romans? My next question is, 'What is the struggle of the Romans?".

"...the Latin language, like Greek, belongs to the great Indo-European family which spread, in the course of many centuries, from an original centre somewhere south of the Caucasus into India, Iran and Europe. The ancestors of the Romans must include many people who entered Italy from the North, probably not a single group, reaching the site of Rome by about 1000 B.C. They modified the Indo-European inheritance considerably (Etruscans). It was their influence, for instance, that explains the triad of deities worshipped on the Capitol: Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. That makes sense only in Etruscan terms. From Etruria also came elaborate systems for discovering the divine purposes by means of omens, which were officially practised by Roman magistrates.
Such qualities as parsimonia, severitas, frugalitas, simplicitas constantly praised as being a product of evolution to manness. That Roman consuls and poets were the inheritors of Etruscan kingly regalia and Greek aesthetic refinement.
The Imperial administration insisted on two things: taxes must be paid; and law and order must be maintained.
"Michael Crawford acknowledges and isolates Roman history into two elements: Italian and Roman. In 509 B.C. Rome had conquered Italy. That there is a relationship between Rome and Italy. Political crisis were a result of conquests, at one level, resolution involving the final stages of the Romanization of Italy and the Italianization of Rome."
Patri - father. Patricians were the elite. Pleb. - common. Plebians were the oppressed . Least. Weak. The laws of their courts and judicial procedure and legislature in court (was for the purpose) to argue, vie, contend for rights. And so contracts or covenants were enacted and seemed to serve the purpose of manipulating the Patricians. The Plebian organization set out to break the Patricians monopoly of secular and sacred office in the Roman state and to reduce the extent of economic exploitation of the poor by the rich. (A system of checks and balances, however, still very pagan) The Plebians had success and 2nd century Cato could assume "no formal barriers". It can not be too strongly emphasized that the openness of Roman society to Plebian mobility which is a corollary of this fact is as far as we know a feature unique to Rome. (Hinting at the vulnerability) And as stated in the book Roman dominance in Italy involved the openness of Roman society to penetration from below. The Roman people had Comitia Curiatia, the people organized in kin groups, and Comitia Centuriata, the people organized in army units. The growth of the Plebian organization involved creation of Plebian officials, of whom the most important were the tribunes of the Plebs, and of another assembly, Concilium Plebis or Comitia Tributa, the people organized by tribus, areas of domicile. The Plebs achieved their aim of equality of political and (pagan) religious rights with the Patricians (who were also pagans), its organization was simply grafted on to that of the Roman state. ~ 'The Roman World' - John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray. The Oxford History of the Classical World Oxford, New York. Oxford University Press"


Italy is known to occasion tarantula populations. Holy Quran Surah 29:41 Al Ankabuti. "The likeness of those who take (false deities as) Auliya (protectors, helpers) other than Allah is the likeness of a spider who builds (for itself) a house; but verily, the frailest (weakest, flimsiest) of houses is the spider's house - if they but knew."

Then how could they have obtained a covenant from the Supreme Creator if polytheism is so intermingled with the society and government of the state of Rome. As Allah said Himself that "it is a promise binding on Him in the Past and the Future." Tauhid has been from the Alpha: The Creator's policies the same to the Omega. Below some further excerpts from the book.

"and of renewing the prayers of the Roman people for the favour of the gods." ~ pg 18. 'Roman World'

"The Roman community...also included the gods." ~ pg 18. 'Roman World'

"The two major colleges, the Pontifices (with pontifex maximus as a head and the Vestal Virgins under his general control) and the augures; the former were concerned, in general terms, with sacrifices to the gods (the Vestal Virgins with the sacred hearth of the community), the latter with ascertaining the will of the gods." ~ 'Roman World'

"For at Rome religion and politics were not two worlds, but inseperable parts of the same world. One must not suppose that there was something 'wrong' with the Roman religion because the world of the gods was involved in the world of political dispute." ~ pg 18. 'Roman World'

"the steady importation of new deities, from Etruria, from elsewhere in Italy, or from overseas." ~ pg 18. 'Roman World'

"as the gods helped Rome to win battles, the more gods one worshipped the better." ~ pg 18. 'Roman World'
Monastery Retreat Notes Pagan Gods

Thus, it is clear to see that one of the Rome's battles or struggles (jihads) was against the spread of paganism. Another was perhaps dissidence.

"The Hellenization of Rome, the late 4th and early 3rd centuries. It was in this period that Rome absorbed from the Greek world an interest in the expression of the idealogy of victory, a phenomenon which was not the least of the legacies of Alexander the Great. The consequence at Rome was the introduction of new cults of gods of war; gods of victory; victory herself. It was in this period that the cult of Hercules, heavily dependent on Greek models, became widespread in the Roman world, evidenced by the institution by the state of new cults and the upsurge in humble offerings to the new hero." ~ 'Roman World'

Why Pompeii and Heraclea (perhaps named in connection to Hercules) were destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. just shortly after the deliverance of the "True" messege of the Injeel (Gospel) by the wise teacher and Prophet Jesus, son of Mary (infinite peace and blessings of Allah be upon them both). Some historians cite: 1. Hedonism; 2. Pomp; 3. Blasphemy against Allah; 4. Rejection of the messenger of Allah sent to the centre of the population. The message at 79 A.D. was the Injeel and Torah. Many of the Hawariyun (the Disciples of Jesus (saws)) were still alive when this happened.

It seems the earliest documented contact of Rome with the monotheism of the God of the Torah, Tanakh, Tehillim, and Injeel (Gospel) would be Rome's encounter with Jews living in Rome from poor migrants (that spoke Greek) to slaves from Jewish conquered lands. Could this be where the promise of Allah began (as spoken in Surahtul Rumi of the Quranul Kareem as binding on Him (swt) in the Past and the Future)?

"The first attested Jews in Italy were the ambassadors sent to Rome by Judah Maccabee in 161 BCE, Jason son of Eleazar and Eupolemus son of John. According to I Maccabees they signed a treaty with the Roman Senate, although modern scholars like A.N. Sherwin-White argue that this embassy did not happen.
It is known more securely that an embassy was sent later by Simon Maccabeus to Rome to strengthen the alliance with the Romans against the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom. The ambassadors received a cordial welcome from their coreligionists who were already established there.
Large numbers of Jews lived in Rome even during the Roman Republican period. They were largely Greek-speaking and poor. As Rome had increasing contact with and military/trade dealings with the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, during the second and first centuries BCE, many Greeks, Jews among them, came to Rome as merchants or were brought there as slaves.
The Romans appear to have viewed the Jews as followers of peculiar, backward religious customs, but antisemitism as it would come to be in the Christian and Islamic worlds did not exist.[citation needed] Despite their disdain, the Romans did recognize and respect the antiquity of their religion and the fame of their Temple. Many Romans did not know much about Judaism, including the emperor Augustus who, according to his biographer Suetonius, thought that Jews fasted on the sabbath. Julius Caesar was known as a great friend to the Jews, and they were among the first to mourn his assassination.
In Rome, the community was highly organized, and presided over by heads called άρχοντες (archontes); or γερουσιάρχοι (gerousiarchoi) . The Jews maintained in Rome several synagogues, whose spiritual leader was called αρχισυνάγωγος (archisunagogos). Their tombstones, mostly in Greek with a few in Hebrew/Aramaic or Latin, were decorated with the ritual menorah (seven-branched candelabrum).
Jews in pre-Christian Rome were very active in proselytising their faith, leading to an increasing number of outright converts, as well as those who adopted some Jewish practices and belief in the Jewish God without actually converting.
The treasures of Jerusalem (detail from the Arch of Titus).
The fate of the Jews in Rome and Italy fluctuated, with partial expulsions being carried out under the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. After the successive Jewish revolts of 66 and 132 CE, many Judean Jews were brought to Rome as slaves (the norm in the ancient world was for prisoners of war and inhabitants of defeated cities to be sold as slaves). These revolts caused increasing official hostility from the reign of Vespasian onwards. The most serious measure was the Fiscus Judaicus, which was a tax payable by all Jews in the Roman Empire. The new tax replaced the tithe that had formerly been sent to the temple in Jerusalem (destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE), and was used in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in Rome.
In addition to Rome, there were a significant number of Jewish communities in southern Italy during this period. For example, the regions of Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia had well established Jewish populations.[1]" ~ Wikipedia History of Jews in Italy

Roman persecution of Christians, who were obviously an offshoot of the House of Israel, ended in about 330 A.D.

Perhaps the Muminun are hoping that the Romans are successful, in terms, of their relationship with the One God, as Rome and Greece has had a history with a myriad of pagan dieties. Thus if Romans are reconstructing a Pagan Temple it is safe to say that this is not being victorious...and certainly there are some other struggles that comes along with it. That, in their struggles they have come to "Truth", "Justice", "Equity", "Fairness", "Peace", "Security", "Oneness of Allah", "Belief", "Faith", "Freedom from Corruption". So, in terms of the archaelogical digs and historical records of the previous rulers of Ancient Rome and Greece, there is much to learn (of mathematicians, logic, philosophers, statesmen, etc) and much to unlearn (paganism, hedonism, idolatry, occult, etc.) "Yafrahu al Muminun" is something that the Muminun are hoping and searching for concerning the efforts of the Romans which Allah blesses them to succeed in.

Therefore, next it becomes necessary to ask oneself who are the comtemporary Romans, for Allah has said that this is something binding on Him in the Past and in the Future. When we look around at the world's nations we can see many who have been substantially influenced by the ways of the Romans.

Then, this gives the mumin a different demeanor and disposition towards humanity...one of hoping for the Romans success to find Allah; and not one of hoping for the Romans failure to find Allah. For both mentalities do exist and one has to decide which one they wish to adopt.