The idea persists in Western and Eastern minds that Muhammad was a man of peace who established a world-wide religion of peace. It is generally assumed that only in modern times has a small faction of religious radicals committed crimes in the name of Muhammad. The gentle Prophet himself, if he were alive, would certainly not approve of these deadly deeds committed in his name. But Spencer’s research leads to the opposite conclusion: Muhammad was primarily a man of aggressive violence and irrationality. He was himself the prototype of the modern day Islamofascist Jihad terrorist.
Like it or not, we are increasingly imperiled by, and simultaneously, oblivious to the global political ambitions of resurgent Islam.
These dangers appear genuinely contemporary after one learns the details of Muhammad’s dealings with the Jewish Banu Qurayzah tribe of Yathrub (Medina).
After sending a secret Muslim convert, Nu’aym bin Mas’ud, to sabotage a Qurayzah alliance with the pagan Quraysh, Muhammad debased the Jews as “brothers of monkeys.” This language, as Spencer dutifully notes, “also made its way into the Qur’an”–in chapters 2 (verses 62-65), 5 (verses 59-60) and 7 (verse 166)–and is routinely invoked by current-day Muslim leaders.
Citing the famed A. Guillaume’s 1955 translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Life of Muhammad (Sirat Rasul Allah), Spencer notes that Muhammad’s forces “laid siege to the Qurayzah strongholds for twenty-five days, until… ‘they were sorely pressed’ and, as Muhammad had warned, ‘God cast terror into their hearts’.” At this juncture, the leader of the Qurayzah offered his people three choices–to accept Muhammad and Islam, to kill their wives and children and fight Muhammad unencumbered, or to ambush Muhammad on the Sabbath.
The Qurayzah ignored their leader’s counsel and, instead, surrendered to the Muslims. Muhammad asked Sa’d bin Mu’adh to determine their fate–and he in turn ruled that “their warriors should be killed and their children and women be taken as captives.” Muhammad himself then went into the Medina market and dug trenches into which some the heads of at least 600 or 700 Qurayzah men (possibly, 800 or 900) would be struck. One boy who had not yet “begun to grow hair” later reputedly explained that this factor determined whether a boy was deemed a boy–and spared–or a man, and killed.
Every drop of non-Muslim blood Muhammad spilled, he deemed to have set “a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the praise of Allah” (Qur’an, chapter 33, verse 21).
Robert Spencer’s 224-page biography of Muhammad, based entirely on the most important and authentic of Muslim sources, is well-positioned to fill the deficit for even those readers most devoid of educational motivation.
“The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion” by New York Times bestselling author and Islam expert Robert Spencer.
