16
Muhammad was undoubtedly one of the great men of history in the sense that had he not existed the whole history of mankind might have been different. But, in the words of Popper,657 “if our civilisation is to survive, we must break with the habit of deference to great men. Great men make great mistakes.” Though Islamic dogma has portrayed him as sinless, Muhammad never claimed perfection or infallibility for himself. As Tor Andrae said, this is one of his most likable characteristics; he was always aware of his own shortcomings and was capable of self-criticism.
Muhammad was a man of great charm. More than one source speaks of his irresistible smile and the great charisma that was able to inspire loyalty and affection in his men. He was also a military leader of genius, and a statesman with tremendous powers of persuasion and diplomacy. What exactly were his achievements? Montgomery Watt, one of the few Western scholars who has unqualified admiration bordering on worship for Muhammad, sums up his achievements in this manner:658 “In the first place he had what might be termed the gifts of a seer. He was aware of the deep religious roots of the social tensions and malaise at Mecca, and he produced a set of ideas which, by placing the squabbles of Mecca in a wider frame, made it possible to resolve them to some degree.”
Let us stop there and see what Watt’s claims amount to. We have already referred to the theories of Bousquet and Crone that refute the notion that Mecca was at the time undergoing some spiritual crisis. Here I will quote Margoliouth659 who also anticipated Watt’s arguments nearly fifty years earlier, only to refute them himself. Margoliouth pointed out that the pre-Islamic Arabs beliefs were more than sufficient for their spiritual needs, and there is no evidence of a social malaise:
But that the fetishism of the Arabs was otherwise insufficient for their religious needs is an assertion which does not admit of proof. A god is an imaginary being who can do good or harm; and everything goes to show that the Arabs who had not seen the great world were firmly convinced that their gods or goddesses could do both.... So far as the religious sentiment required gratification, there is no evidence to show that paganism failed to gratify it. We gather from the inscriptions of the pagan Arabs that a wealth of affection and gratitude was bestowed upon their gods and patrons.
Professor Watt continues:660 “The ideas he proclaimed eventually gave him a position of leadership, with an authority not based on tribal status but on ‘religion.’ Because of his position and the nature of his authority, clans and tribes which were rivals in secular matters could all accept him as leader. This in turn created a community whose members were all at peace with one another.”
Here, for once, I feel that Watt is not doing full justice to Muhammad’s real achievement and, moreover, confusing theory and practice. As Goldziher661 said, “Muhammad was the first man of their kind who said to the people of Mecca and the unbridled masters of the Arabian desert that forgiveness was no weakness but a virtue and that to forgive injustice done to oneself was not contrary to the norms of true ‘muruwwa’ [virtue] but was the highest muruwwa—was walking in Allah’s road.”
Only by insisting on forgiveness was Muhammad able to persuade the tribes and clans to accept the idea that from now on Islam, rather than tribal affiliation, was to be the unifying principle of society. For up to then, the tribes had been divided by centuries of blood feuds, revenge killings, retaliation, and animosity. Muhammad taught the equality of all believers before Allah. Unfortunately, theory is one thing and practice another. First, Muhammad himself did not practice what he preached. Far too often, in his behavior toward the Jews, the Meccans, and his rivals, Muhammad gave vent to his cruel tendencies, with no sign of forgiveness. Bukhari662 gives this instance of Muhammad’s cruelty:
Some of the people of the tribe of Ukl came to the Prophet and embraced Islam; but the air of Medina did not agree with them, and they wanted to leave the place. And the Prophet ordered them to go where the camels given in alms were assembled, and to drink their milk which they did, and recovered from their sickness. But after this they became apostates, and renounced Islam, and stole the camels. Then the Prophet sent some people after them, and they were seized and brought back to Medina. Then the Prophet ordered their hands and their feet to be cut off as punishment for theft, and their eyes to be pulled out. But the Prophet did not stop the bleeding, and they died.
William Muir663 sums up some of the other atrocities recounted—it must be borne in mind, by impeccable Muslim authorities such as Ibn Ishaq and Al-Tabari:
Magnanimity or moderation are nowhere discernible as features in the conduct of Muhammad toward such of his enemies as failed to tender a timely allegiance. Over the bodies of the Quraish who fell at Badr he exulted with savage satisfaction; and several prisoners, accused of no crime but of scepticism and political opposition were deliberately executed at his command. The Prince of Khaibar, after being subjected to inhuman torture for the purpose of discovering the treasures of his tribe was, with his cousin, put to death on the pretext of having treacherously concealed them, and his wife was led away captive to the tent of the conqueror. Sentence of exile was enforced by Muhammad with rigorous severity on two whole Jewish tribes at al-Madinah; and of a third, likewise his neighbors, the women and children were sold into distant captivity, while the men, amounting to several hundreds,were butchered in cold blood before his eyes.
Finally, Watt paints an absurdly rosy picture of tribal harmony under Muhammad’s leadership. The preceding example of Muhammad’s cruelty will do equally as an illustration of the fact that not all tribes accepted his leadership. Again, Goldziher has shown how intertribal rivalry continued long after Islam had condemned it. As I have already discussed Arab versus Arab rivalry, I will not dwell on it here. Muhammad certainly did not leave a united nation at his death. This is borne out by the wars of succession; the second, third, and fourth caliphs all were assassinated. The assassination of Uthman in 656 led to much chaos and bloody anarchy, and for this reason was known as “al-Bab al-Maftuh,” “the door opened [to civil warfare].”
As Margoliouth said: “The Prophet undoubtedly wished to make Muslim life as sacrosanct within the Muslim world as in the old tribal system the tribesman’s life had been within the tribe; but in this he failed, since his first followers eventually waged civil war with each other, and in the history of Islam the victims of massacres by Muslim Sultans have frequently been Muslim communities, and, indeed, families claiming descent from the Prophet himself.”664
Watt665 continues: “To prevent their warlike energies from disrupting the community the conception of the jihad or Holy War directed these energies outwards against non-Muslims.”
Watt is not alone in admiring the Arab expansion and the rise of the subsequent Islamic empire. Imperialism is not much in fashion now, but hardly anyone bothers to criticize the Islamic variety that resulted in such death and destruction, described in a previous chapter. How Watt can consider the holy war, whose express purpose is to exterminate paganism, kill unbelievers, and conquer by military means other people’s land and possessions, as a great moral achievement to be admired is a mystery to me.
Muhammad’s Sincerity
A vast amount of useless ink has been spilled on the question of Muhammad’s sincerity. Was he a knowing fraud or did he sincerely believe that all the “revelations” that constitute the Koran were direct communications from God? Even if we allow Muhammad total sincerity, I do not see how it can possibly matter to our moral judgment of his character. One can sincerely hold beliefs that are false. More important, one can sincerely hold beliefs that are immoral or not worthy of respect. Certain racists sincerely believe that Jews should be exterminated. How does their sincerity affect our moral condemnation of their beliefs? It seems that “sincerity” plays a similar role to the “insanity plea” made in modern courtrooms, by lawyers wishing to exonerate their villainous clients. On this question, the least that Muhammad can get away with is self-deception, something that even Watt666 recognizes: “It should be clear that, even if true, the alleged fact that the revelations fitted in with Muhammad’s desires and pandered to his selfish pleasure would not prove him insincere; it would merely show him to be capable of self-deception.” In other words, if he was sincere, then he was also incredibly self-deluded, if not sincere, then he was an impostor. Apologists who have argued that Muhammad was an astute politician, a realist, a brilliant statesman, a great judge of character, a wise lawgiver and superb diplomat, perfectly sober, and not given to epileptic fits, cannot now suddenly plead that Muhammad was also capable of extraordinary self-deception. Thus the conclusion forces itself upon us that in later life, he consciously fabricated “revelations,” often for his own convenience, to sort out his domestic problems. At the same time, one can unhesitatingly agree with so many scholars that at Mecca, Muhammad was totally honest and sincere in his conviction that he had conversed with the deity. But it cannot under any circumstances be denied that at Medina, his conduct and the nature of his revelations changed. Muir667admirably sums up this period of Muhammad’s life:
Messages from heaven were freely brought down to justify political conduct, in precisely the same manner as to inculcate religious precept. Battles were fought, executions ordered, and territories annexed, under cover of the Almighty’s sanction. Nay, even personal indulgences were not only excused but encouraged by the divine approval or command. A special license was produced, allowing the Prophet many wives; the affair with Mary the Coptic bondmaid was justified in a separate sura; and the passion for the wife of his own adopted son and bosom friend was the subject of an inspired message in which the Prophet’s scruples were rebuked by God, a divorce permitted, and marriage with the object of his unhallowed desires enjoined. If we say that such “revelations” were believed by Mahomet sincerely to bear the divine sanction, it can only be in a modified and peculiar sense. He surely must be held responsible for that belief; and, in arriving at it, have done violence to his judgement and better principles of his nature.
The casual way that Muhammad produced revelations in his later phase is illustrated by this anecdote. Umar, later the second caliph, once went to the Prophet and remonstrated with him for saying prayers for his enemy, Abdallah Ibn Ubbay. While Umar wondered if he had gone too far in criticizing the Prophet, the latter produced a revelation, “Do not pray over any of them who dies at any time, neither should you stand upon his grave.”
To Umar the coincidence did not apparently suggest the remotest suspicion; to us the revelation appears to have been nothing more than a formal adoption of a suggestion of Umar, which the Prophet supposed to represent public opinion. On another occasion when Umar (or another) bethought him of having the Call to Prayer, so as to avoid imitation of Jews and Christians, he communicated the suggestion to the Prophet, he found that he had been just anticipated by the Angel Gabriel. On three other occasions he claimed to have coincided with Allah; having made a suggestion to the Prophet, he was presently told that a revelation had come down embodying his idea in his own words. The occurrence flattered his vanity, but suggested no suspicion of imposture. Other followers were perhaps less simple, but were aware of the danger of ridiculing the Koran. Quarrels occasionally arose between Moslems owing to the fact that the Koran had been repeated to them in different forms, and each naturally claimed that his version only was correct: the Prophet, never at a loss, asserted that the Koran had been revealed in no fewer than seven texts.668
“One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will,” wrote Russell.669 Unfortunately, both Muhammad and the Muslims suffered from this delusion. Only Muslims were guaranteed salvation—indeed, salvation outside Islam was unthinkable. God had chosen them to spread the Message to mankind.
Moral Reforms
Muhammad has to his credit the abolition of the ancient custom of burying female infants alive. But whether he also ameliorated the general conditions of women is difficult to assess because of our lack of knowledge of pre-Islamic practices. Nonetheless, some scholars have asserted that women under Islam were definitely worse off than before. Perron in his classic Femmes Arabes Avant et Depuis L’Islamisme tells us that the position of women since Islam has seriously deteriorated, and they have lost their former intellectual and moral position:
Certain prerogatives that Islam abolished formed a part of the natural rights of women, and which had formerly given her greater powers of action and freedom. The Arab pagan woman former times had liberty of her person, a choice in the place of her marriage; she looked or waited for a husband whom she found at her pleasure, out of intellectual sympathy as well as other affinities.
However it would be churlish not to mention that some scholars, such as Bousquet, believe that Muhammad did his best to improve the conditions of women but did not go far enough; As Lane Poole put it, “Muhammad might have done better.” Certainly, in the matter of property, the woman, under Islam is the equal of the man. In every other way, she is man’s inferior.
But equally, Bousquet points out the disastrous example set by Muhammad in his marriage to Aisha, when she was only nine years old. This custom of child marriages has persisted to modern times and can lead to tragic consequences. But Muslims are reluctant to criticize a habit established by the Prophet.
Muhammad also introduced another institution that led to serious evil, namely, the institution of compensation for oaths.
At sura xvi.93 there is a commandment to keep oaths, but in sura v.91 this rule is modified by the introduction of the principle of compensation, whereby the violation of an oath may be atoned by some other performance; and in sura lxvi this new principle is confirmed and applied to a case wherein the Prophet himself is concerned.... It has had the decidedly serious result that there appears to be no mode known to Mohammedan law whereby an oath can be made legally binding; for not only does the Koran expressly state that the performance of certain charitable acts will serve as a substitute for specific performance, but the Prophet is credited with the maxim according to which if a man having taken an oath to do something discovers some preferable course, he is to take that preferable course and make compensation.671
Otherwise, Muhammad’s life is full of contradictions, showing that he was often ready to compromise his principles for political gain or power, as when he agreed to erase his title “Apostle of God” from a document, because it stood in the way of the ratification of a treaty. He rails against idolatry, yet incorporates all the idolatrous practices of pagan Arabs into the ceremonies of the pilgrimage—such as the kissing of the Black Stone. He abolishes the arrow game as superstition, and yet he seems to have kept the superstitions of his ancestors—he attached great importance to omens, especially those connected with names. He firmly believed in the evil-eye and the possibility of averting it by means of charms. Parents are held in high honor in the early suras, but when the younger generation was joining Muhummad against the wishes of their parents, such filial devotion toward their unbelieving parents was thought undesirable; therefore, suddenly youths were forbidden to pray for their parents. Muhammad’s encouragement of the shedding of kindred blood also had a disastrous influence on his followers. While on the whole the Koran does preach moderation in many things, it does become more and more intolerant as it proceeds. The assassination of Muhammad’s enemies was, unfortunately, quoted as precedents in the traditions and used even in modern times by the apologists of Khomeini wishing to defend his call for the murder of Rushdie. In the words of Margoliouth,672 “the experiences of the Prophet’s life, the constant bloodshed which marked his career at Medina, seem to have impressed his followers with a profound belief in the value of bloodshed as opening the gates of Paradise.” It is difficult to realize the extent to which so many Muslim governors, caliphs, and viziers, such as Hajjaj or Mahmud of Ghazni, referred to the example of Muhammad to justify their killings, looting, and destruction—“kill, kill the unbelievers, wherever you find them.” As Margoliouth said, “we cannot fail to find the source of this most painful feature of Islam (the shedding of blood) throughout its history in the Prophet’s massacres of his opponents, and in the theory of the Koran that copious bloodshed is the characteristic of a true prophet at a certain stage of his career.” Western freethinkers, such as Russell, find Jesus Christ less admirable than Socrates or the Buddha. What do they reproach him with? Among other things, for having cursed a fig-tree, causing it to wither and die, while apologists of Islam, Western and Muslim, are trying to excuse the murders perpetrated by Muhammad. I certainly cannot put Muhammad on the same moral plane as Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius, or, for that matter, Jesus Christ.
Perhaps the worst legacy of Muhammad was his insistence that the Koran was the literal word of God, and true once and for all, thereby closing the possibility of new intellectual ideas and freedom of thought that are the only way the Islamic world is going to progress into the twenty-first century.