elburropete@gmail.com
"Islam is a religion that preaches peace----," President Obama.
In Parts One and Two of this series, we examined two of Islam's foundational sacred writings, the Koran and the Hadith. Both were shown to preach war against non-Muslims, not peace. A third pillar of Islam, the Sunnah, consisting of the words and deeds of Muhammad, as set forth in his biographies as well as the Hadith, leaves absolutely no doubt that Islam is NOT a religion of peace.
The most cited biography is The Life of Muhammad by Ibn Isaq, who died in 786 AD, making his collection of memories of Muhammad relatively contemporaneous. (You can purchase a copy on Amazon: 860 pages; $36 new, $20 used.) Unfortunately, a complete copy of Ibn Isaq's original work no longer exists, and what has come down to us is a version edited by a later Muslim scholar who omitted certain passages that he thought offensive to some Muslims.
It is hard to imagine what those would be, given that the surviving version describes beheadings, murders and torture directed by Allah's Messenger, Muhammad. Pages 510-517, for instance, detail the slaughter of a Jewish tribe at the Khaybar (or Khaibar) Oasis, the torture of one of its leaders to reveal where they had hidden their treasures, his beheading, and then the subsequent "marriage" of the leader's newly made widow to ------Muhammad.
An infidel could be forgiven for thinking that the motivation for the attack in the first place was Muhammad's attraction to the lady. Today, Hizballah forces in Lebanon fire Khaibar rockets into Israel, rockets named after that ancient victory over the Jews, rockets meant to kill Jews today.
Which illustrates a very important point. Muhammad and all that he did over 1300 years ago are still celebrated and revered by Muslims today. Christians feel the same about Jesus, but a comparison of the lives of Jesus and Muhammad leaves no doubt that Muhammad would never be called The Prince of Peace, regardless of what President Obama might say or think.
Furthermore, Muhammad's life is the forever exemplar for Muslims, to whom Muhammad is the closest thing to human perfection ever to walk the face of the earth. After all, it was Allah who said, in the timeless, forever Koran: "You have indeed in the Messenger 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." (33:21)
The Koran has numerous commands to obey Muhammad and believe in Him. In fact, to be a true Muslim you must believe in Muhammad as well as Allah: "Only those are Believers who have believed in Allah and His Messenger, and have never since doubted, but have striven with their belongings and their persons in the Cause of Allah: such are the sincere ones." (49:15)
Consequently, devoted Muslims read the deeds of Muhammad and do not see atrocities but " a beautiful pattern of conduct" to be emulated. Thus, in today's Mideast conflict, no one familiar with Islam should be surprised that ISIS has beheaded hundreds of captives, proudly filming some of those beheadings for showing on the Internet. (NOT for the faint of heart.)
In addition, the ISIS enslavement, sexual abuse, and buying and selling of non-Muslim women and girls captured in the fighting can all be traced to the "beautiful pattern of conduct" Allah endorsed, as well as many references in the Koran to the treatment of "those whom your right hand possess," (4:3) i.e. slaves. The ISIS command has even published a manual outlining the permissible use of captured women. (http://www.memrijttm.org/islamic-state-isis-releases-pamphlet-on-female-slaves.html)
Not knowing Muhammad's personal history, you might be shocked at the both the question and the answer to the following in the ISIS manual (realists should substitute "rape" for "have intercourse with"): "Question 13: Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who has not reached puberty?" (A ) "It is permissible to have intercourse with the female slave who hasn't reached puberty if she is fit for intercourse; however if she is not fit for intercourse, then it is enough to enjoy her without intercourse." You can imagine what that means.
This treatment of prepubescent girls is allowed because Muhammad married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine. Today, child marriage is quite common in many Islamic countries, and attempts to set a higher legal age of marriage for women are often met with resistance based on Muhammad's "beautiful pattern of conduct." Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Turkey and others, have seen widespread violation of attempts to set higher marriage ages for women.
The Ayatollah Khomeini, that sweet man mentioned in my 12/4/14 article, "Groucho, Chico and Islam's Useful Idiots," married a ten-year-old when he was 26. He also advised his followers to marry off their daughters before they reached puberty, something implicitly endorsed by the Koran, (65:4) Such unwavering obeisance to even the despicable trivialities of Muhammad's life means that Islam not only can never be a "religion that preaches peace," it can never be a religion that is compatible with Western values or what most of us would consider basic human decency.
Next, Islam's fourth leg : Sharia Law and The Reliance of the Traveler