was composed approximately 2000 years ago…â€; and the Kaballah, ‘received tradition’, the ‘intuitive spiritual awareness’ and the enumeration of what the concept of God includes. I believe that these spiritual tools evolved because there was no clear understanding of the origin of God, whether it was realized or not, except as The Creator Who did not sufficiently identify Himself to them – He did not Reveal His personal name.
Did God chose the Illyr-Albanian groups rather than Israel to be the vehicle of Revelation – but no one listened, understood or recorded it? Perhaps the Illyr-Albanians were too involved as participants in their spiritual awareness, too secure in their understandings of it and it was too widespread among them – common knowledge – to find a need to record it, indeed if they had the ability to do so. The Illyr-Albanian influence was present and the fact that it had not been recorded does not mean that it wasn’t so. It is not sacrilegious to learn about it – indeed it is the most religious – spiritually –that one can do. Human history and the hope for the future is forcing a renewal in understanding ‘Revelation’ and religious truths based on origin and not the ‘politics’ of any particular culture.
Let us review the Illyr-Albanian history – a Civilization that left no writings, and the concept continuity in order to attempt to establish validity for source when trying to understand a pre-historic era despite the fact that scholars accept the history of religion or the birth of Western Civilization based mostly on ‘writings’.
Contents:
I. Illyr-Albania: A Civilization that left no writings.
II. ‘In the Beginning’
III. The First God, The Second Coming
IV. The Name of God and The Goodness of Conception
The Universal Message
I. Illyr-Albania: The Civilization that left no writings.
In his ‘Hymn of Liberation’ and an interesting example of ‘intuitive spiritual awareness’, one Vaso Pasha, in 1881, wrote:
“Oh Albania, My Poor Albania
Who (or what) has put your head in the ashes?
You were once a woman of great importance
The people of the Earth used to call the Mother!â€
The fact that the Illyr-Albanian Civilization was one that left no writings would probably answer the question ‘Who (or what) has put your head in the ashes?’ By 1887 the Albanians established a western alphabet. That might be considered late for many to assess the Illyr-Albanian World a civilization at all let alone the oldest continual one in the Western World. What does constitute a civilization may be difficult to determine and some consider their own to be the standard. Be that as it may it should be no small factor that the Illyr-Albanian groups had the logistic ability before 300 B.C. to support Alexander the Great and his Illyrian troops in an attempt to conquer the known world. The thousands of years before that time may not have been recorded but the language, though unwritten, served as a fact of existence and subsequent tool that has lead to this and other analyses of the most profound importance. The language might also serve as a source since it unites us with the past and through the analysis of names and words we gain a perspective that can be had with no other language. The characteristics of the Illyr-Albanian groups that remained similar through the ages can serve as fact for ‘continuity’.
-From ‘Lands and Peoples’, Grolier Society (1929-49):
‘Albania And Its Mountaineers; The Land of the Eagle People’
“Probably less is known of Albania than of any other country in Europe, though Albania is the home of the oldest people of the Balkan Peninsula. In spite of many centuries under foreign rule, they have kept a national feeling and also a language and customs quite different from the people in the neighboring countries. They call their country Shqypnie, or Shqiperia, meaning the Land of the Eagles…So early was their beginning that history and even legend does not tell when they arrived…The Albanian language, which has survived so many centuries, has ever been a puzzle to philologists. Unlike the Greek or Slav of the neighboring countries, it is thought to have come from the primitive Illyrian, the language of Macedonia in the time of Alexander the Great. All attempts of the Serb, Greek and Turk have failed to destroy the Albanians’ love for it. Once, in southern Albania, where some of the people are Albanian Orthodox Christians, the priests taught that it was useless to pray in Albanian for God could not understand it. The Turks forbade giving instruction or printing books in the language…â€
-From ‘Peaks of Shala’, by R. Lane (1923):
“Constantinople’s nothing. Everyone goes to Constantinople. But if you don’t see Albania, you’re wasting the chance of a lifetime. Up in those mountains-right up there in those mountains, a day’s journey from here – the people are living as they lived twenty centuries ago, before the Greeks or the Roman or the Slav was ever known. There are prehistoric cities up there, old legends, songs, customs that no one knows anything about. No strangers ever even seen them. Great Scot, woman! And you sit there and talk about Constantinople!â€
“But if nobody goes, how can we do so?†I said.
“How does anyone ever do anything? Simply do it. Hire horses, get on them, and go.â€
“Carrying our own guns?â€
“Oh we’ll be safe enough! We may run into a blood feud or two, and get our guides shot
up, but nobody ever harms a woman. Nobody even shoots a man in her presence.â€
-From ‘A Military History of the Western World’, by J. Fuller:
“But it was in his (Alexander the Great) outlook upon women – in nearly all ages considered the legitimate spoil of the soldier – that Alexander stood in a totally different moral world compared with the one inhabited by his contemporaries. Not only did he treat the captive wife and daughters of Darius with royal respect, but he held in abhorrence rape and violence, which in his day were the universal concomitants of war…â€
In 1997 an archeological excavation took place in Albania near the town of Konispol in Southern Albania. At the cave site it was discovered that the cave was used as a birthing station for the shepherds’ flocks some ll,000 years ago. Today that same cave is used for the same purpose.
It may be that the fact that the Illyr-Albanian groups had no writings in some ways insulated them from deterioration or extinction because the culture had a very old and strong foundation and continuity and stability were not affected by the passage of time. This does not mean that there were no changes – things were gained and lost – but the basic, shall I say ‘primitive’ aspects of the cultural heritage were sustained.
In recorded times (recorded by others) we can guess that the Illyr-Albanian Civilization was a unique schooling for the young and ambitious and the results were repeated many times throughout history. It was more than just impressive achievements about how the Illyr-Albanians managed to take over their conquerors. Rather it was a confirmation of continuity, stability and endurance that this ‘schooling’ within the Illyr-Albanian Civilization must have provided. It allowed a unique perspective in the way the world was viewed by them.
When Ed. Gibbons wrote the classic the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire†he stated that Rome was saved by a ‘series of great princes who derived their obscure origin from the martial provinces of Illyria’. He conceded that the inevitable fall could not be prevented but that for a time the Empire was restored by the Illyrians.
In many writings about the Ottoman Empire the same word was used ‘Restorers’ about the Kuprili Family and other Albanians of obscure origin that restored that Empire. Some forty Albanians achieved Grand Vizer status – today’s equivalent might be Prime Minister.
In the modern era the Albanians played a key role in establishing nations around the Mediterranean world including Egypt, Italy, Greece, Romania and Turkey. In truth they had difficulty in establishing their own nation of Albania but that is a topic for another time. Neighbors and so-called scholars were not blameless.
An example of continuity by way of characteristics that stretches thousands of years is that of the Mati tribe of Albania. They served as spear throwers in Alexander’s army. They served the Roman legions in the same capacity. In the Middle Ages they served as mercenaries again in the same capacity in Europe. There could be many such studies about particular tribes from Albania and many were recorded by others – mostly pertaining to the military.
The biggest disadvantage of a Civilization that left no writings is the fact that scholars and others (who were too lazy to do research and too impressed with the ‘writings’ of other cultures) were able to confiscate the facts about the land and people of the Illyr-Albanian groups without correction or consequence. By the time of our era the Illyr-Albanian groups were divided into five or six countries in the Balkans.
There are many fragments of information however that one can read like the record in the League of Nations before 1920 where it states that the language in the Greek Navy was Albanian primarily because all the officers were of Albanian origin. There was a story about a document found during World War II that in 1827 the Greek parliament took a vote to change the national language of Greece to