CRAIG WINN
2006-06-06 02:32:55 UTC
When I first read the Qur'an, I was surprised to find the endless
regurgitation of spiteful attacks. The Meccans shouted: "Muhammad, you are
an insane, demon-possessed sorcerer, forging the Qur'an." Allah answered:
"My Messenger is not insane, nor is he demon-possessed." I found this
perplexing. Why didn't some enterprising scribe edit these incriminating
charges out before codifying the Qur'an? Then I realized that without the
raging feud, there was no justification for the scripture's single most
repetitive rant: "If you reject Muhammad, Muslims will kill you so that his
god can roast you alive."
I recognize that this is the antithesis of what you expected to see during
the formative years of a great religion. Yet the evidence-the only
evidence-is irrefutable. The Qur'an takes us into a demented and violent
realm. It's a bad job of plagiarizing held together by a childish rant.
Paradise and hell are both decadent and disgusting, more satanic than
divine. And the Sunnah, which professes to be inspired scripture, is no
better. Stroke by stroke they present an ugly picture of an abused child who
became an abuser.
Having destroyed the "religion" of Islam in Mecca, Muhammad created the
political doctrine of "submission" in Medina. He became a pirate, dictator,
and terrorist leader. He used Qur'anic scripture to justify some of the most
horrific behavior imaginable: pedophilia, incest, rape, torture,
assassinations, thievery, mass murder, and terror-all in an unbridled orgy
of sex, power, and money. Again, this summation simply reflects the
portrayal documented in the Islamic Sunnah and confirmed in the Qur'an.
When he was fifty, Muhammad married a six-year-old child. Then he stole his
son's wife. After forcing young girls to watch his men execute their
fathers, Muhammad raped them. He tortured his victims to make sure no booty
escaped his grasp. He committed mass murder, slaughtering Jews in genocidal
rage. In ten years, he ordered a score of assassinations and conducted
seventy-five terrorist raids. He used the sword to force Arabs into
submission and used the slave trade to finance Islam. He was more interested
in collecting girls and taxes than anything else. He ruled through fear. And
his god condoned it all.
This harsh portrayal does not represent my interpretation of the most
negative Islamic scriptures or even a view derived from some jaundiced
document crafted by an enemy of the religion. It is the only authentic
picture; it's the original. By reading the Qur'an and Hadith you'll see
Muhammad embarrass himself and deceive his compatriots-all with his god's
blessing. And this portrait of prophet and god was painted by the first
Muslims. More shocking still, one does not have to cull out the bad from the
good to render this verdict. It's really hard to find good-in their
scripture or their behavior.
To provide some objectivity to this startling portrayal, recognize that
nothing is known about Muhammad and his creation, Islam, apart from five
books. They represent the only surviving written record scribed within 250
years of the prophet's life. They, and only they, represent fundamental
Islam. They are the authority, the "gospel truth." Any statement not derived
from these sources is conjecture, speculation, and opinion.
To firmly establish the validity, nature, and appropriateness of these
Islamic scriptures, I want to combine what the Islamic scholars said in the
preface to the most revered Hadith collection with what others wrote on the
opening page of the Qur'an. "Sahih Bukhari is a Collection of sayings and
deeds of Prophet Muhammad, also known as the Sunnah. The reports of the
Prophet's sayings and deeds are called Hadith. Bukhari lived a couple of
centuries after the Prophet's death and collected his Hadith. Each report in
his Collection was checked for compatibility with the Qur'an, and the
veracity of the chain of reporters, or isnad, had to be established."
Then... "The Qur'an is one leg of two which form the basis of Islam. The
second leg is the Sunnah of the Prophet. What makes the Qur'an different
from the Sunnah is its form. Unlike the Sunnah, the Qur'an is quite
literally the Word of Allah, whereas the Sunnah [which is comprised
exclusively of Hadith] was inspired by Allah but the wording and actions are
the Prophet's. The Qur'an has not been expressed using any human words. Its
wording is letter for letter fixed by Allah. Prophet Muhammad was the final
Messenger of Allah to humanity, and therefore the Qur'an is the last Message
which Allah has sent to us. Its predecessors such as the Torah, Psalms, and
Gospels have all been superceded."
The most respected Islamic scholars tell Muslims that the "Qur'an is
literally the word of Allah" and that the "Sunnah was inspired by Allah."
They say this because there are hundreds of commands in the Qur'an ordering
Muslims to obey Muhammad, to believe in him, to follow his example. Since
the Qur'an is supposed to be "Allah" speaking, the only way to obey
Muhammad, to believe in and follow him, is to know what he said and did. The
Hadith represents the sole repository of these words and deeds. So, despite
all evidence to the contrary, Muslims believe what you are going to read
from the Qur'an and Hadith is divinely inspired scripture directly from
Allah.
The preponderance of this "scripture" is presented in Prophet of Doom . To
provide some perspective on the scope of the coverage you should know that
the Qur'an, formatted like this book, would be 200 pages. Pared of its
redundancy, it would be a quarter of that length. We will analyze nearly
ninety percent of that material.
Turning to the Sunnah, the Hadith in Bukhari's Collection represent 800
pages of Muhammadisms. The majority are duplicated several times in various
sections. Most have multiple lines of transmitters, or isnads, for virtually
identical Traditions. Further, half of Bukhari's Collection includes laws,
procedures, or meaningless anecdotes that fall outside the scope of this
study. Without this redundant and extraneous material there are fifty pages
of prime and pertinent reports. I'll cover fifty percent of this directly
and reveal thirty percent indirectly through redundancy in Ishaq and Tabari.
Much of Muslim's work is duplicated in Bukhari. He has some unique
Traditions, though, and many important insights into the nature of Jihad.
Wherever we can glean fresh information from Imam Muslim, we will.
The events presented by Tabari, the first Islamic historian, mirror those
contained in Ishaq's biographical account. There's a seventy percent overlap
in their coverage of Muhammad's life and the formation of Islam. Devoid of
this overlap, extraneous poetry, and footnotes, their combined 1,500 pages
of Islamic Traditions over the period we will be studying could be distilled
to 250 pages of Hadith not memorialized elsewhere. Prophet of Doom analyzes
eighty percent of these, as they provide the most valuable insights into
Islam.
Ishaq's biography and Tabari's history are comprised in their entirety of
Hadith. They are Sunnah and thus Islamic scripture. Their Hadith feature
chains of reporters, and they are in sync with other Collections and with
the Qur'an. The sole difference is the arrangement. Ishaq and Tabari chose
Hadith that could be presented in the order they occurred. In fact, without
Ishaq and Tabari, Islam would not exist and Muhammad would be unknown. They
alone provide the religion's skeleton, its context and chronology. Without
this grounding in place and time, the Qur'an is indecipherable, and the
remaining Hadith are raped of their meaning. It would be like being a
Christian without the Gospels. The Tabari translators tell us: "Muhammad Ibn
Ishaq was the most influential and earliest biographer of the Prophet. His
Sira became the standard treatment of the events of Muhammad's life."
regurgitation of spiteful attacks. The Meccans shouted: "Muhammad, you are
an insane, demon-possessed sorcerer, forging the Qur'an." Allah answered:
"My Messenger is not insane, nor is he demon-possessed." I found this
perplexing. Why didn't some enterprising scribe edit these incriminating
charges out before codifying the Qur'an? Then I realized that without the
raging feud, there was no justification for the scripture's single most
repetitive rant: "If you reject Muhammad, Muslims will kill you so that his
god can roast you alive."
I recognize that this is the antithesis of what you expected to see during
the formative years of a great religion. Yet the evidence-the only
evidence-is irrefutable. The Qur'an takes us into a demented and violent
realm. It's a bad job of plagiarizing held together by a childish rant.
Paradise and hell are both decadent and disgusting, more satanic than
divine. And the Sunnah, which professes to be inspired scripture, is no
better. Stroke by stroke they present an ugly picture of an abused child who
became an abuser.
Having destroyed the "religion" of Islam in Mecca, Muhammad created the
political doctrine of "submission" in Medina. He became a pirate, dictator,
and terrorist leader. He used Qur'anic scripture to justify some of the most
horrific behavior imaginable: pedophilia, incest, rape, torture,
assassinations, thievery, mass murder, and terror-all in an unbridled orgy
of sex, power, and money. Again, this summation simply reflects the
portrayal documented in the Islamic Sunnah and confirmed in the Qur'an.
When he was fifty, Muhammad married a six-year-old child. Then he stole his
son's wife. After forcing young girls to watch his men execute their
fathers, Muhammad raped them. He tortured his victims to make sure no booty
escaped his grasp. He committed mass murder, slaughtering Jews in genocidal
rage. In ten years, he ordered a score of assassinations and conducted
seventy-five terrorist raids. He used the sword to force Arabs into
submission and used the slave trade to finance Islam. He was more interested
in collecting girls and taxes than anything else. He ruled through fear. And
his god condoned it all.
This harsh portrayal does not represent my interpretation of the most
negative Islamic scriptures or even a view derived from some jaundiced
document crafted by an enemy of the religion. It is the only authentic
picture; it's the original. By reading the Qur'an and Hadith you'll see
Muhammad embarrass himself and deceive his compatriots-all with his god's
blessing. And this portrait of prophet and god was painted by the first
Muslims. More shocking still, one does not have to cull out the bad from the
good to render this verdict. It's really hard to find good-in their
scripture or their behavior.
To provide some objectivity to this startling portrayal, recognize that
nothing is known about Muhammad and his creation, Islam, apart from five
books. They represent the only surviving written record scribed within 250
years of the prophet's life. They, and only they, represent fundamental
Islam. They are the authority, the "gospel truth." Any statement not derived
from these sources is conjecture, speculation, and opinion.
To firmly establish the validity, nature, and appropriateness of these
Islamic scriptures, I want to combine what the Islamic scholars said in the
preface to the most revered Hadith collection with what others wrote on the
opening page of the Qur'an. "Sahih Bukhari is a Collection of sayings and
deeds of Prophet Muhammad, also known as the Sunnah. The reports of the
Prophet's sayings and deeds are called Hadith. Bukhari lived a couple of
centuries after the Prophet's death and collected his Hadith. Each report in
his Collection was checked for compatibility with the Qur'an, and the
veracity of the chain of reporters, or isnad, had to be established."
Then... "The Qur'an is one leg of two which form the basis of Islam. The
second leg is the Sunnah of the Prophet. What makes the Qur'an different
from the Sunnah is its form. Unlike the Sunnah, the Qur'an is quite
literally the Word of Allah, whereas the Sunnah [which is comprised
exclusively of Hadith] was inspired by Allah but the wording and actions are
the Prophet's. The Qur'an has not been expressed using any human words. Its
wording is letter for letter fixed by Allah. Prophet Muhammad was the final
Messenger of Allah to humanity, and therefore the Qur'an is the last Message
which Allah has sent to us. Its predecessors such as the Torah, Psalms, and
Gospels have all been superceded."
The most respected Islamic scholars tell Muslims that the "Qur'an is
literally the word of Allah" and that the "Sunnah was inspired by Allah."
They say this because there are hundreds of commands in the Qur'an ordering
Muslims to obey Muhammad, to believe in him, to follow his example. Since
the Qur'an is supposed to be "Allah" speaking, the only way to obey
Muhammad, to believe in and follow him, is to know what he said and did. The
Hadith represents the sole repository of these words and deeds. So, despite
all evidence to the contrary, Muslims believe what you are going to read
from the Qur'an and Hadith is divinely inspired scripture directly from
Allah.
The preponderance of this "scripture" is presented in Prophet of Doom . To
provide some perspective on the scope of the coverage you should know that
the Qur'an, formatted like this book, would be 200 pages. Pared of its
redundancy, it would be a quarter of that length. We will analyze nearly
ninety percent of that material.
Turning to the Sunnah, the Hadith in Bukhari's Collection represent 800
pages of Muhammadisms. The majority are duplicated several times in various
sections. Most have multiple lines of transmitters, or isnads, for virtually
identical Traditions. Further, half of Bukhari's Collection includes laws,
procedures, or meaningless anecdotes that fall outside the scope of this
study. Without this redundant and extraneous material there are fifty pages
of prime and pertinent reports. I'll cover fifty percent of this directly
and reveal thirty percent indirectly through redundancy in Ishaq and Tabari.
Much of Muslim's work is duplicated in Bukhari. He has some unique
Traditions, though, and many important insights into the nature of Jihad.
Wherever we can glean fresh information from Imam Muslim, we will.
The events presented by Tabari, the first Islamic historian, mirror those
contained in Ishaq's biographical account. There's a seventy percent overlap
in their coverage of Muhammad's life and the formation of Islam. Devoid of
this overlap, extraneous poetry, and footnotes, their combined 1,500 pages
of Islamic Traditions over the period we will be studying could be distilled
to 250 pages of Hadith not memorialized elsewhere. Prophet of Doom analyzes
eighty percent of these, as they provide the most valuable insights into
Islam.
Ishaq's biography and Tabari's history are comprised in their entirety of
Hadith. They are Sunnah and thus Islamic scripture. Their Hadith feature
chains of reporters, and they are in sync with other Collections and with
the Qur'an. The sole difference is the arrangement. Ishaq and Tabari chose
Hadith that could be presented in the order they occurred. In fact, without
Ishaq and Tabari, Islam would not exist and Muhammad would be unknown. They
alone provide the religion's skeleton, its context and chronology. Without
this grounding in place and time, the Qur'an is indecipherable, and the
remaining Hadith are raped of their meaning. It would be like being a
Christian without the Gospels. The Tabari translators tell us: "Muhammad Ibn
Ishaq was the most influential and earliest biographer of the Prophet. His
Sira became the standard treatment of the events of Muhammad's life."