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29 March 2012 By Juan Cole Robert Spencer has summarized the key arguments
raised by Islamophobes in his book The Politically
Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades).
Chapter one of his book is entitled "Muhammad:
Prophet of War", in which he recounts the life story
of the Prophet Muhammad. In it, he portrays Muhammad
as the aggressor and his Quraysh enemies as the
victims. Spencer writes: After receiving revelations from Allah through
the angel Gabriel in 610, [Muhammad] began by just
preaching to his tribe the worship of One God and
his own position as a prophet. But he was not well
received by his Quraysh brethren in Mecca, who
reacted disdainfully to his prophetic call and
refused to give up their gods. Muhammad's
frustration and rage became evident. When even his
uncle, Abu Lahab, rejected his message, Muhammad
cursed him and his wife in violent language that has
been preserved in the Qur'an, the holy book of
Islam: "May the hands of Abu Lahab perish! May he
himself perish! Nothing shall his wealth and gains
avail him. He shall be burnt in a flaming fire, and
his wife, laden with faggots, shall have a rope of
fibre around her neck." (Qur'an 111:1-5) Ultimately, Muhammad would turn from violent
words to violent deeds. In 622, he finally fled his
native Mecca for a nearby town, Medina… [1] Muhammad's message of monotheism does not
adequately explain why the leaders of the Quraysh
rejected his message so forcefully. Indeed, Muhammad
preached a lot more than this: he called for a
top-to-bottom reform of Meccan society, advocating for
the rights of the poor and weak. While it is also
true that Muhammad's renouncement of the pagan gods
was unbearable to many followers of the old religion,
so too did his powerful critique of the rich and
powerful set him on a collision course against them. Spencer not only fails to properly explain why the
Quraysh leaders opposed Muhammad, but he also omits
entirely how they opposed
him. In Spencer's version of events, (1) Muhammad
preached to them about God and his prophetood; (2) the
Quraysh didn't accept this message; and then (3)
Muhammad reacted with rage and violence. Spencer's
biography is curiously missing the almost decade and a
half-long persecution of Muhammad and his early
followers in Mecca, whichpreceded their
Flight (Hijra) to Medina. This willful
omission is designed to mislead the reader, and
Spencer succeeds in inverting reality, portraying
Muhammad as the aggressor and the Quraysh leaders as
the victims. * * * * * Muhammad was born and raised in seventh-century
Mecca, a city of the Arabian Peninsula. At the time,
the majority of Meccans, led by the powerful Quraysh,
were polytheistic in religion. Then, in 610 A.D.,
when he was around forty years old, Muhammad declared
his prophethood and called his people to a new,
monotheistic religion. Initially, Muhammad preached in private, and his
early followers congregated in secret. When Muhammad
eventually declared his message publicly, he and his
early followers were met with increasing hostility.
The Quraysh leaders instigated a sustained campaign
of violence against what they saw as a rival faith.
Consequently, the early Muslims suffered persecution;
they endured beatings, torture, and even imprisonment. This entire period is omitted entirely from Robert
Spencer's chapter: Spencer portrays Muhammad as the
violent aggressor and the Quraysh as his peaceful
victims. Yet, it is well-established that it was in
fact Muhammad who began preaching his
message peacefully, and it
was the Quraysh leaders who responded violently.
Prof. Spencer C. Tucker writes: As Muhammad's group of followers grew, the
leadership of Mecca, including Muhammad's own tribe,
perceived them as a threat. Some of the early
converts to Islam came from the disaffected and
disadvantaged segments of society. Most important,
the Muslims' new set of beliefs implicitly
challenged the Meccans' and the Quraysh tribe's
guardianship over the Kaaba, the holy site dedicated
to the gods and goddesses of the area, which hosted
an annual pilgrimage. The city's leading merchants
attempted to persuade Muhammad to cease his
preaching, but he refused. In response, the city
leadership persecuted Muhammad's followers, and many
fled the city. One group of his followers immigrated
to Abyssinia. In 619 Muhammad endured the loss of
both [his wife] Khadija and [his uncle] Abu Talib,
while the mistreatment of his followers increased.
[2] Not surprisingly, the meanest persecution was meted
out to the most vulnerable members of the Muslim
faithful. Prof. Daniel C. Peterson writes: There are many stories of imprisonment, beating,
starvation, and thirst, and perhaps worst of all, of
believers staked out on the ground under the
scorching heat of the Arabian sun until they could
be induced to repudiate their faith. Slaves were particularly vulnerable, for they had
no one to protect them against their masters. One of
them, a black Abyssinian named Bilal, was pinned to
the ground by his master, with a large rock on his
chest, and told that that he would remain there
until he either died or recanted–whichever came
first. He was spared only because Abu Bakr, passing
by, was horrified at this maltreatment of a fellow
believer and bought Bilal's freedom…Some, it is
said, died under torture. And others did indeed
renounce their faith. [3] The extent of the persecution can be gauged by the
fact that some of the early Muslims were forced to
flee with their lives from the Arabian Peninsula
altogether, an event known as the First Flight
to Abyssinia. Under the cover of night, these Muslims
fled Mecca and boarded ships headed for the African
country of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia). There was
a second such emigration, known as the Second Flight
to Abyssinia. The Quraysh leaders dispatched envoys
to the Abyssinian king, requesting that these Muslim
refugees be returned to Mecca. This request
for extradition was rejected and these Muslim refugees
stayed in Abyssinia for the remainder of what is known
as the Meccan Period of Muhammad's prophethood. The Quraysh leaders harassed Muhammad himself, who
endured both verbal and physical abuse. Initially,
however, his tormentors stopped short of killing
Muhammad because he was still under the tribal
protection granted to him by his aging uncle, Abu
Talib. Islam's early enemies earnestly beseeched Abu
Talib to permit the killing of Muhammad, but Abu Talib
adamantly refused. To pressure Abu Talib's clan, the Banu Mutalib, to
rescind their protection of Muhammad, the Quraysh
leaders signed a pact resulting in the complete social
and economic boycott of the early Muslims along with
the two clans associated with them (the Banu Mutalib
and the Banu Hashim, the latter of which was the tribe
Muhammad was born to). The early Muslims and members
of the two clans were forced by circumstance to leave
their homes and resettle in the outskirts of Mecca.
Confined to the harsh and barren desert valley
(Mecca's "ghetto"), they struggled to survive for
three years, with even food and medicine being barred
to them by the Quraysh leaders, who intended to starve
them into submission: Abu Jahl now tried to starve Muhammad into
submission and imposed a boycott on the clans of
Hashim and al-Muttalib, managing to get all other
clans to sign a treaty to unite against the Muslim
threat. Nobody could intermarry or trade with
anybody in the two outlawed clans and this meant
that nobody was supposed to sell them any food. For
the sake of security, all members of Hashim and al-Muttalib,
Muslim and non-Muslim alike, moved into Abu Talib's
street, which became a little ghetto. [4] During what is known as the Year of Grief, both
Muhammad's wife Khadija and uncle Abu Talib passed
away. Abu Lahab, early Islam's arch-enemy and
Muhammad's bitterest foe, replaced Abu Talib as the
chief of the clan. Muhammad thus lost his tribal
protection and was forced to flee with his life to the
neighboring city of Taif. He preached his message to
the leaders of Taif, who rejected him and refused to
give him asylum for fear of earning Mecca's wrath.
Muhammad was stoned by the street urchins of Taif and
told to never return. Bloody and battered, Muhammad
had no place to go but to return to Mecca. The persecution of the early Muslim community in
Mecca intensified to the point that there was a very
real fear that the religion of Islam would be snuffed
out entirely. It was at this precarious moment in
history that a group of influential men from the
nearby city of Yathrib (henceforth to be referred to
as Medina) accepted Islam and
promised to grant Muhammad refuge. Thus began The
Flight (Al-Hijra), as the Muslim community in
Mecca migrated in waves to Medina. The Quraysh
authorities, fearful that Islam would spread to other
parts of the Arabian Peninsula, tried (but failed) to
prevent this exodus. By this time, the Quraysh leaders had already
formulated a plot to assassinate Muhammad in his
sleep. They delegated this task to eleven men, chosen
from all different tribes so as to make retaliation
against any one of them untenable. The assassins
gathered around Muhammad's house, broke into it, and
advanced towards his bed. In fact, however, they had
just missed Muhammad, who had slipped away and begun
the arduous journey to Medina. Prof. Juan Eduardo
Campo writes: [P]ersecution of Muhammad and his followers in
Mecca by the Quraysh intensified; the weaker ones
were physically tortured or imprisoned. Muhammad
ordered his followers to emigrate to Yathrib
[Medina] in small groups, while he remained in Mecca
with his friend Abu Bakr and his loyal cousin Ali
ibn Abi Talib. The Quraysh plotted to murder
Muhammad and invaded his house only to find Ali
sleeping in his bed. Muhammad had secretly escaped
with Abu Bakr, and the two of them hid in a cave for
three days before making their way to Yathrib
[Medina]. [5] The Quraysh leaders were by this time wild-eyed
with fury, and placed a bounty on Muhammad's head.
Whoever could intercept Muhammad before he reached
Medina would be handsomely rewarded. Search parties
went out to apprehend or kill the prophet of Islam. But, destiny had another plan altogether for
Muhammad. He arrived safely in Medina in the year 622
A.D., what became year one of the Islamic calendar.
There, the early Muslim community would regroup, and
eventually, flourish. * * * * * In Robert Spencer's biography of the Islamic
prophet, the persecution of Muslims in Mecca is
completely passed over. Muhammad is wrongfully
portrayed as the aggressor and the initiator of
violence. Context is completely lost–in fact, it is
purposefully distorted. Without understanding the
background of the conflict (i.e. Muslims being
persecuted in Mecca for almost a decade and a half),
the reader will view Muhammad's actions in Medina as
nothing short of unprovoked aggression. Not only does such a deception distort the reader's
view of the Prophet Muhammad, it also has huge
implications with regard to Islamic theology. Jihad is
wrongfully equated with terroristic violence and
unprovoked aggression, instead of what is actually
called for in the Quran: a defensive respondingto unprovoked
aggression. If the concept of jihad was first
formulated during Muhammad's lifetime–and if Muslims
look to Muhammad's example to understand the
embodiment of this concept–then it makes a very big
difference whether or not Muslims see Muhammad as initiating violence
or merely defensively responding to it. Spencer well understands this concept and himself
argues it intensely in his book. His deception,
however, lies in his flipping of reality on its head,
portraying Muhammad and the early Muslims as the
aggressors and their tormentors as the victims. * * * * * Having thus understood the importance of this
discussion, let us then delve into Muhammad's response
to the violence, persecution, and injustice directed
at him (and his religious community). Did he preach
"love your enemies" or ruthless vengeance? Muhammad's reaction to his enemies can be
summarized as follows: it was better to forgive the
average foot soldier, and only the top level leaders
of injustice ("the chiefs of disbelief") were to be
punished. This dynamic can be seen with Muhammad's
eventual triumphal return to and conquest of Mecca
eight years after he fled from it. Even though the
people of Mecca in general had engaged in the
persecution of the early Muslims, Muhammad issued a
blanket immunity and "mercy" to all of them aside from
nine individuals (other sources say seventeen), who
were "his most inveterate [of] enemies." [6] However,
even of these, most were pardoned, and in the end
"only four Meccans were killed. " [7] These were the same people who had humiliated,
harassed, tortured, and persecuted Muhammad and his
followers. In fact, at one point in time Muhammad was
attacked by them and left with a bloodied face, a
busted lip, a broken tooth, and a split-open forehead.
Muhammad had then asked rhetorically: How can a people cut the face of their prophet and
break his tooth while he is calling them to God? How
can such a people prosper? He exclaimed: God's Wrath is great on those who besmear the face
of His Messenger! The following Quranic verse reprimanded Muhammad: Not for you (O Muhammad) is the decision whether
[God] turns in mercy to them to pardon them or if He
punishes them (for indeed, they are wrongdoers). To
God belongs all that is in the heavens and on earth.
He forgives whom He pleases and punishes whom He
pleases; but God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful. (Quran,
3:128-129) Muhammad retracted his earlier comment and then
prayed for not only forgiveness of the attackers but
forgiveness for the Meccans overall: O God, forgive my people for they do not know. [8] Later that day, Muhammad came across his uncle,
Hamza ibn Abdul Mutallib, who had been killed by the
Quraysh. Worse, Hamza's corpse had been mutilated:
his nose was burnt off and his ears cut off; his
stomach was gutted and his intestines were hanging out
of his body. When Muhammad saw his uncle in such a
state, he angrily took the following oath: I shall kill seventy of their men in revenge! To this, God is said to have replied in the Quran: (O Muhammad), invite them to the Way of your Lord
with wisdom and beautiful preaching, and
dispute with them only in the most politest manner–for
your Lord knows best who has strayed from His Path and
who is rightly guided. And if you wish to retaliate,
retaliate only in a way that is proportionate to the
injury done to you. But if you endure patiently
(instead of retaliating), it is better to do so. (O
Muhammad), endure with patience. Truly, your patience
is only possible with the help of God. Do not be
grieved by them or distressed because of their
schemes–for God is with those who are mindful of Him
and who do good. Therein then do we have the Quranic axiom: if you
wish to retaliate, then the punishment must be
proportionate to the crime. (This rule is clarified
in verses 2:190-194 with the stipulation that the
punishment must be against the guilty party only.)
Although the Quran permits one to demand justice, it strongly urges
the believer, especially Muhammad, to instead "endure
with patience" and forgive. Following this
admonition, "the Prophet refrained (from taking
revenge) and atoned for his oath." [9] Indeed, when the early Muslims triumphed over and
conquered Mecca, Muhammad issued a blanket pardon to
everyone, aside from four "arch-criminals". [10]
Muhammad could have taken vengeance against all those
who had persecuted him and his people for so many
years, but instead he forgave them all, reciting the
following verse of the Quran: There is no censure on you on this day. May God
forgive you, for He is the Most Merciful of the
merciful. (Quran, 12:92) [11] Muhammad would even forgive those who killed and
mutilated his uncle, praying: "[M]ay God forgive them,
for God is Forgiving, Merciful." [12] He also forgave
those who had tried to kill him. There is much food for thought here: Islamophobes
like Robert Spencer argue that Muhammad's violence
cannot be compared to that of the Biblical prophets,
since Muhammad in Islam is considered perfect whereas
Jews and Christians don't think the same of Moses,
Joshua, David, etc. This is a huge oversimplification
and mischaracterization of Islamic textual sources and
dogma (a topic that I will analyze in further detail
in a later article). But for now, suffice to say,
this is but one example of Muhammad being corrected in
the Quran–and that too with regard to war, peace,
vengeance, and mercy towards non-Muslims. The Islamophobes claim that Muhammad only preached
patience, forgiveness, and tolerance during
the Meccan Period. They argue further that
the "opportunistic" Muhammad opted towards militarism,
violence, and war as soon as he came to power in
Medina. And yet, the events surrounding this Quranic
revelation (i.e. the killing/mutilating of Muhammad's
uncle, and the command for Muhammad to endure it with
patience and forgiveness) occurred well
into the Medinan Period. In fact,
it occurred at the height of the military
conflict with the Meccan pagans. What is even more telling is the fact that once
Muhammad and the early Muslims conquered Mecca,
Muhammad granted the Meccans pardon and mercy. If the
critics of Islam attribute Muhammad's peaceful
attitude during the early Meccan Period to his lack of
power to do otherwise, then what of Muhammad's
triumphal return to Mecca whereupon he had all the
power in the world to take limitless vengeance upon
them? Muhammad's tolerant nature towards his Quraysh
enemies cannot be explained by the meekness of his
position, because he maintained that attitude when he
had the power to crush them as they had tried to do to
him aforetime. Similarly, Muhammad had prayed for the forgiveness
of the people of Taif, who had stoned him out: Mohammed traveled to Ta'if, a mountainside town
in Arabia about seventy miles southeast of the holy
city of Mecca, to invite its people to become
Muslims. Instead of welcoming him, the farmers
stoned him and drove him, bleeding, out of
town…Wiping blood from his face, the Prophet
refused, saying, "Lord, forgive thy people, they do
not know." [13] After the Conquest of Mecca, the pagans regrouped
at Taif to launch a massive counter-offensive; Prof.
Ella Landau-Tasseron writes: Shortly after[ the Conquest of Mecca,] the Thaqif,
the ruling tribe of the nearby town al-Ta'if,
organized a bedouin army [against Muhammad], which
was defeated by Muhammad at a place called Hunayn.
Muhammad then laid siege to al-Ta'if but had to
withdraw without achieving any result. Shortly
afterward, however, the Thaqif joined Islam of their
own volition. [14] No retribution was taken against the people of Taif,
who thus entered the folds of Islam; Prof. Michael
Dumper writes: [The Muslims] laid unsuccessful siege to Taif for
almost a month. In 631 the head of the tribe
embraced Islam, which resulted in his assassination
by his own people. Quickly, however, the city
changed its mind and sent a delegation to the
Prophet and indicated their willingness to embrace
Islam. The Prophet, stressing the diplomatic
immunity of ambassadors, did not hold their earlier
antagonism against them and welcomed them into the
[Islamic] community. [15] Upon his triumphal return to Mecca and Taif, the
two cities that had earlier driven him out, Muhammad
took no revenge and forgave his former tormentors,
thus embodying the Quranic principles of patience and
forgiveness. * * * * * Robert Spencer argues that Jesus preached "love
your enemies", contrasting this with Muhammad's
teachings. Certainly, many Westerners associate such
peaceable beliefs to Christianity's central figure.
Yet, this comparison suffers from an inherent flaw:
it is simply not accurate. If we wanted to maintain an apples-to-apples
comparison, the Meccan Period can be analogized to
Jesus's First Coming: like Jesus, Muhammad was a
persecuted prophet during this period and was in fact
almost killed. Meanwhile, the Medinan Period can be
likened to Jesus's Second Coming. Just as Muhammad
triumphantly marched into Mecca, so does Jesus
triumphantly return with his army as a "conquering
king." Once Muhammad conquered Mecca and held absolute
power over them, he forgave all of them (save for four
"arch-enemies"). Muhammad's march into Mecca was
virtually bloodless,; on the other hand, "Jesus'
second coming will be exceedingly violent…It's going
to be bloody (v. 13) and gory." Whereas on the day of
Mecca's conquest, Muhammad bestowed mercy on his
enemies (he called it the "Day of Mercy"), Jesus will
have "no compassion upon His enemies" and "will take
vengeance"on them (the Bible calls it "the day of
vengeance"). Indeed, the Biblical Jesus will kill all
his enemies. When one considers other Biblical prophets of the
Judeo-Christian tradition, the contrast becomes even
more glaring. Compare the Conquest of Mecca to the
conquest of Canaan by Moses, Joshua,Samson, David, Saul,
etc. Muhammad granted immunity to the Meccan
population whereas the Judeo-Christian prophets
"completely destroyed every living thing in the city,
leaving no survivors" (Joshua 11:11). In fact, this
was done to city after city in what can only be called
wholesale genocide. How then can one support Robert Spencer's dubious
argument that the Prophet Muhammad was somehow more
violent than all other prophets and religious
founders, especially when we have such violent figures
in Spencer's own faith tradition? * * * * * A word ought to be said specifically about what
Robert Spencer writes here: When even his uncle, Abu Lahab, rejected his
message, Muhammad cursed him and his wife in violent
language that has been preserved in the Qur'an, the
holy book of Islam: "May the hands of Abu Lahab
perish! May he himself perish! Nothing shall his
wealth and gains avail him. He shall be burnt in a
flaming fire, and his wife, laden with faggots,
shall have a rope of fibre around her neck." (Qur'an
111:1-5) [16] Abu Lahab was the only one of Muhammad's
foes to be taken by name in the Quran. Even though
numerous Quraysh influentials persecuted Muhammad, Abu
Lahab was singled out in the Islamic holy book because
he and Abu Jahl were the staunchest and most
mean-spirited of early Islam's adversaries. He was
assisted in his hatred by his wife, Umm Jamil, who
joined in the persecution of Muhammad and his
followers. Abu Lahab led and orchestrated the
harassment, beatings, torture, persecution, and
crippling boycott of the early Muslim community. He
would later be one of the eleven assassins who
attempted to kill Muhammad in his sleep. The Quranic verse against Abu Lahab was revealed
when he had picked up a stone in his hand to
throw at Muhammad and yelled "may you perish"
(reflected in the Quranic phrasing "may the handsof
Abu Lahab perish"). As for the
statement against Abu Lahab's wife, it can be
understood using a less arcane translation: "…and his
wife, the bearer of wood (translated in Spencer's book
with the difficult to understand ‘laden with
faggots'), shall have a rope of fiber around her
neck." She was dubbed "the bearer of wood" because
she used to routinely lay splinters of wood on the
ground where Muhammad would walk so as to cause his
feet to bleed. Additionally, Umm Jamil used to wear a
very expensive necklace, of which she vowed: "By Lat
and Uzza, I will sell away this necklace and expend
the price to satisfy my enmity against Muhammad."
[17] This is said to explain the Quran's choice of
punishment for her: a rope of fiber around her neck. Harsh as these punishments are against Abu Lahab
and his wife, two points need to be borne in mind:
firstly, Abu Lahab and his wife represent the Quran's
chief villains, equivalent to the Bible's Pharaoh and
Jezebel. The Bible promised that Pharoah and "all who
trust in him" will be slaughtered (Jeremiah 46:25),
and that Jezebel will be punished–"her children" will
be killed (Revelation 2:23). The punishment promised
to Abu Lahab and his wife are certainly no harsher
than this. More importantly, the Quran only promised
punishment of the guilty party, not "all who trust in
him" or "her children." The second point is that both Abu Lahab and Umm
Jamil died of natural causes. Muhammad was never
violent with them. The verses in the Quran condemning
this couple were meant to be understood in a
supernatural sense, unlike the very real violence
committed by Abu Lahab and his wife against Muhammad
and the early Muslims. On a somewhat related note, it should be added that
one of the major reasons that Abu Lahab opposed the
message of Islam so violently was that it threatened
his status and position. He was extremely wealthy and
powerful–among Arabia's top one percent. Muhammad, on
the other hand, preached equality among believers. To
this, Abu Lahab would exclaim: May this religion perish in which I and all other
people should be equal and alike! [18] This is reflected in the Quran's response to Abu
Lahab: Neither his wealth nor his earnings will benefit
him. (Quran, 111:2) Indeed, Muhammad's support for the 99% explains why
he faced the wrath of the 1%, of which Abu Lahab
belonged to. * * * * * There are of course events in Muhammad's life
between his escape from Mecca and his subsequent
return that merit further investigation and critical
analysis. Readers are certainly well-aware of the
numerous charges levied against the Prophet of Islam
in this regard. Future parts of this Series will look
into these matters with an attempt to be impartial and
fair. For now, however, we have achieved our
purpose: Robert Spencer's dishonest rendering of
Muhammad's time in Mecca, known as the Meccan Period,
has been laid to waste. Muhammad and his early followers experienced
persecution at the hands of their enemies, a basic
fact that must be understood in order to understand
early Islamic history, as well as Islamic texts and
theology. An at least rudimentary knowledge of these
events is needed to negate the propaganda of those who
seek to demonize the faith of over a billion adherents
around the world. More than that, it offers
peace-loving, moderate Muslims the ammunition they
need to counter the intolerant interpretations of
their religion espoused by their fundamentalist
coreligionists, people who often act more like the
Quraysh leaders than Muhammad. Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary
Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent
Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011. Footnotes: |
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