The Heart's Witness Against Muhammad: Safiya and the Law of Booty

10/23/2012

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might be noted that this was not the first time Muhammad had ruined Safiya's peace. Safiya's father, Huyayy ibn Akhtab, had been one of the chiefs of the Jewish Banu al-Nadir tribe. He was, moreover, an implacable foe of Muhammad, and he suffered death at Muhammad's bloody hand.

Similarly, her uncle Abu Yasir suffered death at Muhammad's sanguinary policies. Huyayy and Yasir and their tribe, which would have included Safiya, had been forced to emigrate from Medina and settled at Khaibar.

Eventually, Huyayy was captured, taken to Medina, and, bound hand and neck by rope and in a tattered flowered robe, put to death (by decapitation) along with between 600 to 800 of his fellow tribesmen. Safiya's relationship with her father and her uncle had been close, as based upon her testimony, she was the favorite of both her father and her uncle.

According to Sahih Bukhari 2.14.68, Safiya was captured at the battle of Khaibar and allotted to Dihya al-Kalbi, but the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad made arrangements to have this young, attractive seventeen-year-old to be given to him, apparently being struck with her great beauty. (See Sahih Muslim 8.3329, Sahi Bukhari 3.34.437)

Safiya, in fact, is an example of how Muhammad had different categories of relationships with women. Originally, his sexual rights over her were as a result of her being a captive of war. She was one of those whom his right hand possessed. Qur�an 33:50. Subsequently, she became one of Muhammad's wives, apparently his ninth, her freedom or manumission being considered the dowry or mahr since all her family was slain and so no one could pay her dowry. (Sahih Bukhari 5.59.524, 1.8.367) Although it is not clear when Muhammad married her, it was shortly after his conquest of the town of Khaibar. This means that he would have had sexual relations with Safiya by right of capture prior to that marriage and while the death of her husband and his beheaded and burnt corpse was fresh on her mind.

It is impossible to believe that the seventeen-year-old captive Safiya engaged in sexual relations with the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad, murderer of her father, her uncle, her husband, and her male kinsmen of her own free will and happily. It is not likely that her marriage (and her conversion to Islam) was much of a choice either. These were survival tactics of a woman who had no real choice. Muhammad's behavior toward Safiya is nothing less than exploitative and clearly a form of rape.

Indeed, Ibn Ishaq relates how there was initially some fear for Muhammad's life from this relationship, though Muhammad seemed oblivious to it. On the night of her marriage to Muhammad, the faithful Abu Ayyub stood guard outside the tent of Muhammad, and when Muhammad saw him and inquired why Abu Ayyub did so, the latter replied: "I was afraid for you with this woman for you have killed her father, her husband, and her people, and till recently she was in unbelief, so I was afraid for you on her account." (Ibn Ishaq, pp. 241-42). Had Safiya loved Muhammad, or had she been pleased with her situation, whence this fear on the part of Abu Ayyub?

Particularly abhorrent is Muhammad's self-justification, nay, self-adulation regarding his treatment of Safiya. Apparently, the nearly sixty-year-old Muhammad believed that in emancipating the seventeen-year-old Safiya (a woman whose father, uncle, and husband he had caused to be killed, whom his men had captured, and whom he then traded for and treated as a captive over whom he had sexual rights) and in marrying her he was building himself two rewards in Paradise.

Abu Musa reported according to Sahih Muslim 8.3327, that Muhammad maintained that he who freed a slave woman and then married her would obtain two rewards in paradise. The self-adulation of Muhammad in his doing wrong is evidentiary of an utterly blind conscience and an errant, perhaps narcissistic personality.

Poor Safiya who was forced to satisfy the sexual yearnings of Muhammad, the slaughterer of her father, uncle, husband, male kinsmen and tribesmen, and the captor and trader of her female cousins and friends, who handed them out to his minions as if chattel. But-when it comes to female "booty"-Allah knows best, Alahu 'a'lam, the natural law notwithstanding.

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Andrew M. Greenwell is an attorney licensed to practice law in Texas, practicing in Corpus Christi, Texas. He is married with three children. He maintains a blog entirely devoted to the natural law called Lex Christianorum. You can contact Andrew at agreenwell@harris-greenwell.com.
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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Muhammad, natural law, safiya, polygamy, concubinage, Andrew M Greenwell, Esq.

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1 - 9 of 9 Comments

Kathy
6 months ago
Benedictus..you are a muslim. No christian would ever call muhammad as a "prophet" because he was never such thing: he killed, lied, slaughtered, terrorised, maimed,abused, raped, cummited theft, adultery, poligamy, pedophilia, bestiality, amongst many other horrible things, all unproper of a prophet of god.he also never gave any pophecies or performed any miracles:that really shows what he is all about an islam, doesn't it?
Andrew M. Greenwell
7 months ago
@Benedictus. The article does not distort the truth, but presents a fair depiction of Muhammad as related in the Qur'an, the Sunna, and the Sira. Those who follow Muhammad's wrongful moral behavior engage in wrongful moral behavior. The fact that Muhammad engaged in wrongful behavior does not excuse the wrongful behavior, although ignorance may mitigate the subjective guilt of the actor.

Vatican II did not say a word about Muhammad. Nowhere did it suggest that what Muhammad taught was true. Nowhere did it hold him out to be a good example, a trustworthy moral teacher, or inspired.

In Vatican II, the Church tried to focus on those aspects of Islam that are positive: (1) belief in one God, (2) belief in the final judgment, (3) belief in God's mercy, (4) acknowledgment of Jesus (but only as a prophet, a gross error), and (5) they venerate Mary. This is hardly a wholesale endorsement of Islam as a system.

On the moral life, the Church pointed out those aspects of Islam that are morally commendable: (1) prayer, (2) charity, and (3) fasting. It certainly did not approve the entire morality of Islam by selecting and pointing out those aspects that are good,

The Church did not hold Islam to be an Abrahamic faith, rather it noted that the Muslims "profess to hold the faith of Abraham." To profess to hold the faith of Abraham is different from actually holding the faith of Abraham. I can profess to be innocent of a crime even while guilty of it.

It should be noted that the Catholic Church teaches that no human being will be saved as a result of Islam or the teachings of Muhammad, but, if any such one is saved by the grace of God, it will be despite the teachings of Islam and Muhammad, The Church teaches, and will always teach, what St. Peter proclaimed almost 2000 years ago: salvation must be in Christ and his Church: "Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)
Benedictus Quebecensis
7 months ago
This article is a distortion of the truth and a calumnious attack on the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him). It suggests by inference that Muslims who follow the teachings of the Qur'an with regard to Muhammad and who are guided by the Prophetic Traditions (ahadith) that have come down to them are just as contemptible as the author makes out Muhammad to be. Such an inference conflicts with the plain teaching of the Catholic Catechism on Muslims.

"841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. 'The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God,
mankind's judge on the last day'."

Source:

Surely, if the author is correct, it follows that Muslims in obeying and venerating Muhammad have failed in their obligation to hold in high regard the moral life. However, Vatican II teaches that Muslims do indeed hold in high regard the moral life. The Council declared:

"The Church regards with respect the Muslims, who worship the One, Living, Subsistent, Merciful, Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth, who spoke to men. They strive to submit wholeheartedly to God's commandments...even as Abraham submitted himself to God, whose obedience is often recalled in the Islamic religion. Although they do
not recognize Jesus as God, they do venerate him as a prophet and they honour his virgin mother, Mary.... They await the Day of Judgment, when God will reward all those risen from the dead. THEY HOLD IN HIGH REGARD THE MORAL LIFE and worship God, particularly by prayer, charity and fasting."

The Catholic priest and erstwhile theologian Hans Kung put it this way:

"If the Catholic Church, according to the Vatican II “Declaration on Non-Christian Religions”, “regards with esteem the Muslims”, then the same church must also respect the one whose name [Muhammad] is embarrassingly absent from the same declaration, although he and he alone led the Muslims to pray to this one God, for through him this God “has spoken to humanity”....
Andrew M. Greenwell
7 months ago
@Tom: To be sure, the Old Testament, even the patriarchs, engage in some behavior that is not perfect. Abraham's relationship with his slavewoman Hagar, for example, or David's actions with Bathsheba, or Solomon's concubines. You mention Judith. Even in the New Testament there is human failure, e.g., Peter's denial of Christ or Juda's betrayal of Jesus. I would say a number of things regarding these. First, the activity of these figures' behavior when it deviated from the natural law or the Commandments was never held out as something we should imitate. Usually, they are pointed out as faults. For example, I do not think either in Judaism and certainly not in Christianity that Abraham's relationship with Hagar was used to justify concubinage as virtuous. Abraham is set out as an example of faith, not relationships with slave women. He has never been held out as someone to justify concubinage. Second, there is a certain gradualism in revelation, where doctrine and morals are progressively purged of foreign or immoral elements. So, for example, marriage. Whereas some of the patriarchs seem to have accepted polygamy, by the time of Christ monogamy had become the norm among the Jews. In Muhammad' time, the Jews in Arabia were monogamous, and one of the criticisms the Jews levied against Muhammad was that he seemed to love women, was polygamous, and that such behavior was unseemly if not contradictory to his claim to be a prophet. Finally, the Old Testament stories must be understood within the light of the revelation of Christ and Christ's sublime example and sublime teachings. Understood in Christ, the deviations or failures certainly lose any moral normative quality since they have to be understood within Christ's teachings. The problem with Muhammad is that his deviations are literally understood to be normative, exemplary, and virtuous. The traditionalist Muslims reasoning is this: Muhammad sets the standard. Nothing he did or taught as wrong. Case closed. The natural law be damned.
Gregorio
7 months ago
This is a fenomenal honest article about the REAL islam,the real muhammad..thanks for posting it and keep them coming.people need to be educated about the absolute danger and evil muhammad is, was and always will be with all his false doctrines and self-aduling false and evil religion of islam.
MaryAnn
7 months ago
Wow. I knew he was bad but I didn't know he was completely amoral. I never understood how a murderer could be a prophet of the Abrahamic God. He basically broke ALL of the 10 commandments not to mention doing the complete opposite of the teachings of Christ.

Clearly he is not a prophet, just a psychopath. It's too bad that 2 billion people or so are willing to follow him into darkness.
mitchel
7 months ago
I found this article very interesting because I know very little about the prophet Muhammad
Tom McGuire
7 months ago
We do need more understanding of the history of Islam. We also need more understanding of our own history. Abraham and Sarah had some problems so Hagar was brought in to solve the problem; he position in the family did not meet the standards of "natural law".

Judith beheaded Holofernes after some time in a relationship that did not meet the conditions of "natural law".

Has the author explored these examples in the Old Testament?
Tommy
7 months ago
and don't forget the hadith
Volume 1, Book 4, Number 229:
Narrated 'Aisha:
I used to wash the traces of Janaba (semen) from the clothes of the Prophet and he used to go for prayers while traces of water were still on it (water spots were still visible).

I guess uncontrollable urges could account for this

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