ANCIENT NUPE MONOTHEISM

ANCIENT NUPE MONOTHEISM

By Ndagi Abdullahi

The Theory of Evolution has come to colour and affect the entire worldview of Western scholarship today. Everything that Western scholarship talks about or investigates today is portrayed in evolutionary terms and perspectives, namely, from the point of view that the present is better than the past; that the past is primitive and that the present is advanced.

And so is it that even religion and spiritualism have come to be interpreted in evolutionary perspectives by modern Western scholarship. The claim of Western scholarship today is that religion – and the very concept of God itself – is an evolutionary phenomenon that has been evolving and advancing over the aeons. It is assumed by modern Western scholarship that ancient people were so primitive their very concept of religion and God were inchoate and childish.

Modern Western scholarship, with its evolutionist perspectives, is of the claim that in ancient times the people who invented religion were so primitive they couldn’t conceptualize an Almighty God and that intead they invented the idea of many gods or polytheism. In other words Western scholarship is simply telling us that religion was invented by primitive man and was not revealed by God and that the primitive man was at such an unevolved stage of the evolutionary process when he invented religion that he was only able to come up with polytheism then.

Western scholarship is of the claim that it was only when the idea of religion gradually evolved over the aeons and ages that man was eventually able to come up with the concept of monotheism or an Almighty God. It was after inventing an Almighty God that man was able to finally reject the idea of polytheism.

So is it today that we are being told by crack professors and academicians of Western breedings that ancient man was so primitive his mind could not visualize a monotheistic God and that primitive man could only believe in polytheism. And with this baseless assertion Western scholarship has been desperately trying to convince us that all ancient religions, ‘primitive religons’ as they call them, were polytheistic.

Western scholars and academicians have been foolhardly trying to tell us that in the beginning all religions were polytheistic and that it was only with time and after some evolutionary advancement that some religions are today able to eventually incorporate the concept of monotheism into their theology.

The case of Judaism as a showcase has become classic. Western scholars will always bunt us with the ‘Elohim’ Biblical verses from the Old Testament whereby a plural form of the Hebrew word for god is used in reference to the God of the Israelites instead of the singular ‘Eloah’ and then these scholars will try to convince us that the reason for this was that the Isrealites were initially a polytheistic people and that it was when their religion evolved and advanced that the Isrealites were able to come up with monotheism and finally addressed their God as Yahweh.

The subtle point most people are failing to notice here is that the claim of the Western scholar is that religion is artificial and not revealed – that religion was invented by man and not revealed by God. If religion was invented by man, then Western scholarship would further like us to believe that religion was originally invented by primitive men when man was still at the evolutionary stage whereby his mind was able to conceptualize god only in polytheistic terms.

We are therefore and subtly being made to believe today that all religions started as polytheistic religions and that all religions evolve over the time and that it was only those religions that were able to evolve from the polytheistic unto the monotheistic stages that were able to survive into modern times.

The Western scholar wants us to believe that all the religions we see in the world today as monotheistic faiths were originally polytheistic religions. This, of course, will be very difficult to prove with the case of Islam which was founded by Prophet Muhammad who was strictly monotheistic right from the beginning of his mission. And just as is the case with Islam, but for the Trinity complexity, it will also be very difficult to prove that Christianity was originally a polytheistic faith that eventually evolved into a monotheistic faith.

The truth of the matter is that the ancient peoples were not primitive and they were not so stupid or so feeble-minded as to have been unable to ‘invent’ a monotheistic Almighty God.

In the first place we should mark the fact that ancient mankind was not primitive or stupid as Western scholarship is trying to tell us today. The Semitic scriptures – including the Bible and and Qur’an for instance – made it very clear to us that the first human being, Adam, was not a cave-dwelling, hunter-gatherer primitive idiot as Western scholarship, with its Theory of Evolution drivel is trying to make us believe today.

The Hadith Prophetic Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad in Islam even went the extra step of informing us that Adam, the first human being, was a prophet – in other words Adam the first human being was not an ordinary human being like modern human beings like you and me; Adam the first human being was a human being far higher by all standards than modern human beings. So, and if anything at all, human beings must have devolved from the time of Prophet Adam to modern human beings rather than evolved from the time of Prophet Adam to modern human beings. Please read my books – including ‘The Theory of Devolution’ and ‘Prophet Adam’ – for details on this interesting topic.

Ancient humanity was not primitive or un-evolved. Ancient human beings were highly advanced socioculturally and scientifically. Many actually had cultures and civilizations that were far advanced higher than modern Western civilization.

And ancient people were not generally and overwhelmingly polytheistic as modern Western scholarship is trying to convince us. The religions of the ancient peoples were generally monotheistic religions and it was only modern Western scholarship that came to wrongly paint them as being polytheistic.

The Spirits
In all parts of the world ancient people didn’t practice polytheism the way Western scholars are mischievously trying to tell us today. Most of the religions that are condemned as polytheistic today were never polytheistic religion in their days.

The ancients believed in a world or realm of spiritual beings who are divinely higher than human beings but lesser than God Almighty. This realm of divine beings included the angels, the daemons, the good Jinns, the ancestral shades representing the spirits of the departed human saints, the unattached spirits of the dead people, and so on an on.

This pantheon of divine spirits is what modern Western scholarship have refused to recognise or believe in and have consequently gone on to accuse the ancients of worshipping ‘lesser gods’ or a ‘multiplicity of gods’ which they termed polytheism.

But the truth is that it is the modern Western scholar who is primitive and stupid for failing to recognize the existence of these spiritual beings some of which are really partly divine beings but of far lesser divinity than God Almighty who created all of them in the first place.

It is a primitive and feeble mind that will fail to perceive the existence of an extra-metaphysical realm qualified by spiritual dimensions. And since the Western mind has failed to perceive this spiritual realm then it is the Western scholar who is feeble-minded and actually primitive.

Ancient peoples from all parts of the world were mostly far more advanced in metaphysical and spiritual matters and issues than modern mankind. Ancient peoples were not polytheists worshipping other gods apart from Almighty God as modern Western scholarship is mischievously telling us today.

The Lost Science of Spiritual Communication
Just because ancient peoples recognize the existence of spiritual beings like the angels, the Jinns, the ancestral shades, doesn’t mean that the ancient peoples were polytheists worshipping the angels, the Jinns, the ancestral shades, and so on and on as Western scholarship is wrongly telling us today.

The ancients knew that the spirit realm exists and that the spiritual beings – including the angels, the Jinns, the ancestral shades, and even our own selves – live in this spiritual realm. The ancients were in possession of ancient spiritual sciences that enable them to communicate with these spirit realm and these spiritual beings. Communicating with the spiritual realm and the spiritual beings is not tantamount to worshipping the spiritual beings.

But because modern Western culture and Western civilization have lost this ancient science of how to communicate with the spirit realm and the spiritual beings, modern Western scholarship have come to mischievously condemn this science as fetishism, polytheism or outright idolatry.

Everywhere the White man went during the Age of Discovery and the Age of Exploration towards the end of the Medieval Era and on the eve of this Modern Era, the White man condemned all indigenous cultures and religions in all parts of the world outside Europe as ‘fetishism’, ‘shamanis’, ‘animism’, ‘idolatry’ or ‘polytheism’. But the ancient peoples were not polytheists or idolaters as Western scholarship is wrongly telling us today. The truth is that the White man was almost always wrong on all these occasions.

Africans were not Fetishists
When the White man arrive Africa he immediately condemned all ancient African religions as being primitive and polytheistic and all religious practices of our African ancestors as fetishism. But our African people were not primitive polytheists stooped in fetishism as the White man came and wrongly branded them.

The ancient religions of the African peoples were advanced religions and supremely spiritual systems that perfected the science of spiritual communication. But the White man came and condemned ancient African religions and spiritual systems as fetishism, polytheism and idolatery while at the same time portraying our ancient African ancestors as primitive idiots who could not conceive or fathom advanced monotheistics concepts.

The truth, however, is that all ancient African peoples have been monotheitics right from the begininning. All African peoples from all the nooks and corners of the African continent have invariably believed in the existence of the monotheistic Almighty God right from the beginning. No African people have ever believed in the existence of a polytheistic pantheon of lesser gods to the exclusion of the existence the Almighty God that modern religions are talking about today.

Our ancient African ancestors were not idiots or imbeciles who couldn’t fathom the existence of a monotheistic Almighty God. If anything at all it was the Black African Negro who first came up with the idea of an Almighty God far supreme above the spiritual beings and divinities we call the angels, the Jinns, the ancestral shades, and so on today.

Our ancient African ancestors never equated these divine spiritual beings with God Almighty. In fact our African ancestors made it very clear that it was God almighty who created the spirit realm and its constitiuent spiritual beings like the angels, the Jinns and the ancestral shades.

The Ibos, for instance, were never a polytheistic people. They monoteistically worshipped Almighty God as Chukwu. This Chukwu is the same as the God the Father of Christianity, Yahweh of Judaism and Allah of Islam.

But the Ibos also recognized the existence of many divine spirits that were closer to Chukwu than mortal man. And the Ibos communicated – through rituals and libations – with these divine spirits who the White man refers to as the lesser gods. Whether divine spirits or lesser gods or whatever you call them the Ibos never worshipped these spirits as Chukwu the Almighty God.

Neither were our ancient Nupe ancestors polytheists.

The ancient Nupe people were not polytheists as is being wrongly claimed by modern Western scholarship today. The ancient Nupe people were monotheists who believed in a Supreme God variously referred to as Soko, Gidi, Ginu, Gunnu, Yisa, Etsa, etc, etc, by the various Nupe subtribes.

Almighty God was also addressed with divine epithets notable among which, of course, is Ndaduma. This epithet, Ndaduma, was more or less like a nickname for God Almighty among the Nupe people when they don’t want to call him directly as Soko, Gidi, Ginu, Gunnu, Yisa, Etsa, etc, etc.

The Cult of the Ndaduma is centred on the worship of this Almighty God as the Supreme Creator of the whole of Creation.

The Soko or Gidi or Ginu Almighty God of the ancient Nupe peoples is, of course, the same as the Almighty God of the modern world religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc, ec.

Below God Almighty the ancient Nupe people believed in a pantheon of lesser deities called the Nusa, Nyiza or Nyizagi and the Eba, Ebagi, Bagi or Gbagi. These lesser deities are usually considered to be the departed souls of the ancestral shades and deceased Etsu Nupes.

The Nyizagi, Nyiza, Nyisa or Nusa are the same that are known among the Yorubas as the Onisa or Orisha.

And the Nupe lesser deities of the Nusa or Nyizagi or Bagi or Gbagyi deities are the same that are identified in the Semitic religions as the ilahs, angels, deamons or saints.

Just the way the Muslims and the Christians don’t worship the angels or the daemons or the saints so also was it that the ancient Nupe people did not worshipped the Nusa, Nyiza, Bagi or Gbagi lesser deities. They simply saw these lesser deities as intermediaries – the way some Muslims sects and Christian denominations see the saints or archangels as intermediaries – between them and God Almighty.

At no time in the past did the Nupe people worship a multiplicity of gods the way Western scholarship trying to wrongly tell us today. The Nupe people were never polytheists and never worshipped many gods even before the advent of the monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Islam.

Today we are so used to thinking that our Nupe and African ancestors were primitive imbeciles and even outright idiots. It is so unfortunate that Nupe people and Africans in general will believe that their ancestors were primitive imbeciles until the Europeans and the Arabians came and civilize them. This is what is known as mental slavery. We are still mentally enslaved to the Euroepans and the Arabians.

We are not aware of the fact that the Nupe people and the Africans used to be a cultured and civilized people at a time when the Europeans were primitive imbeciles. Just some six hundred years ago when the Europeans were still living their medieval or Middle Ages and the there were highly advanced cultures and civilizations here in Central KinNupe and several other parts of Africa.

The first Europeans, the Portuguese, to visit the Benin kingdom, which was a Nupe kingdom, in the 14th century rightly observed that the architecture, town planning and other social amenities of Benin city were far more advanced than that of Lisbon, London and many other European cities.

The Portuguese documented the fact that in those days the Edo Benin people were a Nupe people and their religion was not a polytheistic one. The Nupe people were never a polytheistic people. The Nupe people have always been a monotheistic people from time immemorial.