The Truth About Noah’s Flood

Excerpt from the book “The Red Tower” by Sufi-Agadist Firudin Gilar Beg

(Translated into English with the help of ChatGPT)

        Berossus writes that the god Cronus appeared to Xisuthrus, the tenth king of Babylon, and commanded him to record the history of the world from its beginning and to bury it in Sippar—the City of the Sun—for safekeeping. He was also ordered to build a ship to survive the coming flood. After the flood, God instructed him to go to Babylon and, together with his people, unearth the writings hidden in Sippar (1).

This suggests that long before the deluge, secret and ancient writings—the “predestination of God”—had been concealed, within which the entire history of the world was preordained.

Furthermore, the Psalms (28:10) state, in connection with the Flood, that “The Lord sat enthroned over the Flood.” And in the Book of Isaiah (54:9), the Flood is referred to as “the waters of Noah,” where God promises never again to bring such a flood upon the earth. These passages imply that the Flood of Noah conceals mysterious events unknown to us.

According to al-Biruni, only a few nations perished in the Flood; “the flood did not pass the gorge of Hulwan (an ancient city and valley in Jibal, Iran) and did not reach the lands of the East. It is said that Noah built his Ark in Kufa (a city in Mesopotamia, ancient Babylonia), where ‘the oven boiled over,’ and that the Ark came to rest upon Mount Judi, not far from those regions” (2).

According to legend, during the time of Noah, a storm—known as the storm of Noah—rose from the fire of the “old woman of Kufa.” All this indicates that the Flood of the “old woman of Kufa” was connected to some form of magical ritual.

One of the documents discovered in the Sumerian city of Larsa states: “The Flood came… After the Flood had passed, kingship descended from Heaven” (3). Thus, royal authority on Earth appears to be directly linked to Noah’s Flood. The “waters of Noah,” which followed this mysterious ritual, symbolize a creative force unknown to us.

According to the Assyro-Babylonian legend, after the Flood, the Ark came to rest upon Mount Nisir, which was specifically associated with the Gutians (4). As A. Oppenheim notes, the “royal lists”—that is, the “dynasty of the Gutians” in Mesopotamia—begin from a mythical era when “kingship descended from heaven to earth” (5).

A similar idea is found in Arabic sources. Al-Kufi, in his Kitab al-Futuh, writes: “Salman ibn Rabia and those who came with him from the Iranian population entered Armenia. The local people told one another that the tribe advancing upon them, according to reports, had ‘descended from the heavens,’ and that these people supposedly did not die and that weapons could not harm them” (6).

This implies that the “dynasty of the Gutians,” which descended from the heavens after the Flood, was in some way connected to Iran and Armenia.

The symbol of “descent from the heavens” appears in many legends. In Sumerian mythology, the supreme deity Anu (father of Enki, Enlil, and Ninhursag) dwelt in the Celestial Abode and only rarely descended to Earth. In ancient Uruk—belonging to his great-granddaughter Inanna—a “high house,” a temple for the “descent from Heaven,” was built for him. This “house” possessed mysterious “copper cornices,” and, according to chronicles, “the gods themselves designed its components.”

According to this myth, Marduk, armed with splendid weapons, after a fierce battle, defeats Tiamat and divides its body into parts. One half, as the celestial ocean, from then on bounds the divine realm of the heavens. This ocean is sealed with a bolt so that its waters cannot pour forth. Over the waters of the abyss, Marduk constructs the celestial palace—the ziggurat Esagila, Etemenanki, “the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth,” which was built “upon the bosom of the underworld so that its summit might reach the heavens” (7).

In an addition to the Assur archive for the sixth tablet, it is stated that the celestial Babylon with the temple Esagila was a gift from the gods to Marduk (8). Hence, Etemenanki—the temple of the cornerstone of Heaven and Earth—and the temple complex Esagila (“the House of the Raising of the Head”) are the very place where the Sippar writings were hidden—that is, Armenia.

Thus, it can be concluded that Noah’s Flood is connected with the construction of a celestial house for the gods, and that the “waters of Noah” represent the energy that grants kings superiority over other humans.

To clarify some details, let us turn to the ancient philosophers. According to Thales, water is a philosophical reinterpretation of the Ocean, Nun. As Aristotle reports, Thales believed that water was the primary substance and that all things arise from it; he also asserted that the Earth rests upon water. On the other hand, this is not merely water, but intelligent or divine water. Diogenes Laertius specifies Thales’ idea as follows: “He held that water is the principle of all things, and that the world is full of gods and endowed with soul” (9).

Anaximander taught that the origin and foundation of all existence is the apeiron (the infinite or boundless). Democritus claimed that at the basis of all elementary particles lie ameres—truly indivisible entities devoid of parts. The ameres, being components of atoms, possess properties entirely different from those of the atoms themselves. Anaximander considered the totality of ameres moving within the void to constitute the universal medium—the ether, or apeiron. In the Orphic conception, ether is the world soul permeating the entire cosmos.

René Descartes wrote that space is entirely filled with matter. Democritus vacillated concerning the nature of the gods but was firm in acknowledging the existence of divinity. The gods, though composed of atoms, are also expressions of cosmic reason. According to Democritus, atoms may be exceedingly small or may reach the size of the Earth, and the world was created by divine intellect, with the gods assisting humankind.

Democritus himself did not claim authorship of atomism, stating that the doctrine had been borrowed from the Medes, in particular from the Magi—the priestly caste of one of the six tribes inhabiting Media. The prevailing idea among the Magi was inner greatness and power, the force of wisdom and knowledge. It is said that the Magi in turn derived their knowledge from the Chaldeans.

In the Bahrain National Museum, there is a large modern relief of the Sumerian god of water, Enki, created on the basis of a cylindrical seal impression from the Early Dynastic III period. It depicts “the life-giving waters of the underworld flowing from the shoulders of the god, who has placed his foot upon the mountain’s summit” (10).

Hence, the “waters of Noah” are the primordial matter—the “life-giving waters,” the substance that surrounds our world. This same essence is the atom, the ether, the apeiron, the ameres, and so on. Yet Democritus’ statement that “atoms may be the smallest or may reach the size of the Earth” leads us to think that under the term atom lies something inconceivable and mysterious.

According to ancient Egyptian conceptions, Nun were the waters of the underworld; and these same Nun were the primordial waters from which life first arose. From these waters of the underworld, life continues to emerge even now, for the sun is reborn each day from Nun, and the Nile issues from a cavern nourished by Nun. Moreover, Nun were the waters encircling the world—the Ocean forming its outer boundary. The Ocean was also called “the Great Encompassing One” or “the Great Green” (11, p.57). Thus, the primordial waters of Nun are connected with the cave from which the Egyptian river Nile is born.

In one of the texts, addressing God, a praying Egyptian says:

“You created the Nile in the underworld and brought it forth to the earth at Your will, in order to prolong the life of men—just as You granted them life when You created them” (11, p.51).

Thus, under the symbol of the underworld one should understand a cave that must be located somewhere in the region of Media and Armenia.

Strabo (XI,7,5), referring to Eudoxus of Cnidus, writes that “in Hyrcania there is a cave from which a river flows into the sea, and the local people come there to perform sacrifices.” This means that the temple Etemenanki is that very cave in which the Sippar writings are hidden.

Concerning the temple at Philae, it was said: “This [temple] came into being when nothing else had yet arisen, and the earth lay in darkness and gloom.” The names of the great temples in Memphis, Thebes, and Hermonthis unequivocally affirmed that they were the “divine emergent primordial island” (expressed in various forms) (11, p.41). From this it follows that the temple Etemenanki is the primordial island itself, which arose when the earth still lay in darkness and shadow.

One of the Psalms (24:1–2) says: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it; for He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”

This indicates that Yahweh founded the universe within the primordial waters.

And in the Qur’an (11:7) it is stated that “the Throne of Allah was upon the water, and He created the heavens and the earth in six days.”

The earth, whose foundation is set upon the seas and raised upon the rivers, reminds us of Eden, from which a river flowed to water the Garden and then divided into four branches.

Ptolemy (V,8,12) reports that near the Hyrcanian Sea there is “the mouth of the river Soan,” “the mouth of the river Alont,” “the mouth of the river Udon,” and “the mouth of the river Ra.”

Consequently, the “life-giving waters” that flow from the mysterious cave in four directions symbolize the celestial vault, which in ancient Egypt was sometimes understood as a sea suspended upon four pillars, sometimes as the celestial cow, and so forth (12).

In the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts it is said that in the beginning there existed the primordial watery chaos—the ocean Nun (the elder god). From it emerged the solar god, self-created—Atum, also known as Khepri (Hapri), the primordial mound. This mound was conceived as the first solid land, the island that appeared from the primordial ocean, and it was the beginning of creation.

Thus, the god Atum, or Khepri, is a self-generated god who brings forth from himself the first divine pair—Shu (light, air) and his consort Tefnut (moisture), and so on.

From this it can be concluded that the ancient Egyptian god Atum—that is, the “atom” that reaches the size of the Earth—transformed the primordial waters of the Ocean Nun into the river Nile and brought them down from the heavens to the earth. Here, beneath the earth, creating the Great Temple Esagila, he called it the “underworld” and connected it with the celestial river Nile.

This is expressed in the Qur’an (23:18): “We sent down water from the sky in due measure, and lodged it in the earth; and We are indeed able to take it away.”

And in the Testimonies of Truth it is said that “the river Jordan represents the power of the body—that is, of sensations and pleasures—and that the water of the Jordan symbolizes the desire for union; John himself is the archon of the womb,” etc. (13).

The river Iardan—that is, the Jordan—was, according to Homer, the dwelling place of the Cicones (14). The Cicones, or kykones, are symbolically people transformed into swans—that is, souls that have departed from their bodies. This means that in the river Iardan, whose source lies in the cave of Hyrcania, that is, in Media, the souls of the deceased pass into the heavenly realm and continue their existence there.

Thus, we can draw a single conclusion: the term “the waters of Noah” refers to the primordial Platonic matter that God brought down from the heavens to the earth. This implies that Noah’s Ark, which saved him during the Flood, is symbolic in nature.

The great Sufi Abu Hamid al-Ghazali — about whom his biographer Subkhi wrote: “If there could be a Prophet after Muhammad, it would undoubtedly be al-Ghazali” — interprets this symbolism in the following way: “The spiritual world (the world of Jabarut — F.G.B.), lying between the two worlds, resembles a vessel moving between land and water. It is not completely engulfed by the agitated waters, yet it is not within the bounds of the calm, tranquil land.” (15)

That is, Noah and his Ark were in the primordial waters of matter surrounding our world. Hence, Noah is the same as the Sumerian Utnapishtim, who attained immortality within the luminous ocean. And his Ark is that structure through which he received and preserved this immortality.

References

1. Фрезер Дж. «Фольклор в Ветхом Завете». М., 1990, стр.70

2. Бируни Абу Райхан. Избранные произведения. том.I, Памятники минувших поколений, Ташкент, Изд-во АН УзССР, 1957, сайт: http://www.pereplet.ru/gorm/chrons/biruni1.htm

3. Хук С. Г. «Мифология Ближнего Востока». М., 1991, стр.116,117

4. И. М. Дяконов «История Мидии» М-Л.,1956, стр.156

5. А. Л. Оппенхейм «Древняя Месопотамия» М.,1980, стр.146

6. Azərbaycan tarixi üzrə qaynaqlar, B.,1989, стр.59

7. Б. А. Тураев «История древнего востока» Л.,1935. том 2, стр.91

8. Б. А. Тураев «История древнего востока» Л.,1935, том.1, стр.125

9. Диоген Лаэртский. О жизни, учениях и изречениях знаменитых философов. М., 1979, стр.71

10. Девид Рол «Генезис цивилизации. Откуда мы произошли…» Эксмо, 2002, стр.202

11. Франкфорт Г., Франкфорт Г. А. Дж. Уилсон, Т. Якобсен. «В преддверии философии» М.,1984

12. "Культура Древнего Египта", М.,1986, стр.296

13. Хосроев А. Л. «Александрийское христианство». М.,1991, стр.223

14. «Одиссей» 290

15. Абу Хамид Ал-Газали «Воскрешение наук о вере» М.,1980, стр.213

Firudin Gilar Beg 

 Alimi-Billah, the Sufi-Aggadist