W. H. T. Gairdner

“ The comments on the life of the Founder of Islam which we think are demanded by truth and right shall not be our own. They are drawn straight from the records of the Moslem chroniclers themselves. Further, they will not be vague generalities, still less vulgar abuse: they will consist of the citation of specific instances drawn from the said chronicles, and these (we are told in the editorial to the number under examination) are reliable: "the record of the acts and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed himself is exceptionally complete, faithful, and correct" (p. 3) . ”

“ The view we shall substantiate is, we submit, that "Our Prophet's Birthday Number" gives us a Mohammed-cum-lavender-water: that the true Mohammed was really an Arabian of the seventh-century, with (it may be) all the virtues of his time and some in which he was beyond his time; also with many of the violence and sins of his time and environment: and that therefore the claims made for him (but not by him) to be humanity's beau-ideal and consummate example for ever, is a pernicious one, and in the name of the God of Truth must be rejected and resisted - wa la mu'akhadha fi dhalik. ”

“ The document promulgated by Mohammed shortly after his arrival in Madina makes clear in its 20th article that he regarded himself and all his people as in a state of de facto hostility with the Quraish of Makka.33 The sending of cutting-out expeditions followed as a matter of course; and the swords of cutting-out expeditions do not usually abide in their sheaths. And so blood inevitably flowed. Later on, as success grew, the object of the Holy War became the right to worship at the Ka'ba in the way of Islam. ”

“ Deportation, and an Execution En-Masse Again, wholesale deportations of defenseless people have lately excited the indignation of humanity. But this deporting was done without scruple and on a large scale in the wars conducted from the City of Mohammed. We must not judge the practice and conditions of that time from the standpoint of the present day? But we thought that the whole point of the "Birthday Number" was to show that "Our Prophet's" example and practice was to standardise morality, (and especially "the morals of war") for all time? ”

“ Mohammed and the "Morals of War". For special pleading and assumed superiority it would be hard to beat the following:
"If God had to come as the ‘ideal representative and guide of humanity’, as it is said he did in the person of Jesus, we could have been more benefited if God had appeared as a king or a statesman. He could have left better rules for the guidance of Christian kings and statesmen in Europe, and the world would have been saved this terrible conflagration with which is has been thrown under ambition and self-assertiveness. ”

“ For them and the "apostatates" the law from the beginning was Islam or death. And it was at the beginning that that law was most rigorously carried out. Moslems are very naive, and what has prevented them from seeing that this fact is constitutive of forced conversion is their idea that the deliberate presence of "conversion" to death is not a forced conversion! (It is notorious that neither Mohammed nor any who came after ever troubled about motives for profession; and so every conversion is a conversion wis salam.) They forget that the very real alternative was death. ”

“ The same Sura however gives signs that Mohammed already saw that the Badr policy was not for universal application. And as Islam developed, the terrible Badrian alternative was modified. For one thing, as we have already seen, the practice of selling war-captives became common (Are we, by the way, to regulate our practice by this also when the Governments turn their attention to the prisoners after the present war?) : and, as the Birthday Number says, the Koran itself recommended the ransoming of war-captives as a form of charity suitable for rich Moslems. ”

“ We hope we shall now hear no more of the neo-Moslem pretence mentioned above. 28 Musnad of Ibn Hanbal, iii p. 123. 29 That is, that before marrying a widow a man must wait at least three months to make sure she is not with child by her first husband. When, in the "Reproach of Islam", I erroneously stated that Raihana — again a celebrated beauty who also had just lost her husband at Mohammed's hands — was taken to his embraces immediately after his execution, I was severely taken to task by a well-known neo-Moslem apologist of Cairo for gross ignorance. ”

“ And, observe, when the weaker begins to think of acting on the same theory (if Waqidi's account is to be trusted) , his action is to be considered a piece of unqualified aggression, and the counterstroke becomes an act of merest defence! So impossible is it for the weaker under such circumstances ever to be right, or the stronger ever to be wrong. It is further to be noticed that the Khaybarites had not the smallest doubt as to Mohammed's principles and practice in these matters. ”

“ So much for the earliest raids; in which, it is especially recorded (Ibn Sa'd i 3) , the first arrow shot was shot by a Moslem (Sa'd ibn Waqqas) , and the first blood shed was shed by a Moslem (in the raid in the Sacred Month, see above) . After this point it became unprofitable to pursue the enquiry as to who was provoker and who provoked. When the whole of a history is written up by the conquerors it is easy to show the conquered as invariably in the wrong. ”

“ Government by Assassination Kipling somewhere wisely remarks, of a certain Ameer, that, like other heads of states, he governs not as he would, but as he can. By some such axiom the various atrocities connected with the government of Mohammed are usually justified. It is represented that there was no settled government in Arabia, no constitution, no international code, no legislature and no judicature. A man who became powerful enough in any given district was ruler de facto and therefore de jure, and it was henceforth the business of those about him to be subject, or take the consequences. ”

“ Well, it may have been good enough for Arabia in the Seventh Century. But we were talking, we thought, of humanity for all time?
And even the Arabian stomach occasionally turned quest when even its low records were further lowered by the innovators. Many years after the event, the death of Ka'b was being discussed in Madina, and a converted Nadirite Jew-Moslem, named Benjamin, roundly asserted that Ka'b had been treacherously assassinated. The assassin (Mohammed b. Muslima, then a very old man) was present and was furious, and shouted, "Dost thou ascribe to the Apostle of God a treachery? ”

“ Forced Conversions The subject of the "execution" of prisoners of war leads insensibly to forced conversions, about which some nonsense has been written by Christians, and a good deal more by Moslem apologist. It is quite true that some Christian writers have written as if the whole Moslem propaganda might be depicted exclusively by a Moslem standing over a non-Moslem with the sword in one hand and the Koran in the other. ”

“ The fact is that it only can be and only is raised a priori, by those who, when they find themselves among Christians and in a Christian atmosphere, jib at many things in the sira which have not caused, and which do not cause, so much as one qualm in a truly Mohammedan environment. Such ‘historical’ scruples are therefore simply a convincing tribute to the moral and spiritual superiority of the Catholic-Christian ideal, and to the serious and felt defectiveness of the Catholic-Islamic one. We welcome them as a sign that truth will surely conquer ”

“ The worst enemies of Mohammed are not his opponents, but his friends, who will have it that the character of this Arabian giant is the very type of perfected humanity; that all his actions apart from trifles were perfect; that no great wrong can be attributed to him ”

“ For, prate our detractors as they will, we believe and dare to assert that the sketches or biographies of Mohammed which have shown most seriousness, most sympathetic insight, and most concern of all aspects of the subject-matter, are some by Christian missionaries or missionary supporters. The secular Christian writers are too worldly, often too scornful: they miss the mark by trying to treat secularly of what was fundamentally religious. ”

“ The Sura produced after the event (viii 68) explicitly commands the slaughter of prisoners on occasions when it is advisable to make an impression by "frightfulness": on such occasions the sin would be to grow rich by accepting ransoms! And there is a whole series of traditions (quoted by Muir, Life p. 231) which make out that the "leniency" shown at Badr was a sin, that Mohammed had been against that sin, that humane Abu Bakr was the chief offender, and that had that sin been punished, only the whole-hoggers who had urged the slaughter of all the prisoners ('Umar and Sa'd) would have escaped! ”

“ We have nothing to do with that. All we know is that these men one and all, are doing a disservice both to truth and to their idol. For they as little give the world the whole truth as did the old-time wholesale obloquist ”

“ The meaning is obvious, and is made explicit by the following: "I felt certain that if once the Apostle of God saw her he would admire her" (‘for she knew’, adds the historian, ‘the influence of beauty on him’) . "Well, then, she spoke to him, and he said to her, ‘Better still, I will pay the ransom and marry thee myself’." ”

“ Let not their generosity however be now represented as a silent verdict on their part that the incident is spurious. The authority is far too strong, as we saw. And who would have invented such things? And even supposing the incident is spurious, it was and is accepted by Islam as absolute truth, — except of course when Christians are in the neighborhood.
Nor was this an isolated incident. The very fact that on at lest two occasions, Khaybar13 and Hunain14, Mohammed had to regulate what might be done with women taken on the field shows this sufficiently. ”

“ The sudden assassination of Abu Rafi' is next procured by Mohammed. The assassin was 'Abdallah ibn Unais.
(5) It is related by Waqidi that the immigrant Nadirites now begin to engineer from Khaybar a league with the Quraish for the subversion of Islam. Supposing it true, it is rather naive in Waqidi not to give the smallest suggestion that an unprovoked campaign, and the assassination of a guest in the bosom of the host-tribe, might justifiably have something to do with the hostility of the Khaybarites! ”

“ Zuhair, an Arab of the Arabs. That attitude thoroughly appealed to Ka'b, but we do not see why it should arouse the enthusiasm of the mild gentlemen responsible for the Birthday Number. It was expressed by the said poet in his famous poem, the Banat Su'ad. We should premise that he also had been dabbling in the perilous game of satire, and that it was represented to him that the fate of the other Ka'b and sundry male and female members of the satirical profession would inevitably be his. ”

“ The alternative for them was to be, Islam or death. If they chose Islam, would this or would it not, be a forced conversion?
And what comment is needed by the following candid narrative from Ibn Hisham? After the acts of frightfulness against the Jews which we have already mentioned, numbers of Jews "pretended to have embraced Islam. They adopted it in order to escape being killed"68.
Let the facts speak for themselves. ”

“ And the point remains, Mohammed did sanction the violation of the Sacred Truce. Arnold suppresses entirely this cardinal fact that Mohammed finally condoned the act and sanctioned the practice. He also suppresses most of the facts of the case mentioned above. 10 The fact that means were recommended by the Prophet (in at least one case not successfully) to prevent conception only increases one's sense of disgust. 11 Halabi ii 296,7; Waqidi (Kitab el Maghazi, translated by Wellhausen page 179) . ”

“ To facts he opposes theories. It is extraordinary, and a real pity, how this useful book is spoiled by its being a brief. We have had an example of this already in his treatment of the fight in the sacred month. Here is another example. Take the crucial point of the object of the first expedition against the Quraish. Arnold:— "We find mention of several reconnoitering parties that went out in small numbers to watch the movements of the Quraish" (p. 30) . Now the historians:— (on the first raid, not accompanied by Mohammed) "to intercept the camels of the Quraish", Ibn Sa'd i. ”