BEWEGING VAN BELGISCHE EX-
MOVEMENT OF BELGIAN FORMER MUSLIMS
Muhammed did not confine himself to physical force and violence, as illustrated here. His prophetic years are characterized by threats and verbal abuse.
Verbal abuse against the people that do not acknowledge Mohammed as Prophet
When Mohammed started out on his prophetic “mission”, there was a large degree of tolerance in his residence city Mecca. Mecca was a religious centre that welcomed all religions.
In his biography, Ibn Ishaq writes on page 118:
When the Apostle [Mohammed] started publicly to proclaim the Islamic faith as God had instructed him, people did not shun or turn against him, as far as I have been told, until he started to speak derogatorily about their gods. When he did so they felt very insulted and unanimously decided that they would consider him their enemy. ...
And Ibn Ishaq continues on pages 130 and 131: “The Apostle continued to proclaim the message as Allah had instructed him, hiding nothing, and raised their repugnance by holding their religion in contempt, disclaiming their idols, and leaving them in their absence of faith. ... They said that they had never experienced anything like the problems caused to them by that fellow; he had proclaimed their way of life stupid, he insulted their forefathers, despised their religion, divided the community, and cursed their gods. What they had to endure was more than they could tolerate.”
Mecca at the time was a religious centre where anybody was free to do his thing, provided he or she respected the beliefs of other people. We would call it a multicultural society these days. Continuously, there were individuals who came forward with new philosophies and who were left in peace. In the Mecca that existed at the end of Mohammed’s life, all dissident voices had been silenced, as it still is the case today throughout the whole of Saudi-Arabia. What Mohammed was permitted to do then, nobody had better try that today. After Mohammed’s passage, the multicultural society folded its tents.
„Fighting until people confess that Allah is the only God “
This pronouncement by Mohammed can be found in more than ten passages in the authentic traditions (sahih Hadith) handed down by Muslim and Bukhari and each time ranged under the chapter “Faith” (Iman). An example may be found in Bukhari: Vol. 1, Book 2 “Faith”, Number 24:
Narrated Ibn 'Umar:
Allah's Apostle said: "I have been ordered (by Allah) to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's Apostle, and offer the prayers perfectly and give the obligatory charity, so if they perform that, then they save their lives and property from me except for Islamic laws and then their reckoning (accounts) will be done by Allah."
This is a direct threat by the Prophet of Islam to anybody who refuses to embrace Islam. It also illustrates the way the founder of Islam thinks. He declares all non-Muslims to be enemies. The books in which this is stated are even today freely published and distributed. Imagine the Vatican publishing a book wherein the faithful are called to fight all that refuse to recognize Jesus as the son of God! Hardly likely indeed. This problem won’t occur since the Vatican refrains from making such extreme pronouncements. But what counts for Christianity is not what counts for Islam. For Islam, calls for violence pose no problem at all.
“Invitation” to foreign kings and leaders to convert to Islam
After Mohammed, following his flight to Medina, had assumed power there and built up sufficient military potential, the sent invitations to neighbouring rulers to embrace Islam, including one to the Byzantine Emperor, the ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire. As always, his invitation contained a veiled threatening element. This is illustrated in the following tradition of Bukhari (Volume 1, Book 1 “Faith”, Number 6):
“...The contents of the letter were as follows: "In the name of Allah the Beneficent, the Merciful (This letter is) from Muhammad the slave of Allah and His Apostle to Heraclius the ruler of Byzantine. Peace be upon him, who follows the right path. Furthermore I invite you to Islam, and if you become a Muslim you will be safe, and Allah will double your reward, and if you reject this invitation of Islam you will be committing a sin by misguiding your Arisiyin (peasants). ...”
Customary also is the mix of religion and politics. If the Byzantine Emperor accepts the invitation, he shall remain safe. This actually implies a political union between Mohammed and Byzantium with overtones of a kind of non-aggression pact. And if the Emperor refuses to become a Muslim, he will be committing a sin; this is the religious touch.
“Invitation” to the Jews to join Islam and the deportation of those who refused to convert and become Muslim
This invitation was addressed to a group of Jews that already for centuries had lived in Medina. An authentic tradition of it is recorded by Bukhari in 4.53.392:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
While we were in the Mosque, the Prophet came out and said, "Let us go to the Jews" We went out till we reached Bait-ul-Midras. He said to them, "If you embrace Islam, you will be safe. You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle, and I want to expel you from this land. So, if anyone amongst you owns some property, he is permitted to sell it, otherwise you should know that the Earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle."
“Proclamation” of the genocide of all Jews
One of the most striking pronouncements recorded of Mohammed is his proclamation that the Muslims will slay the Jews for all times to come. This proclamation really comes close to the outright calling for the genocide of a people, which is something that the Koran does not exactly view in a positive light.
One of the traditions (there are a number of them all saying the same thing) recorded by Muslim in Book 041, Number 6985, reads as follows:
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say so, for it is the tree of the Jews.
For those who maintain that all of this ought not to be taken too literally, we have very bad news. This tradition is currently stated in the charter of Hamas as a “source of inspiration”. You can find it on the following link in the last paragraph of “Article Seven”.
“Announcement” of a Bloodbath
One other notable proclamation by Mohammed is the announcement of a bloodbath to his fellow townsmen when he was still in Mecca.
Ibn Ishaq writes in his biography of Mohammed on p. 131:
“Would you listen to me for just a moment, you Quraysh? Verily, by Him who holds my life in His hand, I tell you I shall cause amongst you a bloodbath. This announcement shocked the people and they stood thunderstruck; even he who up till then had shown himself very unrestrained in his temper addressed Mohammed in friendly tones, telling him, “Go away, Abu’l-Qasim [this was another name for Mohammed], by Allah, you are not a violent man”.
Mohammed would a couple of years later unleash a wave of bloodbaths. This demonstrates the split personality that Mohammed developed. On the one hand, in Mecca he was the non-violent and tolerant individual while, on the other, the rejection which he had to endure as an aspiring Prophet changed him into a violent person. As he announces in this passage.
STUDY OF ISLAM
Verbal violence and threats