Ra IZ Allah Status Quaestionis Report

For the Rigorous Historical-Critical Study of Religion
Status quaestionis report # 4
By Wesley Muhammad, PhD

April 20, 2015
Copyright 2015
Series:
Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep
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Dr. Wesley Muhammad is an Historian of Religion. He

earned a Bachelors degree in Religious Studies from
Morehouse College (1994), as well as a Masters degree
(2003) and PhD (2008) in Islamic/Near Eastern Studies from
the University of Michigan. Dr. Muhammads work has
been published in several renowned peer-reviewed journals,
including International Journal of Middle East Studies,
Journal of the American Oriental Society, and American
Journal of Islamic Social Sciences. Dr. Muhammad has
contributions in: Islam (SAGE Benchmarks in Religious
Studies), 4 vols. (Sage Publications Ltd., 2010), in Volume 2:
Islamic Thought, Law, and Ethics, ed. Mona Siddiqui;
Muhammad in History, Thought and Culture: An
Encyclopedia of the Prophet of God, ed. Coell Fitzptrick and
Adam Walker (2 vols.; ABC-CLIO, 2014); Runoko Rashidi,
African Star Over Asia: The Black Presence in the East
(London: Books of Africa Limited, 2012). Dr. Muhammad
has further taught Religious Studies/Islamic Studies at: the
University of Michigan, the University of Toledo and
Michigan State University.
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For Mature Audiences Only

This Report is Part I of my response to Asar Imhoteps 2013 critical review or attempted
refutation of my 2009 work, Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam, specifically a
particular claim that I made therein. Imhoteps critical review is very lengthy and robust: over
80 pages dense with linguistic theorizing. My response of necessity is equally lengthy and
robust with a heavy indulgence in historical linguistics. This ensures that, unfortunately, this
Report will be no easy read for those unfamiliar with the field of linguistics and its jargon. I
apologize up front. But because the matters on which Imhotep and I are at variance are
linguistic matters, there is no avoiding this difficulty for the reader. Language and linguistics,
like higher mathematics, is Big Boy and Big Girl stuff. This Report is thus for mature audiences
only. The consolation is this: if you have read and were able to follow Imhoteps critical review
then you should have little difficulty reading this Report.
This Report will be issued in two parts. Part I is a Deconstructive Analysis of Imhoteps
critique. Here I highlight some of the merits of Imhoteps work, but also and in great detail the
many academic problems with it: the methodological issues, the data issues, etc. Here not only
are many of Imhoteps conclusions impeached, but his scholarly license to even engage the
subjects that he has and in the way that he has appears, well, counterfeit. It should not be
concluded from this, however, that Imhoteps critique has no value at all. Despite its many
documented problems, this critique by Imhotep actually has made an important contribution to
the overall discourse. There are points of his critique that I concede, and thus my personal
consideration of these matters have benefited from Imhoteps contribution. Part II of this Report
is a Constructive Analysis. Here I document in much detail the linguistic origin of the Egyptian
God Rah (R) and the Semitic God Allah (Aah). I demonstrate that, contra Imhotep, these two are
dialectical variants of the same deity. In other words, Rah IZ Allah, still.
Throughout the text of this Report lengthy block quotes from my previous works are in
blue, while block quotes from Imhoteps works are in red. This is to help the reader keep
his/her bearings while reading and not lose track of whose speaking.
This Report is the first publication in a Series I have called Black Arabia Strikes Back.
This Series will feature my responses to several scholarly critiques of my work. Below are just
some of the upcoming publications in this Series:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Kaba and Ka and Ba? Response to Asar Imhotep

Atum, the Primordial Hermaphrodite? Response to Shaka Ahmose
Exposing the Myth of a Slave-Free Kemet: Response to Jonathan Owens (RapGod)
Prophet Muhammad: Black or Sun-kissed White According to the Classical Arabic
Tradition? Response to Waqar Akbar Cheema & Abdul Rahman Al-Romaani
(Gabriel Keresztes)
And more, in sha Allah.
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Introduction
I.
Rah is not Allah?
In my 2009 publication Black Arabia and the African

Origin of Islam I advanced a novel argument: that the wellknown Egyptian sun god Rah (R) actually originated across
(east of) the Red Sea in Afrabia (i.e. Black Arabia) and that the
name of this deity was in fact an Egyptianization of the ProtoSemitic (=Ah).1 My argument was based on the
following: (1) the late documented appearance of Rah in
Egyptian records (Third Dynasty reign of Djoser, 2635-2610
BCE or Fifth Dynasty 2400-2300 BCE)2; (2) the possibility that
the center of Rahs worship in Egypt, the city Annu (Greek
Heliopolis), was actually founded by Black Arabain
migrants (Anu)3; and (3) the linguistic convergence of the
Proto-Semitic and Egyptian names. In this last regard, I said
in 2009:
The following is the hieroglyph for Rah:
The disk, stroke and crouching figure are all determinatives. The only glyphs with phonetic value are thus :
Wesley Muhammad, Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam (Atlanta: A-Team Publishing) 110-122.
Rah is mentioned in the Third Dynasty during the reign of Djoser (2635-2610 BCE) but he doesnt come into prominence until the
Pyramid Texts deriving from the Fifth Dynasty and which date to around 2400-2300 BCE. The earliest texts, those found in the tomb
of Unis of the Fifth Dynasty, dates to ca. 2353-2323 BCE. See James P. Allen and Peter Der Manuelian, The Ancient Egyptian
Pyramid Texts (Leiden: Brill, 2005) 1. Hesy-Rah, the physician and scribe during the reign of Pharaoh Djoser (r. 2635-2610 BCE) has
the phonetic spelling of Rah in his name. The Second Dynasty Pharaohs name Raneb (2852-2813 BC) could be read either as The
Lord is Rah or Lord of the Sun. But the inscription on his serekh features the sun-disk, not the phonetic Rah. At that period the
sun was identified with Atum and Heru. See Rudolf Anthes, Egyptian Theology in the Third Millennium B.C., JNES 18 (1959):
181.
3 See arguments and evidences in Muhammad, Black Arabia, 58-64,
1
2
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The first glyph, the open mouth

, is the Egyptian r, but it also doubles as l when translating or
transliterating foreign words that include an l. Because Old Egyptian did not possess an l phonetic value,4
when receiving foreign words that do, the foreign l is converted to the Egyptian
. The second
glyph, the forearm

transliterated as , is a strong guttural sound like Arabic ayn or ah sound,
equivalent to the Proto-Semitic , ah. Rahs name thus possesses the same two phonemes as does the name
of the Semitic solar deity, .
From these considerations I assumed then that Afrabian (i.e. African Arabian) Semites
introduced the Black Arabian sun-god called (pronounced Ah) into the Egyptian pantheon,
which name was subsequently Egyptianized as R (=Rah) through a process of rhoticization (= the
change of the into an r) and metathesis (the switching places of the first (C1) and second (C2)
consonants, thus R > R). My conclusion was therefore two-fold: 1.) Rah is Allah or, more
specifically the Egyptian Rah is the Proto-Semitic Allah and 2.) Rah came to Egypt from Afrabia
as Allah and then Egyptianized, becoming Rah. These two conclusions were based on
linguistic as well as history of religions considerations.
My Rah is Allah thesis has recently been submitted to a lengthy critical review by
Asar Imhotep (2013), who rejects the two claims advanced
by me in 2009.5 After an extensive, largely linguistic
exploration of the Egyptian Rah and Semitic Allah in the
context of African (primarily what he calls KongoSaharan) linguistic tradition, Imhotep contends that Rah
was instead an indigenous name and concept of the
Egyptian people, arguing: it is our contention that R
was a native concept which used a lexeme inherited from
its predialectical parent and there was no Egyptianizing a
Semitic term and concept.6 Further, as if to turn my
argument on its head, Imhotep suggests that the name Allah
was itself indigenous to Egypt.
After reviewing the data as presented by Wesley Muhammad
(2009), I am not convinced that Allah (of Arabia) = Ra (the sun-god of
Egypt) or that Allah was an import into Egypt from Arabiaall
associations of Allah, including his very name, are indigenous to
Egypt and Africa as a whole.7
He elaborates:
Contrary to Islamic beliefs, the so-called proto-Semitic * god, deity is not an exclusively Semitic word
for the Divine. This term is older than Afro-Asiatic and is found in many world languages. The -l- root,
without the aid of the Arabs or Hebrews in Africa, was already a staple term associated with the Divine.8
But cf. Mohamed Garba, Ancient Egyptian Lateral /L/: Evidence for the Reduction, Deletion and Persistence of the Egyptian
Vulture Sign as /L/, unpublished doctoral thesis. Temple University, 1998.
5 Asar Imhotep, AALUJA: Rescue, Reinterpretation & the Restoration of Major Ancient Egyptian Themes, Vol. I (San Antonio:
MOCHA-Versity Press, 2013) chapters 1 and 2 (Did The God Ra Derive From Arabia? An Examination of Wesley Muhammads
claim in Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam).
6 Imhotep, AALUJA, 44.
4
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In contrast to my suggestion that Semitic Allah () and Egyptian Rah (R) are etymologically
related, Imhotep claims that they are distinct and unrelated: Rah the sun god is contrasted with
Allah the rain god, according to Imhotep:
It is our argument that R (primarily), as the sun-god, derives from a word r sun (< fire)The Semitic God
Allah is primarily associated with rainthe god Ra and Alah of the Semites belong to two different roots;
and by having two different roots, there are ultimately two different conceptualizations for each
representative term. The name Ra in Egyptian, associated with the sun-god, ultimately derives from a word
for fire and it is the concept of fire and its radiating light that is at the center of this association. However, the
name Allah derives from a root that means sky and it ultimately derives from a more ancient root that means
length, top, distanceAllah is an old Arabian rain-god that was demythologized during the Muhammadian
revolution as to hide His pagan origins.9
The two deities, Rah and Allah, therefore have no relation. We will demonstrate in Part II that
Imhotep is wrong.
RAH IZ ALLAH, STILL
According to the British scholar and Aryanist Laurence Austine Waddell (d. 1938) the
word for sun, bright, Sun-god in Sumerian cuneiform was ra.10 Ra is in fact the genitive case
in Sumerian for DINGER, God. Sir Henry C. Rawlinson (d. 1895), the Father of Assyriology
who contributed so much to the decipherment of cuneiform, suggested an Egyptian origin of
this Sumerian Ra sun and further reveals that the Semites (viz. the Africoid Akkadians11)
phonetically rendered this Sumerian Ra in their language as Il or El, i.e. the Akkadian =
Aah12 Indeed, the Semitic Bab-Il (Babylon) is the Semitic rendering of the Sumerian name of
that city, Ka-Ra, Gate of God (Ra).Sir Rawlinsons equally erudite elder brother, historian
George Rawlinson, suggested rather that Ra is indigenous to Sumer. Speaking of the deities of
the Mesopotamian pantheon, he affirmed:
At the head of the Pantheon stands a god, Il or Ra, of whom but little is known...The form Ra represents
probably the native Chaldaean name of this deity, while Il is the Semitic equivalent. Il, of course, is but a
variant of El, the root of the well-known Biblical Elohim as well as of the Arabic Allah...The meaning of the
word is simply 'God,' or perhaps 'the god' emphatically. Ra, the Cushite equivalent, must be considered to
have had the same force originally, though in Egypt it received a special application to the sun, and
became the proper name of that particular deity...It formed an element in the native name of Babylon,
which was Ka-ra, the Cushite equivalent of the Semitic Bab-il, an expression signifying 'the gate of God.'
Ra is a god with few peculiar attributes. He is a sort of fount and origin of deity, too remote from man to
be much worshipped or to excite any warm interest. There is no evidence of his having had any temple in
Chaldaea during the early times.13
These early Orientalist investigations indicate that in ancient Mesopotamia Rah and Aah were
identified as the same deity.14 I still argue, despite Imhoteps lengthy objection, that the identity
of Rah and Allah is not limited to the theologizing of the ancient Mesopotamians but is in fact
Imhotep, AALUJA, 61, 69, 116.
Egyptian Civilization Its Sumerian Origin and Real Chronology and Sumerian Origin of Egyptian Hieroglyphs (1930): Plate XXI,
facing 162.
11 On Africoid Akkadians see Wesley Muhammad, Egyptian Sacred Science and Islam: A Reappraisal (Atlanta: A-Team Publishing,
2012), 35-45.
12 Colonel Rawlinson, Notes on the Early History of Babylon, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 15
(1855): 231 n. 1. On the relation of the Akkadian and proto-Semitic Aah.
13 George Rawlinson, The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, Volume I.
14 Muhammad, Egyptian Sacred Science and Islam, 163-164.
9
10
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rooted in etymology. I argue here, contra Imhotep, that both the Semitic Allah and ProtoSemitic are dialectical cognates of the Egyptian R, and that both the Semitic Allah and
Egyptian Rah derive from a predialectical African root that is closer to the Semitic Allah than to
the Egyptian Rah. In other words, while Semitic Aah is in fact not likely to be the root of the
Egyptian Rah in this I concede Imhoteps point - it IZ closer to the likely root of both names
and thus better preserves the original African divine name.
Imhotep and my disagreement to some degree boils down to a simple choice of
linguistic phenomena to privilege: the lateralization (=morphing into a [l]) of an original [r], or
the rhoticization (=morphing into a [r]) of an original [l]. In other words, while I claimed in 2009
that the name of the Egyptian Sun-god R shows a rhoticization of an original [l] (i.e. the names
original [l] turned into an [r] in Egypt), Imhotep claims that the Egyptian R is an original r-root
and that this r-root has the original meaning of fire, burn, sun; he even claims that the [] of
Allah derives from the [r] of the Yorb term r (thus lateralization). I will demonstrate that
Imhotep is wrong. The evidence is convincing that the Egyptian R (Rah) sun derives from an
original l-root and the original (predialetical) form of the Egyptian word is a cognate (though
not derivative) of the Semitic l (Aah). Thus we can accept the following from Imhoteps
argument, but with a caveat: it is our contention that R was a native concept which used a
lexeme inherited from its predialectical parent and there was no Egyptianizing a Semitic term
and concept.15 Agreed. There is little likelihood that the Egyptian R has his genesis in a
Semitic predecessor. The Egyptian R does, however, likely still have its genesis in Allah. That
inherited predialectical lexeme of which Imhotep speaks was clearly an l-root which, through
the process of rhoticization became [r] in Egypt (and elsewhere). The Allah from which R
evolves was not a Semitic Allah; it was a pan-African Allah (ala).
MERITS AND DEMERITS OF IMHOTEPS CRITIQUE
Make no mistake: Imhotep has here made a valuable contribution to the overall
discussion, which benefits from his several insights. My argument too has benefitted from
some of Imhoteps insights. Thus he appropriately takes me to task:
Muhammad presents the data in regards to Allah as if Allah () was 1) a Semitic invention and 2) exclusive to
Semitic peoplethe root is all over Africa and older than the Afro-Asiatic family: it is in fact a global root and
cannot be the exclusive domain of Semitic speakers.16
I accept this criticism. Imhotep has quite brilliantly pointed out the indigenous (continental)
African context of the name Allah:
Allah () is only one dialectical form among the many from a root that is more ancient than Semitic and even
Afro-Asiatic. To claim El, Alah, il-ilh is a Semitic god is not keeping with the facts. Allah is indigenously
African and is embedded in many names for the Divine all across the continent of Africaall associations of
Allah, including his very name, are indigenous to Egypt and Africa as a whole. The name Allah is embedded
in many names for the Divine, natively, across the continent. The root of Allah has gone through many sound
changes in different areas of Africa and may not be recognized as Allah (Ala) to the non-specialist.17
Allah and El are only the high gods of Islam and Christianity respectively because the meanings literally mean
most high. There is nothing spectacular about these names. The ongoing dispute between Christians and
Imhotep, AALUJA, 44.
17 Imhotep, AALUJA, 91, 114.
15
16
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Muslims to whether Eloh or Allah is the one and only true god is childish and based on an ignorance of
Africa, its customs and philosophy: they are the same god, same word from the same origins in Africa. 18
Agreed. Salute. Imhoteps suggestion that, due to the agglutination19 characteristic of some
African languages, unless one knows how names are constructed in these respective
languages, one will not be able to recognize the name when they see it, 20 is a praiseworthy
insight indeed.
Also valuable is Imhoteps (2013) introduction into this discussion of the concepts of
paronymy and (what he calls?) deitic polysemy. Paronymy is a well-known linguistic
phenomenon in which distinct words derive from the same root and sound alike (nearhomophones) but differ slightly in spelling and meaning (e.g. affect/effect). Because such
words are partly identical in form and meaning, they are often confused. As correctly noted by
Imhotep (2013), in ancient and modern African languages paronyms are frequently brought
together in a divine name to create a semantic field or construct a (in his words) meaningchain for that name. Imhotep refers to this process as deitic polysemy, which he defines as a
traditional African praxis of linguistically synthesizing similarly pronounced lexemes into a
singular representation of a deity.21 The best illustration is Rah. The Egyptians used paronymy
to make connections between similarly sounding but distinct words, and these all contributed
to the sematic field or basic, plural significances of Rah: r day, light, sun; r ascend; r.t
eye, etc. The distinct lexemes each a paronym in its own right come together to form a
meaning-chain that defines the total meaning of the deity Rah (r): light sun ascend
eye, etc.22 This is an extremely important observation, as much for an understanding of Allah as
it is for an understanding of Rah.
Imhoteps lengthy (80+ pages) and robust critique of my 2009 argument thus warrants
applause in places, but it also warrants reprimand. Within those 80+ pages one finds impressive
erudition, brilliant insights and a commendable critical mind at work. Within those same pages,
however, these merits sit all too comfortably alongside poor methodology, a lack of
thoroughness, misrepresentation, misappropriation, and a much too laissez faire approach to the
scholarly convention of citing sources and documenting claims. We will illustrate all of these
demerits here in Part I of this (by necessity) equally lengthy and robust response to Imhoteps
critique.
Of immediate relevance here is a very illustrative example of Imhoteps lack of
thoroughness and due diligence. Imhotep spent considerable space attempting to disprove a
two-pronged argument that I advanced in my 2009 publication:
1.) That Semitic Allah = Egyptian Rah, i.e. that they are the same deity with local variant
phonetic name spellings.
2.) That the sun god Rah was introduced into Egypt by immigrating Arabian Semites.
There is no statute of limitations on challenging scholarly ideas. There is, though, a requirement
to appropriately familiarize ourselves with the relevant works of the scholar whose ideas we
presume to critique and to take the most recent discussions on the subject as our point of
Agglutination (Additive) is when complex words are formed by the stringing together (or gluing) of discrete morphems, each
with its own meaning.
18
19
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departure. More often than not, a scholar distributes discussion of a novel idea over several
writings, and to critique that idea without considering the full and most recent discussion is
poor methodology, to say the least. This is precisely what Imhotep is guilty of on several
occasions.
In 2012 I published Egyptian Sacred Science in Islam:
A Reappraisal, in which I took a significant step backwards
on the matter from my 2009 position, concluding:
Might the god Rah have entered Egypt from Mesopotamia or elsewhere
in Western Asia (=Afrabia)? [...] The myth and worship of Rah, like that
of Osiris, seems indeed to have included elements derived from
Afrabia This is entirely speculative at this point. We cannot prove
beyond reason (sic) doubt that Rah is an Egyptianization of the ProtoSemitic Aah, nor can it be demonstrated that the Egyptian god derived
from Mesopotamia or the East. What is pretty certain, however, is that
in the East Rah and Aah were considered the same deity.23
In the three years since Black Arabia was published, I

came across reasons to doubt that Rah was imported into
Egypt from Afrabia by Semites. It is the case too that Imhotep
was very much aware of the publication of Egyptian Sacred
Science. In his 2012 online publication, Re-examining the
Kaaba of Islam, (www.asarimhotep.com), another critique of
my work by Imhotep, he writes:
However, Diop doesnt make the statement that the word kaaba in Arabic is composed of Egyptian k and b.
He just states that one can take these morphemes and create words in the Arabic language. However, Dr.
Wesley Muhammad in his book Egyptian Sacred Science and Islam: A Reappraisal (2012) attempts to make such a
suggestion.3
In the footnote (#3) Imhotep (2012) writes:

There is a print version of this book. I currently have the eBook version and am not sure if anything has
changed between the print and the electronic versions. But I think the print version is a much more expanded
version than the pdf.
Indeed, the much expanded print edition featured a whole chapter on the very question
Imhotep (2013) later spent 80+ pages discussing. Had he done due diligence, Imhotep would
have been expected to take account of or at least take note of the new evidence and the new,
modified position. However, this lack of due diligence on his part will be encountered again
(and again) during the course of his discussion.
In this Report I intend to demonstrate that, while the second part of my 2009 argument
(viz. that Rah is an Egyptianization of the Semitic Aah) is indeed untenable as I suspected a
year ago and as Imhotep (2013) argues, the first part of my argument (viz. Rah = Allah) stands
solidly and demonstrably true. Imhotep (2013) claims that Rah and Allah derive from different
roots, but his arguments are often self-contradictory, incoherent, and based on questionable
methodological procedures. And his conclusion is just plain wrong. Rah is Allah, and Allah is
Rah. The linguistic and history of religions data affirm it.
23
Muhammad, Egyptian Sacred Science and Islam, Chapter VIII.
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Let me make clear what I am and what I am not backtracking on: I still hold, even
more emboldened about it, that my main point is correct: Rah (R) likely does derive from Allah
(). However, where Imhotep is correct and I was off-base in 2009 is this: the Allah () that is at
the root of Rah (R) is not the (Proto-)Semitic Allah from the east. Rather, its the Pan-African
Allah, even proto-African Allah, that is at the root of Rah.
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Deconstructive Analysis
I.
Misreading Me
One major problem with Imhoteps critique is that he consistently misreads and/or
misrepresents my argument. See for example his claim:
Muhammad (2009:84) argues that the goddess Shams (P.Sm *m sun) was an import into Southern Arabia
from Mesopotamia along with other nature gods which disrupted the historical association of the Divine. He
doesnt, however, argue that there was a sun-god by the name of Allah in Southern Arabia and it appears that
sun-worship, according to Muhammad, was introduced into Southern Arabia by Mesopotamian immigrants.
In other words, Muhammad doesnt argue that Allah the sun-god was replaced by Shams the sun-goddess.
There is no claim for an Arabian sun-god by the name Allah.24
Such a statement makes me wonder did Imhotep read the entire book that he is critiquing or
just spot read it, for I clearly argue that the Semitic solar deity was not named Rah, it was
Aah.25 In a section (135-138) specifically entitled Aah No Moon-God, I document:
The nature of the Sabaean (Southern Arabian) deity Aah Muqah (Aah the Intensively Watering One) was
studied in great detail by J. Pirenneand G. Garbini in the 1970s. They demonstrated that the motifs associated
with this deity - the bull, the vine, and also the lion's skin on a human statue - are solar rather than lunar
attributes. The Bull in fact was associated first with the sun-god, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, only later being
conscripted into the service of the moon-deities, in third millennium BCE Mesopotamia. There is thus a
growing consensus among scholars that this South Arabian deity was rather a sun-god: Almaqah (=Aah
Muqah) was a masculine sun-god, affirms Jean-Franois Breton, scholar with the Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique. So too Jacques Ryckmans:
Until recently Almaqah was considered to be a moon god, under the influence of a now generally
rejected conception of a South Arabian pantheon consisting of an exclusive triad: Father Moon, Mother
Sunand Son Venus. Recent studies underline that the symbols of the bulls head and the vine motif
that are associated with him are solar and Dionysiac attributes and are more consistent with a sun god,
a male consort of the sun goddess.
Imhoteps claim that [Muhammad] doesnt argue that there was a sun-god by the name of
Allah in Southern Arabia and that There is no claim for an Arabian sun-god by the name
Allah therefore leaves one scratching their head.
A more serious misread rather misrepresentation is illustrated here:
Muhammad (2009) utilizes a lot of space to highlight the blackness of not only pre-Islamic Allah, but of R of
Egypt and the Sumerian An/Enki in the form of black bullsThe blackness of the bulls in ancient motifs is
symbolic and is associated with rain clouds. Although Muhammad (2009: 86) cites Julian Baldicks Black God:
The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions, he didnt discuss Baldicks premise as
to why blackness is associated with the gods of Afro-Asiatic speakers. Simply put, the gods are black to
represent black rain clouds. Muhammad notes some critical observations of the Oromo, but this is done in
passing.26
This is inexcusable. This is what I actually document in the book that Imhotep presumes to
critique:
Imhotep, AALUJA 28.
Muhammad, Black Arabia 115.
24
25
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In 1985 German scholar Werner Daum published an important monograph, Ursemitische Religion
(Proto-Semitic Religion). Daum suggests that our best evidence for reconstructing the
Ursemitische Religion comes from southern Arabia. By a close study of ancient South Arabian
inscriptions and modern Yemeni folktales and ritual practices, Daum was able to produce a
convincing reconstruction of proto-Semitic Religion, or at least important aspects thereof. The
most important observation for our purposes is that, according to Daums reconstruction, " the
high god of the proto-Semites was a black god. This Proto-Semitic black deity was depicted as an old,
bearded man and associated with the black rain cloud and the black bull (and ibex, the bull-goat).
These, Daum tells us, symbolisiert den dunklen "Il (symbolized the dark "Il). He was called
shaba, old man. Thus, the Proto-Semitic God Aah is the god of the new religion of the Levant, the Black
God symbolized by the Black Bull!
The British historian Julian Baldick followed up and expanded upon Daums research with
Black God: The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions.
Baldicks research suggested that, just as there is an Afroasiatic language group indigenous to
North Africa and Arabia, there is likewise an Afroasiatic religious tradition indigenous to the same
area and peculiar to the same groups. This Afroasiatic religious tradition is characterized by a
dualistic logic which emphasizes the male-female dichotomy and by a divine triad consisting of a
Black rain god, a goddess, and a young hero god. Among the Oromo of southern Ethiopia, e.g. God
is called Waqa Quracca meaning Black (Quracca) God (Waqa). He rides the dark clouds, has red eyes
representing his anger, and is the Creator. The Oromo sacrifice Black sheep to him hoping to
procure rain.27
Yet, claims Imhotep, I didnt discuss Baldicks premise as to why blackness is associated with
the gods?! The seeming attempt here by Imhotep to take intellectual credit for pointing out this
association would be comical if it did not speak to a larger and more serious matter of
Imhoteps intellectual and scholarly integrity. We shall return to this latter. It must also be
pointed out here that, had Imhotep done his due diligence, he would have known that I have
elaborated even further on Baldicks ideas. Had he available himself of one of my major books
on the Black God, The Truth of God: The Bible, the Quran, and the Secret of the Black God
(2007) - and we assume that a critique of my Black God thesis (which he is engaged in) would
have required such thoroughness - he would have found the following discussion:
The British historian Julian Baldick followed up and expanded upon Daums research with Black God:
The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions. Baldicks research suggested that, just
as there is an Afroasiatic language group indigenous to North Africa and Arabia (consisting of the Semitic
languages, the ancient Egyptian language, Berber, Hausa, and the Kushitic and Omotic languages of the Horn
of Africa) there is likewise an Afroasiatic religious tradition indigenous to the same area and peculiar to the
same groups. This Afroasiatic religious tradition is characterized by a dualistic logic which emphasizes the
male-female dichotomy and by a divine triad consisting of a Black storm god, a goddess, and a young hero
god. Baldick notes:
27
Muhammad, Black Arabia, 86-87
Page 12
Afroasiatic logic is in my view particularly dualistic and based

on the opposition between male and female(T)his logic is
particularly directed towards obtaining water, and operates by
combining a male storm-god, black and violent, with a female
deity of the sun, white and vulnerable.28
This Afroasiatic paradigm which revolves around a

black storm deity can be found in the religious traditions of
the Ancient Egyptians, the Oromo and Omotic peoples of
Ethiopia, and the South Arabians of Yemen. This black storm
god is identified with a Black bull or goat. He is said to
descend to earth riding dark clouds and is depended upon
for the fertilizing waters of storms. Among the Oromo of
southern Ethiopia, God is called Waqa Quracca meaning
Black (Quracca) God (Waqa). He rides the dark clouds, has
red eyes representing his anger, and is the Creator. The
Oromo sacrifice Black sheep to him hoping to procure rain.
This Afroasiatic triad and its Black Storm God is found

in ancient South Arabia as well. The Black Storm God of
South Arabia was called "LMQH. The name and its proper
vocalization is a mystery to scholars today who
conventionally write it as Almaqah. He was called the
Raging and the Ruiner, indicating his status as the god of
the destructive storm. He was said to be an old man
symbolized by the bull and the ibex. Baldick notes that a
black bullfigures in rain-making, in which, as in Arabia, the
animal is practically identical with an old man, who wears the bulls hide and is himself threatened with
murder. Daum and Baldick have convincingly established the identity of "Almaqah and the Black Storm
God of modern Yemenite folktales. Almaqah was joined by the sun goddess Shams and the young god
Athtar, completing the divine triad. The power of this Black Storm God of ancient Arabia was not confined to
the ability to cause rain. He was all-powerful and infinity rich.
The god of the Qurn (Allah) indeed appears as a storm god. In Surah 13 entitled, The Thunder He is
specifically described as a fearful storm god:
12. He (Allah) it is Who shows you the lightning causing fear and hope and (Who) brings up the heavy
cloud.
13. And the thunder celebrates His praise, and the angels too for awe of Him. And He sends the
thunderbolts and smites with them whom He pleases, yet they dispute concerning Allah, and He is
Mighty in prowess
17. He sends down water from the clouds, then watercourses flow according to their measure, and the
torrent bears along the swelling foam
The heavy cloud of verse 12 is reminiscent of the dark and heavy cloud upon which the Black Storm God
was said to descend to the earth. Allah here is a terrifying God, with thunder and lighting at His disposal
which He uses to cause fear and smite whom He pleases. But on a brighter note, He also sends down life
sustaining water (verse 17). This strongly argues for His identity with the ancient Arabian Storm God also
called Allah or Al Muqah, God who Waters Intensively.
Imhoteps lack of thoroughness and due diligence, as well as his inclination to

misrepresent and appropriate, recurs in his critique and diminishes the works value. Elsewhere
he tends to bowdlerize my argument and miss or rob it of its nuance. All in all, Imhotep fails
Julian Baldick, Black God. The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions (New York Syracuse University
Press, 1997) 4-5.
28
Page 13
to show an adequate grasp of or respect for my actual arguments and demonstrations. In such a
case one wonders if Imhoteps motivation for this robust critique was not more ideological than
academic. We will have cause to revisit this question later.
II.
Amateurish Methodology
A more serious handicap, Imhoteps critique is marred by poor historical methodology

and poor linguistic methodology, which led to his very wrong conclusions. Allow me to
demonstrate through a few examples.
BAD HISTORICAL METHODOLOGY
Imhotep would like us to believe that the word/divine name R is attested as far back as
7000-5000 BCE, in contrast to my argument in Black Arabia that the name first appears in
Egyptian records in the Third Dynasty (2635-2610 BCE) at the earliest. He attempts to do this by
claiming with no demonstration - that the Egyptian word pr scarab really includes the
word Rah within it. Imhotep then says:
The god pr is attested as early as the 5th dynasty (2494-2345 BCE) from a pyramid text that evokes the sun to
appear in the form of pr. However, he may have been one of the very earliest gods of Egypt, yet there is no
record of him as having an actual cult. Crude objects resembling scarabs have been discovered dating from as
early as the Neolithic period (7000-5000 BC). This is important to note because it is assumed by Muhammad
(2009) that the god r was introduced into Egypt during the third dynastic period from Arabia when it is
clear that the concepts, the terminology and study of r goes back at least 7000 years BCE. There is corrobative
evidence from the Ptolemaic period on this question of Ra through the ntr prWith this being the case, the
7000 BCE renderings of pr in the archeological record should be seen as r also, pushing r to predynastic
times which would coincide with the linguistic evidence of r God, sun, etc. in other African languages
(PWS, PWN, PCS, etc.) The word r is built into the word pr/prr is attested between 7000-5000 BCE, then
one couldnt argue a dynastic importation into Egypt29
Wow is an appropriate and compelling response to this. It is hard to believe that a mind that
shows such brilliance elsewhere could have written such a dubious argument here. First is the
spurious claim that any evidence of the word pr/prr (Kheper) is ipso facto proof of the
word/divine name R because, Imhotep claims, the one word (pr) is built around the other (r).
Imhotep fails totally to demonstrate this etymological relation. But this has to do with bad
linguistic methodology, which we shall elaborate on below. Here the focus is on his bad
historical methodology, which this quote highlights.
Imhoteps evidence for this 7000 BCE attestation of the name Kheper pr/prr (dung
beetle) is singular: the online article Egypt: Khephir, God of the Sun, Creation, Life and
Resurrection. Imhotep seems to have a particular fondness for non peer-reviewed online
sources. This article is from Touregypt.net, a travel site from an American touring company
based in Lubbock, Texas.30 This article cites no sources for these crude objects or for their
dating. The warrant for Imhoteps confidence in this travel sites scholarship is hard to pin
down.
Further, on what basis does Imhotep assume that the crude objects resembling scarabs
are evidence of the terminology pr? What method does he use to correlate archaeological
artifacts with a linguistic item that appears millennia later? Imhotep gives us no insight into his
29
30
Imhotep, AALUJA, 56, 58.

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/khephir.htm#ixzz3PQ31bSzT
Page 14
methodology. Fact is, there is little reason to assume that such crude objects at such a period
point in any way to pr. As Maria Magdalena van Ryneveld notes in her doctoral thesis: The
scarab was a hieroglyphic sign [], initially represented as a long thin beetle, the nh-beetle of
the Pyramid Text, but from the Middle Kingdom (2035-1668 B.C.) as the scarab of pr
beetle31 In other words, the pr beetle was not the most anciently attested in Egypt. The name
pr is not documented before the 5th Dynasty in the Pyramid Texts.,32 and it first appears as
prr.33 The elongated click beetle (Buprestidae and Elateridae species) denoted hieroglyphically as
n (Ankh) was venerated in the predynstic period before the round dung beetle (Scarabaeinae =
prr) was venerated.34 If scholarship seems to be divided over whether there was a predynastic
appearance of the scarab,35 it is because the term scarab has become a neutered umbrella
term for the many (upwards of 5) distinct and distinguished specious of beetle recognized by
the Egyptians.
A general misconception is that Scarabaeus Sacer L was the only beetle honored by the Egyptians as the species
is the one most commonly represented. In reality, there were others, for example the long, thin beetle known
to the Egyptians as the ankh-beetle, found as an amulet already in Gerzean timesFurthermore, scarabs do
not always represent Scarabaeus Sacer L, but many other species as wellthe Egyptian did not make the
biological distinctions of modern science and seem to have passed on to a whole class of insect the respect
they gave Scarabaeus.36
The predynastic evidence is not of Kheper but (mainly) of the click-beetle,37 which was
the sign of the goddess Neith who was exceptionally popular during this period.38 If the
Neolithic crude objects resembling scarabs alleged by Touregypt.net turn out to be round and
not elongated, they would not be representations of the n-beetle but they would not
necessarily be representations of the prr-beetle either. The oldest representations of the round
and stout beetle date to the Predynastic Period of 4000-3300 BCE, but they are of the
Magdalena van Ryneveld, The Presence and Significance of Khepri in Egyptian Religion and Art, Ph.D dissertation, University
of Pretoria, 1992, 11. See also W.V. Davies, Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Berkeley: University of California Press; [London]: British
Museum, 1987), 32.
32 The British Museum Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, ed. Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson (Cairo: The American University in Cairo
Press, 2002) 150-151 s.v. Khepri; Pat Remler, Egyptian Mythology A to Z Third Edition (New York: Chelsea House, 2010) 103-104
s.v. Khepri; George Hart, The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (London and New York: Routledge, 2005) 8485 s.v. Khepri.
33 Wilkinson, Complete Gods and goddesses, 230.
34 The elongated n-beetleswere adored from the later Predynastic Period up to the end of the First Intermediate
Periodwhereas the roundish prr-beetleswere venerated from the Sixth Dynasty until the end of the Thirtieth DynastyThe
n-beetles, being the first group of venerated coleopterans, served as apotropaic charms, while the subsequently adored prrbeetles were regarded as a manifestation of Sun-God Khepri rising as the Morning Sun from the Netherworld: Hermann
Levinson and Anna Levinson, Venerated beetles and their cultural-historical background in ancient Egypt, Spixiana 27 (2002): 64
[art.=33-75].
35 The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, 3 vols. ed. Donald B. Redford (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001)
III: 179-180 s.v. scarabs by Robert Steven Bianchi: The earliest appearance of the scarab in the ancient Egyptian cultural record
dates to the prehistoric period of the fourth millennium BCE, when pottery vases containing dung beetles were intentionally
interred within tombs. It was not until some two thousand years later, during the sixth dynasty of the Old Kingdom, that crafted
scarabs first appeared in ancient Egypt. Yves Cambefort, Beetles as Religious Symbols, Cultural Entomology Digest 1 (1993) at
http://www.insects.org/ced1/beetles_rel_sym.html; idem, Le scarabe dans l'gypte ancienne. Origine et signification du
Symbole, Revue de l'histoire des religions, 204 (1987) 3-46: Although prehistoric Egypt does not show the use of the scarab
beetles, early 1st dynasty (cs. 3000 B.C.) Egyptian culture produced a small alabaster case in the shape of a scarab. On this debate
see also Gene Kritsky, Beetle Gods, King Bees & Other Insects of Ancient Egypt, KMT 4 (1993): 32 [art.=32-39].
36 William A. Ward, Beetles in Stone: The Egyptian Scarab, The Biblical Archaeologist 57 (1994): 199 n. 1 [art.=186-202].
37 Click-beetle-shaped bone beads as old as Naqada III (ca. 3300) were found. Diana Craig Patch et al (edd.), Dawn of Egyptian Art
(New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011) 191.
38 Stan Hendrickx, Two Protodynastic Objects in Brussels and the Origin of the Bilobate Cult-Sign of Neith, JEA 82 (1996): 23-43;
Levinson and Levinson, Venerated beetles, 43-45.
31
Page 15
Tenebrionidae species (darkling beetle), not the Scarabaeinae (dung beetle).39 Imhotep therefore
has no warrant for tracing prr, much less R, back to the Predynastic Period; not to 4000 BCE,
certainly not to 7000 BCE. Nothing needs to be said concerning Imhoteps undefended
confidence that Ptolemaic (305 BCE 30 BCE) evidence can corroborate the presence of pr/R in
the seventh millennium BCE! This is just poor historiography.
Imhoteps urgent need to predate the Egyptian R before the Proto-Semitic Aah compels
him to push the existence of the Egyptian Rah back into the Predynastic Period even 30,000
years!!40 and in the process trample over all of the evidence that we currently have. There have
been a number of recent studies devoted to the subject of the appearance of the veneration of
Rah in Ancient Egypt.41 We now know that the solarization of Egyptian kingship may very well
have gone back to Dynasty 2, or maybe even Dynasty 1.42 But the titles R nbw and rw nbw
first appear in Dynasty 3.43 However, the royal name Raneb, whether meaning Lord of the Sun
or Rah is my Lord, indicates the association of the term r with the sun in Dynasty 2. Other
evidence confirms this.44 But this is as far as the actual evidence allows us to go. Prior to this,
Egyptian kingship was associated with the sky-god rw (Horus), who was not yet solarized.45
The kings of Dynasty I linked themselves through their Horus names with the god Horus rather than
RaThere is little evidence that [Ra was the pre-eminent deity during Dynasty I]. It is also possible that
Horus, as a sky god, may have possessed some identification during the late Protodynastic period and
Dynasty I with the sun and this identification was subsumed at a later date into the deity Ra. The hypothesis
remains speculativeThere is little evidence to suggest that knowledge and veneration of Ra was a widespread phenomenon within Egyptian society during the early Dynastic period.46
Imhoteps disregard of the historical data and critical-historical methods here is astounding.
Levinson and Levinson, Venerated beetles, 40, 45. See also Miroslav Brta, Beetles and the decline of the Old Kingdom:
Climate change in ancient Egypt, in H. Vymazalov, M. Brta, edd., Chronology and Archaeology in Ancient Egypt (The Third
Millennium B.C.). Proceedings of the Conference Held in Prague (June 11-14, 2007) (Prague 2008) 216-217 [art=214222]: The
earliest amulets in the shape of the scarab are already known from the Old KingdomThe earliest archaeological attestations of the
respect for the beetles can be found in some prehistoric tombs of the Naqada II period. At the cemetery site of Diospolis Parva three
tombs with pottery jars containing carcasses of darkling beetles, Prionotheca coronate [], belonging to the family Tenebrionidae,
were discovered []. In the cemetery of Tarkhan one tomb contained small stone vessels in the shape of a scarab beetle []. It is
generally believed that P. Coronata was an ideological precursor of the sacred scarab beetle [].Two click beetles (Elateridae),
probably Agrypnus notodonta [], feature on a gray schist palette of the goddess Neith next to the fetish of the goddess []. From
the Old Kingdom period, golden pendants in the shape of the jewel beetles (Buprestridae), namely Acmaeodera polita [] and
Steraspis
squamosa
[],
with
clearly
separated
elytra
were
in
fashion
as
shown by finds from the tomb of Akhtihotep in Saqqara [], Qar Junior in Ab usir [] or in the cemetery of Teti []).
40 Imhotep, AALUJA, 60, 61: R (symbolized by the sun, snake, falcon and beetle) has been an important part of the imagination
and culture of the Nile Valley inhabitants for more than 30000 yearsR has been a part of Egyptian culture since before
predynastic times.
41 Josep Cervell-Autuori, The Sun-religion in the Thinite age: Evidence and political significance, in Egypt at its origins 3:
proceedings of the third international conference "Origin of the state: predynastic and early dynastic Egypt", London, 27th July-1st
August 2008, ed. Renee F Friedman and Peter N Fiske (Leuven : Peeters, 2011) 1125-1149; Jochem Kahl, "Ra is my Lord" : searching
for the rise of the Sun God at the dawn of Egyptian history (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007); Ahmed Saied, Der Sonnenkult und
der Sonnengott in der Vor- und Frhgeschichte gyptens, in Studies in honor of Ali Radwan, ed. Zahi Hawass et al (Le Caire: Conseil
Supreme des Antiquites de l'Egypte, 2005) 287-294.
42 Cervell-Autuori, The Sun-religion in the Thinite age; Kahl, "Ra is my Lord"; Saied, Der Sonnenkult.
43 Cervell-Autuori, Sun-religion in the Thinite age, 1129-1l30.
44 Cervell-Autuori, Sun-religion in the Thinite age, 1131-1132.
45 Cervell-Autuori, Sun-religion in the Thinite age,1126, 1143: Egyptian kingship, having its origins in Upper Egypt had a royal
doctrine based on the identification of a king with Horus, a divinity with cosmic, not solar, nature; The kings of Dynasty 0
possessed an ideology of kingship focused on the god Horus in his aspect as a heavenly and cosmic deityUntil halfway through
Dynasty 1, there is no evidence for a solar creed related to Egyptian kingship. See also Wilkinson, Complete Gods and Goddesses,
200: Sky godis the original form of Horus as lord of the sky which precedes all others.
46 Ben Suelzle, Review of Jochem Khal, Ra is my Lord: Searching for the Rise of the Sun God at the Dawn of Egyptian History,
Eras 10 (2008): 2, 4.
39
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PONTIFICATION RATHER THAN DEMONSTRATION
More often than not we are expected to accept Imhoteps linguistic conclusions solely on
the strength of his ex cathedra manner of writing. In other words, Imhotep pontificates rather
than demonstrates. For example, Imhotep (2013: 38) makes the undefended (and indefensible)
claim that Semitic languages ultimately derive from Kongo-Saharan languages.47 This
statement is very curious, and his decision to simply throw such a remarkable claim out there
a claim that defies all that we currently understand about the relevant language groups (see
below) without the slightest attempt to demonstrate its veracity is stunning. There are several
problems here.
The term that Imhotep uses, i.e. Kongo-Saharan, goes back to Edgar A. Gregersen who
argued in 1972 that the two distinct African macro-phylums, Niger-Congo (hereafter NC) that
may have originated ca. 10, 000 BCE in West Africa and Nilo-Saharan (hereafter Nl-S) which
may have originated ca. 11,000 BCE in the Middle Nile,48 actually were together as one super
phylum, Kongo-Saharan.49 While this theory was not necessarily demonstrated in a convincing
manner, Gregersens instincts may turn out to have been good.50 The case for such a unified
macro-phylum is made more recently (1992-) and more thoroughly by Roger Blench who uses
the preferable term Niger-Saharan (hereafter Ng-S)51 Adducing lexical, phonological and
morphological evidence, Blench made the case that the evidence of phonological and
morphological features common to both phyla, combined with lexical similarities, suggests that
Niger-Congo should be classified as a Central Sudanic branch of Nl-S.52
By 2010 [2013], however, Blench seems to have backed off or at least backtracked a bit on
his position regarding Ng-Ss reality,53 a fact that Imhotep shows awareness of.54 The very
existence of this language family is thus highly speculative, doubted and debated.55 In any case,
it is unreconstructed. Yet, Imhotep cavalierly invokes it with no justification or qualification.

These dates according to Christopher Ehret, The Civilizations of Africa: A History to 1800 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, 2002) 102-103.
49 Edgar A. Gregersen, Kongo-Saharan, Journal of African Languages 11 (1072): 69-89.
50 Based on lexical evidence Diedrich Westernmann had already in 1927 grouped Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan into a macrofamily
he called Sudanic: Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1927).
51 Roger Blench, Is Niger-Congo Simply a Branch of Nilo-Saharan? Proceedings of the Fifth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium.
Nice, 24-29 aot 1992, ed. Robert Nicola and Franz Rottland (Kln: Kppe Verlag, 1995) 83-130; idem (with Mallam Dendo), The
Niger-Sharan Macrophylum (Cambridge, 2006); idem, Niger-Saharan: Additional Glosses, Paper presented at the VIIIth NiloSaharan Conference in Hamburg, 22-25th August, 2001; Further Evidence for a Niger-Saharan Macrophylum, Advances in NiloSaharan Linguistics. Proceedings of the 8th Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium. Hamburg, August 22-25, 2001, ed. Doris Payne
and Mechthild Reh (Kln: Kppe Verlag, 2007) 11-24.
52 Bench, Is Niger-Congo, 85.
53 Roger Blench, Why is Africa so Linguistically Undivers? The Issue of Substrates and Isolates, Mother Tongue, Journal of the
Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory 18 (2013): 55-56 [art.=43-68]
54 Imhotep, AALUJA, 10 n. 3
55 See also Raymond Boyd, Congo-Saharan revisited, in Afrikanische Sprachen zwischen Gestern und Morgen. Beitrge zur
Dokumentation, Klassifikation und Rekonstruktion, ed. Uwe Seibert (Frankfurt African Studies Bulletin Year 1996, Volume 8; Kln
: Rdiger Kppe Verlag, 1997) 15-48.
47
48
Page 17
Further, Imhotep is in manifest error in his claim that Kongo/Niger-Saharan is the

source of the Semitic languages (hereafter Sem). Sem is an Afroasiatic (hereafter AA) branch, not
a branch of NC, Nl-S, or the ber-speculative Ng-S.56 On what basis does Imhotep claim that
Semitic languages ultimately derive from Kongo-Saharan languages? We have no idea
because he does not give any indication of or warrant for his reasoning for jumping Sem from
the AA family to Ng-S. Does he have in mind GJK Campbell-Dunns suggestion that AA is an
offshoot of Niger-Congo-Nilo-Saharan57? Campbell-Dunn offered no demonstration either for
this speculation. In fact, in another place Campbell-Dunn suggests the opposite: NC derived
from AA.58 On the other hand, there are reasons for believing that AA and Ng-S might have been
two branches of a much greater phylum Supra-Equatorial? - and thus descended from a
common parent proto-language rather than one from the other,59 but this mere suggestion has
not yet been demonstrated or worked out, and in any case this would still not make Sem jump
branches and derive ultimately from Ng-S; at most Sem would derive from the purely
speculative common proto-language shared by both AA and Ng-S, call it Proto-SupraEquatorial. There is thus simply no warrant for Imhoteps claim. Imhotep pontificates rather
than demonstrates. This example is illustrative of a common recurrence running through
Imhoteps whole discussion: his over-confidence in his own self-validating authority. This
allows him too often to make such and similar claims without feeling the least bit obligated to
offer evidence or demonstration.
BAD LINGUISTIC METHODOLOGY
Imhotep is entirely too caviler with the linguistic data. The breadth and depth of his
linguistic theorizing is absolutely not justified by the extreme dearth of footnotes (and linguistic
See our detailed discussion of the Semitic languages below.

GJK Campbell-Dunn, Sumerian Comparative Grammar (Christchurch, New Zealand: Penny Farthing Press, 2009) 5-6.
58 Campbell-Dunn, Comparative Indo-European and Niger-Congo (Christchurch, NZ: Penny Farthing Press, 2004), 35; GJK CambellDunn, Who Were the Minoans? An African Answer (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2008) 117.
59 Patrick Manning, Homo sapiens Populates the Earth: A Provisional Synthesis, Privileging Linguistic Evidence, Journal of
World History 17 (2006): 146 and n. 59[art.=115-158]: the middle Nile Valley, where Afroasiatic and Nilo-Saharan language groups
have their homeland and where a small but important group of Niger-Congo languages is located just to the west. The middle Nile
was arguably the region that started the whole process of expansion to the east about 80,000 BP; based on proximity of
homelands, one may ask whether Nilo-Saharan and Afroasiatic might be descended from some earlier common language.
56
57
Page 18
sources) in these 80+ pages. The problem articulated by Roger Blench and Mallam Dendo is
equally applicable here:
Earlier scholarsdid not cite a reference for specific lexical items and were in some cases cavalier about
giving a complete bibliography of sources. This is a long, tedious task, takes up considerable space and may
have seemed unnecessaryBut science is nothing if not about repeatability; we should be able to check the
claims of historical linguists just as much as those of laboratory sciences. Language citations should therefore
provide sources, and proto-languages, marked by starred forms, should be carefully evaluated.60
Axel Fleisch also captured the problem when he stressed the necessity of quoting sources of
lexical information.
Ifwhat is at stake is the semantic development of the etymon, 61 it becomes clear immediately why a proper
assessment of the reliability of the primary data is required.62
Citing a reference for specific lexical items or providing a bibliography of sources used
in ones linguistic theorizing: Imhotep is regularly loath to do these. Take for example this claim
of Imhotep: The word r sun in Egyptian derives from an old Kongo-Saharan root *rV fire,
flame.63 (The capital V in *rV just stands for an undetermined vowel). There are numerous
problems here as well, besides the already discussed Kongo-Saharan problem. What is
Imhoteps source for his Proto-Kongo-Saharan reconstruction *rV fire, flame? What
professional linguist working with the relevant data has proposed such a reconstruction? What
is Imhoteps source? We dont know. Gregersen (1972), who introduced us to Kongo-Saharan,
does not show this reconstruction,64 nor does Blench.65 Allan R. Bomhard in his new Afrasian
Comparative Phonology and Vocabulary does not reconstruct a rV sun, fire for AA either.66
This may nullify the reconstruction of Vladimir E. Orel and Olga V Stolbova in their HamitoSemitic etymological dictionary.67 Ehret does reconstruct a P-AA *r (=*r) to burn
brightly,68 but what Imhoteps source is for this Kongo-Saharan proto-form is a mystery.
But wait! Imhotep gives us a clue after all. He says to us: The vast majority of the
Kongo-Saharan reconstructions derive from Campbell-Dunn (2009a, 2009b; one can check his
sources in those texts for the reconstructions.).69 Fair enough. Lets check. Campbell-Dunn in
these sources70 does not show this reconstruction under the entry fire.71 A closer check of
Campbell-Dunn is illuminating in this regard, and simply reinforces the fact of Imhoteps
profoundly poor linguistic methods. The following are the relevant sections of CampbellDunns work scanned:
Roger Blench and Mallam Dendo, The Niger-Saharan Macrophylum, (PDF) 3.

An etymon is a word or morpheme from which a later word is derived.
62 Axel Fleisch, The Reconstruction of Lexical Semantics in Bantu, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 19 (2008) 4 [art.=1-39].
64 Instead Gregersen proposes a *lu/du/ra head, above, but no such r (a,e,i,u) fire: Kongo-Saharan, 83 #. 39;
65 Blench, Niger-Saharan Macrophylum; idem, Niger-Saharan: Additional Glosses.
66 Allan R. Bomhard, Afrasian Comparative Phonology and Vocabulary (Charleston, SC, 2014), 282-284.
67 Vladimir E. Orel and Olga V Stolbova, Hamito-Semitic etymological dictionary: materials for a reconstruction (Leiden: Brill,
1995).
68 Ehret, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic, 354 #696.
70 Sumerian Comparative Dictionary and Sumerian Comparative Grammar.
71 Cambell-Dunn, Sumerian Comparative Dictionary, 56. He shows: Di = fire; Na/Mu = fire; Bi = fire.
60
61
Page 19
Page 20
Here (page 56) Campbell-Dunn, upon whom Imhotep relies heavily, shows no r-root for
fire, as alleged. He shows: Di = fire; Na/Mu = fire; Bi = fire. This below listing from
Campbell-Dunns Comparative Dictionary (page 45) shows a proto-Niger-Saharan word for
fire as a t-root rather than an r-root.
The below listing (page 49) shows a reconstructed word for sun as an l-root, not an r-root.
The closest we get from Campbell-Dunn to Imhoteps alleged old Kongo-Saharan root *rV
fire, flame is the following listing:
Page 21
The listings on the top left are Campbell-Dunns reconstructed Kongo-Saharan or NigerSaharan forms. Here under the listing for light Campbell-Dunn reconstructs an la, da, and
(finally) ra for fire. However, in his detailed breakdown of the languages that informed this
reconstruction, Campbell-Dunn shows only a single source for his ra-reconstruction: PNC. This
abbreviation stands for Campbell Dunns Proto-Niger-Congo. Improtantly, Campbell-Dunn
elsewhere informs us that these PNC reconstructions are not scholarly reconstructions. He says
in his Sumerian Comparative Grammar:
PNC
Informal. No systematic reconstruction available72
Thus, this singular PNC reconstruction ra light/fire is an informal, non-systematic

reconstruction. In other words it is a quasi-reconstruction rather than an actual scientific
reconstruction, i.e. it is a guess. Yet, this is the closest we can come to Imhoteps putative
Kongo-Saharan root *rV fire, flame.
On top of this, on the NC evidence there is a real possibility that there was not even a /r/
phoneme in this putative Kongo-Saharan, a possibility that Imhotep should be well aware of.
CampbellDunn73 himself points out:
The reconstructions of Niger-Congo by Stewart74 & Mukarovsky75 do not recognize an original r, only an l and
a d. Nor does Westermann76 recognize original r in his [Proto-Western Sudanic, viz. Ng-S]. The sound r is
In Sumerian Comparative Grammar, 19 Campbell-Dunn identified the acronym PNC as Proto-Niger-Congo.
Who says (Sumerian Comparative Grammar, 16): It may even be desirable to revert to the position which treats Nilo-Saharan
and Noger-Congo as a single language group or phylum.
72
73
Page 22
treated as a variant of lBender (1989)77 on [Proto-Central Sudanic] recognizes r ,r/l, l, l~r. Mangbetu, a
Central Sudanic language, has d, l, r.78
Campbell-Dunn himself affirms that The r is a fricative grade of l and *R is a grade of *L.79
In fact, in is fuller reconstruction of Niger-Congo Campbel-Dunn tells us:
LIQUIDS A liquid l is reconstructed by Stewart, Mukarovsky (non-phonemic) and Westernmann. Developments of
l to r and to retroflex d, are common.80
In other words, the NC r derived from a *l in the proto-language: rhoticization. Campbell-Dunn

therefore only reconstructs a *l for his Proto-Niger-Congo (Nilo-Sahran), not an *r and he gives
evidence of the rhoticization of the Proto-Niger-Congo *l in derivative languages like Sumerian:
In Proto-Central Sudanic (Bender) we find that one of the original words for go (motion) was *la. This
matches Sumerian r to come, to go etc.The Sumerian word for deluge is ra. This comes from [ProtoWestern Sudanic] la sky, day, since rain came from the sky?...In general words beginning with r are
relatively rare in Sumerian.81
Campbell-Dunn theorizes the same for Linear A, which he argues is a Niger-Congo derivative.82
This same phenomenon of the rhoticization of an original *l is documented for ancient Egyptian,
which Imhotep assumes also is ultimately a Kongo-Saharan language.83 But understand that
it was my argument in 2009 that the Egyptian R evolved from an earlier L, i.e. there was a
rhoticization of the earlier lateral.84 Campbell-Dunns evidences support that thesis. Nor is
Imhotep ignorant of this likelihood. He quotes from the online database Tower of Babel
(hereafter TOB), his preferred etymological/lexical source, the suggestion that Egyptian r (r)
sun, god derived from a proto-word *lV- (l) [100], which was precisely my position in 2009
and is my position today. However, Imhotep wants us to believe that the Egyptian R derives
ultimately from a r-root meaning fire but his argument is based on a phantom reconstructed
lexeme. We can see clearly with this example the importance of Blenchs above criticism of an
authors practice of not citing sources for his/her lexical items so that his/her scholarly peers
can check the claims: science is nothing if not about repeatability. Imhotep seems totally
John M. Stewart, "The high unadvanced vowels of proto-Tano-Congo," Journal of West African Languages 13 (1983):19-36.
Hans Mukarovsky, A Study of Western Nigritic (Wien: Institut fur Agyptologie und Afrikanistik der Universitat Wien, 19761977).
76 Diedrich Westernmann, Die westlichen Sudansprachen und ihre Beziehungen zum Bantu (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1927).
77Marvin Lionel Bender, Central Sudanic lexical and phonological reconstructions, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 29 (1989): 5-61.
78 Sumerian Comparative Grammar, 124.
79 Sumerian Comparative Grammar, 115, 142.
80 Campbell-Dunn, Comparative Indo-European and Niger-Congo, 33 and idem, Who Were the Minoans? 111.
81 Sumerian Comparative Grammar, 125.
82 Cambell-Dunn, Who Were the Minoans; idem. The African Origins of Classical Civilization (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse,
2008); idem, Towards a Comparative Grammar of Linear A and Niger-Congo (2005).
83 Asar Imhotep, Egyptian in its African Context Note 3: Towards a Method for Vocalizing MDW NTR Symbols, (Houston:
Mocha-Versity, 2012)1-62. He says: I am of the opinion that the only way you can truly revitalize the Egyptian language is to
reconstruct the proto-language that gave birth to all of the dialects, if one believes they were in fact dialects and not distinct
languages. I am of the opinion that this would be a daunting task as proto-Egyptian cannot be reconstructed using the comparative
method as it is a mixed language The initial language derived from a creolization process of Chadic, Nilo-Saharan (KongoSaharan), and Cushitic languages. Therefore, one cannot reconstruct a single parent to Egyptian. The nature of certain grammatical
aspects of the language will be tackled in this essay which will help to demonstrate a Kongo-Saharan substratumwithout
engaging Kongo-Saharan languages, one will not be able to properly vocalize the Egyptian phonemes associated with certain
glyphs. This is because the hieroglyphs are an expansion of old Niger-Congo signs and symbols that initially had monosyllabic
roots for terms that matched the objects being depicted.
84 Muhammad, Black Arabia, 116-117.
74
75
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uninterested in our ability to check his claims, to repeat his findings. In the discipline of
historical linguistics/comparative linguistics an asterisk (*) precedes the hypothetical protoword indicating that its reconstruction was arrived at through the rigors of the comparative
method. This asterisk is opposed to the number sign (#), which is placed before hypothetical
proto-words to indicate that they are quasi-reconstructions that were arrived at by guesswork
rather than by the comparative method. Imhoteps phantom Kongo-Saharan *rV fire, flame
has no business wearing the asterisk (*). An (#) is in order here, though this may even be too
generous.
III.
Imhoteps Ideological Burden on his Linguistic Analysis
Imhotep at times seems hell-bent on erecting an insurmountable wall between the

Semitic Aah and the Egyptian R. One of his strategies, it appears, is by distancing the Egyptian
language from the Semitic languages, in route to de-Africanizing the latter. One vibe, if you
will indulge me, that runs throughout Imhoteps critique is the non-Africanness of the Semitic
linguistic family. I say vibe for this reason: Imhotep seems to actually be intellectually aware
of the fact that Sem is an African phenomenon. Such statements as, Semitic languages
ultimately derive from Kongo-Saharan languages,85 while factually wrong (in its particulars)
and indefensible (and certainly undefended), does sound like an admission of knowledge of
Sems African origin. But such admissions are very rare and their potential force is muted by
such statements as: Many outsiders to African languages would think that is foreign or not
native to African languages and solely a Semitic phenomenon.86 The sense that, despite the
earlier admission, Imhotep is here juxtaposing African and Semitic as distinct linguistic
phenomena is reinforced by his charge against me: Why wasnt there first an examination of
African languages.87 Such a question clearly presupposes that, for Imhotep, my discussion of
Sem phonetics does not qualify as an examination of an African language. Thus, despite the
seemingly open admission to the contrary, one gets the vibe from reading this critique that
Sem is not an African phenomenon, or at least not African enough. This is a gross error that
must be corrected in order to fully appreciate many of the arguments and demonstrations that
shall follow.
THE AFRICAN SEMITES
Semitic is properly a linguistic designation and describes native speakers of one of the
several living or extinct Semitic languages (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Ugaritic, Akkadian,
South Arabian, Ethiopic, etc.). The Semitic family of languages, the most widespread of which is
Arabic, is a branch of a larger language phylum called Afroasiatic/Afraisan which consists of
the Semitic, Ancient Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Omotic and Chadic families. Sem is decidedly
not a member of the alleged Kongo-Saharan phylum as suggested by Imhotep. While some
linguists argue for a Near Eastern origin for AA, 88 most now accept that it originated in Africa
88 Alexander Militariev, Proto-Afrasian Lexicon Confirming West Asian Homeland: Pastorialism Journal of Language
Relationship 1 (2009): 96-106; idem, Home for Afrasian: African or Asian, in Cushitic and Omotic Languages: Proceedings of the
Third International Symposium, Berlin, March 17-19, 1994 (Berlin, 1994) 13-32; Evidence of Proto-Afrasian Cultural Lexicon (1.
Cultivation of Land. II. Crops. III. Dwelling and Settlement), in Hans G. Mukarovsky (ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth International
Hamito-Semitic Congress (Wien, 1990) I: 73-85. Jared Diamond and Peter Bellwood, Farmers and Their Languages: The First
85
86
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where five of the six generally recognized branches still reside.89 The Age-Area hypothesis in
linguistics require an African homeland, as pointed out by Merritt Ruhlen.
According to what is known as the Age-Area hypothesis in linguistics, the homeland of the family should be
located in the area of greatest linguistic divergence. With respect to Indo-European, the great divergence of
the Anatolian branch from the rest of Indo-European points to a homeland in Anatoliawhich matches the
point of origin of the spread of agriculture into Europe through Greece and the Balkans. With respect to AfroAsiatic, however, the centre of diversity would have to be located in Africa, especially if Omotic is the
Anatolian of Afro-Asiatic, as some claim. But even if Omotic is just one of several coordinate branches, the fact
remains that all of the branches are located in Africa, with the exception of Semitic which is found in both
Africa and the Near East. Thus the linguistic evidence would speak for an expansion from Africa to the Near
East rather than vice versa.90
AA likely evolved in the Darfur-Kordofan region along the present-day border between
Chad and Sudan.91
Regarding the Semitic branch in particular, a number of scholars postulate an African
origin (i.e. a divergence in Africa from the larger AA group) of this linguistic family and its
speakers.92 Recent data supports this suggestion of an African origin of Semitism. Roger Blench
is convinced that the AA Urheimat (original home) was in the Omo Valley in southwest Ethiopia
and that AA divided into North AA and South AA. North AA, he suggests, traveled down the
Nile and branched out eastward into the Near East to form Sem and westward to form Berber. 93
According to Nicholas Faraclas, Professor in Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico (1995),
several lines of evidence converge to suggest that the Proto-Semites (i.e. the original group of
Semitic speakers) separated from the Proto-Afroasiatic (P-AA) group in Middle Africa and
followed the Blue Nile to the Ethiopian Highlands, crossing over into Arabia from the Bab el-
Expansions, Science 300 (2003): 597-603; idem, Response, Science 306 (2004) 1681; Werner Vycichl, The Origin of the HamitoSemitic Languages, in Herrmann Jungraithmayr and Walter W. Mller (edd.), Proceedings of the Fourth Internation HamitoSemitic Congress, Marburg, 20-22 September, 1983 (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjaminus Publishing Company, 1987) 109121;
89Afroasiatic is often represented as originating in the Near EastHowever, linguistically, this is most unlikely since Egyptian,
Berber and Semitic are very undiverse. The Semitic languages are a tightly knit group almost certainly reflecting recent expansion.
The diversity of Afroasiatic is almost entirely in a belt stretching from Ethiopia to Lake Chad Roger Blench, Types of Language
Spread and Their Archaeological Correlates: The Example of Berber, Origini 23 (2001): 174 [art.=169-189]; John Huehnergard,
Afro-Asiatic, in Roger D. Woodard (ed.), The Ancient Languages of Syria-Palestine and Arabia (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2008) 225; Christopher Ehret, S.O.Y Keita and Paul Newman, The Origins of Afroasiatic, Science 306 (2004) 16801681; Carleton T. Hodge, Afroasiatic: The Horizon and Beyond, in Scott Noegel and Alan S. Kaye (edd.), Afroasiatic Linguistics,
Semitics, and Egyptology: Selected Writings of Carleton T. Hodge (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 2004) 64; ML Bender, Upside
Down Afrasian, Afrikanistische Arbeitspapiere 50 (1997): 19-34; Christopher Ehret, Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (ProtoAfrasian): vowels, tone, consonants, and vocabulary (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) 487; Joseph H. Greenberg,
"African linguistic classification," in Joseph Ki-Zerbo (ed.), General History of Africa, Volume 1: Methodology and African
Prehistory (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. 1981) 292308. On the Africa vs. Asia AA Origin dispute see
Daniel P. Mc Call, The Afroasiatic Language Phylum: African in Origin, or Asian? Current Anthropology 39 (1998): 139-143.
90 Personal communication to Colin Renfrew, Before Babel: Speculations on the Origins of Linguistic Diversity, Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 1 (1991): 12-13 [art.=3-23].
91 The complex we associated with [Afraisan] appears to have had its originin a culture on the Central Nile, which we may
consider the earliest identifiable homeland of these people. Carleton T. Hodge, Afroasiatic: The Horizon and Beyond, The Jewish
Quarterly Review 74 (1983): 146 [art.=137-158]; Nicholas Faraclas, They Came Before the Egyptians: Linguistic Evidence for the
African Roots of Semitic Languages, in Silvia Federici (ed.), Enduring Western Civilization: The Construction of the Concept of
Western Civilization and Its Others (Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger, 1995) 175-96; Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The
Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume III: The Linguistic Evidence (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006)
88.
92 See e.g. Gregorio del Olmo Lete, Questions of Semitic Linguistics. Root and Lexeme: The History of Research (Bethesda,
Maryland: CDL Press, 2008) 115; Edward Lipiski, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar (Leuven: Uitgeverij
Peeters and Departement Oosterse Studies, 1997) 42-43; A. Murtonen, Early Semitic (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967), 74.
93 Blench, Types of Language Spread; Bernal, Black Athena, 3: 74-76 and list of references pp. 746-747.
Page 25
Mandeb94; other Proto-Semites probably continued north down the Nile eventually entering
Syria-Palestine from the Isthmus of Suez. He suggests:
the origins of the Ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, Babylon, Assyrian, and Arabic languages (trace) back to a
central African homelandmany of the speakers of the languages from which all these languages
developed may have participated in a black civilization that was driven out of Central Africa by the
expanding Sahara Desert some 7,000 years agoWhen the evidenceis synthesized, the following
scenario emerges. At the outset of the last Major Wet Spell, the Ancient Egyptian speakers would have
made their way north down the Nile, while the Beja speakers would have gone eastward up the Atbara.
The Omotic speakers would have headed south on the White Nile, followed and later almost completely
displaced by the Cushitic speakers. The Chadic and Berber groups would have gone west into the marshes
and swamps of the of the Chad Basin, where they finally divided and went their separate ways, the Berber
speakers to the northwest and the Chadic speakers to the southwestFinally, the Semitic group would
have followed the Blue Nile to the Ethiopian highlands (where the majority of Semitic languages are
found to this day) and would eventually have reached the narrow straits that separate the horn of Africa
from the Arabian Peninsula. There is convincing toponymic evidence that the Semitic speakers first
crossed over into the Middle East via this route. Traces of different subgroups of Semitic are found all
along the eastern and western shores of Arabiaavailable evidence points toward a Middle African origin
not only for Afroasiatic as a whole, but also for the Semitic group95
As Gregorio del Olmo Lete, scholar of Semitic philology from the University of Barcelona, noted
most recently (2008) as well:
[Proto-Semites] formed part of a mass of peoples who, moving out from the heart of Africa, spread north and
reached the Mediterranean coast and beyondThe Semitic family [was] the spearhead of one of the expansive
movements of peoples toward Asia (from Africa)96
Prof. Christopher Ehret, Africanist from UCLA, echoes this perspective:

The earliest ancestral form of the Semitic languages (was a) subgroup of the Afrasan family the only
reasonable interpretation of (the) evidence is that Semitic was a solitary Asian offshoot of the family,
brought into Asia long ago by immigrants from Africa.97
Some scholars, while acknowledging the African origin of the larger AA family,
postulate a Levantine origin for the Proto-Semitic (=P-Sem) language in particular.98 Peter
Bellwood from the Australian National University affirmed: Proto-Semitic is undoubtedly of
Levant origin.99 That is to say, a group of African AA speakers migrated northeast into the
Levant and there evolved the P-Sem language, maybe as early as the 8th millennium BCE.
Renowned Russian linguist Igor M. Diankonoff initially argued that the origin of the AA family,
including Sem, was in the north-western part of the modern Republic of the Sudan.100 The
Semites were said to have been a group of East Africans who branched off from the P-AA stock
in Africa and migrated to Syria-Palestine in the 9th-8th millennium BCE. Later Diankonoff
modified his position: still maintaining that North Africa is the origin of the AA family in
Faraclas, They Came Before the Egyptians 190.
Faraclas, They Came Before the Egyptians.
96 del Olmo Lete, Questions of Semitic Linguistics, 115.
97 Ehret, Civilizations of Africa, 38, 57.
98 Andrew Kitchen, Christopher Ehret, Shiferaw Assefa and Connie J. Mulligan, Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic
languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East, Proceedings of the Royal Society B 276 (2009): 27032710.
99 Peter Bellwood, First Farmers: The Origin of Agricultural Societies (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 209.
100 Earliest Semites in Asia, Altorientalische Forschungen 8 (1981)23-70.
94
95
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general, he moved the origin of P-Sem (and thus the Semitic branch) to the area between the
Nile Delta and Palestine, where a group branched off from the parent AA stock, migrated to the
Levant area, and then became Semitized, if you will.101 Diankonoff points to the archaeological
and architectural remains of the Jericho culture of 8th-7th millennium BCE Palestine as part of
this early Common Semitic culture. None of this de-Africanizes Sem. Whether the
Semitization of this AA branch took place in the Sudan or the Levant, we are talking about a
group of migrating Africans evolving African languages.
The results indicate that the ancestor of all Semitic languages in our dataset was being spoken in the Near East
no earlier than approximately 7400 YBP, after having diverged from Afroasiatic in Africa.102
How old are the Semites? It is hard to say empirically. Proto-Semitics close language
contacts with Libyco-Berber and with Cushitic suggested to Edward Lipiski that the ProtoSemites were still dwelling in Africa in the fifth millennium and passed through the Nile delta
from West to East, reaching Western Asia (Afrabia)103 in the third millennium.104 del Olmo Lete
seems to agree, placing the Proto Semitic divergence from the parent stock in the Chalcolithic
period (5,300-1,700 BCE) and their arrival in the Levant around the fourth millennium.105 On the
other hand, Russian linguist Igor Diakonoff made a strong case for the earliest Semitic society
being that represented by the Jericho culture of eighth-seventh millennium Palestine.106 These
conclusions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as it is known that more than one wave of
(Proto-)Semites likely branched out from its Middle African homeland at different time periods.
Ancient Semites and Ancient Kemites
According to Prof Ehret in his fascinating work, The Civilizations of Africa: A History
to 1800,107 the linguistic evidence allows us to demarcate at least two ancient Afrasan (he prefers
this term for AA) communities: (1) a Southern AA group which inhabited the Ethiopian
Highlands and (2) a group of Erythraites who resided between the Red Sea and the Nile. From
its origin between the Nubian Nile and the northern Ethiopian Highlands, Afrasan societies
spread southward into the Horn and northward down the Nile and the Red Sea Hills. The
expansion along the lower Nile would eventually produce the ancient Egyptian language
group. The expansion across the Bab el-Mandeb likely produced South Semitic while the
expansion down the Nile and across the Sinai produced North Semitic. Prof Ehret suggests:
(a) group of northern Erythraite communities, speaking a language ancestral to the later Semitic
languages, moved northward at some point across the Sinai Peninsula and into the Palestine-Syria region
of far southwestern Asia. Just when this movement of language and culture took place is not yet known.
One possibilityis that the spread of the Mushabian culture from Africa to Palestine-Syria before 11,000
BCE brought about this developmentthe Erythraite society(s)cultural heirs in much later times were
the Semites108
Igor M. Diankonoff, The Earliest Semitic Society: Linguistic Data, Journal of Semitic Studies 43 (1998): 209-219.
Kitchen et al., Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages, 2708.
103 On Afrabia as an appropriate designation for Arabia see Wesley Muhammad, Black Arabia and the African Origin of Islam
(Atlanta: A-Team Publishing, 2009) 8-12.
104 Lipiski, Semitic Languages, 43.
105 del Olmo Lete, Questions of Semitic Linguistics, 115.
106 Diakonoff, Earliest Semitic Society."
107 Ehret, Civilizations of Africa.
108 Ehret, Civilizations of Africa, 76.
101
102
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The fact that Semites branched off along the Nile from the same parent stock as did the ancient
Egyptians is of profound significance for our discussion. This means that the Semites and
Kemites were cognate peoples and share some of the same religio-cultural and linguistic
genes as a consequence. As this is the broader context in which to understand the relation of
ancient Semites and Kemites (Egyptians), it is also the context in which we are to understand
the relation between the Semitic Allah and the Egyptian Rah.
Semitic African?
Imhotep unhesitantly treats the Sumerian language (hereafter Sum) as a bonafide
African language and cites it as such.109 Imhotep is not in error for treating Sum as an African
language. It has been demonstrated as much to my satisfaction as to his that Sum shows a
strong genetic relationship with NC languages of West Africa and the speakers likely originated
many millennia before the common era (B.C.E.) in Middle Africa. They may have migrated out
of the dessicating Sahara and into Afrabia before 3000 B.C.E., reaching the alluvial plains of
Mesopotamia.110 And herein lies the great irony: Sum is not spoken or documented in Africa
proper (sic); rather, Sum is documented only outside of Africa in Mesopotamia. So,
The Sumerian language has been proven, by way of the comparative method, to be a Niger-Congo language: Imhotep, Egypt
in its African Context Note 3, 16. See also Imhotep, AALUJA, 91.
110 Hermal Hermstein, Black Sumer: The African Origins of Civilization (London: Pomegranate Publishing, 2012); idem, Black
Sumer: The Physical Evidence (Part Two) (Civilization (London: Pomegranate Publishing, 2013); GJK Campbell-Dunn, Sumerian
Comparative Grammar Part One (Christchurch, NZ: Penny Farthing Press, 2009) idem, Sumerian Comparative Dictionary Part II
(Christchurch, NZ: Penny Farthing Press, 2009); Fari Supiya, Afterword: Where From Here, in Robin Walker, When We Ruled:
The Ancient and Medival History of Black Civilizations (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 2011 [2006]) 645-670; Clyde Winters, The
Kushite Spread of Haplogroup R1*-M173 from Africa to Eurasia, Current Research Journal of Biological Sciences 2 (2010): 294-299;
idem, Tamil, Sumerian, Manding and the Genetic Model, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 18 (1989): 67-91; idem,
The Proto-Culture of the Dravidians, Manding and Sumerians, Tamil Culture 3 (1985) 1-9; The Ancient Black Civilizations of
Asia (n.p.: n.p., 2013) 64-83; Rev. W. Wanger, Comparative Lexical Study of Sumerian and NTU (Bantu). Sumerian The Sanscrit
of the African NTU Languages (Stuttgart and Berlin: W. Kohlhammer, 1935); idem, NTU Philology, Journal of the Royal African
Society 29 (1930): 401-423; Albert Drexel, Bornu und Sumer, Anthropos 14-15 (1919-120): 215-294; W.A. Crabtree, Bantu Speech:
A Philological Study, Journal of the Royal African Society 17 (1918): 307-313, 18 (1918-1919): 32-44, 101-113, 202-214, 290-301; idem,
Consonant Change in Bantu Speech, Journal of the Royal African Society 27 (1927): 57-68; J.F. van Oordt, The Origin of the
Bantu. A Preliminary Study (Cape Town, South Africa: Cape Times Limited, 1907); Carl Meinhof, Das Sumerische und die
Sprachen Afrikas, Zs. Fr Kolonialsprachen 5 (1914-1915): 319-331. Further strong indirect support of this thesis is provided by the
demonstrated relationship between Sumerian and Dravidian, on the one hand, and Dravidian and Negro-African languages on the
other. On the Sumerian-Dravidian relation see: Clyde Winters, supra; Alfrd Tth, Are all agglutinative languages related to one
another? (The Hague, Holland: Mikes International, 2007); Malati J. Shendge, The Language of the Harappans: From Akkadian to
Sanskrit (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1997): K. Loganatha Muttarayan, The Sumerian Nin-me-sar-ra as a Text in Archaic
Tamil, Journal of the Institute of Asian studies 6 (1989): 45-84; idem, Sumerian: Tamil of the First Cakam, Journal of Tamil
Studies 8 (1975): 40-61; J. V. Kinner Wilson, Indo-Sumerian. A New Approach to the Problems of the Indus Script (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1974); Paulinus Tambimutu, Europe and the Dravidians (Ceylon, Sri Lanka: P. Tambimuttu, 1994 [1979]); A.
Sadasivam
Extra
Dravidia
AffinitiesAffinities
between
Dravidian
and
Sumerian,
International
Seminar On Dravidian Linguistics II (Annamalinagar: Annamalai, 1969); R.S. Vaidyanatha Ayyar, Manu's land and trade laws:
their Sumerian origin and evolution up to the beginning of the Christian era (Delhi:Oriental Publishers & Distributors, 1976); On
Dravidian and Negro-African languages and cultures see: K.P. Aravanan, Physical and Cultural Similarities Between Dravidian
and African, Journal of Tamil Studies 10 (1976): 23-27; Uliyar Padmanabha Upadhyaya and Susheela P. Upadhyaya, Dravidian
and Negro-African. Ethno-linguistic Study on the origin, diffusion, prehistoric contacts and common cultural and linguistic
heritage (Udupi: Samshodhana Prakashana, 1983); U.P. Upadhyaya, Dravidian and Negro-African, International Journal of
Dravidian Linguistics 5 (1976): 32-64; K.P. Aravaanan, Anthropological Studies on the Dravido-Africans (Madras: Tamil Koottam:
Selling right, Paari, 1980) idem (ed.), Dravidians and Africans, (Madras: Tamil Koottam, 1977); Clyde Ahmad Winters, Origin and
Spread of Dravidian Speakers, International Journal of Human Genetics 8 (2008): 325-329; idem, The Far Eastern Origin of the
Dravidians, Journal of Tamil Studies 27 (1985): 65-92; idem, Dravidians and Proto-Saharans, in The Dravidian Encyclopaedia
(Trivandrum: International School of Dravidian Linguistics, 1991) 247-252, 553-556; Edwin H. Tuttle, Dravidian and Nubian,
Journal of the American Oriental Society 52 (1932): 133-144. On Dravidian and Afroasiatic see Vclav Blaek, Elam: A Bridge
between the Ancient Near East and Dravidian India? Mother Tongue 8 (2002): 123-146 (=revised version of Elam: A Bridge
between the Ancient Near East and Dravidian India? in Archaeology and Language IV: Language change and cultural
transformation, ed. Roger Blench and Mathew Spriggs [London and New York: Routledge, 1999] 48-78]; idem, Some New
109
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1.] Sum is documented only outside of Africa in Mesopotamia (Afrabia) though it shows a
genetic relationship with an African language family (Niger-Congo) and its speakers were
likely original Africans who migrated out of Africa and to their current location (Mesopotamia)
several millennia ago.
What says Imhotep on Sum? African.
2.] On the other hand the Semitic languages (Sem) are documented and spoken in both Afrabia
(Arabia) and Africa; they are genetic members of an African language family (AA) and its
speakers were original Africans, some of whom migrated out and to Afrabia while others
stayed put in Africa proper (East Africa).
What says Imhotep? Not African. At least, not really.
The reason for Imhoteps committal to Sums Africanness but non-committal to Sems
whose African pedigree and bona fides is much more obvious and documentable - is hard to
understand if it is not ideological. Certainly the data does not justify it.
In closing this section, I want to quote the classifier of African languages, Joseph H.
Greenberg, whose general classification Imhotep seems to accept. In 1962 Greenberg published
the article, On the African Affiliation of Hebrew and the Semitic Languages, in which he
makes an observation most apt for our discussion:
Since four of the five branches of Afroasiatic are spoken exclusively in Africa and the fifth, Semitic, centers in
the part of Asia which is nearest to Africa, the ultimate homeland of Afroasiatic is in all probability to be
found somewhere in Africa. The ancestral speakers of Semitic would have crossed from Africa to Asia,
possibly across the Bab-el-Mandeb at some remote periodit is evident thatmatters of language
classification often are far from neutral ideologically, and, correspondingly, arouse strong emotional attitudes.
Conscious and subconscious ideological factors undeniably played a role in delaying the recognition of the
African as against the Indo-European connections of Semitic.111
After reading Imhoteps critique several times it very much feels or seems that, while he
intellectually knows that Sem is a distinctly African phenomenon, ideological reasons preclude
his commitment to this fact, much like those Indo-Europenists whom Greenberg speaks of. In
turn, Imhoteps inability to commit to this fact had consequences for his reading of other facts.
Excursus: EGYPTIAN
The relation between the Semitic Allah and the Egyptian Rah should not be seen outside
the immediate context of the relation between the Sem and Egyptian language families. Both are
members of the same macro-phylum, AA, and thus ultimately descend from the same
predialectical parent language, P-AA. We should thus expect to find numerous cognate terms,
as well as cognate mythemes.
Dravidian-Afroasiatic Lexical Parallels, Mother Tongue 8 (2002): 171-198; idem, The New Dravidian-Afroasiatic Paralles:
Preliminary Report, in Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian, Austric and Amerind : materials from the first international interdisciplinary
symposium on language and prehistory, Ann Arbor, 8-12 November, 1988, ed. Vitaly V. Shevoroshkin (Bochum: Brockmeyer, 1992)
150-165.
111 Joseph H. Greenberg, On the African Affiliation of Hebrew and the Semitic Languages, Jewish Social Studies 24 (1962): 84, 85
[art.=79-85.]
Page 29
The common derivation of the two languages resulted in significant linguistic

commonalities between them. As Aaron D. Rubin documents:
the genetic relationship of Egyptian and the Semitic is solidly establishedThe regular phonological and
semantic correspondences between the morphological systems of the Egyptian and the Semitic clearly
demonstrate that these two language families are related.112
Egyptian linguogenesis is certainly in the Nile Valley south of Upper Egypt.113 While it is
true that at a later date Sem and Egyptian would come into areal contact and thus influence
each other, the majority of the commonalities go back to their mutual predialectical parent
language. It is certainly wrong, even wrong-headed, to describe ancient Egyptian as a Semitic
tongue, as did W.F. Albright in 1918,114 or to suggest that Egyptian in any way derived from
Semitic, as did Werner Vycichl in 1959.115 The undeniable differences between the two language
families preclude this. As Helmut Satzinger points out:
Egyptian and Semitic are related languages, with astounding resemblances and disturbing dissimilarities.
Their high age of attestation brings the two Afroasiatic branches closer together. But they still are separated by
a prehistory of several thousand years, and it was only a comparatively short timespan, beginning with the
fourth millennium, that brought them in areal contact. 116
The disturbing dissimilarities, well outlined by Satzinger,117 no doubt arises from the fact that
Egyptian is a mixed language, but less a merger of Semitic and some local African substratum
(as claimed by some118) than a merger of AA and another African language family, probably NlS or NC or maybe even Ng-S.119
Though the overwhelming majority of the oldest Egyptian vocabularyis of Afro-Asiatic origin, a number of
Egyptian words (mostly of oldest attestation) cannot be satisfactorily etymologized on Afro-Asiatic
Aaron D. Rubin, An Outline of Comparative Egypto-Semitic Morphology, Egyptian and Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic)
Studies (Brill, 2004): 454-486. See also Carleton T. Hodge, An Egyptian-Semitic Comparison, Folia Orientalia 17 (1976): 5-28: The
language groups known as Semitic, Egyptian, Chadic and Berber are genetically related, deriving from a common proto-language
Egyptianis closely related to Semitic. See further Helmut Satzinger, The Egyptian Connection: Egyptian and the Semitic
Languages, Israel Oriental Studies 20 (2002): 227-264; Gbor Takcs, Recent problems of Semitic-Egyptian and Semito-Cushitic
and Chadic consonant correspondences, Aula Orientalis 23 (2005): 207-231. Thus, the relationship between Semitic and ancient
Egyptian is not superficial as suggested by James E. Brunson, Before the Unification: Predynastic Egypt, An African-centric View
(n.p.; n.p., n.d.) 67.
113 Ancient civilization was, in ways and to an extent usually not recognized, fundamentally African. The evidence of both
language and culture reveals these African roots. The origins of Egyptian ethnicity lay in the areas south of Egypt. Christopher
Ehret, Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, Egypt as an African Culture, in Egypt in Africa, ed. Theodore Celenko
(Indianapolis and Bloomington, IN: Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana University Press, 1996) 25-27. See also Alain Anselin,
Some Notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures from which Emerged the Egyptian Civilization, in Egypt in its African
Context. Proceedings of the conference held at The Manchester Museum, University of Manchester, 2-4 October 2009, ed. Karen
Exell (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2011) 43-53.
114 Notes on Egypto-Semitic Etymology, American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 34 (1918): 81.
115 Is Egyptian a Semitic Language? Kush 7 (1959): 27-44.
116 Satzinger, Egyptian Connection, 23.
117 Helmut Satzinger, Ancient Egyptian in the Context of African Languages, in frica Antigua. El Antiguo Egipto, una
Civilizatin Africana, ed. Josep Cervell Autuori (Barcelona, 2001) 258-265
118 E.g. Bernal, Black Athena III: 89 argues that by the middle of 4th millennium the Egyptian language was apparently forming
from a merger of the southern Egypto-Chadic with the northern Semitico-Berber, even before the political unification that followed
the conquest of the north by the south around 3400 BCE.
119 Ehret, Ancient Egyptian as an African Language, 28; idem, Civilizations of Africa, 92-94; Helmut Satzinger, Egyptian as an
African Language, in Atti del IV Convegno Nazionale di Egittologia E Papirologia. Siracusa, 5-7 Dicembre 1997 (Siracusa 2000)
31-43.
112
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For the Rigorous Historical-Critical Study of Religion

Status quaestionis report # 4

By Wesley Muhammad, PhD

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Dr. Wesley Muhammad is an Historian of Religion. He

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

For Mature Audiences Only

Kaba and Ka and Ba? Response to Asar Imhotep

And more, in sha Allah.

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah is not Allah?

In my 2009 publication Black Arabia and the African

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

The first glyph, the open mouth

glyph, the forearm

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

In the three years since Black Arabia was published, I

In the footnote (#3) Imhotep (2012) writes:

Muhammad, Egyptian Sacred Science and Islam, Chapter VIII.

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Muhammad, Black Arabia, 86-87

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Afroasiatic logic is in my view particularly dualistic and based

This Afroasiatic paradigm which revolves around a

This Afroasiatic triad and its Black Storm God is found

Imhoteps lack of thoroughness and due diligence, as well as his inclination to

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

A more serious handicap, Imhoteps critique is marred by poor historical methodology

Imhotep, AALUJA, 56, 58.

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

PONTIFICATION RATHER THAN DEMONSTRATION

Imhotep, AALUJA, 38.

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Further, Imhotep is in manifest error in his claim that Kongo/Niger-Saharan is the

See our detailed discussion of the Semitic languages below.

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Roger Blench and Mallam Dendo, The Niger-Saharan Macrophylum, (PDF) 3.

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Informal. No systematic reconstruction available72

Thus, this singular PNC reconstruction ra light/fire is an informal, non-systematic

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

In other words, the NC r derived from a *l in the proto-language: rhoticization. Campbell-Dunn

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Imhoteps Ideological Burden on his Linguistic Analysis

Imhotep at times seems hell-bent on erecting an insurmountable wall between the

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Prof. Christopher Ehret, Africanist from UCLA, echoes this perspective:

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

The common derivation of the two languages resulted in significant linguistic

Rah IZ Allah: Response to Asar Imhotep

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