Muhammad as the Precise Model for Murder of Dissidents

Are the self-righteous slaughters of dissenters part of Islam or not?

Denis MacEoin Addresses this from the history of Muhammad's life and actions.

"There is an inspiration for attacks like those on writers, cartoonists, and film-makers: France's Charlie Hebdo journalists; Amsterdam's Theo van Gogh; Denmark's Kurt Westergaard, Carsten Juste, and Flemming Rose, and Sweden's Lars Vilks -- as well as the assassination attempt on the Nobel Prize winning Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz and the fatwa for the murder of the British writer Salman Rushdie. The inspiration for this behavior is not that the Prophet Muhammad was lampooned or criticized or mocked. The inspiration for this behavior is that Muhammad himself would have ordered or approved such attacks as revenge for assaults on his honour.

How can one make such an outrageous suggestion? The answer is that Muhammad did exactly the same thing -- many, many times. This may appear to be an Islamophobic calumny, perhaps something concocted by medieval churchmen in Europe (who did make up some fancy legends about Muhammad), but it is solidly recorded in the almost canonical biography of the Prophet by Ibn Hisham and in the canonical collections of prophetic traditions (hadith) by Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.[3]

Shortly after his move from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE, for instance, when he became the effective ruler of the town, opponents emerged in the Jewish and wider communities. Poets wrote lampoons and disrespectful verses. Muhammad had them killed. Not just poets, but almost anyone who disagreed with him and his "revelations."

In 624, for example, a Jewish poet named Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf wrote verses condemning the killing of notables from Mecca. He later became a one-man Charlie Hebdo, writing obscene and erotic verses about the Muslim women. Muhammad took offense and instructed one of his companions, Muhammad ibn Maslama, to assassinate Ka'b. When Ibn Maslama expressed doubts about having to lie to Ka'b in order to trick him into going with him, Muhammad told him lying was permissible for such purposes. Ibn Maslama and some other Muslims went out with Ka'b under false pretenses and murdered him.

Ka'b ibn al-Ahraf was not Muhammad's only victim. The poets Asma' bint Marwan (a woman), Abu Afak, and Al-Nadir ibn al-Harith, and Abu Rafi' ibn Abi Al-Huqaiq were all assassinated in the same year for the same offence of mockery. In the next few years, several other poets were killed, such as Abdullah ibn Zib'ari, Al-Harith bin al-Talatil, Hubayra, Ka'b ibn Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulama, and Huwayrith ibn Nafidh. Abdullah bin Khatal and two of his slave girls were murdered for having recited poems insulting the Prophet. There is a list in WikiIslam of 43 people -- as well as all the men from the Jewish tribe of the Banu Qurayza -- who were killed on Muhammad's orders or whose murders were sanctioned by him."

As MacEoin has pointed out, not only are the killings of dissenters justified by the exact same actions of Muhammad, but also lying about them is justified by Muhammad's own words.

The entire "religion of peace" concept is purely propaganda, a lie for expediency just as Muhammad approved; Muhammad was a vicious autocratic tyrant, a murderer, liar and pedophile. These are the ideals of Islam, as exemplified in their prophet. When the western politicians deny this, they are either deluded or terrified of the truth. Both of those will lose to the realities, as they become more boldly expressed by Islamics.