The Quraysh as Descendants of Onias IV

By Ben Abrahamson

Levi was, in the Book of Genesis, both a person and an idea. In the following chapters, we examine the Levites and the subclan of the Cohen-Priests. It was the character of the Levites and Cohens that were embodied in Pinchas, Eliyahu, Al Khidr and Shimon HaTzadik, and we propose here, the Quraysh.

The Zadokite priests were descended from Levi through Pinchas. They served as high priests since David's reign until the Maccabees. They had a much greater world view about redemption. And the commentaries say that their priesthood will return in the end of days.

The Zadokite priests were based on a second Cohen lineage, descendants of Jethro, who were chased out of Jerusalem due to their acceptance of Hellenism. We discuss how they fled to Egypt and survived in an out of the way altar in Arabia, with a line of priests there who tried to make a new Jerusalem.

Herein we explore the possibility that one of the ancestors of the Quraysh was the High Priest Onias IV, that Islam inherited Ptolemaic thought, and that the Ka'aba may be the "monument in the border of Egypt" of Isaiah 19:19.

Muhammad (pbuh) of course did not have a Jewish mother, but his family had deep connection to Judaism and herein we try to describe the family he was born into. We discuss how the priesthood in Makkah had devolved into a sham, with Cohens (kahins) nothing more than soothsayers. The Prophet (pbuh) abolished it, in favor of a simpler Abrahamic (Noahide) faith. And it is no wonder that as he was dismantling their system, he was opposed by the Sadducean Jews and Oniad Quraysh.

We are delighted to make available The Quraysh as Descendants of Onias IV to our students as part of our history trilogy series that reconstructs the long term, historical context of the rise of Islam and the identities of the participants:
1) The Quraysh as Descendants of Onias IV (350 BCE)
2) Yosef Dhu Nuwas: A Sadducean King with Sidelocks (500 CE)
3) The Persian compared with the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem (614 and 638 CE)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0CZ45QHZ9
• ISBN13: 9798320904498
• Release Date: March 2024
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 444 Pages
• Weight: 1.69 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.0" x 10.0"