Muslims and Muhammad and Khaybar

At Muslims and Muhammad: the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could torture a young Jewish tribal leader to death to obtain his money, and then "marry" his 17-year old widow the same night, and be a prophet of God."

The city of Khaybar, located about 90 miles north of Medina in Saudi Arabia, was once a prosperous Jewish city. Unlike Medina, which contained both a Jewish and Arab population, history indicates that Khaybar was fully Jewish. The citizens were a rich community of traders as well as farmers, raising grapes, dates, vegetables and grain. They produced silk garments that were sold and known throughout the region, and also manufactured metal work implements and weapons.

The population of Khaybar increased significantly when Muhammad expelled the Jews from Medina, allowing them to take only what they could carry as he appropriated their wealth and property. As soon as Muhammad established the treaty of Hudabiya with the Quraysh of Mecca, thus eliminating them as a threat, he directed his army toward Khaybar. Islamic historians describe in detail how the Muslim army surprised the farmers of Khaybar early in the morning as they were heading to their fields to work, and how Muhammad captured one settlement after another with their rich supplies of grain and livestock.

A young man named Kinana was rumored to have some of the treasure that the Beni Nadir tribe had managed to take from Medina. Muhammad ordered Kinana to be tortured by lighting a fire on his chest to reveal where the treasure was located, and then had him beheaded. It is interesting that Muslim apologists defend Muhammad's earlier raids on the Quraysh by claiming the Quraysh had confiscated property left behind by Muhammad's followers when they emigrated from Mecca to Medina. How do they justify their Prophet stealing the little wealth that the Jews were able to carry with them after they were exiled from Medina to Khaybar?

Rather then removing the Jews from Khaybar or killing them, as he had done with the Jews of Medina, Muhammad allowed them to remain on their land with the provision that they give him fifty percent of all its produce. This is the first example of the well-known jizya tax, where non-Muslims are required to pay their Muslim rulers for the privilege of being allowed to stay alive. It is also the first instance of the dhimmi status, described by Muslims as "protection", granted to these second-class citizens who choose not to accept Islam. Muhammad made it clear to the Jews of Khaybar they would only be allowed to live there as long as he chose. After he gave his farewell sermon announcing that Islam would be the only religion allowed in Arabia, it did not take long for his successor Umar Ibn al-Khattab to forcibly send all the Jews of Khaybar to exile in Syria and Palestine. It is no wonder that the Jews of Fadak, a town near Khaybar, quickly sent emissaries to make peace with Muhammad, who allowed them to live under terms similar to those of Khaybar until they were also exiled by the Caliph Umar.

The murdered Kinana had a beautiful 17-year old bride named Safiya. Her father and brother had both been beheaded by Muhammad in Medina during the slaughter of the Beni Qurayza. Upon Kinana's death, Safiya was brought to Muhammad. Although another Muslim had first claimed her, Muhammad wanted her for himself and traded the other man two women for her. Muhammad then took Safiya to his tent, and had sex with her that night. He discovered in the morning that one of his warriors had spent the night guarding the tent. When Muhammad asked why he had done this, the soldier replied that he was concerned Safiya might try to harm the man who ravaged her sexually after having killed her father, brother, and husband.

Unbelievably, Muslims see this entire story of theft, torture, murder and rape as a wonderful example of Allah giving their Prophet victory over his enemies. To this day, Muslims at anti-Israel rallies in the West love to chant in Arabic, "Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Jahud, Jaysh al-Muhammad sa Yaoud." Translated, this is, "Remember Khaybar, Oh you Jews. The army of Muhammad will return."

I would encourage any Muslim woman reading this to put herself in Safiya's position, having no choice but to surrender sexually to the man 40 years her senior who had beheaded and tortured her father, brother, and husband. Can you really accept this man as your Prophet?

I cannot. It is impossible for me to believe that a man who acted as Muhammad did in Khaybar could be a prophet of God.

Muslims and Muhammad and Umm Qirfa

At Muslims and Muhammad: the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could sentence a woman to death by having her limbs attached to camels that moved in opposite direction pulling her apart, then behead her and parade her severed head through Medina, and be a prophet of God."

The story of Umm Qirfa has been dramatized at this link. For the historian, what is of significance is not the dramatization of her death, but its documentation in Islamic history.

In a lengthy account of all the raids led or ordered by Muhammad, historian Ibn Ishaq reports that the Prophet sent a force led by Zayd bin Haritha against the Beni Fazara tribe. It is interesting that Ibn Ishaq now describes Zayd as "the freed slave" of Muhammad; earlier in his book he had identified Zayd as "Zayd bin Muhammad", or Zayd the son of Muhammad. This changed when Muhammad claimed he had received a revelation making adoption illegal so he could marry Zayd's wife Zainab and adopted sons could no longer carry the names of their adopted fathers. At any rate, some of Zayd's soldiers were killed in the battle and he himself was wounded and carried from the field. Zayd swore he would not rest until he had gained revenge on the Beni Fazara, and as soon as he recovered from his wounds he again attacked them. This time he was successful and killed or captured the members of the tribe. One of the prisoners, described by Ibn Ishaq as "a very old woman", was Umm Qirfa whose family led the tribe. Ibn Ishaq limits himself to saying that "Zayd ordered Qays to kill Umm Qirfa, and he killed her cruelly". Historian al-Tabari adds the detail that "Qays put a rope to her two legs and to two camels, and drove them apart until they tore her apart". Muslim historian Kamel Najar informs us that Umm Qirfa's head was presented to Muhammad, who ordered it to be paraded throughout Medina.

A Muslim warrior named Salama took the beautiful daughter of Umm Qirfa as a captive. When Muhammad saw her, he asked Salama to give the girl to Muhammad's uncle Hazan. Hazan then "married" her and she gave birth to a son.

There are numerous other examples in Muhammad's life where wantom cruelty was expended on his enemies. One such account is given by a man named Amr bin Umayya, who was sent by Muhammad to kill arch-enemy Abu Sufyan before Abu Sufyan himself became a Muslim and subsequent leader of the Muslim armies. Amr and his companion tried to approach Abu Sufyan's house in Mecca, but were recognized and forced to flee for their lives with their Meccan pursuers close behind. They made their way back to Medina travelling by day and spending the nights in caves. Ibn Ishaq continues the account with Amr speaking as follows:

I went into a cave, and while I was there a one-eyed man also came into the cave with a sheep of his and asked me who I was. When we discovered we were from the same tribe, he laid down and began to sing, "I will not become a Muslim as long as I live." I said to myself, "I'll teach you", and as soon as he fell asleep I got up and killed him in a more horrible way than any man has been killed. I put the end of my bow in his one eye, and pushed it down until it came out at the back of his neck. After I left the cave, I came across two Meccans whom the Quraysh had sent to spy on the Apostle. I killed one of them, and bound the thumbs of the other together with my bow string and took him to the Apostle. When the Apostle looked at him, he laughed so hard you could see his back teeth. He asked my news, and when I told him what had happened he blessed me.

Another well-known incident of cruelty occured during Muhammad's raid upon the Jews of Khaybar. Believing that a young man named Kinana had access to hidden treasure, Ibn Ishaq writes: The Apostle asked Kinana where the rest of the treasure was, but he refused to produce it. The Apostle then gave the order to Zubayr to torture him until they extracted what he had. Zubayr kindled a fire with flint and steel on his chest until he was nearly dead. Then the Apostle delivered him to Muhammad bin Maslama, who cut off his head.

Still another incident is contained in the authoritative Bukhari collection of Hadiths. A group of eight men from the Ukil tribe came to Medina and professed to accept Islam. When they complained to Muhammad that Medina's climate was not good for them, Muhammad advised them to join the city's camel herders so they could regain their health by drinking an abundance of fresh camel milk. The men followed his advice but then murdered a herder, stole his camels and fled. Muhammad quickly pursued and captured them, and in punishment cut off their hands and feet, branded out their eyes with hot nails, and left them to die without water in the desert outside Medina.

There are some Muslims who recognize that these stories are troublesome. On an Egyptian talk show a few years ago one participant noted that militant Muslims such as the late Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi justified the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl because Muhammad himself beheaded people. The participant then said, "The problem is that the Ulema (Islamic scholars) have no answer for the militants who base their violence on Muhammad's actions. When these people say that Muhammad himself branded and plucked out the eyes of the thieves and cut off their hands and legs, what is the response (of the Ulema)? And this is what Muhammad did in some small peacetime conflict. What would he do in war?"

It's a good question, and one that can be answered by seeing what Muhammad's followers do to each other, let alone to the enemy, in places such as Baghdad where for months the Shia Jaysh al-Mahdi would bind the hands of their Sunni enemies behind their backs before drilling holes into their skulls, shooting them in the back, and dumping their bodies into the streets. It doesn't take much analysis to understand how they justify their actions based on the example of their Prophet.

I can't do that. It is impossible to me that a man who would treat his opponents with the cruelty that Muhammad did could possibly be a prophet of God.

Muslims and Muhammad and Asma bint Marwan

At Muslims and Muhammad: the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could be so fearful of criticism that he would send a man at night to kill the mother of a nursing child because of the poems she had written against him, and be a prophet of God."

I have written about Asma bint Marwan in three different contexts here, here, and here. For those unfamiliar with the story, she was a Jewish poetess whom Muhammad had killed because he felt threatened by her poetry.

What I find interesting, beyond the story herself, is how Muslims today react to it. An essential element of propaganda is to tell only certain sides of a story, leaving out information the propagandist does not consider conducive to the point he or she is trying to get across. A good example of this can be found at this Islamic website, where the author writes, "Any student of Islam knows that the life of Prophet Muhammad(saw) has been described in detail in what we call the “Ahadith”. Ahadith in whole are basically collected stories, events, actions of the Prophet(saw). However not all the stories transmitted down by a chain of narrators are 100 percent true. There are many sahih, hasan, da’eef (weak) ahadith. For Muslims it was very important to develop a science of hadith to separate truth from falsehood."

Author Ibrahim Saifuddin goes on to say that the account of Asma bint Marwan is only found in a few "weak" hadiths, and can therefore be discarded as a forgery.

There are four important things to keep in mind here. First is that the starting point for a Muslim in any discussion is the conviction that Muhammad is the perfect man. Any story that detracts from that image, such as that of Asma bint Marwan, must be either defended or denied.

The second point is that the "propagandist", in this case Ibrahim, deliberately presents only some factual information and leaves out other material that would weaken his case. The full account of Muhammad's raid against Asma bint Marwan is found neither in the Quran nor in the Hadith but in his Sirah or biography, which along with them forms the third authoritative source for information about him. An entire chapter of Ibn Ishaq's biography is entitled, "Ghazwat Umayr bin Uday al-Khatmi ala Asma bint Marwan", or the Raid of Umayr against Asma bint Marwan. The entire story is clearly told, from Muhammad's ordering Asma's death and then congratulating Umayr after he drove a spear through the poetess as she was sleeping with her nursing child, to Muhammad's caustic comment that she was not worth "two goats butting their heads together". My Arabic account adds the footnote, in case there was any doubt, "the Prophet was saying she was without significance".

The third thing is that Asma bint Marwan was not the only poet or critic killed by Muhammad. She was not an exception, but part of a pattern.

The final point is that nothing has changed in 1400 years. Just as Muhammad was unable to tolerate the criticism of a Jewish poetess during his lifetime, Muslims are incapable of handling criticism of their Prophet today. Whether it is the Danish cartoons, short movies such as Fitna or Submission, or anything related, the response is always the same. Muslims cannot see their Prophet as anything less than perfect, and criticize anyone who looks at him differently than they do.

I'm not limited by those restraints. As I carefully read the story of Asma bint Marwan, I cannot believe that the man who ordered her murder could be a Prophet of God.

Muslims and Muhammad and Slave Trading

At Muslims and Muhammad - the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could trade the Jewish wives and daughters of the men he had just beheaded for weapons and horses, and be a prophet of God."

Following Ibn Ishaq's description of Muhammad's beheading 600-900 Jewish men in Medina and dividing up their children, women, and property among the Muslims, discussed here, the Islamic historian continued as follows, "Then the Apostle sent Sa'd bin Zayd al-Ansari, brother of Abdel Ashhal, with some of the captive Jewish women of the tribe of Beni Qurayza to Najd, and he sold them for weapons and horses."

I would guess that 95 percent of Western Muslims would accuse anyone who described Muhammad as a slave trader as being a liar. Arabic Muslims in the Middle East, who know their own history much better than Westerners, do not deny but justify it.

How many captive Jewish women were taken as slaves to Najd and sold for weapons and horses? History does not record the number, but analysis can give a fair idea. Families were large in those days, so imagine that the average family contained six people, half of whom were female. As many as 900 males were beheaded, so easily 5,000 women and children could have remained. Muhammad's share of the booty was twenty percent, so 1,000 women and children could have been his. The others were divided among all of his followers, with the result that each Muslim received only a few slaves. Muhammad could not possibly utilize 1000 female slaves, so it is very likely that his own captives were the ones sent hundreds of miles across the desert to be traded for weapons and horses.

This is not an unreasonable number, because Ibn Ishaq elsewhere describes very large numbers of slaves captured and held by Muhammad. Following the capture of Taif, in which Muhammad's warriors for the first time used the catapult and a movable protective covering known as the testudo, the author notes that Muhammad held "six thousand women and children, and sheep and camels innumerable which had been captured from them". The women and children were returned to their husbands only after they accepted Islam. It is incredulous to imagine that these conversions, proclaimed to the man who had just captured their city, killed their peers, appropriated their property, stolen their livestock, and taken captive their wives and children, were motivated by true faith in Muhammad and Allah, but Muslims seem to have no trouble reaching that conclusion.

In the final analysis, of course, it makes do difference if the number of women and children sold was ten or ten thousand. I cannot believe that any understanding of the Golden Rule, which is treating others as you would want them to treat you, would justify selling even one person, much less a much larger number, for weapons and horses, and I cannot believe that a man who would do this could be a prophet of God.

Muslims and Muhammad and the Jews of Medina

At Muslims and Muhammad - the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could behead 800 Jewish men who had lived in his city for centuries for the simple reason they refused to accept him as their leader, and be a prophet of God."

Few people realize that Medina in Saudi Arabia once had a majority Jewish population, just as Jerusalem and Tel Aviv do today. The National Museum of Saudi Arabia in Riyadh, which I've had the opportunity to visit and tours of which are often included in the itinerary of visiting Heads of State, does not even mention the word Jew in discussing the history of Medina before or after Muhammad's immigration there in 623 AD. In keeping with the Muslim practice of considering all pre-Islamic history as that of jahiliya or ignorance, hundreds of years of Jewish history in Medina were wiped out as completely as the history of 1500 years of Buddhism in Afghanistan. The Quran states in numerous verses including 3:85 that no other religion than Islam is accepted by Allah, and Muslim conquerors had no interest in preserving the cursed religious history and documentation of those they conquered.

The result of this is that only scattered historical fragments remain of the Jewish presence in Medina. The first Jews may have arrived in the area after the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jews from Jerusalem in 586 BC. Successive colonies probably arrived after the Roman Emperor Pompey's attack upon Judea in 64 BC, the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 AD, and again following Hadrian's persecution of the Jews 70 years later. They developed prosperous settlements in the area later known as Medina, and were skilled farmers, merchants, and gold smiths. Two of their three main tribes traced their ancestry back to Aaron, brother of Moses, and their Rabbis and sacred scriptures kept their Jewish identify alive. Muhammad's own grandfather, Abdel-Mutalib, was sent as a young boy to learn religion from the Rabbis, and Muhammad himself referred to them as People of the Book in distinguishing them from their illiterate and uneducated Arab neighbors. These Arab tribes began to arrive in the region from Yemen in the two centuries before Muhammad, and would often raid and attack the Jews. In response the Jews would claim that a Prophet was coming among them who would help them gain revenge against their enemies, and this is what caused the first Arabs from Medina to become Muslims.

Islamic historian Ibn Ishaq describes it as follows: At the annual fair at Aqaba outside of Mecca, the Prophet met a number of the Khazraj tribe from Medina. They lived side by side with the Jews, who were people of the Scriptures and knowledge, while they themselves were polytheists and idolaters. They had often raided the Jews in their districts, and whenever bad feeling arose the Jews would tell them that a Prophet was coming and that when he came he would kill them all. When they heard Muhammad's message, the Khazraj said, "This is the prophet of whom the Jews warned us! Let's get to him before they do!" They then accepted his teaching and became Muslims.

Soon after, these same people invited Muhammad to come to Medina. He did so with the expectation that the Jews there would also accept him as a Prophet. When they did not he expelled the first two tribes and then beheaded 600-900 men of the final tribe in one day. The only males who escaped were young boys who showed no evidence of pubic hair. The Jewish women, children, and property were divided among the Muslims with Muhammad himself taking twenty percent.

At this link, I have described in more detail the politically-motivated conversion of the first converts from Medina. At Muhammad and the Jews, Parts One, Two, and Three, I have described in more detail Muhammad's dealings with the Jews in Medina. Muslims go to great lengths to justify this treatment, but the simple fact is they were exiled and slaughtered simply for refusing to accept him as a Prophet.

At this link is a very graphic video of a Muslim beheading a man in the name of Allah. It is amazing to me that any Muslim could watch this video, and then imagine Muhammad and his companions repeating this slaughter 900 times and throwing the heads of their victims into the trenches they had dug for them, and still revere Muhammad is a prophet of God. I cannot. I cannot believe that a man who would treat the Jews of Medina as Muhammad did for not accepting him as a Prophet could possibly be a Prophet from God.

Muslims and Muhammad and Empire Building

At Muslims and Muhammad - the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could call other men to follow him, and then watch them die one after the other in the battles he instigated to build his empire while giving them promises of the sensual Paradise that awaited them, and be a prophet of God."

The knowledge many Muslims have of Muhammad begins with his first claimed revelation in the cave of Hira when he was about 40 years old, but a better understanding of his personality and motivation comes with a study of his family's history beginning five generations earlier when his ancestor Qusay married the daughter of the Quraysh tribal leader and purchased the keys of the Kaaba for a flagon of wine and a camel. The Kaaba housed the tribal gods of many local tribes, and was a source of revenue as worshippers offered donations to visit the buidling and pray to their idols.

Qusay's leadership of the Quraysh and control of the Kaaba passed through the succeeding generations of Abdel-Manaf and Abu-Hashim. Abu-Hashim, who was Muhammad's great-grandfather, married a woman from Medina and sent their son Abdel-Mutalib to Medina specifically to learn horsemanship and religion from the Jewish rabbis who lived there. As a result of his time with the rabbis and his study of Jewish history, Abdel-Mutalib learned two principles that he in turned passed on to his young grandson Muhammad. First was a belief in monotheism, and second was the concept of the prophet-king exhibited by King David and other ancient Jewish rulers. To control both the religious and secular life of his subjects, a leader needed to be first accepted as a prophet and then as a king. Although Muhammad was only 8 years old when Abdel-Mutalib died, there are several Hadiths that indicate that Abdel-Mutalib preferred his young grandson even above his own ten sons, and recognized the potential of leadership in the young Muhammad.

The power and influence of the Beni Hashim had greatly decreased in the four generations between Abu-Hashim and Muhammad, and the young orphaned Muhammad only had memories passed through oral tradition of his family's past leadership in Mecca. At the same time, other Arab tribes throughout Arabia and Yemen were successfully forming unions and kingdoms (I have discussed this at this link). The year before Muhammad's first revelation, there was an unprecedented Arab victory over the Persians at Dhi Qar in present day Iraq, and about the same time a Yemeni tribe forced the Ethiopians from their territory in southern Yemen. It became apparent to Muhammad that a united Quraysh tribe could form a political entity that would challenge the surrounding kingdoms. It was for this reason that Muhammad promised his first converts in Mecca that if they followed him, the treasures of the Roman and Persian Emperors would be theirs.

Muhammad spent the first thirteen years of his career trying to find a tribe that would accept him, in the tradition of King David, as first a prophet and then a king. When the Quraysh refused, Muhammad approached tribes in nearby cities such as Taif and at annual tribal gatherings to urge them to accept him as their leader. He was finally successful when Abbas Ibn Ubada and some others from Medina accepted his leadership hoping it would give them an advantage over local Jewish tribes with whom they existed in enmity. When Abbas Ibn Ubada asked Muhammad what they would get for following him, Muhammad answered with one word, "Paradise."

Historian Ibn Ishaq in great detail gives the names of many of Muhammad's early followers, both from Mecca and later in Medina. He also carefully lists the names of those who died in Muhammad's battles at Badr, Uhud, and many other battlegrounds throughout Arabia and extending to Syria. Many of Muhammad's first converts, including his son Zayd, were dead within a few years.

Muslim and Muslim apologists defend these battles as defensive and necessary for the survival of the Muslim community, but it is impossible to read them carefully in the words of Islam's early historians and conclude they were in any way defensive.

Umayyah ibn Abu Salt, a contemporary of Muhammad whose poetry was both admired and copied by Muhammad into the Quran, never accepted Islam. While passing a graveyard where the Muslim victims of the battle of Badr were buried, Umayyah said according to the Hadith, "I cannot believe that a man who leads his own tribal members to death can be a prophet of God."

I agree. I don't believe that Muhammad was necessarily any better or worse than an innumerable number of other warlords, political leaders, or empire builders who have lived after him or who are alive today. But I don't accept them as prophets. I find it impossible to believe that a man who would lead his followers to battle and death as Muhammad did, while offering them promises of the Paradise awating them, could be a Prophet of God.

Muslims and Muhammad and Mary the Copt

At Muslims and Muhammad - the Impossible Task, I posted, "It is impossible that a man could lie to his wife to get her out of the house so that he could sleep with the slave girl he had given her as a gift, and be a prophet of God."

I have noticed that the notes and commentary contained in English translations of the Quran intended for Western audiences are much different than explanatory notes found in Arabic editions of the Quran intended for readers in the Middle East. One notable example is the explanation given to surah 66 of the Quran, entitled Prohibition, which I discussed in a related posting here. This is the chapter in which Muhammad responds to a marital conflict (which in itself is an interesting phrase; "marital conflict" usually refers to a disagreement between a man and his wife - what do you call it when it is a man at disaccord with a dozen wives?) by reminding his wives that if he divorced them all, Allah would probably give him a better set the second time around.

The cause of this conflict is what I find interesting. English translations of Prohibition quote a Hadith in which Aisha explained that Muhammad stayed overtime one day with wife number six Zainab because she had some honey he really liked. Aisha, Hafsah, and the other wives, who were jealous about the amount of time he spent with Zainab, agreed among themselves that when the prophet came to them they would claim the honey had given him bad breath. When they did this, Muhammad promised he would never eat honey again. That night, however, Allah came to his rescue with surah 66, releasing him of his promise to not eat honey and adding the threat that these complaining wives could easily be replaced with some who were better.

It's really quite a silly story, but accepted as truth by millions of non-Arabic speaking Muslims who know little of their own history and have never read the original accounts of Muhammad's life written by the first historians. The actual account, as written by historian Ibn Sa'd and noted in Arabic renditions of the Quran, is quite different. It has a lot to do with sex, deception, lies and threats, and nothing at all to do with honey.

As Muhammad's armies succeeded in one raid after another against the Arab tribes of Arabia, he was finally able to put into plan the dream he had harbored since the first days of announcing his Prophethood. One of his initial messages to his early converts was that if they followed him, the treasures of the Roman and Sassanid Empires would be theirs. When Muhammad reached the point of being able to put his plan of expansion into action, he began writing letters to the leaders of neighboring countries giving them the choice of either accepting Islam or preparing for invasion.

Muhammad's letter to the Roman ruler in Egypt, known as Muqawqas, contained the following, "I invite you to accept Islam if you want security. If you refuse to do so, you will bear the burden of the transgressions of all the Coptic Christians." Since the Quran had already stated in 5:72 that all who believed Jesus was the Son of God were kafirs or infidels, the transgressions of millions of Christian Copts over 600 years would have been quite high.

In his response to Muhammad, Muqawqas diplomatically declined the offer to accept Islam, and informed the Prophet he was sending him as a gift two young girls who came from noble Coptic families (incidentally, Muqawqas paid dearly for his refusal to accept Islam; within a dozen years Muslim armies had invaded and conquered Egypt). Muhammad was smitten with the black hair and fair skin of one of them, Mary, and gave her as a slave to one of his wives, Hafsah.

Historian Ibn Sa'd relates the rest of the story. Muhammad went to Hafsah's room one day and was again overwhelmed with the beauty of Mary the Copt. He informed Hafsah that her father, Umar Ibn al-Khattab, wanted to see her and Hafsah left for his house. After she arrived there and realized that Muhammad had lied to her, Hafsah returned to her room to find the door locked. When the door was opened, it was apparent that her husband had just had sex with her slave. Muhammad responded to her anger by promising her he would never do this again, but warned her not to repeat the story to any of his other wives. In disobedience to Muhammad, Hafsah informed Aisha of the incident. Muhammad found out and very quickly received the surah of Prohibition, which not only absolved him of his promise to not again sleep with Mary but also threatened all of his wives with divorce if they did not shape up.

Muslims have no problem with this story from the life of their Prophet, seeing nothing in his behavior to shake their belief in him as the perfect man. I see it differently. I cannot believe that a man could treat Hafsah and Mary the way Muhammad did and be a prophet of God.