From Tyrant to King
The 'royal' family of Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
The ‘Arab Spring’ gives the false impression that the step from tyrant to king is peculiarly Arab.
Elected presidents are as likely to try to become monarchical as the unelected and this tendency is not limited by race.
The U.S. presidency carries with it some of the characteristics of the 18th century British monarchy, just as the White House is regarded by many Americans with the reverence more usually reserved for a palace.
Unelected presidents – tyrants – merely have less to restrict their vaulting ambition.
If there is a commonality between them, it is the thinking behind their regal dreams. We have studied here some of this thinking:
Chrest: Goodfellas - the great and the good
Study of the context in which this term (Chrest/Good) is used has, fortunately, led me to this understanding of Chrest/Good: the great and the good. Chrest/Good equates ‘Good’ with power in a political, authoritarian sense. (Archaeology of the ‘Great and the Good’)
Julius Caesar was appointed dictator repeatedly, the fourth time for life, granted the sole right of making peace and war, and of disposing of the funds in the treasury of the state. In the last six months of his life he aspired not only to a monarchy in name as well as in fact, but also to a divinity which Romans should acknowledge as well as Greeks, Orientals and barbarians. His statue was set up beside those of the seven kings of Rome and he adopted the throne of gold, the sceptre of ivory and the embroidered robe which tradition ascribed to them.
Julius Caesar became ‘God’ – Divus Iulius – on 1 January 42 BCE and his adopted son, Augustus (right) became the ‘Son of God’ – Divi Filius – 15 years later.
As Octavian, the latter had been elected to the College of Pontiffs in 47 BCE and in January of 27 BCE, the Senate gave Octavian the new titles of Augustus and Princeps – that of Augustus was a title of religious rather than political authority.
On 6 March 12 BCE, he took up the position of Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the collegium of the Pontifices, the most important position in Roman religion.
As Augustus, the emperor unified Church and State, and in a manner a mere king had not.
(Augustus: the Roman Messiah)
The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BCE) is a black limestone Neo-Assyrian bas-relief sculpture from Nimrud (ancient Kalhu), in northern Iraq. The obelisk depicts five different subdued kings, bringing tribute and prostrating before the Assyrian king, here: Jehu of Bit Omri of northern Israel.
This is a concept which has come to permeate the civilisation, culture and various societies that now encompass what was once the Roman Empire. The influence is so pervasive that it is now taken for granted: royalty expects to be bowed to, in the Iranian manner of proskynesis.
The custom of proskynesis was introduced to Europe by Philip II of Macedon, as part of his claim to apotheosis – divinity – which became the driving force of his son, Alexander, as he conquered Egypt, then Persia. Both father and son sought and received the blessing of oracles for their divinity and it is this special relationship with Theos/God, which is used to justify kingship.
This tradition, from Pharaonic Egypt, to imperial Persia, through the successors of Alexander to Rome and Europe, is for a sacral kingship, identical with that of a high priest and of judge in which the temporal position itself has a religious significance. As the mediator between the people and the divine, the sacral king is credited with special wisdom and installed by the grace of god.
I suspect that this is how, watching the news, I have never heard anyone – journalist or politician – question the authority by which tyrants today hold power. The liberal democracies on occasion decide to overthrow a tyrant, such as Saddam Hussein, or Gaddafi, and yet, during their exertions to achieve this, fail to question the basis on which these tyrants gain and hold their power – which I find odd. to say the least.
US President Barack Obama, center, back to camera, greets King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, center, before the official G20 leaders group photo with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at London's Buckingham Palace, Wednesday, April 1, 2009. (AP Photo/John Stillwell/pool)
Maybe part of the reason for this silence is simple embarrassment, for in peacetime, our elected leaders seem happy to grovel to the tyrants when it suits them.
The historical reality of how people become kings is very different, not dependent in any way on a god.
Arabia today is named after one man, Ibn Saud, who spent his teenage years with the Bedouin as a refuge and whose primary occupation – and the family’s sole source of income – was to raid other tribes. With the help of slaves, he took power by force.
In 1925 the forces of Ibn Saud captured the holy city of Mecca from Sharif Hussein bin Ali, ending 700 years of Hashemite rule. The Hashemites trace their ancestry from Hashim ibn Abd al-Manaf (died c. 510 CE), the great-grandfather of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, although the definition today mainly refers to the descendants of the prophet’s daughter, Fatimah.
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| Silver tetradrachmon (ancient Greek coin) issued in the name of Alexander the Great, depicting Alexander with the horns of Ammon-Ra (242/241 BCE, posthumous issue). Displayed at the British Museum. | Imitation silver tetradrachmon issued in the name of the Arab chieftain Abi’el, minted at the site of Mleiha in southeastern Arabia in circa 200 BCE. Local imitative coinages played an important role in commerce along ancient trade routes. Displayed at the British Museum. |
The early history of the Hashemites saw them in a continuous struggle against the Umayyads for control over who would be the caliph or successor to Muhammad. Of these, Abdullah, later became the king of Transjordan, and whose descendants rule the kingdom, that has been known ever since as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Faisal, was briefly proclaimed King of Syria, and ended up becoming King of Iraq. Today Hashemites have spread in many places where Muslims have ruled, beyond Jordan to include Yemen, and Turkey. Most Hashemites in these countries carry the title Sayyid. The Royal family of the Sultanate of Sulu claims Hashemite ancestry currently in the Philippines. They are still influential over the Muslim population of the Philippines. The Royal Family of Morocco also claims ancestry from Imam Ali, though they do not use Hashemite as their dynastic name.
Though our review of chrestic archaeology within its Panhellenistic context has not yet reached the sixth century and the Prophet Muhammad, it will surely draw the Qur’an within its orbit and, through such factors as the Jewish kingdoms of Arabia in the modern era, the Ebionites of Medina, and the trade routes through Arabia into the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Near East. That is, the Arabian model of kingship exists within a Panhellenistic context and must therefore be viewed in the same light as those others of the Panhellenstic world, which stretches from Britain to Greco-India and China.
The Qur’an’s story describes Dhul-Qarnayn building a great barrier in order to enclose the nations of Gog and Magog who “do great mischief in the earth.” A similar story about Alexander is found in the Alexander Romance, which first appeared in Alexandria in the third century. The story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur’an (Sura The Cave 18:83-98) matches the Gog and Magog episode in the Romance.
12th century map by the Muslim geographer Al-Idrisi (south up). "Yajooj" and "Majooj" (Gog and Magog) appear in Arabic script on the bottom-left edge of the Eurasian landmass, enclosed within dark mountains, at a location corresponding roughly to Mongolia. This is a reference to the story of Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an.
In 2009, US Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey reported uncertainty regarding presidential succession, stating “Despite incessant whispered discussions, no one in Egypt has any certainty about who will eventually succeed Mubarak nor under what circumstances.” She listed likely candidates, saying, “The most likely contender is presidential son Gamal Mubarak.” Ambassador Scobey summarised Mubarak’s vision of the presidential succession, stating, “Indeed, he seems to be trusting to God and the ubiquitous military and civilian security services to ensure an orderly transition.”
In Tunisia, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali ruled from 1987 to 2011 before he fled during the Tunisian revolution. He was appointed Prime Minister in October 1987 and assumed the Presidency in November 1987 in a coup d’état from then President Habib Bourguiba. In 1999 Fulvio Martini, former head of Italian military secret service SISMI, declared to a parliamentary committee that “In 1985-1987 we organized a kind of golpe in Tunisia, putting president Ben Ali as head of state, replacing Burghiba (the Italian spelling of the name) who wanted to flee”.
Ben Ali and his family are accused of great corruption and the former first lady Leïla Ben Ali Leila became a lightning rod for dissatisfaction within a Tunisian society disgusted with the rise of her and her family. According to the French newspaper Le Monde Diplomatique, Leila Ben Ali symbolizes the “greed” of the presidential family. An American diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks described how Ambassador Robert F. Godec often heard “barbs about their lack of education, low social status and conspicuous consumption.” Leila Trabelsi reportedly took 1.5 tonnes of gold from the central bank when she and her family fled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. On 20 January 2011, Tunisian television reported that 33 members of Ben Ali’s family had been arrested in the past week, as they tried to flee the country.
Gaddafi with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
In Libya, Gaddafi – whose family belongs to a small tribe of arabized Berbers - gained power in 1969 also through a coup.
On Prophet Muhammad’s birthday in 1973, Gaddafi delivered his famous “Five-Point Address” which: suspended existing laws and implemented Sharia; announced the purging of the country’s “politically sick”; created a “people’s militia” to “protect the revolution”; announced an administrative and cultural revolution.
His many sons were each placed in important positions, controlling the nation’s wealth, society, military and administration. No doubt his successor is intended to be drawn from them.
The Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire at its greatest extent under Justinian in 550
Egypt, Tunisia and Libya were important provinces of the Roman Empire, so much so that after the collapse in the West, the East quickly reconquered North Africa and so it remained until the Arab invasion and establishment of the Arab Caliphate.
No city in the world has an older history of continuous occupation than Damascus, the capital of Syria, which was Roman (Byzantine) province from 64 BCE to 636 CE. In the Roman period, the great city of Antioch (called “the Athens of the east” at that time) was the capital of Syria and it was one of the largest cities in the ancient world, with a total estimated population of 500,000, as well as one of the largest centers of trade and industry. As one of the wealthiest and more populous provinces of the Roman Empire, it is estimated that the population of Roman Syria in the early Roman Empire was only exceeded in the mid-20th century.
Bashar al-Assad is the current president, and is preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office since 1971. Minister of Defence Hafez al-Assad was the strongman of the government, when he effected a bloodless military overthrow. The Assad dynasty is Alawite, a prominent mystical and syncretic religious group, who trace their origins to the followers of the eleventh Imam, Hassan al-’Askari (d. 873), and his pupil ibn Nu?ayr (d. 868); however, historians have traced their roots to Roman and earlier times.
An image of Shakyamuni Buddha at a Seokguram Temple in South Korea
Sacral kingship reaches far into the East, for Buddhism is as Panhellenistic as the religion of any divine man conjured up in Greco-Roman times. Buddhism was originally introduced to Korea from Former Qin in 372 and is still practiced in the atheist North, ruled by another royal presidency.
Kim Il-sung held the posts of Prime Minister from 1948 to 1972 and President from 1972 to his death; he was also the Chairman and General Secretary of the Workers Party of Korea. During his tenure as leader of North Korea, he ruled the nation with autocratic power and established an all-pervasive cult of personality.
Obama Bows in Japan To Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko.
His son – Kim Jong-il, -inherited the leadership; he is the Chairman of the National Defense Commission, General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the ruling party since 1948, and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army.
His son – Kim Jong-un – was promoted to a senior position in the ruling Worker’s Party and is heir apparent.
Panhellenistic roots are deep and extend through both time and space into our world today.
Related posts:
- Augustus: the Roman Messiah
- Mani and Authorship of the Canonical Gospels
- Private: An army of divine men and the secret army of Mithras
- Romans at Stonehenge: from standing stones to cosmic pillars
- Private: The Royal Library of Alexandria in the first century
- Private: The Gospels According to Hadrian, Part III: The Aelian Canon and the Main Hand of God
- Private: When evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world
- Closing the Circle on the Great and the Good
- Private: Greco-Indian contact with Rome
- Archaeology of a first-century wizard
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