It's All About Muhammad

THIS IS WORTH READING TO THE VERY END.

Muhammad fled from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) in A.D. 622 after the Meccans decided they had to kill him to preserve their way of life. In Yathrib, he built a mosque and used it as his al-qaeda—his base—to wage war on the Meccans and then on people who refused to accept him and his religion. He carried out at least 80 raids on caravans, towns, villages, and Bedouin encampments, killing, plundering, and enslaving until his death in A.D. 632. He was famous for his chilling battle cry, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” The following is excerpted from It’s All About Muhammad, A Biography of the World’s Most Notorious Prophet.

IMAGINE THE SCENE AT MUHAMMAD’S mosque on the eve of a raid:

Muhammad is sitting in the pulpit of the preacher platform. He is angry and shakes his fist at the crowds in the prayer area and courtyard. Fighting in the cause of Allah is an obligation for Submitters, he tells them, but many of the faithful are resisting going to war and have been coming to him with excuses. He reminds them of their duty by reciting one of his Koran verses: “Fighting is enjoined on you, and it is an object of dislike to you; and it may be that you dislike a thing while it is good for you, and it may be that you love a thing while it is evil for you, and Allah knows, while you do not know.”[1]

The rewards are great for the faithful who fight in the cause of God and his messenger. Muhammad reminds them of the black shepherd of Khaybar, a story by then famous because the shepherd was the only man to have gained Paradise without ever once praying. He was an Abyssinian slave who took care of a herd for one of the Khaybar lords. During the siege of Marhab’s castle he went to Muhammad to ask him what was required of his religion. “I invite you to bear witness that there is no god but God, that I am the Messenger of God, and that you will not worship any other than God.”[2] The slave asked, “What will I get if I bear witness to that and believe in God?” Muhammad replied, “Paradise, if you die believing that.”

“What must you do to gain Paradise?” Muhammad shouts to his followers from the pulpit. “Jihad! Jihad!” they cry. “Say it again so that God can hear you. “JIHAD! JIHAD! JIHAD!” they shout.

That was all it took. The shepherd grabbed Muhammad’s hand to make the pledge of fealty and rushed out to fight. He was killed in battle that same day without having had even a moment to pray. Muhammad assures the congregation the black shepherd was taken into Paradise and was immediately rewarded. And what a reward! Muhammad had a vision of it: “I saw his two wives, houris, competing to take off his gown; they were entering the space between his skin and his gown.”[3]

A new expedition in the cause of God is at hand, and it needs people to do what they do not like. Muhammad offers the usual bribes of heavenly sex or terrestrial booty, but the best persuader is the hellfire threat: God gives them an opportunity to fight for him as a test of their worthiness. It is a test of their faith. If they fail the test by finding excuses not to go to war when they are asked to go, then they are hypocrites—fake believers—and the fake believers are destined for hellfire, for God hates hypocrites. They must prove their worthiness, prove their faith, prove their love for God and his messenger by doing what they may not like such as sallying forth into battle and perhaps dying. It is good for them. “God knows and you do not know!”

From the pulpit, Muhammad surveys the congregation, a mass of faces looking up at him with rapt attention. He has them where he wants them, trapped between Heaven and Hell. He jumps to his feet and shouts down at them, “Could it be that you desire hellfire?”

“What is the cry in battle that is most pleasing to God?” Muhammad shouts to his warriors to work them up for battle. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” they cry. “Say it again so that Allah can hear you.” “KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!” they shout.

“No!” they cry.

“What do you desire then?”

“Paradise, O Messenger of God. Paradise! Give us the chance for Paradise!”

“What must you do to gain Paradise?”

“Jihad!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“JIHAD!”

“Say it again so that God can hear you!”

“JIHAD, JIHAD, JIHAD!”

They still need more rousing to pump them up for action. They need to smell blood, taste blood, think blood. He raises trembling hands to the heavens as if to plead to God for mercy upon these miserable souls, then shouts down at them: “What is the cry in battle that is most pleasing to God?”

“Kill, kill!”

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“I can’t hear you!”

“KILL, KILL!”

“Say it again so that God can hear you!”

“KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL!” they shout as they leap to their feet and thrust their fists in the air.

And off they go on another raid, thirty of them, or three hundred, and soon three thousand and eventually thirty thousand and more, to attack at dawn and kill and plunder and subjugate and ultimately to enslave with what has enslaved them.[4]

CHAPTER 29 FOOTNOTES

[1] Koran, 2:216.
[2] Ibn Kathir, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad, vol. 3, p. 258. Khaybar was a Jewish agricultural oasis that Muhammad conquered in A.D. 628 as a part of his expanding war on people who refused to accept him and his religion.
[3] Ibid., vol. 3, p. 259.
[4] This scene is a construction based on details from multiple sources that suggest Muhammad’s sermons were often angry and manipulative, intended to get people to fight and die for him. “Kill, Kill!” or “O Conqueror, kill, kill!” were Muhammad’s battle cries in numerous raids and pitched battles.

This article may be reproduced in whole or in part provided the following attribution is given: Article by F. W. Burleigh, author of It’s All About Muhammad, A Biography of the World’s Most Notorious Prophet. He blogs at www.itsallaboutmuhammad.com