Does Ramadan, the holy month of Islam when Muslims are commanded not to eat, drink, and abstain from sex from sunrise to sunset for 30 or 29 days based on the lunar calendar have pagan roots? This might sound like a big claim to most Muslims and even to some non-Muslims, but it’s a mere historical fact.
Ramadan and Eid al Fitr do not originate from Judaism or Christianity. They both originate from Harran, up north in southern Iraq, from the worship of the moon god Sin.
The Sabians are divided into two groups, the Mandeans and the Harranians. The Mandaeans are polytheists that have been living in Iraq since the 2 AD. (There’s still a few of them left until this day that Islam hasn’t succeeded in exterminating through forced conversions or military force.)
The second group, the Harranians, were moon worshippers that worshipped the moon god Sin/Nanna as their main deity along with other deities. Both groups practised Ramadan before Prophet Muhammad was born. Sin, (Akkadian), Sumerian Nanna, in Mesopotamian religion, the god of the moon. Sin was the father of the sun god, Shamash (Sumerian: Utu), and, in some myths, of Ishtar (Sumerian: Inanna), goddess of Venus, and with them formed an astral triad of deities.
Nanna, the Sumerian name for the moon god, may have originally meant only the full moon, whereas Su-en, later shortened to Sin, designated the crescent moon. Just like Islam, the Harranians considered their god to be “greaer than others”
The story of the Harranian Ramadan is much more interesting than the plagiarised Islamic one. Dr Bayard Dodge, in page 78 of his book The Sabians of Harran explains that mythological origins of Harran’s worship of the moon explained the disappearance of the moon after it joined with the star cluster, Pleiades, in the zodiac of Taurus. It happened during the third week of March. The people prayed to the moon, pleading for its return to the city of Harran, but the moon refused to return. This is believed to be the explanation for why they fasted during this month. The moon did not promise to return to Harran, but it did promise to return to Deyr Kadi, a temple near one of the gates of the city of Harran. The worshippers of Sin/Nanna went to Deyr Kadi after this month to celebrate and to welcome the return of the moon.
According to 10th-century historian Ibn al-Nadim, the Harranians called the feast ”al-Feter” الفطر, the same name by which the feast of Islamic Ramadan is called, عيد الفطر ”Feast of al-Feter”. (Ibn Al Nadim, al-Fahrisit, page 319)
The last Ummayad Caliph, Marwan II (744-750) built his palace on the ruined site of the temple of Sin in Harran.
YouTube video:https://youtu.be/cXSxOYSNDaA
Content courtesy of:
1.https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sin-Mesopotamian-god
2. https://skepticmohamed.com/the-pagan-origins-of-ramadan/