Muhammad

[Nick Young]

http://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/dead_poets.htm
[QUOTE]From the mainstream press, scholars, and Muslim spokespersons who have access to the media, we have heard that Islam is the religion of peace. They point out that the three-letter root s-l-m is found both in Islam, which means surrender or submission (to Allah), and salam, which means peace, soundness, and safety. This etymology may be accurate, but it also serves merely as a positive advanced press release that covers up some problems. For more information on the incongruity of the Arabic root s-l-m and Islam being the religion of peace, see this short article.

Upon reading the original source documents of Islam

[Nick Young]

The Evidence

Though more assassinations are carried out than the ten analyzed in this article (omitted because they involve leaders raising armies against or attempting assassinations of Muhammad), here follow the stories of assassinations or near-assassinations of lesser victims.

1. March 624: Al-Nadr bin al-Harith

Before Muhammad’s Hijrah (Emigration from Mecca to Medina in 622), he used to sit in the assembly and invite the Meccans to Allah, citing the Quran and warning them of God’s punishment for mocking his prophets. Al-Nadr would then follow him and speak about heroes and kings of Persia, saying, "By God, Muhammad cannot tell a better story than I, and his talk is only of old fables which he has copied as I have." Al-Nadr is referring to legends and opaque histories about Arabs of long ago and possibly to Bible stories about such figures as Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, which Muhammad told, but according to his own inaccurate versions. On other days al-Nadr would interrupt Muhammad until the prophet silenced him. In reply to al-Nadir’s harassment, it is possible (scholars sometimes have difficulties matching up Quranic verses with historical events) that Allah sent down these verses to Muhammad concerning him or certainly other mockers in Mecca, according to the account of Ibn Abbas, Muhammad’s cousin, who is considered a reliable transmitter of traditions:

25:6 Say [Prophet], "It was sent down by Him who knows the secrets of the heavens and earth. He is all forgiving and merciful." (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004)

83:13 ... [W]hen Our revelations are recited to him, he says, "Ancient fables!" 14 No indeed! Their hearts are encrusted with what they have done. 15 No indeed! On that day they will be screened off from their Lord, 16 they will burn in Hell, 17 and they will be told, "This is what you call a lie." (Haleem)

Muhammad did not take revenge on him—not yet—even though the verses in Sura 83 promise a dismal eternal future for mockers. Muhammad’s revenge was not long coming. It was al-Nadir’s bad fortune to join Mecca’s army, riding north to protect their caravan, which Muhammad attacked at the Battle of Badr in AD 624. The story-telling polytheist was captured, and on Muhammad’s return journey back to Medina, Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, at Muhammad’s order, beheaded him, instead of getting some possible ransom money. He was one of two prisoners who were executed and not allowed to be ransomed by their clans—all because they wrote poems and told stories critiquing Muhammad.

Source: Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, trans. A. Guillaume, (Oxford UP, 1955, 2004), pp. 136 (Arabic pages 191-92); 163 / 236; 181 / 262; 308 / 458. Reputable historians today consider Ibn Ishaq to be a good source of early Islam, though they may disagree on his chronology and miraculous elements.

2. March 624: Uqba bin Abu Muayt

A similar story as that of al-Nadir can be told about Uqba. He too harassed and mocked Muhammad in Mecca and wrote derogatory verses about him. He too was captured during the Battle of Badr, and Muhammad ordered him to be executed. "But who will look after my children, O Muhammad?" Uqba cried with anguish. "Hell," retorted the prophet coldly. Then the sword of one of his followers cut through Uqba’s neck.

Source: Bukhari, vol. 4, no. 2934; Muslim, vol. 3, nos. 4422, 4424; Ibn Ishaq, p. 308 / 458. Bukhari and Muslim are reliable collectors and editors of the hadith (words and deeds of Muhammad outside of the Quran). These three passages from the hadith depict Muhammad calling on Allah for revenge on this poet.

3. March 624: Asma bint Marwan

Asma was a poetess who belonged to a tribe of Medinan pagans, and whose husband was named Yazid b. Zayd. She composed a poem blaming the Medinan pagans for obeying a stranger (Muhammad) and for not taking the initiative to attack him by surprise. When the Allah-inspired prophet heard what she had said, he asked, "Who will rid me of Marwan’s daughter?" A member of her husband’s tribe volunteered and crept into her house that night. She had five children, and the youngest was sleeping at her breast. The assassin gently removed the child, drew his sword, and plunged it into her, killing her in her sleep.

The following morning, the assassin defied anyone to take revenge. No one took him up on his challenge, not even her husband. In fact, Islam became powerful among his tribe. Previously, some members who had kept their conversion secret now became Muslims openly, "because they saw the power of Islam," conjectures Ibn Ishaq.

Source: Ibn Ishaq, pp. 675-76 / 995-96.

4. April 624: Abu Afak

Abu Afak, an centenarian elder of Medina, belonging to a group of clans who were associated with the god Manat (though another account has him as a Jew), wrote a derogatory poem about Muhammad, extolling the ancestors of his tribe who were strong enough to overthrow mountains and to resist submitting to an outsider (Muhammad) who divides two large Medinan tribes with religious commands like "permitted" and "forbidden." That is, the poet is referring to Muhammad’s legal decrees about things that are forbidden (e.g. pork and alcohol) and permitted (e.g. other meats like beef and camel). Before the Battle of Badr, Muhammad let him live.

After the battle, the prophet queried, "Who will deal with this rascal for me?" That night, Salim b. Umayr "went forth and killed him." One of the Muslims wrote a poem in reply: "A hanif [monotheist or Muslim] gave you a thrust in the night saying / ‘Take that Abu Afak in spite of your age!’" Muhammad eliminated him, which shows religious violence. Islam is not the religion of peace.

Source: Ibn Ishaq p. 675 / 995.

5. September 624: Kab bin al-Ashraf

Kab b. al-Ashraf had a mixed ancestry. His father came from a nomadic Arab, but his mother was a Jewess from the powerful al-Nadr tribe in Medina. He lived as a member of his mother’s tribe. He heard about the Muslim victory at the battle of Badr, and he was disgusted, for he thought Muhammad the newcomer to Medina was a trouble-maker and divisive. Kab had the gift of poetry, and after the Battle of Badr he traveled down to Mecca, apparently stopping by Badr, since it was near a major trade route to Mecca, witnessing the aftermath. Arriving in Mecca, he wrote a widely circulated poem, a hostile lament, over the dead of Mecca. It is important to include most of the political lament to show whether the poem is a serious offence, meriting assassination, as Muslim apologists (defenders of Islam) argue.

... At events like Badr you should weep and cry.
The best of its people were slain round cisterns,
Don’t think it strange that the princes were left lying.
How many noble handsome men,
The refuge of the homeless were slain.

...…………………………………..

Some people whose anger pleases me say,
"Kab b. al-Ashraf is utterly dejected."
They are right. O that the earth when they were killed
Had split asunder and engulfed its people,
That he who spread the report had been thrust through
Or lived cowering blind and deaf.

……………………………………..

I was told that al-Harith ibn Hisham [a Meccan]
Is doing well and gathering troops
To visit Yathrib [pre-Islamic name of Medina] with armies,
For only the noble, handsome man protects the loftiest reputation.
(Translated by Guillaume, p. 365)

To us today this poem does not seem excessive, and other Arab poetry was worse, such as the poem celebrating the assassination of Abu Afak, cited above (no. 4). It seems to be a genuine lament that invokes the Arab concept of revenge. Also, the last four lines is not an explicit plea for the Meccans to exact vengeance because that was a foregone conclusion. Arab custom demanded a riposte against the humiliation of defeat. Rather, the lines seem to reflect reality. A Meccan leader is said to be gathering an army; Kab is not ordering him to do so.

hmmm

[Nick Young]

[QUOTE]
Pro-Muslim poets answered Kab

[Nick Young]

[QUOTE]8. After January 630: close call for Abdullah bin Sad

Before 10,000 Muslim warriors entered Mecca in January 630, Muhammad ordered that they should kill only those who resisted, except a small number who should be hunted down even if they hid under the curtain of the Kabah stone. One of them was Abdullah, an original Emigrant with the prophet in 622. He had the high privilege of writing down some verses of the Quran, after Muhammad received them by revelation. Doubting, Abdullah on occasion would change the words around to see if Muhammad had noticed the changes, but he did not. W. Montgomery Watt provides an example: "When Muhammad dictated a phrase of the Quran such as sami

[BoutPractice]

To be fair, satire has always been a dangerous business. (I say that as someone who holds it to be one of the most worthy activities there is)

As for this "religion of peace" debate... Organized religion is always about peace, islam included. The whole point of it is to have a set of rules that, if everyone followed them, would stop us from harming each other.

The problem is that, even when you invoke God, those rules still need to be enforced, which can only be achieved through coercion because human beings are naturally flawed creatures - the question then becoming who gets to exercise that coercive power. In addition, people have a tendency to disagree about what exactly the religious rules should be, and in the name of what God, thus creating a whole new form of violence.

After many wars, we've eventually found ways to deal with those issues: religious tolerance, pluralism, and laws that are based on public reason and compromise rather than obscurantism and absolutism.

Unfortunately, too many idiots in the Middle East, and increasingly in secular countries, are convinced that those are "Western ideas" hiding sinister goals of colonial domination... instead of the pragmatic, obvious, staring-everyone-in-the-face solution to that region's woes. They might kill millions more before they figure it out on their own once everyone is finally tired of the fighting.

[Nick Young]

To be fair, satire has always been a dangerous business. (I say that as someone who holds it to be one of the most worthy activities there is)

As for this "religion of peace" debate... Organized religion is always about peace, islam included. The whole point of it is to have a set of rules that, if everyone followed them, would stop us from harming each other.

The problem is that, even when you invoke God, those rules still need to be enforced, which can only be achieved through coercion because human beings are naturally flawed creatures - the question then becoming who gets to exercise that coercive power. In addition, people have a tendency to disagree about what exactly the religious rules should be, and in the name of what God, thus creating a whole new form of violence.

After many wars, we've eventually found ways to deal with those issues: religious tolerance, pluralism, and laws that are based on public reason and compromise rather than obscurantism and absolutism.

Unfortunately, too many idiots in the Middle East, and increasingly in secular countries, are convinced that those are "Western ideas" hiding sinister goals of colonial domination... instead of the pragmatic, obvious, staring-everyone-in-the-face solution to that region's woes. They might kill millions more before they figure it out on their own once everyone is finally tired of the fighting.
Islam as a religion is built on constant expansion through violent means.

It is all written in the Koran. Have you read it yet?:confusedshrug:

[brownmamba00]

Islam as a religion is built on constant expansion through violent means.

It is all written in the Koran. Have you read it yet?:confusedshrug:
Where did you read it? Answermuslims.com?:roll:

This guy

[Nick Young]

Where did you read it? Answermuslims.com?:roll:

This guy
The Koran.

[BigNBAfan]

Where did you read it? Answermuslims.com?:roll:

This guy

Whys it matter? Great defense

#Brownpeopledontmatter

[Nick Young]

Whys it matter? Great defense

#Brownpeopledontmatter
If you can't argue the message, shoot down the messenger.

Typical deflection tactics.


Anyone who has read the Koran, and is familiar with Mohammad's history, and moderately familiar with the history of Islam, can easily see that the foundations of the religion are built on violent expansion through whatever means necessary.

These are not "mistranslations" or "out of context" verses. Reading the Koran makes things very, very clear.


If Islam was a religion of peace, it's founder, Mohammad, wouldn't have lived a live of violence, conquest and aggression.