. . . on her forehead was written a name,a mystery, Babylon the Great, mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth. (Rev. 17:5)
Mecca is called Umm al-Qura, the mother of cities, in the Koran (6:92 and 42:5). The title "mother of harlots" is a dysphemism based on this title of Mecca.
The name on the harlot's forehead is a parody of the description of Jesus (Rev. 1:5).
Some say that Mecca was called the Mother of Cities (Umm al-Qura) because she is the origin of all the cities on earth, and from it the earth spread out. This explanation echoes the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. The ancient city of Babel and its tower was built so that the people could make a name for themselves before they were scattered over the face of the earth (Gen. 11:4).
Cities are commonly referred to as daughters throughout the Bible. For example, Babylon is called the daughter of Babylon (Jer. 51:33), and Jerusalem is called the daughter of Zion (Lam. 1:6). Babylon is called the "virgin daughter of Babylon" in Isaiah (Isa. 47:1). Much of the imagery of Babylon the Great in Revelation chapter 18 is borrowed from this chapter in Isaiah. In Revelation however, the great city is never rferred to as a "girl" or "virgin", but only as a "woman" or "prostitute". For this raason, it is unlikely that the Greek word "abominations" (bdelugmatwn) is meant to be a play on words with betulot, the Hebrew word for "virgins".
In the Koran, Mecca is referred to as:
The word "Mystery" is not part of the Harlot's name and does not appear written upon her forehead. This can be deduced from the fact that the great city is always called Babylon the Great throughout the rest of Revelation. Furthermore, the angel tells the prophet that he will explain the mystery of both the Harlot and of the beast with seven heads. From these words can be deduced the fact that the mystery does not relate to the Harlot alone. The word "mystery" also appears throughout Revelation with no relation to the Harlot city.
Mecca is named al-Balad in the Koran. (Mecca is also called al-Balad, al-Baladah, and al Balad al-amin in the Koran.)
The title "Mother of Abominations (bdelugmatwn)" (Rev. 17:5) is wordplay on al-Balad. The name Al-Balad is being associated with bdelugma ("abomination"). Although Mecca is known as Umm al-Qura, and not Umm al-Bilad (Bilad is the plural of al-Balad), one can see that the Arabic word bilad is being used as a synonym for qura ("cities").
In the Bible, cities might be called a "harlot", "virgin daughter", or just "daughter". These are standard metaphors for a city. The word "abomination" is a standard dysphemism for a molten or graven image, or some other form of a pagan god. It is not a term used to describe a city. False gods, idols, and molten images are called "abominations" in the Old Testament. Originally, the Kaaba housed 360 idols, one of which was Allah, a pagan god, father of Al-Lat, Al-Uzza and Al-Manat.
In the Bible, names are commonly derived from words that may swap round some of the letters. For instance, Babylon (bavel B-B-L) is allegedly derived from the Hebrew word that means "to confuse", (balal B-L-L), despite the difference in root letters. In this instance, the difference in the order of consonants between BALAD (B-L-D) amd BDELUGMA (B-D-L), should be disregarded on the grounds that such inconsistencies are fairly standard in the Bible .
The first syllable of the Greek word for "abomination", bdelugma, is a pun on al-Balad. The Greek word bdella means "leech" in Greek. Mecca, full of the blood of the saints, is being compared to a leech in this prophecy. Like Babylon the Great, the proverbial leech has daughters too (Prov. 30:15 ).The word bdella ("leech") may also be a pun on the Greek word "queen" (basilissa, βασιλισσα).
And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus (Rev. 17:6).
Nine million Christians have been martyred by Islam. This figure does not include the 50 million who have died in wars by jihad.
Christians have faced increasing levels of persecution in the Muslim world. A report by Aid to the Church stated that the persecution of Christians is so severe that they are set to disappear completely from parts of the Middle East within a decade. A report commissioned by the British foreign secretaryv Jeremy Hunt and published in May 2019 stated that the persecution of Christians in the Middle East is so sever that it arguably comes close to meeting the international definition of genocide.
Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad (Gen. 11:4)
The Abraj Al-Bait (which means in Arabic the Towers of the House), also known as Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, is the fourth tallest building in the world and has the third largest amount of floor area. It towers over the Great Mosque of Mecca. The Abraj Al-Bait is a complex of seven skyscraper hotels. Again, the number seven is significant. The towers have large prayers rooms capable of holding more than 10,000 people. The main building is topped by a 23 metres high golden crescent. The building was built after the demolition of the Ajyad Fortress, an Ottoman citadel, sited on Bulbul Mountain, s spur of Jebel Kuda. The fortress was demolished in 2002 and most of Bulbul mount was levelled. The bulbul is a kind of bird, but the similarity of this word to the Hebrew word for "confusion" (bilbul) is striking.
The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated (Rev. 17:9)
Islam is seated on the seven fallen kingdoms represented by the heads of the Beast.These are the seven mountains.
The seven mountains are those peoples and nations who were formerly subjects of the seven kingdoms represented by the seven heads of the Beast who are now the ummah.
The Harlot represents not just Mecca in fact, but Islam in general. As the maps below shows so vividly, the main centres of Islam are in the areas of the world that have been encompassed within the empires of the seven kingdoms of the Beast. The only exceptions to this rule are Indonesia and Saudi Arabia itself. The countries with the greatest density of Muslims are those in North Africa, Mesopotamia, Saudi Arabia and Central Asia.
The Babylonian and Medo-Persian Empires ruled over the whole of Mesopotamia which is now Islamic. Alexander the Great conquered all these lands, including most of Central Asia. Much of the Balkans is under Islam, the former territory of the Macedonian kings. The Ptolemies ruled over Egypt and the Seleucids over Syria, both are now Islamic countries. The Romans conquered the whole of the northern part of Africa that bordered the Mediterranean, and now these countries are under Islam. As can be seen from the map above, France has a notably high percentage of Muslims. In time, more of Western Europe is likely to fall under Islam to the extent that the whole of the former Roman Empire may have a very high percentage of Muslims. Those who do not submit to Islam may either be killed, or suffer dhimmitude and have to pay taxes to avoid being killed. The Ottoman Empire was partly responsible spreading Islam over these lands, being an Islamic empire.
Around fifteen per cent of the Russian population itself are Muslims. Other member states of the CIS (the Beast and the Ten Kings) are Islamic (such as Turkmenistan and Tajikstan).
Babylon is called a mountain (Jer. 51:25). These seven mountains are not therefore literal mountains, but metaphorical mountains. The fact that many of the seven kingdoms overlapped each other in terms of territory therefore is not significant, for the seven mountains are a concept rather than actual geographical reality.
These seven mountains constitute the land that Islam will be seated upon in the days of the Beast. Islam may suffer from a false sense of security being seated on these seventh mountains, but the Beast will hate Islam and destroy it.
Each mountain is represented by one of the heads of the Dragon, as if the Great City is seated on the Dragon itself. Her seat on the Red Dragon/Red Beast is an indication of the satanic nature of this city. It is no wonder that in her is found the blood of the saints.
Alexander conquered the lands of the first two heads of the Beast, the Babylonian Empire and the Medo-Persian Empire. These first two empires correspond to the first two of the five mountains upon which Babylon the Great is currently seated.The third, fourth and fifth heads of the Beast (the Hellenistic kingdoms) divided up the huge empire of Alexander between them. The Harlot is now seated upon these three mountains too (Macedonia, Syria, Egypt). The sixth kingdom, the Roman Empire, conquered the land of the three Hellenistic kingdoms and extended its empire into Western Europe and Northern Africa, lands that had not been conquered by Alexander. Many of these new lands have since become dar-al-Islam too. However, most of Europe and the lands of the seventh “king”, the former Soviet Empire, are yet to fall to Islam completely and currently remain dar-al-harb. The sixth and seventh “mountains” therefore are only partially subject to Islam at the present time.
the great harlot, who is seated upon many waters (Rev. 17:1)
The waters upon which the Harlot is seated equate to the seven mountains because she is seated upon them both.
The interpreting angel informs us that the many waters upon which the Harlot is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues (Rev. 17:15). From this can it can be inferred that the seven mountains also refer to peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues, in particular to those peoples who were once subjects of the seven kingdoms represented by the Beast's heads. These peoples are the ummah. Islam has spread over a huge part of the world. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, forming a fifth of the total world population.
During the hajj several million Muslims from all over the world, with their different languages, nationalities and cultures, congregate at Mecca. People also visit Mecca during the lesser pilgrimage, the umrah, which can take place at any time of the year. Today, more than 15 million Muslims visit Mecca annually.
The Muslim World League, a federation of Muslim countries, has fifty members. Of these, twenty-two are Arabic-speaking countries.
The main Islamic countries are found in North Africa, the Middle East, Indonesia, and Central Asia, but many other countries have large Muslim populations.
And they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote upon it an inscription, like the engraving of a signet "Holy to Jehovah". And they tied to it a lace of blue, to fasten it on the turban (Ex. 39:30, 31)
With words enscribed on her forehead, the Harlot city is being compared unfavourably with the High Priest. Babylon the Great's attire is similar to that of the High Priest, and just as the High Priest wears a plate of gold on his forehead which has an inscription, so the Harlot has an inscription on her forehead. It should be noted that the Greek for Babylon, Βαβυλων, sounds very similar to the Greek word for "profane": βεβηλον.
Theh words on the High Priest's crown reads "Holy to the Lord". The name Babylon in effect means "Profane".
Babylon the Great is profane and unholy, but the High Priest should be holy (Lev. 21:12). The priests must be ceremonially clean in order to perform their duties. Priests cannot marry a divorced woman or a prostitute. A High Priest must marry a virgin. No descendant of Aaron with even a blemish can offer the offerings. The contents of the golden cup in the hand of the Harlot is full of abominations and uncleanness. These things are in total violation of the sanctity expected of the High Priest with whom Babylon the Great is being compared. The great city is not fit for priesthood.
Reference to the Harlot's forehead recalls the verse in Jeremiah:
you have the brow of a harlot, you refuse to be ashamed (Jer. 3:3).
And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the harlot… (Rev. 17:16)
The Ten Horns and the Beast will hate Islam and will destroy her.
behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads (Rev. 12:3)
That each hill upon which Islam (Babylon the Great) is seated should be represented by a head of the Red Dragon indicates how closely this city is associated with Satan. The city and the Red Dragon are almost as one. The great city Babylon the Great is thus of a satanic nature.
One should not be surprised to find that in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth (Rev. 18:24).
the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth (Rev. 17:18)
Jihad is carried out in order to achieve the ultimate goal of Islam, which is to establish Islamic authority over the whole world. As Mark A. Gabriel explains:
Islam is not just a religion; it is a government, too. That is why it always gets down to politics. Islam teaches that Allah is the only authority; therefore, political systems must be based on Allah's teaching and nothing else. There is no separation of religion and state in the ordinary Muslim mind-set. It is the very essence of Islam to take control of earthly structures. Power and prestige must be gained at all costs.
A caliphate is an Islamic state under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph a person considered a politico-religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the entire ummah (Muslim community). Historically, the caliphates were polities based on Islam which developed into multi-ethnic trans-national empires. During the mediaeval period, three major caliphates succeeded each other: the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate. The fourth major caliphate, the Ottoman Caliphate, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire claimed caliphal authority from 1517.
According to Islam, Jesus was a prophet of Allah who taught Islam and who prophesied the coming of Muhammad (Surah 61:6).
The Koran teaches that Jesus did not rise from dead, but was taken directly up to heaven. Islamic scholars are in agreement on one issue: he was not crucified. They believe he either survived the crucifixion, or ascended alive into heaven. Where there has been no death, there can be no resurrection from the dead. The Koran implicitly denies that Jesus rose from the dead. Speaking about the Jews, the Koran says:
That they said [in boast], We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah; but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no [certain] knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not: Nay, Allah raised him up unto himself; and Allah is exalted in power, wise. (Sura 4:157-8; Yusuf Ali)
Islam does not acknowledge Jesus as a saviour, and do not acknowledge his death as a ransom. Muslims do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God or that he was born to save us from our sins. Muslims still sacrifice animals at Eid at the end of the Hajj. Muslims do not believe in original sin, but believe that God forgave Adam and Eve, who were reunited on the plain of Ararat. Muslims believe they can receive total forgiveness if they are found on the Mount of Mercy (Mount Arafat) on the correct day.
The Koran says that Islam came before Judaism and Christianity and that it was the religion practiced by Abraham. The Koran states that the Jews corrupted the books:
A party of them (Jewish rabbis) used to hear the Word of Allah [the Taurat (Torah)], then they used to change it knowingly after they understood it. (Surah 2:75).
This made it necessary for Allah to send the Koran. Muhammad taught that Christians removed reference of the comingof Muhammad from the scriptures.
The Koran perverts many of the biblical stories to such an extent that they barely resemble the original story found in the Bible.
Muhammad washed his followers' swords, Jesus their feet. Muhammad personally led 27 battles. He also sent his army out 47 times without him. Within four years of Muhammad's death, roughly a third of a million Christians were slaughtered. Over the next ten years another million were killed. Within one hundred years of the birth of Islam, half of global Christianity was under Islam.
Muslims believe that the only way to know for sure that you will get into Paradise is to die in jihad, fighting the enemy of Islam.
Many of the milder verses found in the Koran have been cancelled out by the Islamic doctrine of Naskh: where there is a contradiction, new revelations override previous. If a verse is nasikh (overridden), it is as if that verse does not even exist.
The Koran states:
When you meet the unbelievers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and, when you have laid them low, bind your captives firmly (47:4)
Surah 9:5, known as the verse of the sword, cancelled out previous verses:
Fight and slay the Pagans wherever you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
Sixty per cent of the Koranic verses talk about jihad, the driving force of Islam.
Millions of Christians have been martyred by Islam over the centuries, and even now Christians are being beheaded throughout the world for refusing to submit to Islam.Also I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus (Rev. 20:4)
The Greek words Babylon the Great appear only once in the Septuagint (Dan. 4:20), in the chapter where King Nebuchadnezzar aggrandizes himself in his own eyes when he beholds the glory of Babylon.
The prophet Jeremiah describes Babylon as the "hammer" of the whole earth (Jer. 51:20-23), an appropriate term for Islam given its conquest over so many nations and lands. The Muslim conquerors were like a hammer too, destroying all the nations around them who would not submit to Islam.
The fate of Babylon the Great in Revelation echoes the fate of the Babylon of Belshazzar. Just as Jeremiah ordered Seraiah to bind a stone to the book containing his prophecies against Babylon and to throw it into the midst of the Euphrates (Jer. 51:63), so an angel takes up a great stone and throws it into the sea to represent the violence with which Babylon the Great shall be thrown down (Rev. 18:21).
Like Babylon the Great, Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon was seated on many waters:
O ye who dwells by many waters. (Jer. 51:13)
Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel, as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth. (Jer. 51:49)
clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, bedecked with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! (Rev. 18:16)
Islam is a counterfeit to the true religion which is why the Harlot's attire reflects the Jewish priestly colors of scarlet, purple, and gold. The garments worn by Babylon the Great are similar to that of a High Priest whose breastplate of judgement is made of gold, blue and purple and scarlet stuff, and fine twined linen (Ex. 28:15). Also made out of these same materials were the High Priest's girdle, his ephod, and the stitched pomegranates on his garments. Many of the items for the tabernacle were made out of similar materials: the curtains of the tabernacle, the veil of the temple, the hanging for the door of the tent with lampstands, the hanging for the gate of the court and the cloths of service. It is fitting that Babylon the Great is described in terms befitting that of a High Priest because Islam declares that it is the only true religion. It wishes to replace Judaism and Christianity, and destroy all remnants of these religions. Mecca has set itself up as a replacement to the Temple in Jerusalem, with Muslims having to pray in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca (the qibla) instead of towards Jerusalem. It is appropriate therefore that Mecca is compared to Temple through the description of the Harlot's attire, for Mecca has taken upon herself the attributes of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Zamzam well in Mecca is like the river of the water of life (Rev. 22:2).
Just as nothing unclean shall enter, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood” the New Jerusalem (Rev.21:27), so no non-Muslim can enter Mecca or Medina.
Kaaba means cube in Arabic. The holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven has the dimensions of a cube too (Rev. 21:16)
The New Jerusalem is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21:2). The Kaaba too is described in a similar way, with its veil compared to that of a woman. During Hajj the huge black drape is lifted. Similarly, on Hajj, women must unveil their faces.