Posts – Days 6-10
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In Islam, there is no comparable teaching to the Imago Dei, which says that all people are created in the image of God. This doctrine is the foundation for inherent human dignity, value, worth, and human rights.
In contrast to the Jewish and Christian doctrine of the Imago Dei, the Quran teaches that Muslims are the best of all creatures, while Christians, Jews, and idolaters are the worst of all creatures.
Quran 98:6-7 says, “Lo, those who disbelieve, among the People of the Scripture and the idolaters, will abide in the fire of Hell. Those are the worst of created beings. (And) those who believe (Muslims) and do good works are the best of created beings.”
In other words, people who are not convinced of the truth of Islam are worse than rats, bugs, leaches, and even pigs, which Muslims hold to be particularly offensive and disgusting. It should be no surprise, then, that many Muslims who study their scriptures are willing to kill non-Muslims without a second thought, the way we might kill a mosquito, a chicken, or a cow. In doing so, they don’t believe they are killing God’s image bearers, but rather despicable creatures who only corrupt Allah’s otherwise good creation.
Quran 5:51 says, “O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not the wrongdoing folk.”
Quran 3:28 affirms this but offers an instance when deception is permitted, saying, “Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso doeth that hath no connection with Allah unless (it be) that ye but guard yourselves against them, taking (as it were) security. Allah biddeth you beware (only) of Himself. Unto Allah is the journeying.”
In other words, if a Muslim becomes friends or allies with a non-Muslim, he becomes one of them (i.e. the worst of creatures, headed for Hell). Allah will no longer guide a Muslim if he is friends with a Christian. The Muslim might as well become a Christian, because that is how Allah views Muslims who do such wrong as becoming friends with a Christian. However, if a Muslim needs security from a Christian, then he can pretend to be friends (remember the doctrine of taqiyya), as long as they inwardly have no connection, loyalty, or attachment.
As Abu Darda, a companion of Muhammad, is recorded to have said, it’s okay to smile to Christians’ faces, as long as in their hearts Muslims curse them.
Besides teaching the inherent inferiority of non-Muslims, Muhammad also owned and traded black slaves.
Bukhari 6161 says, “Allah’s Messenger was on a journey and he had a black slave called Anjasha, and he was driving the camels (very fast, and there were women riding on those camels). Allah’s Messenger said, “Waihaka (May Allah be merciful to you), O Anjasha! Drive slowly (the camels) with the glass vessels (women)!”
The book, Provisions of the Afterlife, pages 30-31, lists twenty-eight of Muhammad’s male slaves and twelve of his female slaves. Muhammad not only owned and traded black slaves, but he sold two black slaves for one Arab slave, believing that black slaves were inferior.
In Sunan an-Nasai 4184, “It was narrated that Jabir Sair: ‘A slave came and gave his pledge to the Messenger of Allah to emigrate, and the Prophet did not realize that he was a slave. Then his master came looking for him. The Prophet said; 'Sell him to me.' So he bought him for two black slaves, then he did not accept until he had asked; 'Is he a slave?'''
Not only is this hadith found in one of the most reliable hadith collections in all of Islam and given the most reliable rating for a hadith, but it is found under the heading entitled, “Selling Animals for Animals of Different Amounts or Quality.” In other words, according to the sacred sources of Islam, blacks who are enslaved are animals.
Unfortunately, the demeaning of black people was not an isolated incident, or a mistake of Nasai. Muhammad was apparently in the habit of demeaning black people. According to Bukhari 7142e, he referred to Ethiopians as “raisin heads.” According to Ibn Ishaq page 243, he said that Satan looked like a black man. And according to Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, page 287 and page 275, Muhammad commanded that anyone who said he was black was to be killed. The latter command is found in the section titled, “The Judgement of the Shari’a Regarding Someone who Curses or Disparages the Prophet.” In other words, to call Muhammad a black man was to curse him and/or to disparage him.
It's no surprise then, that we see Muhammad bragging all throughout the hadiths that he was as white as white can be. Muhammad despised black people, he believed they could be bought and sold, and in fact, he bought and sold them himself, as the excellent pattern of conduct for all Muslims.
Day 9 – Khaibar
Have you wondered why people at pro-Palestine gatherings are yelling Khaibar? After Muhammad failed to convince the people of Mecca that he was the final and greatest prophet of Judaism and Christianity, he escaped to Medina, which actually marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. This is when Muhammad began attacking caravans, which he escalated into attacks on entire towns as soon as he had enough resources to do so.
In 628, Muhammad and his men launched a surprise attack against unsuspecting Jews in the town of Khaibar, about 93 miles from Medina. The Muslims easily defeated the people of Khaibar and demanded they surrender their wealth. According to Ibn Ishaq (the earliest and most trusted biographer of Muhammad), a man named Kinana knew where the town’s treasure was kept, but Kinana wouldn’t tell Muhammad where it was hidden, so Muhammad had Kinana tortured to death by setting his chest on fire using flint and steel (Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 515). Muhammad also killed Kinana’s son-in-law and took Kinana’s daughter as one of his many wives.
Muhammad then mandated that any remaining Jews evacuate the area. However, this had been their land for nearly 1000 years, so they asked if they could stay and cultivate their orchards in exchange for giving the Muslims one-half of their produce. Muhammad agreed, and this was the beginning of a practice known as paying the jizyah. The jizyah is a tax that non-Muslims pay to Muslims to let them live as second-class citizens; the alternative, of course, is to be killed.
To this day, in many Muslim-majority countries, non-Muslims are only permitted to take the worst and most humiliating jobs. Often, they are forced into slavery under Muslim rule, where they spend 10 hours/day making bricks from dirt, and performing all manner of difficult physical labor. Any children they have will also be slaves for life, forced to do the same work, and on it goes through the generations. This is the case for at least 4 million Christians in Pakistan today.
Accordingly, apartheid is characteristic of Islam by its very nature. It is a practice that was instituted at the beginning of Islam by its founding “prophet,” whose example Muslims are to imitate in all things. Where Islam reigns, equality of human worth, value, and dignity cannot. Apartheid is inherent to Islam, and it goes back to Khaibar, when Muhammad began slaughtering entire towns of Jews, stealing their wealth, taking their daughters as wives, and confiscating their earned-income as a daily reminder that they are a subjugated/submitted people (note that Islam means submission; although most Muslims will tell you it means submission to God, its earliest and most frequent use is of submission to Muslim rule as a second-class citizen).
Lesson 10 – Muhammad’s Calling…By a Demon?
Did you know that Muhammad--the founder of Islam and excellent pattern of conduct for all Muslims--believed that he was demon-possessed, and on several occasions he climbed a mountain in order to throw himself off and end his own life?
In the year 610, Muhammad was meditating in a cave that he apparently visited often, when he had a terrifying encounter with a spiritual being whom he later began referring to as an angel. This is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, the most reliable of all the hadith collections. Bukhari 6982 says, “The angel caught me and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it anymore. He then released me and again asked me to read, and I replied, ‘I do not know how to read.’ Thereupon he caught me again and pressed me a second time till I could not bear it anymore. He then released me and asked me again to read, but again I replied, ‘I do not know how to read.’ Thereupon he caught me for the third time and pressed me and then released me and said, ‘Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created. Has created man from a clot. Read! And Your Lord is Most Generous… [unto]… that which he knew not.’”
Muhammad was terrified. He went home shaking, his heart beating severely. His neck and shoulders were twitching, and he begged his wife to hide him under the covers. Bukhari 4953 says, “Then Allah’s Messenger returned with that, and his heart severely beating; muscles between his neck and shoulders were trembling till he came upon Khadija (his wife) and said, ‘Cover me!’ They covered him, till his fear was over, and after that he said, ‘O Khadija! What is wrong with me? I was afraid that something bad might happen to me.’ Then he told her all that had happened.”
If you’re thinking, That doesn’t sound like an encounter with an angel to me, you’re not alone. Muhammad himself believed that this was an encounter with a demon, but when he shared this with his wife, she and her uncle tried to convince Muhammad that he must have been visited by an angel. But Muhammad knew better, and so, believing that he was demon-possessed, he became suicidal and decided to throw himself off the top of a mountain.
The English translation of Ibn Ishaq’s oldest and most-trusted biography of Muhammad’s life, called The Life of Muhammad, speaks of Muhammad's reaction to this incident. Muhammad repeated his fears to Khadija, saying, “Woe is me, poet or possessed.” (He used the word poet in the sense of someone who received ecstatic, and possibly demonic, visions.)
Muhammad said, “I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest. So I went forth to do so and then when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying: ‘O Muhammad! Thou art an apostle of God and I am Gabriel.’ I raised my head towards heaven to see and lo, Gabriel in the form of a man with feet astride the horizon, saying, ‘O Muhammad! Thou art the apostle of God and I am Gabriel.” (106)
These suicidal intentions, thwarted by encounters with “Gabriel,” apparently happened numerous times, according to Bukhari 6982, but eventually Muhammad embraced this role as Allah’s Messenger.