Ali Sina - Understanding Muhammad

Who Was Muhammad
knowledge, while they themselves were polytheists and idolaters. They had
often raided them in their district, and whenever bad feeling arose, the Jews used
to say to them, ‘A prophet will be sent soon. His day is at hand. We shall follow
him and kill you by his aid;…. So when they heard the apostle’s message, they
said one to another: ‘This is the very prophet of whom the Jews warned us.
Don’t let them get to him before us!’” 33
It is ironic that Judaism and its messianic belief should become the
strength of Islam and the cause of a Jewish holocaust in Arabia. Without it,
Islam would have died like most cults do.
Again, there is little or no evidence to support Muhammad’s claim that
Meccans persecuted Muslims. This claim is unquestioningly repeated by both
Muslims and some non-Muslim historians. The anger and animosity toward
Muslims was reaction to Muhammad’s own behavior and nothing compared to
how Muslims persecute the followers of other faiths. It was Muhammad, not the
Meccans, who ordered Muslims to leave their homes. He enticingly promised:
To those who leave their homes in the cause of Allâh, after suffering oppression, we
will assuredly give a goodly home in this world; but truly the reward of the
Hereafter will be greater. If they only realized (this)! (Q.16:41)
The immigrants had no source of income. How was Muhammad to
deliver this promise and give “goodly homes” to those who, at his behest, had
forsaken their homes They had become poor and relied on the charity of the
Medinans for sustenance. Muhammad was about to lose his credibility. His
followers were whispering their discontent. Some started to defect from his
camp. His response to all this was another threatening verse:
They [the unbelievers] long that you should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that
you may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they
forsake their homes in the way of Allâh; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them
and kill them wherever you find them, and choose neither friend nor helper from
among them. (Q.4:89)
How can we reconcile these friendship prohibitions and threats with the
claim that the Meccans had driven Muhammad and his followers out of their
homes In this verse, Muhammad is telling his followers to kill those Muslims
33 Sirat Ibn Ishaq, P.197
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