[Muhammad] came with war, knives, pillaging, forced enslavement, murders,
and acts that are not from the good God but instigated by the chief manslayer, the devil.
St. Gregory Palamas
INTRODUCTION
THE NATURAL LAW PROVIDES US sure guidance in both our personal life and our life in common. The natural moral law, a law resident in our hearts, is a law placed there by God the creator of men and women. It reflects his ordered reason, his ratio ordinis, and it informs us, through self-evident principles, through inclinations (intellectual feltness), and finally, through the application of practical reason in further determinations (determinationes) to know the good and the discover legitimate means to that good. Writ large, it is what ought to inform our political institutions and our positive laws, for our laws are directed to the common good of all men and women, and any ruler keen on promoting the common good of all humans under his or her care will recognize that, above all, humans are embodied rational creatures, called to do the good and avoid evil, to grow in virtue, and, ultimately, to find their natural end in the contemplation of God, the First Cause of all things. And all this ordering exists before the question of God revealing Himself through supernatural means, through Revelation. Accordingly, the natural law ought to be the common language, the lingua franca, by which and through which all men of good will can speak. It is the law universal and shared by all men, superior to, and precedent of, all positive revelation and all moral convention.
It serves yet another purpose. Since the natural law, albeit natural, is God's own law, that is, of his design and promulgation, it follows that God's revealed law cannot contradict the natural law: by definition God, being perfect, cannot contradict himself, cannot act on whim. It necessarily follows that the law which God has writ in man and his nature, and which is discoverable (albeit with some difficulty) by and through reason ought not to conflict or contradict, though it may be supplemented with and supported by, revealed law. Similarly, the message of one who claims to be a purveyor of God's revelation (in particular if manifest in the form of law), whether it be Moses, or Jesus, or Muhammad, or anyone else, can be tested through the compatibility of that claimed revelation with natural law. Equally, someone who claims to be a prophet, or one whose moral teachings (or revealed laws, such as that of Moses, of Jesus, or of Muhammad) are claimed to have divine warrant, ought to be measured by conformity with the natural law. The natural law, then, serves as a litmus test that may be applied to any claimed revelation and any man who claims to be a messenger of God. A man who claims to be a prophet but lives a life that contradicts the natural law may be confidently rejected as an authentic prophet. We may accept here the admonitory words of Jesus which are eminently reasonable:
We will tackle what is perhaps a controversial subject, but one that needs to be approached honestly and forthrightly. How does Muhammad fare when his life is judged against the natural moral law? What are his fruits?
While we are unable with certainty to judge the subjective sincerity of Muhammad, we are able to make an assessment of his external actions, at least as those are reported to us by Muslim sources. Reliance on Muslim sources, of course, will present Muhammad in the best light possible. In other words, one would anticipate that Muhammad would be no better than as described by those who wished to present him in the best light possible. In actual fact, Muhammad may have been much worse.
The question is particularly important as it relates to Muhammad because moral perfection is a quality that Muslims generally ascribe to Muhammad. Muhammad is described by the Muslims as al-Insān al-Kāmil (الإنسان الكامل), a man who had reached moral perfection. Indeed, the Qur’an itself attests to the supposed moral excellence of Muhammad:
Obviously, a man who has reached a moral perfection must live a life in perfect conformity with the natural moral law in addition to one in conformity with any revealed law. The moral perfection ascribed to Muhammad by the Muslims necessarily means that Muhammad could not have been trapped by convention. Though he could live within convention and custom to the extent that these were not in contradiction with natural moral law and represent a legitimate accommodation to time and place of natural law principles, as a prophet whose ear was in tune with the voice of God, one would expect him to be able to overcome or criticize conventions to the extent that these contravened natural moral law.[2]
In making this assessment, we are fortunate to have Islamic sources upon which we can rely to form a fairly accurate description of Muhammad's life, albeit likely biased in his favor. Although the Qur’an is not particularly biographical, there is quite a wealth of narrations concerning the words and the deeds of Muhammad [called in Arabic (s.) al-ḥadīth (الحديث) or (pl.) aḥādīth;(أحاديث)], and these have been gathered in a number of authentic collections such as the Sahih al-Bukhari, the Sahih Muslim, the Sunan as-Sughra, the Sunan Abu Dawud, the Jāmi at-Tirmidhi, and the Sunan ibn Majah. Moreover, there are some fairly old and traditional biographies of Muhammad (sīrat rasūl allāh or al-sīra al-nabawiyya), such as that by Ibn Ishāq, and stories of his military expeditions (maghāzī), such as that by al-Waqidi. The biography of Ibn Ishāq is considered the earliest of the traditional biographies that survives in some form. Earlier works allegedly written by Urwah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam [who died in 92 AH/710 AD and whom Ibn Ishāq, al-Waqidi, and at-Tabari are all said to have used as a source], Abban ibn Uthman ibn Affan (d. 105 AH/723 AD), and Wahb ibn Munabbih al-Yamani (d. 110 AH/728 AD) have not survived. Indeed, the original work by Ibn Ishāq does not survive, but it does survive in later renditions or editions the writers Ibn Hisham and at-Tabari.[3]
Given what we are asked to believe of Muhammad by his followers (and indeed by Muhammad's own claim to be the final and definite prophet of God), we must demand more of him than we would from an ordinary mortal; and his suffering from human foibles and peccadilloes (or worse), while forgivable or at least understandable in a mere man among men, are not forgivable and are anomalous in a man who has set himself up as a divine standard against which there is no appeal, the normative canon by which human virtue is to be measured. This is particularly true since his messages were buttressed by no miracle, and his flesh has not yet risen from the dead, but lies smoldering, like that of all men, in his mausoleum, the Rauda, at Medina, waiting the Resurrection both he and Jesus preached.
THE SHEER NUMBER OF MARRIAGES, CONCUBINES, and other kinds of relationships with women that might or might not be classified strictly as marriage in which Muhammad engaged offers sufficient evidence of a man who did not conform himself to the natural moral law in regard to marriage and family life. Apologists for Muhammad's life find themselves in losing battles trying to justify this aspect of their alleged prophet's life.
To deflect from any criticism that Muhammad's penchant for women was not driven by simple undisciplined lust, the apologists suggest, for example, that Muhammad's marriages were driven by noble reasons, such as providing for women who otherwise would have no support, or for political reasons such as binding tribes in alliances. Be all that as it may, the ends do not justify the means. Moreover, other methods of financial support or political union could have been easily gained by an institution or relationship that did not give Muhammad sexual access to the women. Muhammad was a genuine reformer: he established religious and political institutions, modified many other existing religious and political institutions, and banned existing religious and political institutions. In some ways, in fact, he appears to have modified relationships between men and women to correspond with his own changing proclivities. He lived a life of clear monogamy with his first wife Khadija, but subsequently engaged in relationships with other women of a variety of categorizations, but all of which appear to have given Muhammad the rights of sexual access to these women. Thus, according to Montgomery Watt, Qur'an 33:50 suggests various levels of relationships with women which Muhammad had, all of which appear to have allowed for sexual access. Watt distinguishes between: (i) wives to whom Muhammad paid ujur (أُجُورَ) [dowry or hire] (ii) those "whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you," meaning captives of war or slaves, (iii) the daughters of paternal and maternal uncles and aunts (i.e., cousins), (iv) those who emigrated with Muhammad, (v) believing women who gave themselves to the prophet, provided the prophet wanted to marry them, and (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).
To suggest that Muhammad was only motivated by reasons other than sexual desire would appear disingenuous in light of the evidence to the contrary. Muhammad seems to have been afflicted with a voracious sexual appetite or perhaps merely delusions associated with it. For example, we might cite to the hadith evidenced in Sahih Bukhari and related by Muhammad's wife Aisha: 07.71.660: "Magic was worked on Allah's Apostle so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not . . . ." There is evidence, however, that there was something that mere magic here and mere delusions. In Sahih Bukhari (01.05.268) we read (as narrated by Qatada) that Anas bin Malik said with regard to Muhammad: "'The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number.' I asked Anas, 'Had the Prophet the strength for it?' Anas replied, 'We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men).' And Sa'id said on the authority of Qatada that Anas had told him about nine wives only (not eleven)." Something similar is attested to in 01.05.282 as narrated by the same Anas bin Malik: "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in one night and he had nine wives at that time." Of course, his view of Paradise appears to have been infected by his sexual cravings.
Muhammad's sexual behavior and his multiple marriages are unedifying to say the least, but some of his sexual behavior and treatment of women were clearly abhorrent under any standard of civility and morality, modern or ancient. The story of Muhammad's relationship with his wife Safiya bint Huyayy ibn Akhtab is one such story. Safiya was a seventeen-year-old Jewess who lived in the town of Khaibar with her recently-wedded husband Kinana bin al-Rabi' bin Abu'l-Huqayq. After Muhammad's troops captured the city of Khaibar, Muhammad ordered Kinana to be tortured to death[9] to make him reveal where the treasure of the town was kept. According to the Muslim biographer of Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, Safiya would have been led past the bodies of her Jewish tribesmen, which would have included the mutilated and decapitated body of her husband, Kinana.[9] She displayed tremendous control and behaved stoically, unlike her cousin whose sorrow so consumed her that she was inconsolable, and Muhammad, irritated by her crying, called her a she-devil and asked her to be taken away from him.[9]
It might be noted that this was not the first time Muhammad had ruined Safiya's peace. Safiya's father, Huyayy ibn Akhtab had been one of the chiefs of the Jewish Banu al-Nadir tribe, and was, moreover, an implacable foe of Muhammad who suffered death at Muhammad's bloody hand. Similarly, her uncle Abu Yasir suffered death at Muhammad's sanguinary hand. Huyayy and Yasir and their tribe, which would have included Safiya, had been forced to emigrate from Medina and settled at Khaibar. Eventually, Huyayy was captured, taken to Medina, and, bound hand and neck by rope and in a tattered flowered robe, put to death (by decapitation) along with between 600 to 800 of his fellow tribesmen, including her uncle and other of Safiya's male kinsmen.[9] Safiya's relationship with her father and her uncle had been close, as based upon her testimony, she was the favorite of both her father and her uncle:
The enmity between the Jewish leaders and Muhammad, the cause of so much suffering for Safiya, was thus intimately brought home to her from a young age by those whom she loved and who loved her. According to Sahih Bukhari 2.14.68, Safiya was captured at the battle of Khaibar and alloted to Dihya al-Kalbi, but the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad made arrangements to have this young seventeen-year-old to be given to him, apparently being struck with her great beauty. See Sahih Muslim 8.3329, Sahi Bukhari 3.34.437. Safiya is an example of how Muhammad had different categories of relationships with women. Originally, his sexual rights over her were as a result of her being a captive. She was one of those whom his right hand possessed. Qur'an 33:50. Subsequently, she became one of Muhammad's wife, apparently his ninth, her freedom or manumission being considered the dowry or mahr (مهر) since all her family was slewn. Sahih Bukhar 5.59.524, 1.8.367. Although it is not clear when Muhammad married her, it was shortly after his conquest of Khaibar. This means that he would have had sexual relations with Safiya by right of capture prior to that marriage, and while the death of her husband and his beheaded and burnt corpse was fresh on her mind. It is impossible to believe that the seventeen-year-old captive Safiya engaged in sexual relations with the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad, murderer of her father, her uncle, and husband, of her own free will and happily. It is not likely that her marriage (and her conversion to Islam) was much of a choice either. Muhammad's behavior toward Safiya is nothing less that exploitative and arguably a form of rape. Indeed, Ibn Ishaq relates how there was initially some fear for Muhammad's life from this relationship, though Muhammad seemed oblivious to it. On the night of her marriage to Muhammad, the faithful Abu Ayyub stood guard outside the tent of Muhammad, and when Muhammad saw him and inquired why Abu Ayyub did so, the latter replied: "'I was afraid for you with this woman for you have killed her father, her husband, and her people, and till recently she was in unbelief, so I was afraid for you on her account.'"[9]
Particularly abhorrent is Muhammad's self-justification, nay, self-adulation regarding his treatment of Safiya. Apparently, the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad believed that in emancipating the seventeen-year-old Safiya (a woman whose father, uncle, and husband he had caused to be killed, who his men had captured, and whom he then traded for and treated as a captive over whom he had sexual rights) and in marrying her he was building himself two rewards in Paradise. Abu Musa reported according to Sahih Muslim 8.3327, that Muhammad maintained that he who freed a slave woman and then married her would obtain two rewards.
Lucky Safiya who was to have the moon fall into her lap,[10] and whose secret longing to be wed to Muhammad--the slaughterer of her father, uncle, husband, male kinsmen and tribesmen, and the capturer and trader of her female cousins and friends, as if chattel, among the ravenous Muslim warriors hungry for human booty--was so wonderfully fulfilled. But when it comes to booty Allah knows best, اللهُ أعلم, the natural law notwithstanding.
It serves yet another purpose. Since the natural law, albeit natural, is God's own law, that is, of his design and promulgation, it follows that God's revealed law cannot contradict the natural law: by definition God, being perfect, cannot contradict himself, cannot act on whim. It necessarily follows that the law which God has writ in man and his nature, and which is discoverable (albeit with some difficulty) by and through reason ought not to conflict or contradict, though it may be supplemented with and supported by, revealed law. Similarly, the message of one who claims to be a purveyor of God's revelation (in particular if manifest in the form of law), whether it be Moses, or Jesus, or Muhammad, or anyone else, can be tested through the compatibility of that claimed revelation with natural law. Equally, someone who claims to be a prophet, or one whose moral teachings (or revealed laws, such as that of Moses, of Jesus, or of Muhammad) are claimed to have divine warrant, ought to be measured by conformity with the natural law. The natural law, then, serves as a litmus test that may be applied to any claimed revelation and any man who claims to be a messenger of God. A man who claims to be a prophet but lives a life that contradicts the natural law may be confidently rejected as an authentic prophet. We may accept here the admonitory words of Jesus which are eminently reasonable:
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.Matt. 7:15-20. The fruit of which Our Lord speaks in this part of Matthew's Gospel is the conformity of a man with moral reality, moral truth, with the good. This moral truth, this moral reality and moral good, is one based upon the natural moral law and it is common and universal among all men, all men being creatures of the one God.
We will tackle what is perhaps a controversial subject, but one that needs to be approached honestly and forthrightly. How does Muhammad fare when his life is judged against the natural moral law? What are his fruits?
Muhammad in Arabic Calligraphy
While we are unable with certainty to judge the subjective sincerity of Muhammad, we are able to make an assessment of his external actions, at least as those are reported to us by Muslim sources. Reliance on Muslim sources, of course, will present Muhammad in the best light possible. In other words, one would anticipate that Muhammad would be no better than as described by those who wished to present him in the best light possible. In actual fact, Muhammad may have been much worse.
The question is particularly important as it relates to Muhammad because moral perfection is a quality that Muslims generally ascribe to Muhammad. Muhammad is described by the Muslims as al-Insān al-Kāmil (الإنسان الكامل), a man who had reached moral perfection. Indeed, the Qur’an itself attests to the supposed moral excellence of Muhammad:
لَقَدْ كَانَ لَكُمْ فِي رَسُولِ اللَّهِ أُسْوَةٌ حَسَنَة ٌ لِمَنْ كَانَ
يَرْجُو اللَّهَ وَالْيَوْمَ الآخِرَ وَذَكَرَ اللَّهَ كَثِيرا
Indeed in the Messenger of Allāh you have a good example to follow for him who hopes in (the Meeting with) Allāh and the Last Day and remembers Allāh much.Qur’an, 33:21.[1]
Obviously, a man who has reached a moral perfection must live a life in perfect conformity with the natural moral law in addition to one in conformity with any revealed law. The moral perfection ascribed to Muhammad by the Muslims necessarily means that Muhammad could not have been trapped by convention. Though he could live within convention and custom to the extent that these were not in contradiction with natural moral law and represent a legitimate accommodation to time and place of natural law principles, as a prophet whose ear was in tune with the voice of God, one would expect him to be able to overcome or criticize conventions to the extent that these contravened natural moral law.[2]
In making this assessment, we are fortunate to have Islamic sources upon which we can rely to form a fairly accurate description of Muhammad's life, albeit likely biased in his favor. Although the Qur’an is not particularly biographical, there is quite a wealth of narrations concerning the words and the deeds of Muhammad [called in Arabic (s.) al-ḥadīth (الحديث) or (pl.) aḥādīth;(أحاديث)], and these have been gathered in a number of authentic collections such as the Sahih al-Bukhari, the Sahih Muslim, the Sunan as-Sughra, the Sunan Abu Dawud, the Jāmi at-Tirmidhi, and the Sunan ibn Majah. Moreover, there are some fairly old and traditional biographies of Muhammad (sīrat rasūl allāh or al-sīra al-nabawiyya), such as that by Ibn Ishāq, and stories of his military expeditions (maghāzī), such as that by al-Waqidi. The biography of Ibn Ishāq is considered the earliest of the traditional biographies that survives in some form. Earlier works allegedly written by Urwah ibn al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam [who died in 92 AH/710 AD and whom Ibn Ishāq, al-Waqidi, and at-Tabari are all said to have used as a source], Abban ibn Uthman ibn Affan (d. 105 AH/723 AD), and Wahb ibn Munabbih al-Yamani (d. 110 AH/728 AD) have not survived. Indeed, the original work by Ibn Ishāq does not survive, but it does survive in later renditions or editions the writers Ibn Hisham and at-Tabari.[3]
Given what we are asked to believe of Muhammad by his followers (and indeed by Muhammad's own claim to be the final and definite prophet of God), we must demand more of him than we would from an ordinary mortal; and his suffering from human foibles and peccadilloes (or worse), while forgivable or at least understandable in a mere man among men, are not forgivable and are anomalous in a man who has set himself up as a divine standard against which there is no appeal, the normative canon by which human virtue is to be measured. This is particularly true since his messages were buttressed by no miracle, and his flesh has not yet risen from the dead, but lies smoldering, like that of all men, in his mausoleum, the Rauda, at Medina, waiting the Resurrection both he and Jesus preached.
MUHAMMAD'S SIMULTANEOUS AND SERIAL POLYGAMY
ADULTERY, DIVORCE, POLYGAMY, concubinage, pedophilia, incest, and rape are all offenses against the dignity of marriage and the natural institution of the family, and the right and orderly use of the sexual faculties, and are by common consent violations of natural law. Although some of these areas involve prudential determinations of natural law and even to some extent may be defined by human law or custom (e.g., with respect to incest, within what level of consanguinity or affinity such incestuous prohibitions extend by natural law), some of the boundaries are decidedly less vague and more precise (e.g., whether a woman may be violated against her will, whether concubinage is consonant with fidelity in marriage, whether sexual relations of an adult male with prepubescent girls is morally lawful) and provide with more definite conclusions. Certainly, reason can make the case that marriage ought to be monogamous and relatively permanent, that concubinage is a morally abhorrent institution, that sex with prepubescent females, incestuous relations, and rape are morally vicious. In the areas of marriage, family, and the exercise of sexual faculties, reason's verdict would seem to be overwhelmingly against Muhammad. Muhammad's actions violated the natural law in some fundamental principles and in its more distant determinations. All put together, the violations of Muhammad to natural law principles of marriage and human sexuality place it beyond reasonable doubt that Muhammad's life was hardly virtuous. Indeed, we must concur with St. Thomas Aquinas's judgment in his Summa Contra Gentiles: Muhammad did not restrain his sexual urges, but rather he "gave free rein to carnal pleasure," voluptati carnali habenas relaxans.[4]
The same cannot be said regarding Muhammad's Medinan phase. Without doubt, Muhammad, once released from his marital relationship with Khadijah and once having his hands on political power, wealth, and the spoils of war, not only taught but practiced a rather extreme form of polygamy. He made polygamy forever part of the alleged revelations of Allah. In Surah 4:3 (a Medinan Surah), Muhammad limited simultaneously polygamy to four women:
Muhammad apparently excluded himself from the four-wife-only Qur'anic revelation. He operated under a unique dispensation (found in the Qur'an 33:50):
The lists of Muhammad's wives vary, and a complete resolution of the problem probably impossible. For our purposes, we shall simply cite two of many opinions on the matter. First, we shall turn to Clinton Bennett's In Search of Muhammad,[7] a tendentious text which bends over backwards to minimize Muhammad's larger enormities, and which relies upon a reconstruction and synthesis based on a number of sources.
The problem may be more complicated than Bennett suggests in his Appendix.
As Montgomery Watt views it (from his analysis of Qur'an 33:50 quoted above), there may be various levels of marriage or relationships with women in which Muhammad engaged. Watt distinguishes between: (i) wives to whom he paid ujur (أُجُورَ) [dowry or hire] (ii) those "whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you," (iii) the daughters of paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, (iv) those who emigrated with Muhammad, (v) believing women who gave themselves to the prophet, provided the prophet wanted to marry them, and (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).
The first two groups are wives in the strict sense and concubines. Of these, Watt notes that Muhammad is regarded generally have had fourteen of these, of whom nine survived Muhammad. There is some dispute as to the identity of the fourteen, however. Watt includes the concubines Maria the Copt and Rihana the Jewess in this number, and seems generally to agree with Bennett as to the others. As to the other categories, Watt observes:
Muhammud's Name in Arabic Script
We may first look at the area of Muhammad's marriages and his polygamy. We may start be observing that in his life, Muhammad shows a marked shift between his life in Mecca, when he had no political power, and his life in Medina once he gain political power. Just like there was an Alexander drunk and an Alexander sober, so there is one Muhammad ante Hegiram and another Muhammad post Hegiram. In Mecca, Muhammad lived an unobtrusive, monogamous married life with his first wife Khadijah bint Khuwaylid[6] until her death shortly before Muhammad's famous Hegira (Hijra or هِجْرَة) from Mecca to Medina (also known as Yathrib). Khadijah was an elder widow of rather affluent means, and Muhammad worked for her for a time until she proposed marriage to him, which he accepted. Trustworthily, Sahih Muslim (31:5975) states upon the report of Muhammad's later wife Aisha that Muhammad "did not marry any other woman till her [Khadijah's] death." Indeed, other that his son Ibrahim borne by Muhammad's concubine and possible wife (sources are unclear) Maria al-Qibtiyya and who died young, Khadijah was the mother of all of Muhammad's children, his two sons 'Abdullah (also known as at-Tahir or at-Tayyib) and al-Qasim (Abu'l-Qasim), both of whom also died young, and his daughters, Zaynab, Ruqayah, Umm Kulthum, and Fatima (the latter being the only child to survive Muhammad). Life, 82-83.[7] There is no evidence of any improprieties in Muhammad's behavior while married to Khadijah, and his marital and sexual behavior would seem to have been commendable, indeed unimpeachable, up until Khadijah's death.The same cannot be said regarding Muhammad's Medinan phase. Without doubt, Muhammad, once released from his marital relationship with Khadijah and once having his hands on political power, wealth, and the spoils of war, not only taught but practiced a rather extreme form of polygamy. He made polygamy forever part of the alleged revelations of Allah. In Surah 4:3 (a Medinan Surah), Muhammad limited simultaneously polygamy to four women:
وَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تُقْسِطُوا فِي الْيَتَامَى فَانكِحُوا مَا طَابَ لَكُمْ مِنَ النِسَاء مَثْنَى وَثُلاَثَ وَرُبَاعَ فَإِنْ خِفْتُمْ أَلاَّ تَعْدِلُوا فَوَاحِدَةً أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ ذَلِكَ أَدْنَى أَلاَّ تَعُولُواTwo things may be noted regarding Muhammad's teaching in the Qur'an. First, it is a form of polygamy that is strictly polygynous, since only men could have multiple women spouses. Typical with most of Muhammad's view, women were not accorded equal treatment with men. The second thing that ought to be noted is that the four-woman limitation applied to Muslims generally; it did not apply to Muhammad, who excluded himself from the Qur'anic revelation by another convenient Qur'anic revelation.
And if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly with the orphan girls, then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four but if you fear that you shall not be able to deal justly (with them), then only one or (the captives and the slaves) that your right hands possess. That is nearer to prevent you from doing injustice.
Muhammad apparently excluded himself from the four-wife-only Qur'anic revelation. He operated under a unique dispensation (found in the Qur'an 33:50):
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ إِنَّا أَحْلَلْنَا لَكَ أَزْوَاجَكَ اللاَّتِي آتَيْتَ أُجُورَهُنَّ وَمَا مَلَكَتْ يَمِينُكَ مِمَّا أَفَاءَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْكَ وَبَنَاتِ عَمِّكَ وَبَنَاتِ عَمَّاتِكَ وَبَنَاتِ خَالِكَ وَبَنَاتِ خَالاَتِكَ اللاَّتِي هَاجَرْنَ مَعَكَ وَامْرَأَة ً مُؤْمِنَة ً إِنْ وَهَبَتْ نَفْسَهَا لِلنَّبِيِّ إِنْ أَرَادَ النَّبِيُّ أَنْ يَسْتَنكِحَهَا خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ قَدْ عَلِمْنَا مَا فَرَضْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ فِي أَزْوَاجِهِمْ وَمَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُمْ لِكَيْلاَ يَكُونَ عَلَيْكَ حَرَج ٌ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورا ً رَحِيماIt is both unseemly and unfitting that the Muhammad should exclude himself from the already loose strictures that bound the rest of his Muslim followers and which limited their polygynous practices to four wives (with easy divorce) and as many captives and concubines as desired. Essentially, he allowed himself no bounds in his appetite for women. So unseemly and unfitting that one can literally still taste the dripping sarcasm behind Aisha's comment related in Sahih Muslim 8:3453 to the Qur'anic revelation in 33:51 which essentially allowed Muhammad free reign to any believer who offered herself to him:
O Prophet! Verily, We have made lawful to you your wives, to whom you have paid their Mahr [bridal money given by the husband to his wife at the time of marriage], and those (captives or slaves) whom your right hand possesses - whom Allāh has given to you, and the daughters of your 'Amm [paternal uncles] and the daughters of your 'Ammah [paternal aunts] and the daughters of your Khāl [maternal uncles] and the daughters of your Khālah [maternal aunts] who migrated [from Mecca] with you, and a believing woman if she offers herself to the Prophet, and the Prophet wishes to marry her; a privilege for you only, not for the (rest of) the believers. Indeed We know what We have enjoined upon them about their wives and those (captives or slaves) whom their right hands possess, - in order that there should be no difficulty on you. And Allāh is Ever OftForgiving, Most Merciful.
Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: I felt jealous of the women who offered themselves to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: Then when Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, revealed this:" You may defer any one of them you wish, and take to yourself any you wish; and if you desire any you have set aside (no sin is chargeable to you)" (33:51), I (Aisha.) said: It seems to me that your Lord hastens to satisfy your desire.Not only did Muhammad allow himself (by special, if suspicious, dispensation from Allah) nine (perhaps even ten, eleven, or twelve) simultaneous wives, he also permitted rather easy divorce (as well as other forms of sexual congress), so that Muhammad stands condemned of both serial and simultaneous polygamy in addition to a broader polygyny and sexual libertinism.
The lists of Muhammad's wives vary, and a complete resolution of the problem probably impossible. For our purposes, we shall simply cite two of many opinions on the matter. First, we shall turn to Clinton Bennett's In Search of Muhammad,[7] a tendentious text which bends over backwards to minimize Muhammad's larger enormities, and which relies upon a reconstruction and synthesis based on a number of sources.
| Name | date married | date marriage ended | cause of marriage ending | comments |
| Khadijah | 595 | 619 | death | Muhammad's monogamous marriage. |
| Sauda | 620 | n/a | n/a | Muhammad wanted to divorce her when she was old and fat and unattractive, but she ceded her sexual rights to the younger bride, Aisha, thereby preserving her good graces. |
| Aisha | 620 | n/a | n/a | This is a controversial marriage because Muhammad betrothed Aisha at age 6 or 8, consummated a few years later. She was a favorite of Muhammad. |
| Hafsa | 625 | n/a | n/a | Muhammad married Hafsa when she was 18 years of age. |
| Zainab | 625 | 625-30 | death of wife | |
| Salama | 626 | n/a | n/a | |
| Zainab | 626 | n/a | n/a | Second wife of that name. Another controversial marriage because she was married to Muhammad's adopted son, Said, but Muhammad had an intense longing (lust) for her, and had already his allotment of four wives. Revelations which abolished adoption Qur'an 33:4-5, and which allowed Muhammad to marry her following Zainab's divorce from Said, Qur'an 33:37, and allowed more than four wives for Muhammad, Qur'an 33:50, seem altogether too convenient. |
| Juwairiya | 626/27 | n/a | n/a | Captive of war of great beauty |
| Umm Habiba | 627/28 | n/a | n/a | |
| Safiyah | 628 | n/a | n/a | 17-year-old widow of defeated Jewish chief known for her beauty. |
| Maimunah | 629/30 | n/a | n/a | Married following the death of her first husband. |
The problem may be more complicated than Bennett suggests in his Appendix.
As Montgomery Watt views it (from his analysis of Qur'an 33:50 quoted above), there may be various levels of marriage or relationships with women in which Muhammad engaged. Watt distinguishes between: (i) wives to whom he paid ujur (أُجُورَ) [dowry or hire] (ii) those "whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you," (iii) the daughters of paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, (iv) those who emigrated with Muhammad, (v) believing women who gave themselves to the prophet, provided the prophet wanted to marry them, and (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).
The first two groups are wives in the strict sense and concubines. Of these, Watt notes that Muhammad is regarded generally have had fourteen of these, of whom nine survived Muhammad. There is some dispute as to the identity of the fourteen, however. Watt includes the concubines Maria the Copt and Rihana the Jewess in this number, and seems generally to agree with Bennett as to the others. As to the other categories, Watt observes:
About a score of other women are mentioned as having been at least thought of as wives for Muhammad. There is much obscurity and dubiety about some of them; many tribes were doubtless eager to claim a matrimonial relationship with Muhammad, and to make the most of vague reminiscences. . . . The one thing that seems certain about this supplementary list is that none of the women in it formed a lasting union with Muhammad.Watt, 397.[8] Watt identifies sixteen as part of this "score of other women." He also identifies seven more women "between whom and Muhammad there was some talk of marriage without the plans ever being carried out." Watt, 399.
SAFIYA BING HUYAYY IBN AKHTAB
THE SHEER NUMBER OF MARRIAGES, CONCUBINES, and other kinds of relationships with women that might or might not be classified strictly as marriage in which Muhammad engaged offers sufficient evidence of a man who did not conform himself to the natural moral law in regard to marriage and family life. Apologists for Muhammad's life find themselves in losing battles trying to justify this aspect of their alleged prophet's life.
To deflect from any criticism that Muhammad's penchant for women was not driven by simple undisciplined lust, the apologists suggest, for example, that Muhammad's marriages were driven by noble reasons, such as providing for women who otherwise would have no support, or for political reasons such as binding tribes in alliances. Be all that as it may, the ends do not justify the means. Moreover, other methods of financial support or political union could have been easily gained by an institution or relationship that did not give Muhammad sexual access to the women. Muhammad was a genuine reformer: he established religious and political institutions, modified many other existing religious and political institutions, and banned existing religious and political institutions. In some ways, in fact, he appears to have modified relationships between men and women to correspond with his own changing proclivities. He lived a life of clear monogamy with his first wife Khadija, but subsequently engaged in relationships with other women of a variety of categorizations, but all of which appear to have given Muhammad the rights of sexual access to these women. Thus, according to Montgomery Watt, Qur'an 33:50 suggests various levels of relationships with women which Muhammad had, all of which appear to have allowed for sexual access. Watt distinguishes between: (i) wives to whom Muhammad paid ujur (أُجُورَ) [dowry or hire] (ii) those "whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you," meaning captives of war or slaves, (iii) the daughters of paternal and maternal uncles and aunts (i.e., cousins), (iv) those who emigrated with Muhammad, (v) believing women who gave themselves to the prophet, provided the prophet wanted to marry them, and (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).
To suggest that Muhammad was only motivated by reasons other than sexual desire would appear disingenuous in light of the evidence to the contrary. Muhammad seems to have been afflicted with a voracious sexual appetite or perhaps merely delusions associated with it. For example, we might cite to the hadith evidenced in Sahih Bukhari and related by Muhammad's wife Aisha: 07.71.660: "Magic was worked on Allah's Apostle so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not . . . ." There is evidence, however, that there was something that mere magic here and mere delusions. In Sahih Bukhari (01.05.268) we read (as narrated by Qatada) that Anas bin Malik said with regard to Muhammad: "'The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number.' I asked Anas, 'Had the Prophet the strength for it?' Anas replied, 'We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men).' And Sa'id said on the authority of Qatada that Anas had told him about nine wives only (not eleven)." Something similar is attested to in 01.05.282 as narrated by the same Anas bin Malik: "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in one night and he had nine wives at that time." Of course, his view of Paradise appears to have been infected by his sexual cravings.
Muhammad's Name in Arabic Calligraphy
There is evidence that Muhammad lacked control in the area of the sexual urges. Three hadith found in Sahih Muslim suggest impulsivity. As reported by Jabir, Muhammad once saw a woman who sexually fascinated him and captivated his heart, "retiring in the shape of a devil." So he went home to his wife Zainab as she was tanning leather and had sexual intercourse with her. His instructions to his Companions were that when any of them were to have such an urge he "should come to his wife, for that will repel what he feels in his heart." 08.3240, 08.3241, 08.3242. Muhammad is said to have loved women, perfume, and food, and, once he assumed the power and wealth to satisfy his penchant for these he seemed to have had little self-discipline to curb his desires for them, given the number of women in his life, the number of ahadith dealing with perfume and toiletry, and some ahadith that suggest that Muhammad became rather corpulent.Muhammad's sexual behavior and his multiple marriages are unedifying to say the least, but some of his sexual behavior and treatment of women were clearly abhorrent under any standard of civility and morality, modern or ancient. The story of Muhammad's relationship with his wife Safiya bint Huyayy ibn Akhtab is one such story. Safiya was a seventeen-year-old Jewess who lived in the town of Khaibar with her recently-wedded husband Kinana bin al-Rabi' bin Abu'l-Huqayq. After Muhammad's troops captured the city of Khaibar, Muhammad ordered Kinana to be tortured to death[9] to make him reveal where the treasure of the town was kept. According to the Muslim biographer of Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, Safiya would have been led past the bodies of her Jewish tribesmen, which would have included the mutilated and decapitated body of her husband, Kinana.[9] She displayed tremendous control and behaved stoically, unlike her cousin whose sorrow so consumed her that she was inconsolable, and Muhammad, irritated by her crying, called her a she-devil and asked her to be taken away from him.[9]
It might be noted that this was not the first time Muhammad had ruined Safiya's peace. Safiya's father, Huyayy ibn Akhtab had been one of the chiefs of the Jewish Banu al-Nadir tribe, and was, moreover, an implacable foe of Muhammad who suffered death at Muhammad's bloody hand. Similarly, her uncle Abu Yasir suffered death at Muhammad's sanguinary hand. Huyayy and Yasir and their tribe, which would have included Safiya, had been forced to emigrate from Medina and settled at Khaibar. Eventually, Huyayy was captured, taken to Medina, and, bound hand and neck by rope and in a tattered flowered robe, put to death (by decapitation) along with between 600 to 800 of his fellow tribesmen, including her uncle and other of Safiya's male kinsmen.[9] Safiya's relationship with her father and her uncle had been close, as based upon her testimony, she was the favorite of both her father and her uncle:
'Abdulla b. Abu Bakr b. Muhammad b. 'Amr b. Hazm told me that he was told that Safiya d. Huyayy b. Akhtab said "I was the favourite child of my father and my uncle Abu Yasir. When I was present they took no notice of their other children. When the apostle [Muhammad] was staying at Quba with the B. 'Amr b. 'Auf, the two went to see him before daybreak and did not return until after nightfall, weary, worn out drooping and feeble. I went up to them in childish pleasure as I always did, and they were so sunk in gloom that they too no notice of me.Life,[9] 241-42.
I heard my uncle say to my father, 'Is he, he? Do you recognize him, and can you be sure?'
'Yes!'
'And what do you feel about him?'
'By God I shall be his enemy as long as I live!'
The enmity between the Jewish leaders and Muhammad, the cause of so much suffering for Safiya, was thus intimately brought home to her from a young age by those whom she loved and who loved her. According to Sahih Bukhari 2.14.68, Safiya was captured at the battle of Khaibar and alloted to Dihya al-Kalbi, but the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad made arrangements to have this young seventeen-year-old to be given to him, apparently being struck with her great beauty. See Sahih Muslim 8.3329, Sahi Bukhari 3.34.437. Safiya is an example of how Muhammad had different categories of relationships with women. Originally, his sexual rights over her were as a result of her being a captive. She was one of those whom his right hand possessed. Qur'an 33:50. Subsequently, she became one of Muhammad's wife, apparently his ninth, her freedom or manumission being considered the dowry or mahr (مهر) since all her family was slewn. Sahih Bukhar 5.59.524, 1.8.367. Although it is not clear when Muhammad married her, it was shortly after his conquest of Khaibar. This means that he would have had sexual relations with Safiya by right of capture prior to that marriage, and while the death of her husband and his beheaded and burnt corpse was fresh on her mind. It is impossible to believe that the seventeen-year-old captive Safiya engaged in sexual relations with the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad, murderer of her father, her uncle, and husband, of her own free will and happily. It is not likely that her marriage (and her conversion to Islam) was much of a choice either. Muhammad's behavior toward Safiya is nothing less that exploitative and arguably a form of rape. Indeed, Ibn Ishaq relates how there was initially some fear for Muhammad's life from this relationship, though Muhammad seemed oblivious to it. On the night of her marriage to Muhammad, the faithful Abu Ayyub stood guard outside the tent of Muhammad, and when Muhammad saw him and inquired why Abu Ayyub did so, the latter replied: "'I was afraid for you with this woman for you have killed her father, her husband, and her people, and till recently she was in unbelief, so I was afraid for you on her account.'"[9]
Particularly abhorrent is Muhammad's self-justification, nay, self-adulation regarding his treatment of Safiya. Apparently, the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad believed that in emancipating the seventeen-year-old Safiya (a woman whose father, uncle, and husband he had caused to be killed, who his men had captured, and whom he then traded for and treated as a captive over whom he had sexual rights) and in marrying her he was building himself two rewards in Paradise. Abu Musa reported according to Sahih Muslim 8.3327, that Muhammad maintained that he who freed a slave woman and then married her would obtain two rewards.
Lucky Safiya who was to have the moon fall into her lap,[10] and whose secret longing to be wed to Muhammad--the slaughterer of her father, uncle, husband, male kinsmen and tribesmen, and the capturer and trader of her female cousins and friends, as if chattel, among the ravenous Muslim warriors hungry for human booty--was so wonderfully fulfilled. But when it comes to booty Allah knows best, اللهُ أعلم, the natural law notwithstanding.
SEX WITH AUNT KHAULA
THE NUMBER OF WIVES that Muhammad gathered as if they were pets or playthings is, as we have noted, not consonant with the natural moral law. The practice of polygamy appears to have been abandoned by the Jews of the time of Muhammad. In the work by the Muslim scholar Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi (168/784 - 230/845), the Kitab al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, we read that the Jews, when they witnessed the self-professed prophet Muhammad marrying more than one woman commented: "'Look at this man who never has enough of food and cares for nothing else as he does for women.'" Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 1:398. While the Muslim scholar Ibn Sa'd attributed the Jews' complaint to envy, he did mention that they pointed to it as counter-indicative of any claim to prophethood: "'If he were a prophet," the Jews said among themselves, "'he would not desire women.'" Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 8:202. The Jews' ruminations seem rather common sense.
Muhammad's desire for women seems to have possessed him after the death of his wife Khadija. "I was the least man in sexuality," Muhammad is related to have said, "till God brought down on me the kafit." This divine gift of sexual prowess, a sort of divine Arabic-Viagra, was readily given to Muhammad by his Allah: "Whenever I seek it I find it." Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 8:192. According to the dictionary Lisan al-Arab (2:71), kafit is the ability to have sex and to marry. The Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd also relates: "The Messenger of God said, 'Gabriel met me with a pot, of which I ate, and I was given the kafit [sexual ability] of forty men.'" Gabriel was Allah's interlocutor only after Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina.
In addition to the practice of polygyny, which of itself, as the Jews of Muhammad's time noted, puts Muhammad out of running as a legitimate prophet, we saw in our last posting that the manner in which Muhammad obtained the hand of young Safiya, the Jewess from the Banu al-Nadir tribe, in marriage raises serious questions of his moral sensitivity. He displayed all the moral sensitivity of a rapacious animal in marrying the young woman whose father, uncle, husband, and kinsmen he had killed. While we may recognize the behavior as one in keeping with a warrior chieftan, it is not the sort of behavior that one would ascribe to an ideal or perfect man, one with the title al-Insan al-Kamil.
Muhammad's marriage to young Safiya is not the only relationship that raises eyebrows. We may also turn to other relationships that raise issues of moral propriety, specifically, relationships that are arguable incestuous, and if not incestuous highly unseeming. We shall focus first on Muhammad's relationship with Khaula bint Hakim (خولة بنت حكيم) in this posting. In the next, we shall focus on Muhammad's relationship with his adopted son's wife, Zainab.
In a prior section above, we had cause to quote Qur'an 33:50 and the Islamic scholar Watt's observations regarding this verse in the Qur'an. It is apparent that Muhammad expanded the range of women which were available to him sexually to include a number of categories: (i) wives formally so called; (ii) slaves or concubines which Muhammad's "right hand possessed"; (iii) daughters of maternal uncles and maternal aunts; (iv) those who migrated from Mecca to Medina; (v) any Muslim woman if she offered herself to Muhammad and Muhammad wished to marry her; (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).
The category that Muhammad could enjoy any Muslim woman who offered herself to Muhammad appears to have been broad enough to include even maternal aunts, given the hadith that relates to a certain Khaula bint Hakim.
Khaula bint Hakim was Muhammad's maternal aunt, his mother's sister. This we learn from the book of ahadith Musnad Ahmad 26768.
The Qur'anic revelation suggests that Aisha, or for that matter any other wife of Muhammad, ought not to feel aggrieved if Muhammad engaged in sexual relations with women who belonged to the other categories allowed him, whether they be slaves or concubines or women who offer themselves to him, even if they are maternal aunts. Indeed, the Muslim wife, like any submissive creature or well-trained pet, ought to be pleased with the arrangement.
Remember, for a Muslim, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
Muhammad's desire for women seems to have possessed him after the death of his wife Khadija. "I was the least man in sexuality," Muhammad is related to have said, "till God brought down on me the kafit." This divine gift of sexual prowess, a sort of divine Arabic-Viagra, was readily given to Muhammad by his Allah: "Whenever I seek it I find it." Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 8:192. According to the dictionary Lisan al-Arab (2:71), kafit is the ability to have sex and to marry. The Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd also relates: "The Messenger of God said, 'Gabriel met me with a pot, of which I ate, and I was given the kafit [sexual ability] of forty men.'" Gabriel was Allah's interlocutor only after Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina.
The Name Muhammad in Arabic
Muhammad's marriage to young Safiya is not the only relationship that raises eyebrows. We may also turn to other relationships that raise issues of moral propriety, specifically, relationships that are arguable incestuous, and if not incestuous highly unseeming. We shall focus first on Muhammad's relationship with Khaula bint Hakim (خولة بنت حكيم) in this posting. In the next, we shall focus on Muhammad's relationship with his adopted son's wife, Zainab.
In a prior section above, we had cause to quote Qur'an 33:50 and the Islamic scholar Watt's observations regarding this verse in the Qur'an. It is apparent that Muhammad expanded the range of women which were available to him sexually to include a number of categories: (i) wives formally so called; (ii) slaves or concubines which Muhammad's "right hand possessed"; (iii) daughters of maternal uncles and maternal aunts; (iv) those who migrated from Mecca to Medina; (v) any Muslim woman if she offered herself to Muhammad and Muhammad wished to marry her; (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).
The category that Muhammad could enjoy any Muslim woman who offered herself to Muhammad appears to have been broad enough to include even maternal aunts, given the hadith that relates to a certain Khaula bint Hakim.
Khaula bint Hakim was Muhammad's maternal aunt, his mother's sister. This we learn from the book of ahadith Musnad Ahmad 26768.
مسند أحمد - مِنْ مُسْنَدِ الْقَبَائِلِ - عن المرأة تحتلم فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم لتغتسلWhat is striking is that this Khaula bint Hakin (خَوْلَةَ بِنْتَ حَكِيمٍ ), "one of the aunts of the prophet, " إِحْدَى خَالَاتِ النَّبِيِّ , was one of the women who presented themselves to Muhammad. We learn this from another hadith, this one found in Sahih Bukhari 7.62.48. In this hadith, related by Hisham's father, the subject involves one of the women who offered themselves to Muhammad for marriage, as allowed by the Qur'an 33:50. The woman happens to be Muhammad's aunt, Khaula bint Hakim. The prospect of Muhammad's aunt offering herself to Muhammad elicits a natural aversion by young Aisha, one immediately squelched by a Qur'anic revelation:
26768 حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ جَعْفَرٍ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا شُعْبَةُ وَحَجَّاجٌ قَالَ حَدَّثَنِي شُعْبَةُ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ عَطَاءً الْخُرَاسَانِيَّ يُحَدِّثُ عَنْ سَعِيدِ بْنِ الْمُسَيَّبِ أَنَّ خَوْلَةَ بِنْتَ حَكِيمٍ السُّلَمِيَّةَ وَهِيَ إِحْدَى خَالَاتِ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ سَأَلَتْ النَّبِيَّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ عَنْ الْمَرْأَةِ تَحْتَلِمُ فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ لِتَغْتَسِلْ
Khaula bint Hakim was one of those ladies who presented themselves to the Prophet for marriage. 'Aisha said, "Doesn't a lady feel ashamed for presenting herself to a man?" But when the Verse: "(O Muhammad) You may postpone (the turn of) any of them (your wives) that you please,' (33.51) was revealed, " 'Aisha said, 'O Allah's Apostle! I do not see, but, that your Lord hurries in pleasing you.' "The Qur'anic revelation that effectively squelched Aisha's aversion is the following:
You (O Muhammad SAW) can postpone (the turn of) whom you will of them (your wives), and you may receive whom you will. And whomsoever you desire of those whom you have set aside (her turn temporarily), it is no sin on you (to receive her again), that is better; that they may be comforted and not grieved, and may all be pleased with what you give them. Allāh knows what is in your hearts. And Allāh is Ever AllKnowing, Most Forbearing.Qur'an, (Al-Ahzab) 33:51.
The Qur'anic revelation suggests that Aisha, or for that matter any other wife of Muhammad, ought not to feel aggrieved if Muhammad engaged in sexual relations with women who belonged to the other categories allowed him, whether they be slaves or concubines or women who offer themselves to him, even if they are maternal aunts. Indeed, the Muslim wife, like any submissive creature or well-trained pet, ought to be pleased with the arrangement.
Remember, for a Muslim, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
AFFINITY FOR PREMENARCHEAL GIRLS
UNTIL THE يوم الدين, THE YAWM AD-DIN, the Day of Judgment Muhammad so eloquently preached about, Muhammad's character will be tarred by his relationship with his third wife, Aisha (عائشة). Considered one of the Mother of the Believers, Aisha bint Abu Bakr is generally regarded to have been Muhammad's favorite wife. Perhaps for the purpose of cementing Muhammad's political relationship with Abu Bakr, Aisha's father, who later would take over the reigns of that politico-religious bellicose machine called Islam that Muhammad had founded, perhaps motivated out of simple lust,[11] the marital relationship between Muhammad and Aisha spells the death knell to any claim of authentic prophethood by Muhammad.
The traditional ahadith put Aisha at six or seven years of age at the marriage, and at age nine at its consummation by Muhammad, then in his mid-50s, the young Aisha quite clearly at a premenarcheal age. There is not much prophetic or divine in the image of a 55-year old erect penis entering the virginal vagina of a nine-year-old girl and discharging vainly its semen in a orgasmic groan of ecstasy, regardless of how many Allahu Akbars are said. Less prophetic is the suggestion that God would positively will this moral enormity. Regardless of how common or not this practice was in the sexually-corrupt Bedouin society in which Muhammad rubbed his shoulders,[12] marriage and sex with a nine-year-old was not required, and certainly is not something that a man ostensibly holding himself out as the pattern for all men should do. Even supposing that child marriage and consummation had been the standard convention for the Bedouin, this is something a far-seeing prophet and his Allah, it seems, would not have encouraged, but would have banned. This is not something one should expect from the man hailed as al-Insan al-Kamil (الإنسان الكامل), the person who has reached perfection. This is not a moral zenith, but a moral nadir, at least if we are to judge by objective standards of natural moral law.[13]
It is no use to whitewash this historically probable situation. All the standard, approved and orthodox ahadith relating to this issue are consistent. For Muslims or their Western cronies to deny this fact is intellectually dishonest: nay, it is a plain lie. The Sahih Muslim 8.3310 relates:
The same text continues with another hadith, 8.3311, which has a slight, but ultimately meaningless, discrepancy in her age:
Various ahadith in Sahih Bukhari attest to Aisha's age at marriage and at consummation, 7.62.64, 7.62.65, and 7.62.88.
Similarly, in other parts of Sahih Bukhari, 5.58.236 and 5.58.234, we find the same evidences:
Muhammad! What hast thou wrought!In another collection of ahadith, the Sunana Abu-Dawud, 41.4915, 41.4916, and 41.4917 we have the same attestation of marriage at six and consummation at nine:
As I was exploring these ahadith, I saw immediately below 41.4917, this interesting hadith, 41.4920: "Narrated AbuMusa al-Ash'ari: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: He who plays backgammon disobeys Allah and His Apostle." Muhammad condemns backgammon as against the will of Allah, but enjoins sex with premenarcheal girls? Most of us will see the absurdity in some of Muhammad's edicts, banning the gnat and swallowing the camel. The natural law will scream in our inner ear, the forum of our conscience, that something is deadly wrong with this self-acclaimed prophet. But remember, for a Muslim, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
Muhammad and Aisha in Arabic
It is no use to whitewash this historically probable situation. All the standard, approved and orthodox ahadith relating to this issue are consistent. For Muslims or their Western cronies to deny this fact is intellectually dishonest: nay, it is a plain lie. The Sahih Muslim 8.3310 relates:
'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.
The same text continues with another hadith, 8.3311, which has a slight, but ultimately meaningless, discrepancy in her age:
'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old.
Various ahadith in Sahih Bukhari attest to Aisha's age at marriage and at consummation, 7.62.64, 7.62.65, and 7.62.88.
Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).
Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that 'Aisha remained with the Prophet for nine years (i.e. till his death)." what you know of the Quran (by heart)'
Narrated 'Ursa: The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
Similarly, in other parts of Sahih Bukhari, 5.58.236 and 5.58.234, we find the same evidences:
Narrated Hisham's father: Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed [sic: consummated] that marriage when she was nine years old.
Narrated Aisha: The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's Blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah's Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age.
Muhammad! What hast thou wrought!
Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) married me when I was seven or six. When we came to Medina, some women came. according to Bishr's version: Umm Ruman came to me when I was swinging. They took me, made me prepared and decorated me. I was then brought to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him), and he took up cohabitation with me when I was nine. She halted me at the door, and I burst into laughter.
Narrated AbuUsamah: The tradition mentioned above [i.e., 41.4915] has also been transmitted by Abu-Usamah in a similar manner through a different chain of narrators. This version has: "With good fortune, she (Umm Ruman) entrusted me to them. They washed my head and redressed me. No one came to me suddenly except the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) in the forenoon. So they entrusted me to him.
Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: When we came to Medina, the women came to me when I was playing on the swing, and my hair were up to my ears. They brought me, prepared me, and decorated me. Then they brought me to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) and he took up cohabitation with me, when I was nine.
As I was exploring these ahadith, I saw immediately below 41.4917, this interesting hadith, 41.4920: "Narrated AbuMusa al-Ash'ari: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: He who plays backgammon disobeys Allah and His Apostle." Muhammad condemns backgammon as against the will of Allah, but enjoins sex with premenarcheal girls? Most of us will see the absurdity in some of Muhammad's edicts, banning the gnat and swallowing the camel. The natural law will scream in our inner ear, the forum of our conscience, that something is deadly wrong with this self-acclaimed prophet. But remember, for a Muslim, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
CONCUBINAGE A/K/A ADULTERY
MUHAMMAD's MARITAL MORAL TRAVESTIES are legion, and include polygamy, incest, pedophilia, concubinage, temporary marriage (nikah al-Mut‘ah or نكاح المتعة), and divorce. In the sections above, we have focused on Muhammad's multiple sexual partners, on his sexual relationship with his aunt Khaula, and on his marriage and conjugal visitation of nine-year-old 'Aisha and desires for further young brides as he approached his sixth decade of life. In this posting, we shall focus on Muhammad's relationships with his slave-women, his concubines.
Under any ordinary moral standard, sex with concubines is considered adultery and not consonant with the ends of marriage. Under Muhammadan logic, sex with concubines is right because Allah revealed it to be so and because his messenger had sex with concubines. Allah locutus, causa finita est. Mahometus fecit, causa finita est.[14] (Since Allah speaks only through Muhammad, and there is no third, Muhammad and Allah are, for practical purposes, the same thing.)
Muhammad's treatment of women alone should disabuse any human of finding this man to have a legitimate prophetic bone in his body, much less a legitimate claim to being the "seal of the prophets," the خاتم اﻟﻨﺒﻴﻴﻦ, or Khatamun Nabiyyin. Muhammad's rank disregard of natural moral law is proof positive that his message is inauthentic. His inability to control his sexual faculties makes Muhammad more a prophet of Priapus than a prophet of the Most High God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus. As man, Muhammad is not exempt from the natural moral law. The judgment of practical reason condemns Muhammad; that is one reason Muslims are so suspicious of practical reason and why they cannot brook any opposition or criticism to their alleged prophet. The moment natural moral law steps into the picture, the entirety of Islam falls like a deck of cards that it is. Islam is founded entirely upon sheer positivism: the positivism of Allah and the positivism of Muhammad's actions.
In assessing Muhammad's activities with his concubines, we start, of course, with that part of the Qur'an, the Surat Al-Ahzab, known as "The Confederates," or "The Allies," specifically, the fiftieth ayah, which was so generous and accommodating to the sexual life of this pseudo-prophet: "O Prophet! Verily, We have made lawful to you . . . those (captives or slaves) whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you." These are the ma malakat aymanukum (ما ملكت أيمانکم). Qur'an 33:50. Ah, but this privilege was not reserved for Muhammad alone: all Muslim men, in imitatio Muhammedi, enjoy the privileges associated with those whom their right hand possess. So we find in the Sūrat An-Nisa' that Muslim men in general enjoy the sexual benefits of those women whom their right hand possess. Qur'an 4:4. Naturally, the Muhammadan bias against women is reflected here: while men can have sex at will with women concubines, women are not allowed to have sex with men concubines.
The Name Muhammad in Arabic CalligraphyAnd Muhammad's right hand possessed many such female concubines, and his penis exercised his rights over some, the prophet pounding his throbbing Muslim member into Mariyah or Raihanah, respectively, his Christian and Jewish concubines. The former, to the consternation of his legal wives, even gave him a child, whom Muhammad called Ibrahim (Abraham), but who died young.
At the outset, so that we are not accused of slighting Muhammad and accusing him of sex with concubines when he was innocent of that moral lapse,[15] we might quote from the popular Islamic biography of Muhammad, Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) by Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri (translated by Issam Diab):
There is, in fact, a rather humorous story involving (naturally) the jealousies of the wives arising from Muhammad's enjoyment of the "honey" given to him by Mariya the Copt. It can be found in the Sahih Bukhari 3.43.648. The event is corroborated in the Sahi Muslim 9.3511 and Sahih Bukhar 7.62.119. It seems that the pseudo-prophet's foresight was rather limited, or was perhaps limited by lust. He could not hear Allah while he was trying to achieve orgasm. In one of his first flings with Mariya was at the home of one of his wives, Hafsa. Muhammad found a pretense to send Hafsa to her father's house, and then bedded Mariyah. But the perfect man is found out by Hafsa who unexpectedly returns to her home when she finds that her father did not seek her. She catches the pseudo-prophet in flagrante delicto with Mariyah the Copt.
Hafsa is unfuriated, but Muhammad, as is his bent, finds fault with everyone but himself. He gets Hafsa to shut up by promising not to sleep with his maid servant anymore, but on the condition that she keep this moral failure between herself and him. But Hafsa tells Aisha, and soon Muhammad's whole harem learns of the mess. Muhammad's response is to do two things. First, he punishes his wives by depriving him of his sexual services for a month.[16] But this overreaction presented the sex-starved Muhammad with a problem: where would he get his sexual satisfaction? He had promised Hafsa no longer to have sex with Mariya. He had promised no longer to have sex with his wives for a month. Surely we cannot expect a spiritual prophet to forgo his sexual urges for 30 days!
There is a rule in Islam that is non-negotiable: where Muhammad has a need, Allah conveniently provides. Behold, a new revelation! Recite! God in the eternal Qur'an threatens Muhammad's wives with divorce (as if they did something wrong). Moreover, Allah releases Muhammad of his oath to Hafsa so that he can enter into Mariyah to his heart's content while he punishes his wives with his sexual absence! After all, Allah would not let such a small thing as marriage or promises get in the way of Muhammad's ejaculations and orgasms.
Muhammad's relationship with Mariya the Copt (and Raihana) is morally inexcusable. Muhammad's utter insensitivity and disregard for the natural moral law brands him a moral decrepit. In light of Muhammad's polygamy, incest, concubinage, divorce, pedophilia, and other sexual sins, it becomes harder and harder to say without rank hypocrisy, calculated blindness, or the murder of conscience, what the Muslims always say, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
Under any ordinary moral standard, sex with concubines is considered adultery and not consonant with the ends of marriage. Under Muhammadan logic, sex with concubines is right because Allah revealed it to be so and because his messenger had sex with concubines. Allah locutus, causa finita est. Mahometus fecit, causa finita est.[14] (Since Allah speaks only through Muhammad, and there is no third, Muhammad and Allah are, for practical purposes, the same thing.)
Muhammad's treatment of women alone should disabuse any human of finding this man to have a legitimate prophetic bone in his body, much less a legitimate claim to being the "seal of the prophets," the خاتم اﻟﻨﺒﻴﻴﻦ, or Khatamun Nabiyyin. Muhammad's rank disregard of natural moral law is proof positive that his message is inauthentic. His inability to control his sexual faculties makes Muhammad more a prophet of Priapus than a prophet of the Most High God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus. As man, Muhammad is not exempt from the natural moral law. The judgment of practical reason condemns Muhammad; that is one reason Muslims are so suspicious of practical reason and why they cannot brook any opposition or criticism to their alleged prophet. The moment natural moral law steps into the picture, the entirety of Islam falls like a deck of cards that it is. Islam is founded entirely upon sheer positivism: the positivism of Allah and the positivism of Muhammad's actions.
In assessing Muhammad's activities with his concubines, we start, of course, with that part of the Qur'an, the Surat Al-Ahzab, known as "The Confederates," or "The Allies," specifically, the fiftieth ayah, which was so generous and accommodating to the sexual life of this pseudo-prophet: "O Prophet! Verily, We have made lawful to you . . . those (captives or slaves) whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you." These are the ma malakat aymanukum (ما ملكت أيمانکم). Qur'an 33:50. Ah, but this privilege was not reserved for Muhammad alone: all Muslim men, in imitatio Muhammedi, enjoy the privileges associated with those whom their right hand possess. So we find in the Sūrat An-Nisa' that Muslim men in general enjoy the sexual benefits of those women whom their right hand possess. Qur'an 4:4. Naturally, the Muhammadan bias against women is reflected here: while men can have sex at will with women concubines, women are not allowed to have sex with men concubines.
The Name Muhammad in Arabic Calligraphy
At the outset, so that we are not accused of slighting Muhammad and accusing him of sex with concubines when he was innocent of that moral lapse,[15] we might quote from the popular Islamic biography of Muhammad, Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) by Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri (translated by Issam Diab):
Besides these [Muhammad's wives], he had two concubines. The first was Mariyah, the Coptic (an Egyptian Christian), a present gift from Al-Muqauqis, vicegerent of Egypt — she gave birth to his son Ibrâhim, who died in Madinah [Medina] while still a little child, on the 28th or 29th of Shawwal in the year 10 A.H., i.e. 27th January, 632 A.D. The second one was Raihanah bint Zaid An-Nadriyah or Quraziyah, a captive from Bani Quraiza. Some people say she was one of his wives. However, Ibn Al-Qaiyim gives more weight to the first version. Abu ‘Ubaidah spoke of two more concubines, Jameelah, a captive, and another one, a bondwoman granted to him by Zainab bint Jahsh. [Za'd Al-Ma'ad 1/29]Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum, 312.
There is, in fact, a rather humorous story involving (naturally) the jealousies of the wives arising from Muhammad's enjoyment of the "honey" given to him by Mariya the Copt. It can be found in the Sahih Bukhari 3.43.648. The event is corroborated in the Sahi Muslim 9.3511 and Sahih Bukhar 7.62.119. It seems that the pseudo-prophet's foresight was rather limited, or was perhaps limited by lust. He could not hear Allah while he was trying to achieve orgasm. In one of his first flings with Mariya was at the home of one of his wives, Hafsa. Muhammad found a pretense to send Hafsa to her father's house, and then bedded Mariyah. But the perfect man is found out by Hafsa who unexpectedly returns to her home when she finds that her father did not seek her. She catches the pseudo-prophet in flagrante delicto with Mariyah the Copt.
Hafsa is unfuriated, but Muhammad, as is his bent, finds fault with everyone but himself. He gets Hafsa to shut up by promising not to sleep with his maid servant anymore, but on the condition that she keep this moral failure between herself and him. But Hafsa tells Aisha, and soon Muhammad's whole harem learns of the mess. Muhammad's response is to do two things. First, he punishes his wives by depriving him of his sexual services for a month.[16] But this overreaction presented the sex-starved Muhammad with a problem: where would he get his sexual satisfaction? He had promised Hafsa no longer to have sex with Mariya. He had promised no longer to have sex with his wives for a month. Surely we cannot expect a spiritual prophet to forgo his sexual urges for 30 days!
There is a rule in Islam that is non-negotiable: where Muhammad has a need, Allah conveniently provides. Behold, a new revelation! Recite! God in the eternal Qur'an threatens Muhammad's wives with divorce (as if they did something wrong). Moreover, Allah releases Muhammad of his oath to Hafsa so that he can enter into Mariyah to his heart's content while he punishes his wives with his sexual absence! After all, Allah would not let such a small thing as marriage or promises get in the way of Muhammad's ejaculations and orgasms.
O Prophet! Why do you ban (for yourself) that which Allāh has made lawful to you, seeking to please your wives? And Allāh is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.Qur'an 66:1-5.
Allāh has already ordained for you (O men), the dissolution of your oaths. And Allāh is your Maula (Lord, or Master, or Protector, etc.) and He is the All-Knower, the All-Wise.
And (remember) when the Prophet (SAW) disclosed a matter in confidence to one of his wives (Hafsah), so when she told it (to another i.e. 'Aishah), and Allāh made it known to him, he informed part thereof and left a part. Then when he told her (Hafsah) thereof, she said: "Who told you this?" He said: "The All-Knower, the All-Aware (Allāh) has told me."
If you two (wives of the Prophet SAW, namely 'Aishah and Hafsah) turn in repentance to Allāh, (it will be better for you), your hearts are indeed so inclined (to oppose what the Prophet SAW likes), but if you help one another against him (Muhammad SAW), then verily, Allāh is his Maula (Lord, or Master, or Protector, etc.), and Jibrael (Gabriel), and the righteous among the believers, and furthermore, the angels are his helpers.
It may be if he divorced you (all) that his Lord will give him instead of you, wives better than you, Muslims (who submit to Allāh), believers, obedient to Allāh, turning to Allāh in repentance, worshiping Allāh sincerely, fasting or emigrants (for Allāh's sake), previously married and virgins.
Muhammad's relationship with Mariya the Copt (and Raihana) is morally inexcusable. Muhammad's utter insensitivity and disregard for the natural moral law brands him a moral decrepit. In light of Muhammad's polygamy, incest, concubinage, divorce, pedophilia, and other sexual sins, it becomes harder and harder to say without rank hypocrisy, calculated blindness, or the murder of conscience, what the Muslims always say, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
MURDER FOR PROPHET: THE CASE OF ABU 'AFAK
“WHO WILL DEAL WITH THIS RASCAL FOR ME?” were Muhammad's words regarding the poet Abu 'Afak. In this section, we shall assess Muhammad's role in the murder of the Jewish poet Abu 'Afak (أبو عفك). The event is evidence of Muhammad's intolerance, and is evidence further of Muhammad's willingness to dispense with his personal, political, or religious foes (Muhammad did not distinguish between the three) through assassination, setting the stage for the imitation of intolerance and murder as virtues for his followers. What one may perhaps excuse in a political leader is not something one would excuse in the perfect man, the supposed al-Insan al-Kamil (الإنسان الكامل).
The Jew Abu 'Afak was an old man, reputed to be 120 years old, a member of the Banu Ubayda tribe. He was a poet, and refused to convert to Islam or acknowledge Muhammad as a legitimate prophet. Abu 'Afak was upset with Muhammad's role in killing al-Harith bin Suwayd bin Samit, and so he had the temerity to lampoon Muhammad through his poetry. The event, and Muhammad's response to it, is related in the Sirat Rasul Allah, the preeminent traditional biography of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq.
The whipping of King Henry II for his role in the murder of St. Thomas Becket
Would that it would have happened to Muhammad for the killing of Abu 'Afak!
The story of Muhammad and Abu 'Afak is redolent of King Henry II and the murder of St. Thomas Becket when the latter refused to assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon and the King's efforts to gain control over the Church. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" is what the King is supposed to have said in an unguarded moment. To which careless statement the King's loyal knights Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton, thinking the King had authorized his enemy's murder, set out to rid King Henry II of his erstwhile-friend-become pest.
Henry II repented of his indirect role in encouraging the murder of Thomas Becket, and suffered to be whipped by the monks of Canterbury by order of the Pope. Muhammad suffered no such remorse, and suffered no such penance for his role in encouraging the killing of Abu 'Afak.
Under the natural law, a King can do wrong, but he can also do right. There is a law above the King to which he, like all men, is answerable. Under Islam, however, Muhammad can do no wrong and can only do right. There is no law above Muhammad. So when Muhammad kills or encourages the killing of his political enemies, it becomes the rule, it becomes canonical. Muhammad's behavior is normative even when it violates the natural moral law, which is to say even when it violates the law of God. And this is because, in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
The Jew Abu 'Afak was an old man, reputed to be 120 years old, a member of the Banu Ubayda tribe. He was a poet, and refused to convert to Islam or acknowledge Muhammad as a legitimate prophet. Abu 'Afak was upset with Muhammad's role in killing al-Harith bin Suwayd bin Samit, and so he had the temerity to lampoon Muhammad through his poetry. The event, and Muhammad's response to it, is related in the Sirat Rasul Allah, the preeminent traditional biography of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq.
Abu 'Afak was one of the B. 'Amr b. 'Auf of the B. Ubayda clan. He showed his disaffection when the apostle killed al-Harith b. Suwayd b. Samit and said:The story is also found in the Kitab al Tabaqat al Kabir:
Long have I lived but never have I seen
An assembly or collection of people
More faithful to their undertaking
And their allies when called upon
Than the sons of Qayla[17] when they assembled,
Men who overthrew mountains and never submitted,
A rider who came to them split them in two (saying)
"Permitted", "Forbidden", of all sorts of things.[18]
Had you believed in glory or kingship
You would have followed Tubba'.[19]
The apostle said, "Who will deal with this rascal for me?" Whereupon Salim b. 'Umayr, brother of B. 'Amr b. 'Auf, one of the "weepers", went forth and killed him. Umama b. Muzayriya said concerning that:
You gave the lie to God's religion and the man Ahmad [variant of Muhammad]!
By him who was your father, evil is the son he produced!
A hanif gave you a thrust in the night saying
"Take that Abu 'Afak in spite of your age!"
Though I knew whether it was man or jinn
Who slew you in the dead of night (I would say naught).[20]
"Then occurred the sariyyah [raid] of Salim Ibn Umayr al-Amri against Abu Afak, the Jew, in [the month of] Shawwal in the beginning of the twentieth month from the hijrah [immigration from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD], of the Apostle of Allah. Abu Afak, was from Banu Amr Ibn Awf, and was an old man who had attained the age of one hundred and twenty years. He was a Jew, and used to instigate the people against the Apostle of Allah, and composed (satirical) verses [about Muhammad].What sort of man is this Muhammad?
Salim Ibn Umayr who was one of the great weepers and who had participated in Badr, said, "I take a vow that I shall either kill Abu Afak or die before him." He waited for an opportunity until a hot night came, and Abu Afak slept in an open place. Salim Ibn Umayr knew it, so he placed the sword on his liver and pressed it till it reached his bed. The enemy of Allah screamed and the people who were his followers, rushed to him, took him to his house and interred him.[21]
The whipping of King Henry II for his role in the murder of St. Thomas Becket
Would that it would have happened to Muhammad for the killing of Abu 'Afak!
Henry II repented of his indirect role in encouraging the murder of Thomas Becket, and suffered to be whipped by the monks of Canterbury by order of the Pope. Muhammad suffered no such remorse, and suffered no such penance for his role in encouraging the killing of Abu 'Afak.
Under the natural law, a King can do wrong, but he can also do right. There is a law above the King to which he, like all men, is answerable. Under Islam, however, Muhammad can do no wrong and can only do right. There is no law above Muhammad. So when Muhammad kills or encourages the killing of his political enemies, it becomes the rule, it becomes canonical. Muhammad's behavior is normative even when it violates the natural moral law, which is to say even when it violates the law of God. And this is because, in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
MURDER FOR PROPHET: THE CASE OF KA'B BIN AL-ASHRAF
MUHAMMAD WAS DRIVEN BY POWER, however justified by invocation of Allah, and the Jews simply got in the way. No matter, the Jew that got in the way, that opposed the will or whim of this vicious man who covered it with Allah's mantle, was promptly dispatched. The Fifth Commandment did not apply to Muhammad. He doubtfully read Exodus, since he was supposed to be illiterate. It might have done him some good had he read:
After all there was no need to read the Scriptures, they were corrupted on Muhammad's account, Qur'an 5:13, 41, and whatever was therein contained was of no moment since whatever Muhammad did was perfect, and if the Fifth Commandment has to take a back seat to Muhammad's perfect desires, then so be it: Allah and his messenger know best. God did not say, "Thou shalt not kill." Rather, God said, "Thou shalt kill." Or so Muhammad would have it.
The name Muhammad in Arabic
Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf (كعب بن الاشرف), a chief of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadi, was another victim of Muhammad's rise to power and moral failings. Once Muhammad gained in political power, some of the Jewish tribes around him grew mistrustful and opposed both his message and his rising influence. Though Muhammad had ostensibly entered into an informal treaty with the Jewish tribes, there was tension between Muhammad's followers and the Jewish tribes, including the Banu Nadi. Al-Ashraf, it's true, was an opponent of Muhammad, believed Muhammad a false prophet, and opposed himself to Muhammad's rise. After Muhammad's victory at the battle of Badr, al-Ashraf grew particularly concerned. But is that a crime? In Muhammad's eyes, opposition to him and his doctrine was anathema: nay, it was more than that; it was a virtual death sentence.
Moreover, Muhammad was like the devil, "the proud spirit [who] cannot endure to be mocked,"[22] and al-Ashraf mocked both Muhammad and the Muslim women: "He inveighed against the apostle," wrote a plaintive poem at the loss by the Quraysh tribe defeated at Badr, and "composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about Muslim women" Muhammad's biographer Ibn Ishaq tells us.[23]
The enmity between al-Ashraf and Muhammad and Muhammad's response to it is found in several sources, including Sahih Bukhari 3.45.687 and 5.59.369. The second hadith is particularly long, so only parts will be quoted here.
The hadith begins:
Based on the pretense that, as an opponent of Muhammad, he wanted to borrow a camel load or two of food, Maslama visits al-Ashraf at night and, together with his foster brother Abu Naila, is invited into Maslama's fort. The plan is to compliment al-Ashraf on his perfumed hair, and when he is distracted to cut off his head. The plan worked, and together Maslama and Abu Naila cut of Muhammad's enemy's head. The poet Ka'b bin Malik said:
لا تقتلExodus 20:13; Deut. 5:17.
Thou shalt not kill.
After all there was no need to read the Scriptures, they were corrupted on Muhammad's account, Qur'an 5:13, 41, and whatever was therein contained was of no moment since whatever Muhammad did was perfect, and if the Fifth Commandment has to take a back seat to Muhammad's perfect desires, then so be it: Allah and his messenger know best. God did not say, "Thou shalt not kill." Rather, God said, "Thou shalt kill." Or so Muhammad would have it.
The name Muhammad in Arabic
Moreover, Muhammad was like the devil, "the proud spirit [who] cannot endure to be mocked,"[22] and al-Ashraf mocked both Muhammad and the Muslim women: "He inveighed against the apostle," wrote a plaintive poem at the loss by the Quraysh tribe defeated at Badr, and "composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about Muslim women" Muhammad's biographer Ibn Ishaq tells us.[23]
The enmity between al-Ashraf and Muhammad and Muhammad's response to it is found in several sources, including Sahih Bukhari 3.45.687 and 5.59.369. The second hadith is particularly long, so only parts will be quoted here.
The hadith begins:
Allah's messenger said "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His apostle?"[23]So here we have two questionable moral lapses by Muhammad. The first, a willingness to put a political opponent to death. The second, a willingness to use all manners of deceit. Here we find the questionable doctrine of taqiyya (تقیة) or dissimulation approved by the alleged prophet of Allah, of the Arab war idol who--unlike Christ who says, "I am the truth" (John 14:6)--says of himself that he is the "best of deceivers," Allahu khayru al-makirina, اللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ (Qur'an 3:54).
Thereupon Maslama got up saying, "O Allah's messenger! Would you like that I kill him?"
The prophet said, "Yes".
Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Ka'b). The prophet said, "You may say it."
Based on the pretense that, as an opponent of Muhammad, he wanted to borrow a camel load or two of food, Maslama visits al-Ashraf at night and, together with his foster brother Abu Naila, is invited into Maslama's fort. The plan is to compliment al-Ashraf on his perfumed hair, and when he is distracted to cut off his head. The plan worked, and together Maslama and Abu Naila cut of Muhammad's enemy's head. The poet Ka'b bin Malik said:
Sword in hand we cut [Ka'b] downIbn Sa'd's Tabaqat records Muhammad's delight:
By Muhammad's order when he sent secretly by night
Ka'b's brother to got to Ka'b.
He beguiled him and brought him down with guile
Mahmoud [bin Maslama] was trustworthy, bold.[23]
Then they cut his head and took it with them [and] . . . they cast his head before him [Muhammad]. He (the prophet) praised Allah on his being slain.[24]The pseudo-prophet can rejoice at an innocent's man's death, just like many of his followers could rejoice at the attack of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the deaths of thousands who did none of their killers wrong. This is what happens when you are the prosecutor, the alleged victim, and the judge. The defendant, even if innocent, has no voice. This is because, in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
MURDER FOR PROPHET: THE ONE-EYED BEDOUIN
IBN ISHAQ, MUHAMMAD'S BIOGRAPHER, relates for us a story in his biography of Muhammad which raises another wart on Muhammad's soul. Muhammad had sent two of his Muslim followers--Amr bin Umayya al-Damri and an-Ansari, assassins both, for he rubbed shoulders with such types--to his old home town of Mecca to kill his enemy Abu Sufyan. Unfortunately for them, the townsfolk recognized al-Damri, and the two assassins were chased them out of Mecca.
From here, we shall let Ibn Ishaq tell the story:
And this is a man we are to take as al-insan al-kamil, a perfect being?
Any normal man would find this behavior by Muhammad which encouraged and blessed such an act shocking. The Muslim cannot. The Muslim must find it good. The Muslim must imitate it. The Muslim must be happy that this one-eyed badu was killed in this gruesome way for saying nothing other than:
Muhammad's Name in Arabic Calligraphy
From here, we shall let Ibn Ishaq tell the story:
They got up to pursue us and I told my companion to escape, for the very thing I feared had happened, and so as to Abu Sufyan there was no means of getting at him. So we made off with all speed and climbed the mountain and went into a cave where we spent the night, having successfully eluded them so that they returned to Mecca.Blessed him? Blessed him? Blessed al-Damri for killing a one-eyed shepherd for composing a couplet against Muslims and Islam?
. . . .
[My partner, an-Ansari having left], I went into a cave there taking my bow and arrows, and while I was there in came a one-eyed man of B[anu] al-Dil [i.e., the al-Dil tribe] driving a sheep of his. When he asked who I was I told him that I was one of the B[anu] Bakr. He said that he was also, adding of the B[anu] al-Dil clan. Then he lay down beside me and lifting up his voice began to sing:
I wont' be a Muslim as long as I live,I said (to myself), "You will soon know!" and as soon as the badu was asleep and snoring I got up and killed him in a more horrible way that any man has been killed. I put the end of my bow in his sound eye, then I bore down on it until I forced it out at the back of his neck. Then I came out like a beast of prey and took the highroad like an eagle hastening . . . .
Nor heed to their religion give.
When I got to Medina . . . [Muhammad] asked my news and when I told him what had happened he blessed me.[24]
And this is a man we are to take as al-insan al-kamil, a perfect being?
Any normal man would find this behavior by Muhammad which encouraged and blessed such an act shocking. The Muslim cannot. The Muslim must find it good. The Muslim must imitate it. The Muslim must be happy that this one-eyed badu was killed in this gruesome way for saying nothing other than:
I wont' be a Muslim as long as I live,The natural law, the law of God writ in our heart which participates in the eternal law of God, if we allow it to tutor us, would have us say, "I won't be a Muslim as long as I live, nor heed to their religion give," and it would not have it quieted. And what? Is that law in our heart also to be put to death, like the one-eyed Bedouin in a cave near Mecca, to please the likes of Muhammad?
Nor heed to their religion give.
MURDER FOR PROPHET: AL-NADR AND 'UQBA
MUHAMMAD COULD BE MERCILESS in the handling of his political and theological opponents. Another example of this attitude--de rigeur for all good Muslims who strive for that imitation of Muhammad that follows from the perception that he was a perfect man, al-Insan al-Kamil (الإنسان الكامل)--is his treatment of his fellow Quraysh tribesmen, al-Nadr bin al-Harith and 'Uqba bin Abu Mu'ayt. It is true that al-Nadr and 'Uqba were political and theological enemies of Muhammad (but then so is every Westerner and every Jew and Christian, not to mention Buddhist or Hindu or Agnostic or Atheist or Neo-Pagan: indeed everyone except a Muslim, that is, someone who is supposed to think and act like Muhammad).
Al-Nadr opposed himself to the man who claimed to be the exclusive and final spokesman for an Arabic mental idol, and irrepressible figment of diseased imagination which demanded obeisance from all men bar none and on the word of one man alone. A rich merchant, al-Nadr was well-read, was relatively cultured, and so he would compete with Muhammad when Muhammad was at Mecca competing for the ears of his townsmen. He would taunt Muhammad for his historical ignorance, for his copying and re-tailoring the the stories of others, and he rejected the Muhammadan revelations as authentic, accusing them of being asatir al-awwalin (أَسَاطِيرُ الأَوَّلِينَ), tales or fables of the ancients. He was one of those of whom Muhammad complained through the words of Allah:
Al-Nadr fought Muhammad and his troops at the Battle of Badr and had the misfortune of captured. Muhammad then ordered him killed, and his son-in-law `Ali cut off al-Nadr's head with the blade of his sword.
The entire event between Muhammad and al-Nadr is handled by the Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq, and all references or quotes in this post will be to that work as translated by A. Guillaume.[26]
Al-Nadr bin al-Harith, a leader of the Abu Nashim tribe, is introduced by Ibn Ishaq as a leader among the Quraysh, Muhammad's own greater tribe at Mecca. When introduced to him in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, al-Nadr is conferring with his fellow leaders on how to handle the erratic Muhammad--then without political power and relying entirely on the protection of his uncle Abu Talib and the wealth of his wife Khadija. In the elders' view, Muhammad was an impertinet rabble rouser, breaching the peace with his demands and eccentric behavior. And so they decide to make him an offer:
Faced with Muhammad's pretentious response, the leaders of Mecca mocked him, challenged him, demanded from him proof of his divine warrant, asked for a sign, a miracle, anything except his own witness. How else distinguish him from a mere charlatan? But Muhammad could give them none of these. He was the sole witness of his claimed authenticity. His prophetic office was pulled up by his own bootstraps. Muhammad was self-ordained:
One can feel the discomfiture of the powerless Muhammad in the presence of scoffers, of doubters. In Muhammad's defense, any kind of faith does not do well in front of scoffers. But this is nothing unique to Muhammad. It is part and parcel of the rough-and-tumble life of a person who sets himself up as a prophet. We know many prophets are false: indeed, Muhammad has his hand in putting some prophets to death. But even if a prophet is true, he ought to expect resistance, some of which comes in the form of ridicule. It is for this reason that it is practically dogma that a prophet is not honored in his own country. (Cf. John 4:44; Mark 6:4; cf. also Luke 4:28-30.) The Quraysh knew of Muhammad's eccentricities, of his disposition to depression and suicide, of his epilepsy and fits and strange seizures, of his public and unusual praying. For them, Muhammad was human, all too human. But then maybe not. It appears that they misread the man. When he got political power in his hands, and had swords at his command, he was not human, all too human--but inhuman, all too inhuman to his enemies.
When the effort at reconciling Muhammad failed, al-Nadr addressed all the leaders of Mecca gathered before him as follows:
So the Pagan townspeople of Mecca decided to get advice from the Jews at Medina, which made sense since Muhammad seemed to be drawing on the Jewish traditions, and presumably the Jews knew about prophets. So Al-Nadr and another Meccan named `Uqba bin Abu Mu'ayt went to the Jewish rabbis in Medina to get information from them about what prophethood was all about.
Now 'Uqba was also an enemy of Muhammad. He had once listened to Muhammad and appeared a potential recruit to Muhammad's struggling group of Muslims, but his friend Ubayy ibn Khala ibn Wahb ibn Hudhafa had threatened to break his friendship off if 'Uqba continued to audit Muhammad's preaching, and so 'Uqba departed from Muhammad and turned on him. Life, 164-65. A hadith in Sahih Bukhari 1.9.499 relates how, at a time before Muhammad had political power and lived in Mecca, 'Uqba threw dung, blood and the offal of slaughtered camels on the shoulders of Muhammad when he bowed down for prayers, to the delight of some of the Meccans. It was a slight that Muhammad, who could bear a grudge, would never forget.
So it was that al-Nadr and 'Uqba went to the rabbis and asked them:
The answers, a synthesis of Greek, Arab, Jewish, and Christian tales, did not impress al-Nadr. Ibn Ishaq tells us how al-Nadr would follow up Muhammad's recitations of the Qur'an and the warnings to the Quraysh tribe, that al-Nadr would follow with a story about "Rustum the Hero and Isfandiyar and the kings of Persia, saying, 'By God, Muhammad cannot tell a better story than I and his talk is only of old fables which he has copied as I have.'" Life,, 162-163.
When al-Nadr and 'Uqba had the upper hand, they abused Muhammad with words and with offal. But when Muhammad had the upper hand, he was brutal: he heartlessly abused his opponents with the sword.
After the battle of Badr, when the victorious Muslims were heading back to Medina, Ibn Ishaq relates the following:
Ibn Ishaq records the plaint of al-Nadr's sister engendered at hearing of the death of her brother at the order of Muhammad:
'Uqba suffered a similar fate. Ibn Ishak tells us the following about Muhammad's captive, 'Uqba:
Seventy-two Meccan prisoners were made captive by the Mohammadan forces at the Battle of Badr. Seventy traded for ransom. Two, however, killed at the order of Muhammad: al-Nadr and 'Uqba.
Learn well kuffar and mushrikun, unbelievers and Christians, from the example of Muhammad. Muhammad teaches his followers to be heartless to their opponents. He will teach them to feel no softness for the sisters and the children of their enemies, and the sorrow that they may cause them. Turn deaf ears to their pleas, to their wails, to the misery you have caused them, he tells them. Get even! Forget not! Get that revenge! Their children, for all they care, can go to Hell. And this hardness of heart is a fine thing, a very fine thing, a most blessed, noble, and virtuous thing, a divine thing--though it goes against the grain of any humane reasoning--for one ought to remember: in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
__________________________________
[1]Muslims regard Muhammad as the model of the perfect man—the al-insān al-kāmil—a model to be imitated. The Qur’an is full of verses to that effect, and either explicitly or implicitly enjoin the faithful to imitate, follow, and/or obey Muhammad. See also Qur’an 3:32, 3:132, 4:13, 4:59, 4:69, 4:80, 5:92, 8:1, 8:20, 8:46, 9:71, 24:47, 24:51, 24:52, 24:54, 24:56, 33:33, 47:33, 49:14, 64:12, 68:4. (cited in Robert Spencer, The Truth About Muhammad (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2006), 8. He is referred to by some Muslims as the "living Qur’an" and so is considered "the witness whose behavior and words reveal God’s will." John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) (3d ed.), 11. Muhammad’s personality is so perfect, that any visual depiction of him is imperfect, and therefore blasphemous. For some of the Muslim faithful, the imitatio Muhammedi (imitation of Muhammad) is taken to legalistic extremes, and includes even the particulars of the toilette, such as the proper use of antimony in the eyes, the dying of the hair, and the use of toothpicks (miswak). The requirements of istinja (cleansing of private orifices) and istibra (cleansing of the urethra after urination) and the use of only the left hand, preserving the right for eating and for ritual cleansing or wudu prior to a Muslim’s prayer are well-known. Following the principle of inclusio inius exclusio alterius, one of Muhammad’s early followers, Bayezid Biestami, refused to eat watermelon because there was no recorded instance that Muhammad ate that fruit. In the 19th century, Sayyid Ahmad Khan suggested it was meritorious not to eat mangoes if his motive was to imitate the Prophet who is not recorded to have eaten them. Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad is his Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 45. The great medieval Muslim theologian Ghazzali states in his Ilhya ‘ulum ad-din: “Know that the key to happiness is . . . to imitate the Messenger of God in all his coming and going . . . . That means, you have to sit while putting on trousers, and to stand when winding a turban, and to begin with the right foot when putting on shoes. . . .” Schimmel, 31.
[2]And in some commendable ways Muhammad did. For example, he fought against the customary exposure (or live burial) of infant girls, and there is a Qur’anic revelation that is generally held to have prohibited such barbaric custom among the Arabs. See Qur’an 81:8-9:
[3]Some of the summary of ahadith are conveniently available at University of Southern California's website sponsored by the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/. Two of the classical biographies of Muhammad are readily available in English. The rendition of Ibn Ishāq's by Ibn Hisham is available through the translation of A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1967). Al-Waqidi's biography has recently become available by a translation by Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob, The Life of Muhammad (Al-Waidi's Kitab al-Maghazi) (New York: Routledge, 2011).
[4]St. Thomas, SCG, lib. 1 cap. 6 n. 7.
[5]I have struggled with the issue of transliteration of the Arabic. There are numerous systems for transliterating Arabic into Roman text. Many of the characters are not readily available or require changing fonts. I have decided, therefore, for the most part to ignore them.
[6]"Life" is a reference to A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967).
[7]See Clinton Bennett, In Search of Muhammad(London: Wellington, 1998), Appendix 2, 249 ff. The list does not include other women and concubines or slaves, such as Mary the Copt and Rihana the Jewess, with whom we know Muhammad had sexual relations. Sometimes Mary is regarded as Muhammad's twelfth wife. Some Muslims authorities put Muhammad's wives as twenty-one, and suggest that Muhammad practiced a form of temporary marriage (نكاح المتعة, or nikah al-mut'ah) or marriage for a "fixed term," a deplorable practice, which is nothing less than a form of divinely sanctioned prostitution, which they further base upon Qur'an 4:24, and is particularly practiced among the Shi'a muslims.
[8]W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), Excursus L, pp. 393-99.
[9]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 515-17. He was tortured by having a fire lit on his chest and then killed by decapitation.
[10]The reference is to an alleged dream of Safiya who had such a dream which her husband Kinana interpreted as a secret longing for Muhammad, and so struck her. This seems highly unlikely given that Muhammad was the enemy of her tribe.
[11]In Sahih Bukhari 9.87.139, 9.87.140, and 9.87.141, Muhammad seems to confess a prior longing for Aisha, as he even had dreams about her being uncovered. Seeing Aisha naked in a dream (at age six) meant to Muhammad that this desire "is from Allah, then it must happen."
[12]It seems that Aisha's father, Abu Bakr, was not initially excited about the prospect, but, being under the thrall of Muhammad appears to have conceded to the pseudo-prophet's proposal after weakly trying to deflect it on the grounds that he was Muhammad's brother: Sahih Bukhari 7.18: "Narrated 'Ursa: The Prophet asked Abu Bakr for 'Aisha's hand in marriage. Abu Bakr said 'But I am your brother.' The Prophet said, 'You are my brother in Allah's religion and His Book, but she (Aisha) is lawful for me to marry.'" In other words, Islam--not Bedouin practices--made it legitimate for Muhammad (and by implication any Muslim) to marry and bed premenarcheal girls. This precept in itself is so repugnant to the natural law and to reason that, by itself, it destroys any possible divine warrant underlying Islam.
[13]The problem is even worse that just Aisha. In Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad we discover the lecherous Muhammad planning to wed an infant Ummu'l-Fadl even while she was a baby crawling before him. Since this event appears to have occurred during the Battle of Badr, Muhammad would have been approximately 55 years of age, which of course meant that he would have been in his mid sixties when he married the nine-year-old Ummu'l-Fadl. "(Suhayli, ii. 79: In the riwaya of Yunus I. I. recorded that the apostle saw her (Ummu'l-Fadl) when she was a baby crawling before him and said, 'If she grows up and I am still alive I will marry her.' But he died before she grew up and Sufyan b. al-Aswad b. 'Abdu'l-Asad al-Makhzumi married her and she bore him Rizq and Lubaba. . . ." A Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 311. Lucky for young Ummu'l-Fadl, Muhammad died before he could fulfill those plans. This is not the only hadith that suggests Muhammad had set his eyes on other infants for future marriage as girl brides. In the collection of ahadith entitled Musnad Ahmud 26329
we have the following
[14]Latin: God has spoken, the case is closed. Muhammad has done it, the case is closed.
[15]Some Muslim sources deny the concubinage relationship between Mariya the Copt and Muhammad. For example, Ibn Kathir (700AH/1301AD-774AH/1373AD) wrote that Mariya and Muhammad married. The majority would seem to regard Mariyah as a concubine. Sources suggest that Muhammad had between four and eleven concubines. The number is not particularly relevant. Just one concubine disqualifies Muhammad as a prophet since just one concubine offends against the natural law of marriage and is adultery by definition. Muhammad was thus an adulterer.
[16]This, of course, is the second level of punishments advised by Allah in the treatment of wives who misbehave. The first is to admonish them. The second level is to refuse to share their bends. The third level is to beat them. Qur'an 4:34. Presumably, if all else fails: divorce.
[17]Qayla was the putative ancestress of the Banu Aus (or Banu Aws [Arabic: بنو أوس]) and the Banu Kharaj (or Banu al-Khazraj [Arabic: بنو الخزرج]), the two great Arab tribes of the town of Medina.
[18]A gibe at the language of the Qur'an.
[19]i.e., "You resisted Tubba' who, after all, was a king in fact and a man of great reputation, so why believe in Muhammad's claims?" Tubba' (تُبَّع) refers to the Kings of Yemen. See Islamic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Tubba'"
[20]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
[21]Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabqat al-Kabir, II.31.
[22]St. Thomas More, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (London: Charles Dolman, 1847), II.XVI, p. 160.
[23]The matter is extensively treated in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, on pages 364-69 of A. Guillaume's translation. Muhammad is related to have said: "Who will rid me of Ibnu'l-Ashraf?" To which, Muhammad bin Maslama said that he would kill him. Muhammad, for his part, responded "Do so if you can." With respect to the lying, Ibn Ishaq puts it this way: "'O apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.' He answered, 'Say what you like for you are free of the matter.'" A. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad: Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 367.
[24]Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir (Pakistan Historical Society, 1967), II, p. 37.
[24]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 673-75.
[25]The Qur'an refers to the asatir al-awwalin (أَسَاطِيرُ الأَوَّلِينَ), the tales or fables of the ancients, in numerous surahs, and it is commonly thought that these are references to al-Nadr and his criticisms of Muhammad.
[26]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Risat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
[27]Qur'an (Al-Khaf) 18:1-110
Al-Nadr opposed himself to the man who claimed to be the exclusive and final spokesman for an Arabic mental idol, and irrepressible figment of diseased imagination which demanded obeisance from all men bar none and on the word of one man alone. A rich merchant, al-Nadr was well-read, was relatively cultured, and so he would compete with Muhammad when Muhammad was at Mecca competing for the ears of his townsmen. He would taunt Muhammad for his historical ignorance, for his copying and re-tailoring the the stories of others, and he rejected the Muhammadan revelations as authentic, accusing them of being asatir al-awwalin (أَسَاطِيرُ الأَوَّلِينَ), tales or fables of the ancients. He was one of those of whom Muhammad complained through the words of Allah:
And when Our Verses (of the Qur'ān) are recited to them, they say: "We have heard this (the Qur'ān); if we wish we can say the like of this. This is nothing but the tales of the ancients."Qur'an 8:31.[25]
وَإِذَا تُتْلَى عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتُنَا قَالُوا قَدْ سَمِعْنَا لَوْ نَشَاءُ لَقُلْنَا مِثْلَ هَذَا إِنْ هَذَا إِلاَّ أَسَاطِيرُ الأَوَّلِين
Al-Nadr fought Muhammad and his troops at the Battle of Badr and had the misfortune of captured. Muhammad then ordered him killed, and his son-in-law `Ali cut off al-Nadr's head with the blade of his sword.
The entire event between Muhammad and al-Nadr is handled by the Muslim historian Ibn Ishaq, and all references or quotes in this post will be to that work as translated by A. Guillaume.[26]
Al-Nadr bin al-Harith, a leader of the Abu Nashim tribe, is introduced by Ibn Ishaq as a leader among the Quraysh, Muhammad's own greater tribe at Mecca. When introduced to him in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, al-Nadr is conferring with his fellow leaders on how to handle the erratic Muhammad--then without political power and relying entirely on the protection of his uncle Abu Talib and the wealth of his wife Khadija. In the elders' view, Muhammad was an impertinet rabble rouser, breaching the peace with his demands and eccentric behavior. And so they decide to make him an offer:
If it was money he wanted, they would make him the richest of them all; if it was honour, he should be their prince; if it was sovereignty, they would make him king; if it was a spirit which had got possession of him (they used to call the familiar spirit of the jinn ra'iy), then they would exhaust their means in finding medicine to cure him.But this was a time when Muhammad was in Mecca, before he tasted political power, and he appeared to have some integrity, though if not integrity, perhaps it was merely a self-righteous, priggish response which was his way of making himself better that his elders:
The apostle replied that he had no such intention. He sought not money, nor honour, nor sovereignty, but God had sent him as an apostle, and revealed a book to him, and commanded him to become an announcer and a warner. He had brought them the messages of his Lord, and given them good advice. If they took it then they would have a portion in this world and the next; if they rejected it, he could only patiently await the issue until God decided between them, or words to that effect.Life, 133-34. The Muhammad at Mecca is a man a moral man can like. The Muhammad at Medina is a man a moral man begins to despise. It is the Muhammad at Medina that is the hero of Muslims: the majority of the Qur'anic revelations at Mecca abrogated by the later ones of Medina. Muhammad's life, like the Qur'an, may be divided in twain: the Meccan and the Medinan, pre-Hegira and post-Hegira. White and black are these two lives, almost opposites like the flag of the caliphate and the flag of jihad. It is as if a spirit of darkness entered into Muhammad during his Hegira to Medina: introivit in eum satanas.
Faced with Muhammad's pretentious response, the leaders of Mecca mocked him, challenged him, demanded from him proof of his divine warrant, asked for a sign, a miracle, anything except his own witness. How else distinguish him from a mere charlatan? But Muhammad could give them none of these. He was the sole witness of his claimed authenticity. His prophetic office was pulled up by his own bootstraps. Muhammad was self-ordained:
"Well, Muhammad," they said, "if you won't accept any of our propositions, you know that no people are more short of land and water, and live a harder life than we, so ask your Lord, who has sent you, to remove for us these mountains which shut us in, and to straighten out our country for us, and to open up in it rivers like those of Syria and Iraq, and to resurrect for us our forefathers, and let there be among those that are resurrected for us Qusayy b. Kilab, for he was a true shaikh, so that we may ask them whether what you say is true or false. If they say you are speaking the truth, and you do what we have asked you, we will believe in you, and we shall know what your position with God is, and that He has actually sent you as an apostle as you say."Life, 134.
He replied that he had not been sent to them with such an object. He had conveyed to them God's message, and they could either accept it with advantage, or reject it and await God's judgement.
They said that if he would not do that for them, let him do something for himself. Ask God to send an angel with him to confirm what he said and to contradict them; to make him gardens and castles, and treasures of gold and silver to satisfy his obvious wants. He stood in the streets as they did, and he sought a livelihood as they did. If he could do this, they would recognize his merit and position with God, if he were an apostle as he claimed to be.
He replied that he would not do it, and would not ask for such things, for he was not sent to do so, and he repeated what he had said before.
They said, "Then let the heavens be dropped on us in pieces, as you assert that your Lord could do if He wished, for we will not believe you unless you do so."
The apostle replied that this was a matter for God; if He wanted to do it with them, He would do it.
They said, "Did not your Lord know that we would sit with you, and ask you these questions, so that He might come to you and instruct you how to answer us, and tell you what He was going to do with us, if we did not receive your message? Information has reached us that you are taught by this fellow in al-Yamama, called al-Rahman, and by God we will never believe in the Rahman. Our conscience is clear. By God, we will not leave you and our treatment of you, until either we destroy you or you destroy us." Some said, "We worship the angels, who are the daughters of Allah." Others said, "We will not believe in you until you come to us with God and the angels as a surety."
When they said this the apostle got up and left them.
One can feel the discomfiture of the powerless Muhammad in the presence of scoffers, of doubters. In Muhammad's defense, any kind of faith does not do well in front of scoffers. But this is nothing unique to Muhammad. It is part and parcel of the rough-and-tumble life of a person who sets himself up as a prophet. We know many prophets are false: indeed, Muhammad has his hand in putting some prophets to death. But even if a prophet is true, he ought to expect resistance, some of which comes in the form of ridicule. It is for this reason that it is practically dogma that a prophet is not honored in his own country. (Cf. John 4:44; Mark 6:4; cf. also Luke 4:28-30.) The Quraysh knew of Muhammad's eccentricities, of his disposition to depression and suicide, of his epilepsy and fits and strange seizures, of his public and unusual praying. For them, Muhammad was human, all too human. But then maybe not. It appears that they misread the man. When he got political power in his hands, and had swords at his command, he was not human, all too human--but inhuman, all too inhuman to his enemies.
When the effort at reconciling Muhammad failed, al-Nadr addressed all the leaders of Mecca gathered before him as follows:
Al-Nadr b. al-Harith b. Kalada b. `Alqama b. Abdu Manaf b. Abdu'l-Dar b. Qusayy got up and said: "O Quraysh, a situation has arisen which you cannot deal with. Muhammad was a young man most liked among you, most truthful in speech, and most trustworthy, until, when you saw grey hairs on his temple, and he brought you his message, you said he was a sorcerer, but he is not, for we have seen such people and their spitting and their knots; you said, a diviner, but we have seen such people and their behaviour, and we have heard their rhymes; and you said a poet, but he is not a poet, for we have heard all kinds of poetry; you said he was possessed, but he is not, for we have seen the possessed, and he shows no signs of their gasping and whispering and delirium. Ye men of Quraysh, look to your affairs, for by God, a serious thing has befallen you."Life, 135-36.
Now al-Nadr b. al-Harith was one of the satans of Quraysh; he used to insult the apostle and show him enmity. He had been to al-Hira and learnt there the tales of the kings of Persia, the tales of Rustum and Isbandiyar. When the apostle had held a meeting in which he reminded them of God, and warned his people of what had happened to bygone generations as a result of God's vengeance, al-Nadr got up when he sat down, and said, 'I can tell a better story than he, come to me.' Then he began to tell them about the kings of Persia, Rustum and Isbandiyar, and then he would say, 'In what respect is Muhammad a better story-teller than I?'
So the Pagan townspeople of Mecca decided to get advice from the Jews at Medina, which made sense since Muhammad seemed to be drawing on the Jewish traditions, and presumably the Jews knew about prophets. So Al-Nadr and another Meccan named `Uqba bin Abu Mu'ayt went to the Jewish rabbis in Medina to get information from them about what prophethood was all about.
Now 'Uqba was also an enemy of Muhammad. He had once listened to Muhammad and appeared a potential recruit to Muhammad's struggling group of Muslims, but his friend Ubayy ibn Khala ibn Wahb ibn Hudhafa had threatened to break his friendship off if 'Uqba continued to audit Muhammad's preaching, and so 'Uqba departed from Muhammad and turned on him. Life, 164-65. A hadith in Sahih Bukhari 1.9.499 relates how, at a time before Muhammad had political power and lived in Mecca, 'Uqba threw dung, blood and the offal of slaughtered camels on the shoulders of Muhammad when he bowed down for prayers, to the delight of some of the Meccans. It was a slight that Muhammad, who could bear a grudge, would never forget.
So it was that al-Nadr and 'Uqba went to the rabbis and asked them:
"You are the people of the Taurat [Torah], and we have come to you so that you can tell us how to deal with this tribesman of ours."Life, 136-137.
The rabbis said, "Ask him about three things of which we will instruct you; if he gives you the right answer then he is an authentic prophet, but if he does not, then the man is a rogue, so form your own opinion about him. Ask him what happened to the young men who disappeared in ancient days, for they have a marvelous story. Ask him about the mighty traveler who reached the confines of both East and West. Ask him what the spirit is. If he can give you the answer, then follow him, for he is a prophet. If he cannot, then he is a forger and treat him as you will."
The two men returned to Quraysh at Mecca and told them that they had a decisive way of dealing with Muhammad, and they told them about the three questions.
They came to the apostle and called upon him to answer these questions. He said to them, "I will give you your answer tomorrow," but he did not say, "if God will."
So they went away; and the apostle, so they say, waited for fifteen days without a revelation from God on the matter, nor did Gabriel come to him, so that the people of Mecca began to spread evil reports, saying, "Muhammad promised us an answer on the morrow, and today is the fifteenth day we have remained without an answer."
This delay caused the apostle great sorrow, until Gabriel brought him the Chapter of The Cave,[27] in which he reproaches him for his sadness, and told him the answers of their questions, the youths, the mighty traveler, and the spirit.
The answers, a synthesis of Greek, Arab, Jewish, and Christian tales, did not impress al-Nadr. Ibn Ishaq tells us how al-Nadr would follow up Muhammad's recitations of the Qur'an and the warnings to the Quraysh tribe, that al-Nadr would follow with a story about "Rustum the Hero and Isfandiyar and the kings of Persia, saying, 'By God, Muhammad cannot tell a better story than I and his talk is only of old fables which he has copied as I have.'" Life,, 162-163.
When al-Nadr and 'Uqba had the upper hand, they abused Muhammad with words and with offal. But when Muhammad had the upper hand, he was brutal: he heartlessly abused his opponents with the sword.
A Veiled Muhammad Orders Decapitation of His Captive
Then the apostle began his return journey to Medina with the unbelieving prisoners, among whom were 'Uqba b. Abu Mu'ayt and al-Nadr bin Al-Harith. . . . Then the apostle went forward until when he came out of the pass of al-Safra' he halted on the sandhill between the pass and al-Naziya called Sayar at a tree there and divided the booty which God had granted to the Muslims equally. . . . When the apostle was in al-Safra', al-Nadr was killed by `Ali, as a learned Meccan told me. . . . .Life, 308.
Ibn Ishaq records the plaint of al-Nadr's sister engendered at hearing of the death of her brother at the order of Muhammad:
Qutayla d. al-Harith, sister of al-Nadr b. al-Harith, weeping him said:Life, 311. A voice was heard at the pass of al-Safra', weeping and loud lamentation, Qutayla weeping for her brother, but she refused to be comforted, because he was no more. He was no more because of Muhammad.
O Rider, I think you will reach Uthayl
At dawn of the fifth night if you are lucky.
Greet a dead man there for me.
Swift camels always carry news from me to thee.
(Tell of) flowing tears running profusely or ending in a sob.
Can al-Nadr hear me when I call him,
How can a dead man hear who cannot speak?
O Muhammad, finest child of noble mother,
Whose sire a noble sire was,
'Twould not have harmed you had you spared him.
(A warrior oft spares though full of rage and anger.)
Or you could have taken a ransom,
The dearest price that could be paid.
Al-Nadr was the nearest relative you captured
With the best claim to be released.
The swords of his father's sons came down on him.
Good God, what bonds of kinship there were shattered!
Exhausted he was led to a cold-blooded death,
A prisoner in bonds, walking like a hobbled beast.
'Uqba suffered a similar fate. Ibn Ishak tells us the following about Muhammad's captive, 'Uqba:
When he was in `Irqu'l-Zabya `Uqba was killed. He had been captured by `Abdullah b. Salima, one of the B. al-`Ajlan.Life, 308.
When the apostle ordered him to be killed `Uqba said, "But who will look after my children?"
"Hell," he said, and `Asim b. Thabit b. Abu'l-Aqlah al-Ansari killed him according to what Abu `Ubayda b. Muhammad b. `Ammar b. Yasir told me.
Seventy-two Meccan prisoners were made captive by the Mohammadan forces at the Battle of Badr. Seventy traded for ransom. Two, however, killed at the order of Muhammad: al-Nadr and 'Uqba.
Learn well kuffar and mushrikun, unbelievers and Christians, from the example of Muhammad. Muhammad teaches his followers to be heartless to their opponents. He will teach them to feel no softness for the sisters and the children of their enemies, and the sorrow that they may cause them. Turn deaf ears to their pleas, to their wails, to the misery you have caused them, he tells them. Get even! Forget not! Get that revenge! Their children, for all they care, can go to Hell. And this hardness of heart is a fine thing, a very fine thing, a most blessed, noble, and virtuous thing, a divine thing--though it goes against the grain of any humane reasoning--for one ought to remember: in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
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[1]Muslims regard Muhammad as the model of the perfect man—the al-insān al-kāmil—a model to be imitated. The Qur’an is full of verses to that effect, and either explicitly or implicitly enjoin the faithful to imitate, follow, and/or obey Muhammad. See also Qur’an 3:32, 3:132, 4:13, 4:59, 4:69, 4:80, 5:92, 8:1, 8:20, 8:46, 9:71, 24:47, 24:51, 24:52, 24:54, 24:56, 33:33, 47:33, 49:14, 64:12, 68:4. (cited in Robert Spencer, The Truth About Muhammad (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2006), 8. He is referred to by some Muslims as the "living Qur’an" and so is considered "the witness whose behavior and words reveal God’s will." John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) (3d ed.), 11. Muhammad’s personality is so perfect, that any visual depiction of him is imperfect, and therefore blasphemous. For some of the Muslim faithful, the imitatio Muhammedi (imitation of Muhammad) is taken to legalistic extremes, and includes even the particulars of the toilette, such as the proper use of antimony in the eyes, the dying of the hair, and the use of toothpicks (miswak). The requirements of istinja (cleansing of private orifices) and istibra (cleansing of the urethra after urination) and the use of only the left hand, preserving the right for eating and for ritual cleansing or wudu prior to a Muslim’s prayer are well-known. Following the principle of inclusio inius exclusio alterius, one of Muhammad’s early followers, Bayezid Biestami, refused to eat watermelon because there was no recorded instance that Muhammad ate that fruit. In the 19th century, Sayyid Ahmad Khan suggested it was meritorious not to eat mangoes if his motive was to imitate the Prophet who is not recorded to have eaten them. Annemarie Schimmel, And Muhammad is his Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), 45. The great medieval Muslim theologian Ghazzali states in his Ilhya ‘ulum ad-din: “Know that the key to happiness is . . . to imitate the Messenger of God in all his coming and going . . . . That means, you have to sit while putting on trousers, and to stand when winding a turban, and to begin with the right foot when putting on shoes. . . .” Schimmel, 31.
[2]And in some commendable ways Muhammad did. For example, he fought against the customary exposure (or live burial) of infant girls, and there is a Qur’anic revelation that is generally held to have prohibited such barbaric custom among the Arabs. See Qur’an 81:8-9:
وَإِذَا الْمَوْءُودَةُ سُئِلَتْBut as will be seen in these series of postings, Muhammad's ability to overcome all Arabic convention, including those clearly contrary to the natural law was extremely limited. In some ways, additionally, Muhammad exhorted his followers to behavior against convention that was retrograde. An example of this would have been his violation of the conventional truce (the "Sacred Month") between the tribes in the matter of raids.
بِأَيِّ ذَنْب ٍ قُتِلَتْ
And when the female [infant] buried alive [as the pagan Arabs used to do] shall be questioned.
For what sin she was killed?
[3]Some of the summary of ahadith are conveniently available at University of Southern California's website sponsored by the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement, http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/. Two of the classical biographies of Muhammad are readily available in English. The rendition of Ibn Ishāq's by Ibn Hisham is available through the translation of A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad (Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1967). Al-Waqidi's biography has recently become available by a translation by Rizwi Faizer, Amal Ismail, and AbdulKader Tayob, The Life of Muhammad (Al-Waidi's Kitab al-Maghazi) (New York: Routledge, 2011).
[4]St. Thomas, SCG, lib. 1 cap. 6 n. 7.
[5]I have struggled with the issue of transliteration of the Arabic. There are numerous systems for transliterating Arabic into Roman text. Many of the characters are not readily available or require changing fonts. I have decided, therefore, for the most part to ignore them.
[6]"Life" is a reference to A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967).
[7]See Clinton Bennett, In Search of Muhammad(London: Wellington, 1998), Appendix 2, 249 ff. The list does not include other women and concubines or slaves, such as Mary the Copt and Rihana the Jewess, with whom we know Muhammad had sexual relations. Sometimes Mary is regarded as Muhammad's twelfth wife. Some Muslims authorities put Muhammad's wives as twenty-one, and suggest that Muhammad practiced a form of temporary marriage (نكاح المتعة, or nikah al-mut'ah) or marriage for a "fixed term," a deplorable practice, which is nothing less than a form of divinely sanctioned prostitution, which they further base upon Qur'an 4:24, and is particularly practiced among the Shi'a muslims.
[8]W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956), Excursus L, pp. 393-99.
[9]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 515-17. He was tortured by having a fire lit on his chest and then killed by decapitation.
[10]The reference is to an alleged dream of Safiya who had such a dream which her husband Kinana interpreted as a secret longing for Muhammad, and so struck her. This seems highly unlikely given that Muhammad was the enemy of her tribe.
[11]In Sahih Bukhari 9.87.139, 9.87.140, and 9.87.141, Muhammad seems to confess a prior longing for Aisha, as he even had dreams about her being uncovered. Seeing Aisha naked in a dream (at age six) meant to Muhammad that this desire "is from Allah, then it must happen."
[12]It seems that Aisha's father, Abu Bakr, was not initially excited about the prospect, but, being under the thrall of Muhammad appears to have conceded to the pseudo-prophet's proposal after weakly trying to deflect it on the grounds that he was Muhammad's brother: Sahih Bukhari 7.18: "Narrated 'Ursa: The Prophet asked Abu Bakr for 'Aisha's hand in marriage. Abu Bakr said 'But I am your brother.' The Prophet said, 'You are my brother in Allah's religion and His Book, but she (Aisha) is lawful for me to marry.'" In other words, Islam--not Bedouin practices--made it legitimate for Muhammad (and by implication any Muslim) to marry and bed premenarcheal girls. This precept in itself is so repugnant to the natural law and to reason that, by itself, it destroys any possible divine warrant underlying Islam.
[13]The problem is even worse that just Aisha. In Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad we discover the lecherous Muhammad planning to wed an infant Ummu'l-Fadl even while she was a baby crawling before him. Since this event appears to have occurred during the Battle of Badr, Muhammad would have been approximately 55 years of age, which of course meant that he would have been in his mid sixties when he married the nine-year-old Ummu'l-Fadl. "(Suhayli, ii. 79: In the riwaya of Yunus I. I. recorded that the apostle saw her (Ummu'l-Fadl) when she was a baby crawling before him and said, 'If she grows up and I am still alive I will marry her.' But he died before she grew up and Sufyan b. al-Aswad b. 'Abdu'l-Asad al-Makhzumi married her and she bore him Rizq and Lubaba. . . ." A Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 311. Lucky for young Ummu'l-Fadl, Muhammad died before he could fulfill those plans. This is not the only hadith that suggests Muhammad had set his eyes on other infants for future marriage as girl brides. In the collection of ahadith entitled Musnad Ahmud 26329
we have the following
حدثنا يعقوب قال حدثنا أبي عن ابن إسحاق قال وحدثني حسين بن عبد الله بن عباس عن عكرمة مولى عبد الله بن عباس عن عبد الله بن عباس عن أم الفضل بنت الحارث أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم رأى أم حبيبة بنت عباس وهي فوق الفطيم قالت فقال لئن بلغت بنية العباس هذه وأنا حي لأتزوجنهاThe body of this hadith (ignoring the isnad or string of witnesses) may be translated:
The Messenger of Allah (peace upon him) saw Um Habiba the daughter of Abbas while she was al-futim (still nursing) and he said, "If she grows up while I am still alive, I will marry her.[This hadith is often miscited on the internet as Musnad Ahmad 25636].
[14]Latin: God has spoken, the case is closed. Muhammad has done it, the case is closed.
[15]Some Muslim sources deny the concubinage relationship between Mariya the Copt and Muhammad. For example, Ibn Kathir (700AH/1301AD-774AH/1373AD) wrote that Mariya and Muhammad married. The majority would seem to regard Mariyah as a concubine. Sources suggest that Muhammad had between four and eleven concubines. The number is not particularly relevant. Just one concubine disqualifies Muhammad as a prophet since just one concubine offends against the natural law of marriage and is adultery by definition. Muhammad was thus an adulterer.
[16]This, of course, is the second level of punishments advised by Allah in the treatment of wives who misbehave. The first is to admonish them. The second level is to refuse to share their bends. The third level is to beat them. Qur'an 4:34. Presumably, if all else fails: divorce.
[17]Qayla was the putative ancestress of the Banu Aus (or Banu Aws [Arabic: بنو أوس]) and the Banu Kharaj (or Banu al-Khazraj [Arabic: بنو الخزرج]), the two great Arab tribes of the town of Medina.
[18]A gibe at the language of the Qur'an.
[19]i.e., "You resisted Tubba' who, after all, was a king in fact and a man of great reputation, so why believe in Muhammad's claims?" Tubba' (تُبَّع) refers to the Kings of Yemen. See Islamic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Tubba'"
[20]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
[21]Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabqat al-Kabir, II.31.
[22]St. Thomas More, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (London: Charles Dolman, 1847), II.XVI, p. 160.
[23]The matter is extensively treated in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, on pages 364-69 of A. Guillaume's translation. Muhammad is related to have said: "Who will rid me of Ibnu'l-Ashraf?" To which, Muhammad bin Maslama said that he would kill him. Muhammad, for his part, responded "Do so if you can." With respect to the lying, Ibn Ishaq puts it this way: "'O apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.' He answered, 'Say what you like for you are free of the matter.'" A. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad: Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 367.
[24]Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir (Pakistan Historical Society, 1967), II, p. 37.
[24]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 673-75.
[25]The Qur'an refers to the asatir al-awwalin (أَسَاطِيرُ الأَوَّلِينَ), the tales or fables of the ancients, in numerous surahs, and it is commonly thought that these are references to al-Nadr and his criticisms of Muhammad.
[26]A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Risat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
[27]Qur'an (Al-Khaf) 18:1-110
