Let's do justice to the history of Islam

Submitted by Mustapha Babagana (Nigeria), Jun 29, 2005 at 09:14

Quite agreed that Prophet Muh'd had engaged in nothing less than Ninety military campaigns in his last ten years of Madina, but none was done without a convincing reason. If the mighty America can assemble the world against the tiny Afganistan just for refusing to hand over the accused Usama, I don't see any reason why Muh'd should not launch (a war) against Banu Nadir, Banu Qainuqa or Banu Qurayza, who engaged in an open hostile acts towards the Muslims? These were the people that used to come to Muh'd's house and say ‘As-samu Alaika' meaning ‘Death upon you' but Muh'd will gently answer ‘Wa-alaikum' meaning ‘And upon you' His wife Aisha reacted & said ‘didn't you hear what they said? The Prophet answered her as ‘didn't you hear my reply'. How can such kind of people honour their pact?

During the advent of Prophet Muh'd, the whole of the Arabian peninsula was characterized as if it were a house hit by a severe earthquake due to all sorts of vices, tribal and communal wars. For Muh'd to set up a new community with entirely different creed at the midst of such type of people, he has to employ a grave effort which may definitely leads to wars . Take for instance, America today wants to give (the so-called) freedom to the people of Iraq, through democratizing the country, and compare the number of Military campaigns engaged & still engaging by Mr. Bush, with the number of Military campaigns engaged by Muhammad. War in Iraq as a whole cannot be taken as a single Military campaign, this is because any crushing of uprising or revolt by the American Army in Iraq is counted as a Military campaign. And these were the type of Military campaigns engaged by Muhammad in his last 10 years of Madina, which were sum-up to about ninety today. Therefore, my question to Mr. Pipes is ‘how many Military campaigns did America engaged since the invasion of Iraq & how many innocent lives were lost? Muhammad in several occasions tells his Armies ‘never wish to engage in fight with your enemies' & he prohibited burning a living being. Furthermore almost over 50% of Muh'd's Military campaigns were bloodless (there were no fight), and the Number of Armies brought together by Muh'd during his ten years of battles were never more than 5000 people. Compare these with the contemporary wars, where hundreds of thousands of Armies are put forward & millions of lives are lost, e.g. in Iraq.

And there is nothing wrong for the Qur'an (as a constitution of the muslims) to invite the Muslims to give their lives in exchange for assurances of paradise. I don't think any American Army will willingly fight without any worldly assurances.

Let's do justice to the history of Islam

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