Muhammad's Islam sure aint moderate!!

Submitted by Lactantius Jr. (United Kingdom), Dec 14, 2006 at 08:47

To Safraz

Whatever the reality of the math Safraz, your comment that "There always was and still is a moderate Islam. It is the religion of the mass majority of the world's Muslims, and I dare say 99.99% of American Muslims," means these ‘moderates' are following a different religion to that of their prophet Muhammad, who set the genetic code for Islam, with the harsh, violent, warlike, warmongering, flogging and stoning Medinian Islam, which solidified when Muhammad became militarily powerful. They are in fact, living very much better lives than that of their prophet Muhammad, who was in fact, the archetypal Islamic terrorist.

A year or so after Muhammad's Hijrah from Mecca to Medina in AD 622, he attacks Meccan caravans six times, and sent out a punitive expedition three-days travelling distance away, against an Arab tribe that stole some Medinan grazing camels (or cattle), totaling seven raids. Details available in Muhammad at Mecca (1953) and Muhammad at Medina (1956) W.Montgomery Watt

To complete the picture of expeditions, raids and wars in Muhammad's life from AD 622 to 632, Watt adds up the number that Muhammad either sent out or went out on: seventy-four (Muhammad at Medina, pp. 2; 339-43). They range from negotiations (only a few, compared to the violent expeditions), to small assassination hit squads, to the conquest of Mecca with 10,000 jihadists, and to the confrontation of Byzantine Christians (who never showed up), with 30,000 jihadists to Tabuk.

Thus, aggressive military violence sits at the heart of early Islam—in Muhammad's life and in the Qur'an, it was foundational to Islam, it is deeply embedded in it, and copied by those Muslims following the Islam of their prophet Muhammad today.

Furthermore, Muhammad, your paradigm, your model, your exemplar, was certainly involved in violence of a very offensive nature. Take a look at the ‘Sira-t-ul rasul-Allah', particularly the oldest amongst this genre, the ‘Maghazi manuscripts', where we read that Muhammad is known to have conducted 29 battles and planned 39 others (see Sira Halabiyya, Ibn Kathir's Bidaya Wa Nihaya, and Ibn Hisham's Sira).

In the context of the list of Muhammad's assets at the end of his life, al-Tabari records the nicknames of Muhammad's weapons, detailing that he had nicknamed three swords that he took from the Jewish tribe Qaynuqa, after banishing them from Medina in April AD 624: "Pluck Out," "Very Sharp," and "Death." Two other swords from elsewhere are named: "Sharp" and "That is wont to sink" (presumably into human flesh). After his Hijrah or Emigration from Mecca to Medina in AD 622, he owned two swords called "Sharp" and "Having the vertebrae of the back." This last sword he collected as booty, after his victory at the Battle of Badr in March AD 624.

Finally, even Muhammad himself has a nickname. After Tabari lists the positive ones, he matter-of-factly provides one that is not so positive: "The obliterator."

If Muslims continue to publicly claim their religion is based on peace, then let them publicly repudiate the ‘sword verses' found in the Qur'an, and let them publicly condemn the actions of their "prophet," and those of the ‘rightly guided Caliphs' (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali), during whose time most of the conquests of the Sassanid and Byzantine empires occurred, followed by the decimation of the Christian church in North Africa.

With kind regards and best wishes, and wishing you the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Lactantius Jr.

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