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Imdad Ali and the story of Muhammad in Mecca and MedinaReader comment on item: Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam Submitted by Jan Janssen (Austria), Jan 28, 2008 at 16:24 Dear Imdad Ali, I would like to ask you again which early sources of the history of Islam you have read, Ibn Ishaq, Tabari, Ibn Sa'd or Waqidi? And on which you base your assessment of the conspiracies of the Meccans and of the economic analysis of the situation in Medina. There is an important matter that you have to consider when talking about what happened then. For example when you quote hadith, you have to know that they do not usually give any time frame. So if the life of Muhammad was in danger, the hadith does not give a clue why. One example is when Muhammad attacked Khayber, killed many men, took Safiyya, the wife, or better, widow of one of the tribe's leaders into his tent without waiting for the end of her waiting period, the Idda (as is required by his Islam), someone guarded the tent for the obvious fear that remaining tribesmen will come after him. No surprise there. I will start by giving a comparison with what is happening today. Today, the muslims claim they are badly treated all over the world so they have to react. For example they are singled out for thorough checking at airports. In a hundred years' time, there will be people like you who will tell that the terrorist activities like 9/11 were justified because of the oppression that muslims suffered from the infidel europeans or americans. So the course of events is upside down. Effect has become cause. Muslims fly planes into buildings, blow up subways and buses, terrorise neighborhoods, burn cars, harrass women, threaten writers, kill film makers, burn down embassies, ... and the negative perception about muslims is because of this. Not because they are muslim. In Europe, nobody cares about the religion of others until those others commit acts of aggression and mention their religion as a ground for their alienation and actions. Muslims claim that the Meccans were aggressive towards Muhammad and his followers because they worshipped Allah alone. Did you ask yourself why the Meccans behaved that way? Look at the parallel with today. If you go back to Mecca at the time when Muhammad was born, you will find that it was the most tolerant society what religion is concerned (like western societies at the time when the first muslims moved into Western Europe and the US). All religions practiced in the area had one focal point in common which was the Ka'aba. They all came together to do the hadj, no matter what religion they had. There were 360 statues of various gods, some say with even a hindu influence, there was a statue of Allah, a kind of supervisor God (the father of Muhammad was a pagan and is now burning in hell according to islamic teachings; his name was Abdullah or slave of Allah), there were statues of Ibrahim and Ismael and some sources even mention the presence of a picture of Mary and the child Jesus. There were even two prophets that Ibn Ishaq mentions in p 648 and 649. Their names were Musaylima and Al-Aswad. Some people followed them and others told they were crazy. They did not harm or insult anybody and nobody harmed them. Now what did Muhammad do to draw enmity onto himself? This is written on p 118 and 119 by Ibn Ishaq. I was shocked when I read that devout muslim Ibn Ishaq was accusing Muhammad to be the cause of his own problems. I quote: "They said, 'O Abu Talib, your nephew has cursed our gods, insulted our religion, mocked our way of life and accused our forefathers of error; either you must stop him or you must let us get at him, for you yourself are in the same position as we are in opposition to him and we will rid you of him." I want to stress that none of the first muslims were killed though some were abused physically. Dear Imdad Ali, try this in 2008. Travel to Mecca, insult the religion of the people there, insult Allah and Muhammad. Can you tell me what the followers of the religion of peace will do? Right, you will be killed after 10 seconds. And be sure that your good relationship with the Saudi royal family will not prevent you from being killed. The Meccan polytheist that you curse so much were tolerant, your beloved Prophet was extremely intolerant. At the end of his life, Muhammad ordered to expel the remaining Jews and Christians from the Hejaz and leave only muslims. Muslim Book 019, Number 4366: Muslim tells how tolerant Islam is, but the Prophet of Islam himself cleaned the land that he conquered by force, from the unclean non-muslims. And you know the religious tolerance in Saudi Arabia in 2008. They follow the Islam that Muhammad established right there 1400 years ago. The real Islam. Not the fake diluted Islam of Al-Andalous or the Islam of Indonesia influenced by Hindu and Buddhist teachings. Don't worry, in Indonesia they are discovering the real Islam very quickly. Tensions between muslims and non-muslims are rising. The Bali bombings were perpetrated by home-grown terrorists who are a new brand of misunderstanders of Islam. An Islam that is so clearly peaceful that people blow themselves up in the name of this very religion. Can you find any christian who beheads somebody and justifies his act by saying that Jezus personnaly ordered the leader of a tribe to be beheaded because he refused to reveal where he had hidden the money of his tribe, money that Jezus wanted to steal? Yes, I am referring to Kinana of Khaybar. When muslims in the Middle East but also in Britain shout out "Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahoud, jaysh Muhammad sa-ya'oud", they refer to an unprovoked sudden attack of Muhammad in order to steal the wealth of hard-working people. What happened after the muslims left Mecca and went to Medina? The prophet made a military alliance with the Medinans so he was safe there. The Meccans left them alone and thought the problem was solved. Now Muhammad sent people out to check what the Meccans were doing and he attacked a caravan at Nakhla and killed somebody, took the goods as booty and took captives. This was an act of aggression followed by the letter that you mentioned with a threat from the Meccans to the people of Medina. Was Muhammad a religious leader, looking for a peaceful life in Medina where he was welcomed as a political refugee? Was he going to settle down and peacefully spread his teachings of love and brotherhood among all human beings not only his followers? No, he became a political leader and warlord. Do you agree that anybody who feels threatened destroys the one who is threatening him? Then you would agree that Israel would nuke Iran and probably Syria and the Hezbollah as well. Or is the behaviour of destroying the other a privilege of Prophets with a divine mission and does normal human logic not apply to them? Muhammad was safe in Medina with his agreement, no need to attack. Then he heard about a big caravan with goods from the Quraysh and he told to attack it and this was the start of a perpetual war that continues until today. The reason that the early historians give to attack was just to steal the goods of the enemy. Let's attack and maybe Allah will give the goods of his enemy as booty, historians write. Instead of working hard and building up their lives in Medina as political refugees, the muslims on direct order of Muhammad became robbers. You wrote: At the time of the hijra, the muslims did not leave any wealth in Mecca. The situation was even such that Muhammad left his wife Sauda and one of his daughters in Mecca, the arch enemy. As a responsible father and husband, he obviously felt they were safe. Now in 2008, we have the same situation in Israel. The sisters of Haniyeh, the ex-prime minister of Palestine, are living, ..., in Isreal proper, not Gaza or the West Bank. And they are obviously safe. Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas who wants to destroy Israel, feels quite safe for his sisters who live among the wicked jews who drink the blood of children and who are eager to kill all Palestinians who did not do anything wrong. History repeats itself. Later on, when it became clear that Muhammad had bad intentions as he had already attacked the Meccans, it was obvious that the Meccans would not let rich people go and take their money with them so as to prevent that they use their wealth to finance war against themselves. Let's go back to 2008. Bin Laden has attacked the US. Now Bill Gates converts to Islam. He sells his 50 billion $ of shares of Microsoft and tells everybody that he is joining Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Will Bush let him go to Bin Laden and take his money with him? You bet. Now the problem with Islam is the mix between religion and politics. At the beginning, the Meccans just thought that Muhammad was just another crazy founder of a new religion like so many before him. When he was still in Mecca and trying to find support in other places outside Mecca, nobody considered this as treason because they considered him as a religious figure. Now when he went to Medina, he became a political leader and warlord and started attacking, the situation changed. The Meccans understood the situation and Meccans converting to Islam and then joining the man who attacked them were considered as committing treason. So the problem was not that they became muslim, the problem was that they joined the one attacking them. And guess what? Muhammad did the same. He told that people leaving Islam have to be killed. Why? Because Islam is not a mere religion. It is a tribe, a political entity. The tribe is called the Ummah. When you leave the ummah, you are an enemy and you have to be killed. No mercy. Muslims who say that apostasy from Islam is only punished with death when treason is involved are right. But they do not mention that for Muhammad, leaving Islam is treason. Can you tell me how many Meccans who converted to Islam AFTER the hijra were killed? Did the Meccans issue an order to kill people who converted to Islam similar to the order that Muhammad gave: if somebody changes his religion, kill him? Dear Imdad, I have told what I wanted to tell. Please read the biogrphy of Ibn Ishaq and come back to me after that. You can buy the book on the internet. The book is translated in english by A. Guillaume and is printed in Pakistan. it contains the naked truth. Peace be with you, my brother in humanity. Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (1239) on this item
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