‘The 7 Commandments For Happiness and Prosperity’ Tells How

Exclusive Interview With Shari Sharifi Brown, Author

By W. Leon Smith, Publisher

Shari Sharifi Brown

LOS ANGELES – Shari Sharifi Brown, author of the new book The Seven Commandments For Happiness and Prosperity, has identified common denominators in the messages provided by the founders of the three Abrahamic religions – Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad – that she says if followed guarantees prosperity and happiness.

Brown, a Harvard-educated mathematician, nuclear scientist, biblical scholar, and successful business woman, over three decades has plowed through centuries of superstitions and political ideologies to better understand the progression and evolution of religion and how it can either work for the benefit or decline of mankind.

In an exclusive interview with The Iconoclast, she explained that the masses should adhere to the messages expressed in the original texts as a pathway for happiness and prosperity and not be misled by those who misinterpret these texts and use them for political gain, dominance, and control over others.

In her book, Brown details how rulers defined their own religions to gain personal power and along the way misinterpreted the original texts in order to control the masses, how Roman Catholics and the Crusades wrecked lives for dominion, and how Islam is being misinterpreted today for similar reasons. The end result, she says, are battles among the religions that have veered from the straight and narrow.

Brown said that everything we seek lies on the other side of fear, but historically and even today religions manufacture fear to prevail and hold hostage the masses. Throughout mankind’s history, religion has often played a role in persecuting those who are different, she explained. It has been used as an excuse for genocide, slavery, segregation, and war. “It’s impossible to understand how an all-powerful God who created mankind can hate any of his own creations.”

In her book which concisely traces the messages from Moses, who provided 10 commandments; Jesus, who provided two; and Mohammad, who listed seven in the Qur’an, Brown was able to eliminate repetition and redundancy and combine them into seven essential commandments. She said that too often people are quick to consider only one or two sources and not look at the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qu’ran through the same lens.

The three are compatible, she said. “Understanding the similarities of the three outweigh the differences. The Qu’ran and Islam regard Jews and Christians as Muslims since the word Islam means submission to the higher power, first the Hebrews through prophet Moses and then to the followers of Jesus.”

“They recognize many of the same biblical prophets, in particular Moses and Jesus,” she added, “as those are Muslim names. Another common Muslim name is Mary. In fact, the Virgin Mary’s name occurs more times in the Qu’ran than in the New Testament. Muslims also believe in the virgin birth of Jesus. However, they believe that over time the original revelations to Moses and Jesus became corrupted.”

“There are, of course, great similarities among these religions,” Brown said. “They all call for high moral standards and serious personal commitment. All share common traditions, since Muhammad learned from Jews as well as Christians, and all have a vision to spread their faith around the world.”

Brown was born a Shiite Muslim in Isfahan, Iran and came to the United States to study, where she earned a B.S. in engineering. She returned to Iran for work as a structural engineer, but after the Iranian Revolution, she returned to the United States and has now lived here for over 30 years.

Although being born a Muslim in pre-revolutionary Persia, she converted to Christianity in school and married into a Jewish-American family. She has lived all three religions and studied them deeply, which led her to understand their innate compatibility. It was through her lifetime of study and practice of these philosophies that she came to the important conclusion: we must follow the key elements of all three major religions to make us whole and secure. This resulted in her going back to square one, the beginnings of God’s word, and then painstakingly capturing in print the history of religion as it moved toward the present and to explain how deviations from the original texts by those who altered them for political purposes have caused wars and conflicts.

Shari Sharifi Brown

She explained that adherence to one religion should not create a bias against the others. “They are different with similarities or similar with differences. We can and should acknowledge both and not make what is different, difficult. True Christians and Muslims are not a threat to each other.” In the book she notes that quite frequently power-hungry politicians take these religions and “change” the meanings to elicit fear, which more recently has led to bias against Muslims in America after original texts had been changed to encourage violence, for political reasons –  the opposite of the messages in the original texts created by Mohammad, Moses, and Jesus.

She explained that the basis of her formula to mathematically encourage the seven commandments was determined by using the Gospel of Thomas that reveals the sayings of Christ, and the book written by Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist in Arizona, who proved the significance of the number 19. Khalifa was aware that some elements of the Qu’ran focused on the number 19, like Muslims pray 19 times, so he decided to perform an analysis of the Qu’ran, which was accomplished by entering the Qu’ran into a computer to analyze whether there were any mathematical correlations.

What Khalifa discovered was that the Qu’ran was characterized by a unique phenomenon. The frequency of numbers and words, unique spellings, and number of words consistently conformed to a common denominator, the number 19, the complexity of which some biblical scholars have labeled as a miracle, unattainable by a human, providing proof of God’s existence. By consolidating the 19 total commandments from all three major world religions into seven commandments that embrace all three, Brown created her “faith formula.” Here, she explains, the focus shifts from perceived spiritual and religious differences onto what we have in common, and how focusing on these seven commandments along with the habit of positive praying begets happiness.

Numerologically speaking, Brown says that there is no coincidence that the number of Christ’s sayings in the Thomas code totals 114 and the Qur’an has 114 surya (chapters) and 114 is dividable by 19 with no remainder. “When Moses instructed Joshua at the brink of Jordan, he said follow the Commandments and you will be successful and prosperous.”

According to Brown, “It is not the clothes we wear or the cars we drive, or a dry empty rhetoric we belch, nor is it the churches we attend that gives us spirituality, happiness, and prosperity. In the pendulum of existence, spirituality gives us a oneness with God that will lighten the darkest of days. Without spirituality and faithfulness to prayer, we erect an iron curtain around the soul.”

She told The Iconoclast that in todays’ world religion has become so corrupt that “people are afraid to call themselves religious. I wouldn’t want to be called a Muslim because of how Muslims have been portrayed. I was born a Muslim. After reading all these three books cover to cover, I compared them and learned of their vast similarities.” So she decided to apply numerology to all three religions.

“What happened, with all my studies, I wanted to put my thoughts on a piece of paper. People are reluctant when you talk about numerology. People become skeptical. So I wrote this book explaining the history of how all this came to be and how we are where we are. Although I did include the numerology aspect of it, nobody could really relate to it. I added the 10 commandments of Moses and the two commandments of Jesus – that you have to love your God and love your neighbor –and the seven commandments of Mohammad. Mohammad actually said I am not bringing in religion. I am following Moses and Jesus. Islam really doesn’t mean anything than believing in one God. Christ was following Moses, Mohammad was following both of them.”

Brown’s concern is that in today’s world where corruption has captured most religions and re-written the texts to fit politics, people are simply not studying the truths in the ancient texts. “They really, really take advantage of the fact that people are not very astute about these three books. Nobody reads all these three books. So what I came up with was a simple way to explain it all.”

She said that after Moses’ ten commandments, Jesus simplified it in his generation. “There was no Christianity before Christ died. There were no Sunnis before Mohammad died. These were all man-made because of politics. So the simplification that I made was when you go to my seven commandments, it is actually all 19 commandments summarized. So if you abide by these seven commandments, you have done your duty to God.”

Brown told The Iconoclast that through the ages many of the original texts were edited to fit new interpretations, which quite often took away from original intent and were used politically. However, the original commandments have not changed and they are spelled out by Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad. “The only thing that has not changed in any of these books are the commandments,” she said. “One bible is different from another bible. Even preachers improvise and add something. The only thing is, as I said, is the commandments, and I summarized that. That’s what my aim is, for people to become acquainted with this fact.” She noted that she doesn’t want people to go to war over things that are completely untrue. Instead they should communicate directly with God, frequently, through prayer. “You have to be conscious of God and have faith,” she said, “this is the most important thing. If you have faith and know that God will hear you, then you connect.”

“You have to have faith not to be miserable, not to fight, not to go to war and follow things that are totally untrue, such as what we hear today, that all Muslims are violent. That’s not true. God told Mohammad, I want you to go show them the right way, not to have the word reinterpreted to cause violence for political reasons. I went to churches and synagogues and in two minutes they would read something and ask for money,” she said, adding that this is not the purpose of true religion.

The Seven Commandments for Happiness and Prosperity is available in paperback and consists of 216 pages and was published by Veronica Lane Books.

As explained on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Commandments-Happiness-Prosperity/dp/1544842260, “The Seven Commandments takes the reader on a journey through the history of religion to discover the key principles for achieving happiness and prosperity. Our journey begins in prehistoric times when men worshipped multiple false idols, and sacrificed animals, humans and even children to please these gods. While the great Commandments of Moses were a revolutionary act of liberation, the Israelites did not always follow them and suffered the consequences. The simplified Commandments of Jesus made them easier to follow, but wickedness in the name of Christianity by the clergy and average Christians supervened. The Arabs were still worshipping multiple gods when they came in contact with Jews and Christians. Muhammad learned of their sole God and brought these Commandments to his people but many Muslims went astray. The Seven Commandments illustrates the fortunes of those who decide to be inspired by grace to follow the Commandments and achieve inner and outer peace … or the misfortunes of those who flout the law and suffer the consequences.”