The Heart's Witness Against Muhammad: The Stain of Genocide

By Andrew M. Greenwell, Esq.
11/15/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

The point is that if Muhammad is going to be touted as a universal moral model, al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man, then his morality has to be more than relatively better than the conventions of his day

It may be that Muhammad in his day was acting out the rather conventional role of a Bedouin warlord, perhaps even in a relatively more humane way than his opponents. But if Muhammad is going to be touted as a universal moral model, al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man, then his morality has to be more than relatively better than the conventions of his day.

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CORPUS CHRISTI, TX (Catholic Online) - In this series entitled The Heart's Witness Against Muhammad, we now turn away from individual murders of Muhammad's political, prophetic, or poetic rivals. (There are others murders we could mention, but we are wearied with the sad subject.) We turn now to murder at a large scale, what today we would call genocide.

We must recall our theme. It may be that Muhammad in his day was acting out the rather conventional role of a Bedouin warlord, perhaps even in a relatively more humane way than his opponents. (The point is arguable either way depending on what one wants to stress as evidence, but the issue does not really matter.)

The point is that if Muhammad is going to be touted as a universal moral model, al-insan al-kamil, the perfect man, then his morality has to be more than relatively better than the conventions of his day.

Someone unable to overcome the limits of the conventions of his day, especially where they contravene the natural moral law, is unable to legislate a universal morality. He is not a trustworthy messenger, and not a universal lawgiver, and most certainly not the model for mankind.

The natural law is the law of God and it is binding upon all men without exception. So it serves as a canon, the rule, the normative standard by which to measure a man's message regarding God and the playing out of his life. The natural law stands as a measure against which even God's alleged commands can be measured. God will not order something against the natural law, a law based upon right reason, since the natural law is participation in the eternal law, which is God himself.

Historically, the setting of the genocide of the Abu Qurayza tribe is rather complex, but we need to address it as an introduction, even though we risk simplifying the situation.

Muhammad was born and for the greater part of his life lived in Mecca, which was largely a pagan trading town. The neighboring town of Yathrib (later to be called Medina) was a largely agricultural town populated by Jewish tribes that were divided into three: the Banu Qaynuqa, the Banu al-Nadir, and the Banu Qurayza. When Muhammad and his "tribe" of Muslims left Mecca to Medina (in the emigration known as the Hegira or Hijra), he entered into treaties with these tribes.

The Muslims either concocted or suffered real grievances from the Banu Qaynuqa and Banu al-Nadir (we work with Muslim sources which display strong biases in favor of Islam, and are strongly anti-Semitic, so it is hard to determine whether something the historian says is true or not) resulting in fighting between the Muslims and these tribes, with the further result that the two tribes were forced to leave Medina. This left Medina occupied by the Muslims, their non-Jewish allies, and the Jewish Banu Qurayza.

Muhammad was not interested in settling down to the life of the farmer or trader and earning honest money. Somewhere between the end of life in Mecca and the beginning of life in Medina, after the death of his protector Abu Talib and his wife Khadija, intravit autem satanas in Mahometum, and he began a policy of raiding the Meccan caravans which were the lifeblood of the economic wealth of Mecca.

Beginning inauspiciously with the first unsuccessful raid at al-Is, and a second unsuccessful raid at Buwat, where Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas shot the "first arrow of Islam," Muhammad's raids got bolder and better, and eventually began spurring the Banu Quraysh at Mecca to do something about it. This confrontation between the Banu Quraysh of Mecca and their allies, on the one hand, and Muhammad's followers, on the other hand, is called the Battle of the Trench.

So the Banu Quraysh at Mecca, along with a group of other tribes, some Jewish (like the Banu al-Nadir that Muhammad had thrown out of Yathrib or Medina), planned their campaign against the raiding Muslim bandits in Medina. This, of course, presented Muhammad with a great threat, and he sought to gain the support of the last Jewish tribe remaining in Medina, the Banu Qurayza.

With respect to the response of the Banu Qurayza, the sources are a little inconsistent here. Some suggest that Ka'b bin Asad, the leader of the Banu Qurayza, allied himself with the attacking Banu Quraysh from Mecca. Others suggest that Ka'b bin Asad saw the Banu Qurayza between a rock and a hard place and so tried he tried to take a neutral role in between the battling Muslims led by Muhammad and the Banu Quraysh from Mecca. In either event, Ka'b bin Asad and his Banu Qurayza tribe incurred Muhammad's wrath.

After the Battle of the Trench, which essentially was a 27-day siege and resulted in a stalemate---Muhammad's clever defensive tactic of digging trenches ...

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1 - 7 of 7 Comments

Brian
7 months ago
@KarlVDH: We don't hold up the men responsible for those actions as perfect, we even squashed the efforts of some to canonize Columbus for that very reason, actually. A perfect man does not commit genocide, seems like a simple point to me, Mohammad was not a perfect man, Cortes was not a perfect man, Columbus was not a perfect man (not even a man of heroic virtue as saints aren't required 'perfection'); the only one of those three examples that anyone anywhere believes to have been perfect is Mohammad. The point of this argument is to dispel that belief.
Paul-Emile Leray
7 months ago
Andrew, you are a wonderful writer and educator. Very informative. Thank you. I have a few points and while they might seem a little disconnected to some, in reality, they are not. I urge readers to read Deacon Keith Fournier's articles. Also, Andrew Greenwell's. Notice how many in society today attack many of us as being single issue voters. In reality, these people are partially insane because they need to compartmentalize so many things inside themselves. What I am getting at is the following. There are many who are anti-war and yet pro-choice. There are many who are pro-life (in the sense of anti-abortion) and yet almost seem to be pro-war. There are logical contradictions and oxymorons all over the place. I am going somewhere with all of this. Please keep reading. There are Catholics who are at times defaming me and trying to silence me accusing me of being too narrow in my politics; when, in reality, it is them who do not fall under what Andrew Greenwell wrote about 'faith and reason' and how reason splits into 'ratio' and 'intellectus'. (I loved that article) Here is where I am going, in part, with this. I hope, Andrew, that as your writings continue some articles will follow as to how all this affects logical consequential outflows in the realms of politics and economics as well, including political and judiciary systems. Between Keith Fournier and you, Andrew, I sense from 1000s of miles away, that you are capable of this. Another point: I was naive, perhaps, in placing too much expectation coming from certain religious leaders to address some of these issues. Why? Many are simply too busy, it seems, with their daily duties and parishes. They are so busy worrying about social justice issues and how to provide meals to people in parks (many who are there by choice, since I attended some food drives myself and one guy has an apartment but decided to live in the park after his retirement as CEO of a company!) or beggars (some who jump in taxis after rolling up their mats after a good day of work in the begging world, who beg with alcohol on their breath and so they have money for booze); that many seem simply too busy (understandable) to address some of these issues and follow through on them with more rigor and zeal. In other words, the priests don't have all the answers as I naively expected some would. And if they do, they might not have the time or energy given they are loaded down as it is. Therefore? The parishioners need to help them. We need to pick up the slack. The priests are wonderful, but they are not magic men either. They are human. They get tired. Many of us need to help them more. Andrew, a donkey gets loaded with tall expectations because he is strong and the others can't carry the load. (I've been told that many times as my knees were buckled to the point of barely being able to walk I was so tired). I would like to see you and Keith Fournier blend some of your articles together in the future. I am looking very far into the future. All this business of world peace and harmony, unity, is up to the Catholic Church to solve and "we are the Church" in the words of one Jesuit. (not only the priests, "us" too) A tall request, but in writing I am simply expressing a wish and please take it as a huge compliment because it is an explicit acknowledgement of what I think about Keith Fournier's and your writings. EXCELLENT! (and very interesting, informative)
Paul-Emile Leray
Andrew M. Greenwell
7 months ago
Sadly, KarlVDH seems wed to the tu quoque fallacy, and misses the whole point of this series. If "x" is true, it does not matter whether Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde says it. Similarly, we can talk about the New World in the 1500s, or about a whole host of other things, all we want and it doesn't make a whit of difference about what happened in Arabia in the 600s as a result of the doings of a supposed "perfect human." Patrick has seized the point.
Claire
7 months ago
KarlVDH, the trouble with your argument is that the Church today does not celebrate the murders that took place by some soldiers in the past. We celebrate Christ, who taught peace and service to others - washing the feet of his disciples. As pointed out in the article, the Muslims continue to chant praise for the victory of the past.... You can't compare apples to oranges.
Patrick Reynolds
7 months ago
@KarlVDH

There is an extreme difference between what is written about in the article, and what happened in the incidents you are referring to.

With the Central American civilizations, they were wiped out by a combination of plague and conquest by Spanish Conquistadors, toughly 1500 years after the death of Christ. These were purely human entities who made grievous and regrettable mistakes. While what happened it truly unfortunate, you cannot claim that Jesus is responsible for these killings.

With the incident written about in this article, not only did Mohammad give his direct approval of the slaughter, he took part in it; and afterwards enslaved the woman and children. The supposed "perfect man" of Islam was genocidal; you can make no such claim against Christ, who wouldn't even harm another in self-defense. That is precisely why these articles are aimed at what Mohammad did, because by careful examination of the his life, we find that he is anything but a perfect man because he rejects natural law. Since he is not the perfect man, the false religion of Islam is foundation-less and doomed to crumble.

As an additional note, the paganism of the Central American civilizations had very little to do with why they were wiped out. The Conquistadors brought monks with them, and the aim of those monks was conversion, not extinction. They were wiped out for the same reason most civilizations in human history were destroyed, good old-fashioned human greed.
Jorge
7 months ago
This explains why muslims today simultaneously bragg themselves of mass-murdering their "enemies", while at the same time denying any wrongdoing, because the taqyya (islamic art and tactic of deception) can and is openly used(by moderates and radicals alike) in the global jihad against the "house of war, ie, all the non-muslim countries, their people, institutions, religions, philosopies,languages,art, identities and cultural heritages..features and centire brillinat advanced civilizations that islam seeks to exterminate at all cost.
KarlVDH
7 months ago
...we're going to accuse Islam of genocide?
Perhaps we should have some Aztecs chime in... No? Incas or Mayans then. Oh...

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