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An Open Letter To Mayor Mamdani: On Islam https://t.co/Xuy9xcupaO @ZohranKMamdani @NYCMayor @AOC
— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) April 29, 2026
An Open Letter To Mayor Mamdani: On Islam
Mr. Mayor.
I can't think of a more appropriate person than you with whom to broach this topic with.
Islam is the anti-religion. Islam is the religion of The Devil. Allah is not God. Allah is The Devil having distorted who or what God is. God is omnipotent. Allah, as described in the Koran, is not. Allah does not seem to have the power to enter human history, for example. There is no historic Muhammad. Runners run. Swimmers swim. Prophets prophecy. That is what they do. Isaiah was a prophet. Some of his prophecies are still coming true today. What prophecies have been attributed to Muhammad? There are none.
The Devil has managed to sell the Muslims the Brooklyn Bridge. Most Muslims think Allah is God. Allah is not God. Those who seek peace should do their best to help Muslims attain spiritual clarity on Islam.
But the Mahabharata and the Ramayana tell us, the truly evil do not reason. The truly evil fight to the finish. The last two ages ended with a war, as will this one. The way the forces of good minimize death and destruction is by attaining and helping attain spiritual clarity on Islam, and preapring for the war. Overwhelming force to minimize death and destruction when war becomes inevitable.
The Devil's way is tyranny. How did Islam enter Iran? Become Muslim or die. That is how. How does Iran stay Muslim? Stay Muslim or die. That is how. Utter tyranny.
Take the lead on achieving spiritual clarity on Islam.
There is no moderate Islam, and extreme Islam. There is only Islam. Islam is not a religion of peace. That line in the Koran where it says Islam is a religion of peace is tactical. When you are few in number, and are weak, lie, and say you are for peace. Then when you gather strength, and your number crosses 30%, then it is jihad. That is what it says. That is what it has always said.
Most Muslims think Allah is God. Perhaps you do too. Allah is not God. Allah is The Devil having sold the Brooklyn Bridge to you.
Renouce Islam. Come to the true God. The One True Living God. Renouce the anti-religion that leaves no room for co-existence.
In the polytheistic religious traditions of ancient Mesopotamia, particularly in the great city of Babylon, the goddess Ishtar (known to the Sumerians as Inanna and to the Greeks as Mylitta or Aphrodite) held a central and powerful role. As the deity of love, sexual desire, fertility, war, and political power, Ishtar embodied the generative forces of life alongside its more volatile aspects. Her cult intertwined sexuality with divine worship in ways that often appear startling to modern observers.
The most famous—and most debated—practice associated with her temple is described by the Greek historian Herodotus in his Histories (Book 1.199), written in the 5th century BCE. Herodotus portrays it as one of the most shameful Babylonian customs, yet within its cultural and religious context, it was understood as a pious obligation. The Ritual ObligationAccording to Herodotus, every native Babylonian woman was required, once in her lifetime, to visit the sacred precinct of the goddess Mylitta (Ishtar) and fulfill a specific duty:
Women from all social classes gathered in the temple grounds. Some wealthy or proud women arrived in covered carriages with attendants to maintain a degree of distinction, but the majority sat openly among the crowd. Many wore a crown or band of cord on their heads as a visible marker of their participation in the rite.
Men—often described as strangers or foreigners—walked among the seated women. When a man selected a woman, he would toss a silver coin into her lap and utter the ritual words: “I invite you in the name of Mylitta.” The woman was religiously bound to accept; she could not refuse, no matter how small the sum, because the money immediately became sacred to the goddess upon being offered.
The pair would then leave the temple precinct to consummate the sexual act outside the holy ground. Once the union was completed, the woman had discharged her sacred obligation to the goddess. She returned home, considered purified and holy in the eyes of Mylitta, and was thereafter free to marry and live a normal life. No further payment or persuasion could compel her to repeat the act.
Herodotus notes a practical detail that highlights the human dimension of the custom: attractive or tall women were usually chosen quickly and returned home the same day, while less favored women might wait months or even several years—sometimes three or four—before fulfilling the requirement.
This was not viewed as ordinary commercial prostitution. The payment went to the temple, and the encounter was framed as an act of religious devotion. By participating, the woman honored the goddess who governed love and fertility, symbolically contributing to the renewal of life forces for the community.Religious SignificanceIn the broader cult of Ishtar, sexuality was deeply sacralized. The goddess herself was celebrated in myths as a passionate and powerful figure whose unions influenced the fertility of the land and people. Related rituals, such as the sacred marriage (hieros gamos), involved the king or high priest symbolically uniting with a priestess representing the goddess to ensure agricultural abundance and cosmic harmony.
The one-time obligation described by Herodotus likely represented an extension of these ideas: an act through which ordinary women ritually enacted the goddess’s dominion over human procreation and offered their sexuality in her service. Temple personnel, including certain classes of priestesses and cultic servants (sometimes associated with terms like qadištu), also played roles that could involve sexual elements tied to fertility rites and the temple economy.Historical Context and Scholarly DebateThis custom belongs specifically to the ancient Mesopotamian religious framework centered on Ishtar, which flourished in Babylon and other cities of the region long before and during the period when Babylon came under Persian rule. It should not be confused with core Zoroastrianism, the dominant faith that later developed in ancient Persia (Iran), which emphasized ritual purity and viewed such practices differently.
Modern scholarship remains divided on the historicity of Herodotus’s account. While classical authors such as Strabo later echoed similar stories—sometimes extending them to temples of the Iranian goddess Anahita (Anaitis) in Armenia, where high-born daughters were reportedly dedicated for a period of service before marriage—no direct Babylonian cuneiform texts or archaeological evidence unambiguously confirm a universal, one-time requirement for every free woman.
Some historians argue that Herodotus, writing from a Greek perspective, may have exaggerated, misunderstood, or moralized foreign customs based on hearsay. Others suggest the account could reflect real but more limited practices, such as temporary dedications of certain women, professional cultic servants, or symbolic fertility rites associated with the temple, rather than a mass obligation imposed on all women. The broader concept of “sacred prostitution” in the ancient Near East continues to be a subject of lively academic debate, with questions about its scale, nature, and exact religious meaning.
Regardless of the precise extent to which the ritual occurred as described, the account has endured for centuries as one of the most vivid illustrations of how ancient Mesopotamian religion could integrate sexuality, devotion, and communal well-being. In the cult of Ishtar/Mylitta, the body and its desires were not separate from the divine but could serve as vehicles for honoring the goddess and sustaining the generative powers of life.
This practice stands as a striking example of the profound differences between the religious sensibilities of the ancient Near East and those that developed in later monotheistic traditions.
