The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (3 page)

Armstrong is right in a sense (no human being, it seems, can be wrong
all
the time): when it comes to talk of Islam, you can’t believe everything you hear—especially after the September 11 attacks. Misinformation and half-truths about what Islam teaches and what Muslims in the United States believe have filled the airwaves and have even influenced public policy.

Much of this misapprehension comes in analyses of the “root causes” of the jihad terrorism that took so many lives on September 11 and has continued to threaten the peace and stability of non-Muslims around the world. It has become fashionable among certain media people and academics to place much, if not all, of the blame for what happened on September 11, 2001, not on Islam and Muslims, but on the United States and other Western countries. A pattern of mistreatment of the Islamic world by the West, say learned professors and self-important commentators, is continuing. It began centuries ago, they say—at the time of the Crusades.

But in fact, the seeds of today’s conflict were planted much earlier than the First Crusade. In order to understand the Crusades properly, and the peculiar resonance they have in today’s global conflict with Islamic jihad terrorists, we must begin with a survey of the prophet of Arabia and the religion he founded. For the Crusades, as we shall see, were fundamentally a reaction to events that were set in motion over 450 years before the battles began.

I intend this book to be neither a general introduction to the Islamic religion, nor a comprehensive historical survey of the Crusades. Rather, it is an examination of certain highly tendentious assertions about both Islam and the Crusades that have entered the popular discourse. This book is an attempt to move the public discourse about both subjects a bit closer to the truth.

Part I

ISLAM

Chapter 1

MUHAMMAD: PROPHET OF WAR

W
hy does the life of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, matter today? Fourteen centuries have passed since he was born. Millions of Muslims have lived and died since then, and many leaders have risen to lead the faithful, including descendents of the Prophet himself. Surely Islam, like other religions, has changed over 1,400 years.

Guess what?

• Muhammad did not teach “peace and tolerance.”
  
• Muhammad led armies and ordered assassinations of his enemies.
  
• Islamic tradition allows for negotiated settlements only in service of the ultimate goal of Islamic conquest.
  

Here’s why the life of Muhammad matters: Contrary to what many secularists would have us believe, religions are
not
entirely determined (or distorted) by the faithful over time. The lives and words of the founders remain central, no matter how long ago they lived. The idea that believers shape religion is derived, instead, from the fashionable 1960s philosophy of deconstructionism, which teaches that written words have no meaning other than that given to them by the reader. Equally important, it follows that if the reader alone finds meaning, there can be no truth (and certainly no religious truth); one person’s meaning is equal to another’s. Ultimately, according to deconstructionism, we all create our own set of “truths,” none better or worse than any other.

Yet for the religious man or woman on the streets of Chicago, Rome, Jerusalem, Damascus, Calcutta, and Bangkok, the words of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Krishna, and Buddha mean something far greater than any individual’s reading of them. And even to the less-than-devout reader, the words of these great religious teachers are clearly not equal in their meaning.

That’s why I have placed a “Muhammad vs. Jesus” sidebar in every chapter to emphasize the fallacy of those who claim that Islam and Christianity—and all other religious traditions, for that matter—are basically equal in their ability to inspire good or evil. It is also meant to emphasize that the West, built on Christianity, is worth defending, even if we live in a so-called post-Christian era. Furthermore, through the words of Muhammad and Jesus, we can draw a distinction between the core principles that guide the faithful Muslim and Christian. These principles are important. The followers of Muhammad read his words and imitate his actions, which leads to an expression of faith quite different from Christians. One does not have to look too far to see that life in an Islamic country is different from life in the United States or Britain. The difference begins with Muhammad. In these days when so many invoke Muhammad’s words and deeds to justify actions of violence and bloodshed, it is important to become familiar with this pivotal figure.

For many in the West, Muhammad remains more mysterious than other major religious figures. Most people know, for example, that Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, that Jesus died on a cross at Calvary and was raised from the dead, and maybe even that Buddha sat under a tree and received enlightenment. But less is known about Muhammad, and even that much is disputed. Hence, what follows will be taken solely from Islamic texts.

First basic fact: Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Abd al-Muttalib (570–632), the prophet of Islam, was a man of war. He taught his followers to fight for his new religion. He said that their god, Allah, had commanded them to take up arms. And Muhammad, no armchair general, fought in numerous battles. These facts are crucial to anyone who really wants to understand what caused the Crusades centuries ago or, in our own time, what has led to the rise of the global jihad movement.

In the course of these battles, Muhammad articulated numerous principles that have been followed by Muslims to this day. Therefore, it is important to record some features of Muhammad’s battles, which can provide insight into today’s newspaper headlines—insights that continue, sadly, to elude many analysts and experts.

Muhammad the raider

Muhammad already had experience as a warrior before he assumed the role of prophet. He had participated in two local wars between his Quraysh tribe and their neighboring rivals Banu Hawazin. But his unique role as prophet-warrior would come later. After receiving revelations from Allah through the angel Gabriel in 610, he began by just preaching to his tribe the worship of One God and his own position as a prophet. But he was not well received by his Quraysh brethren in Mecca, who reacted disdainfully to his prophetic call and refused to give up their gods. Muhammad’s frustration and rage became evident. When even his uncle, Abu Lahab, rejected his message, Muhammad cursed him and his wife in violent language that has been preserved in the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam: “May the hands of Abu Lahab perish! May he himself perish! Nothing shall his wealth and gains avail him. He shall be burnt in a flaming fire, and his wife, laden with faggots, shall have a rope of fibre around her neck!” (Qur’an 111:1–5).

Ultimately, Muhammad would turn from violent words to violent deeds. In 622, he finally fled his native Mecca for a nearby town, Medina, where a band of tribal warriors had accepted him as a prophet and pledged loyalty to him. In Medina, these new Muslims began raiding the caravans of the Quraysh, with Muhammad personally leading many of these raids. These raids kept the nascent Muslim movement solvent and helped form Islamic theology—as in one notorious incident when a band of Muslims raided a Quraysh caravan at Nakhla, a settlement not far from Mecca. The raiders attacked the caravan during the sacred month of Rajab, when fighting was forbidden. When they returned to the Muslim camp laden with booty, Muhammad refused to share in the loot or to have anything to do with them, saying only, “I did not order you to fight in the sacred month.”
¹

But then a new revelation came from Allah, explaining that the Quraysh’s opposition to Muhammad was a worse transgression than the violation of the sacred month. In other words, the raid was justified. “They question thee, O Muhammad, with regard to warfare in the sacred month. Say: warfare therein is a great transgression, but to turn men from the way of Allah, and to disbelieve in Him and in the Inviolable Place of Worship, and to expel His people thence, is a greater sin with Allah; for persecution is worse than killing” (Qur’an 2:214). Whatever sin the Nakhla raiders had committed was overshadowed by the Quraysh’s rejection of Muhammad.

Just Like Today: Killing non-combatants

W
hen Osama bin Laden killed innocent non-combatants in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and later his co-religionists captured and beheaded civilian hostages in Iraq, American Muslim spokesmen blandly asserted that this targeting of innocent people was forbidden by Islam. This was debatable, since some Islamic legal authorities allow the killing of non-combatants if they are seen as aiding the enemies of Islam in war.
²
However, even if the principle were correct, it would give way to another that arose out of the Nakhla raid: “Persecution is worse than killing.” And therefore, to fight against the persecution of Muslims, by any means necessary, is the highest good.

This was a momentous revelation, for it led to an Islamic principle that has had repercussions throughout the ages. Good became identified with anything that redounded to the benefit of Muslims, regardless of whether it violated moral or other laws. The moral absolutes enshrined in the Ten Commandments, and other teachings of the great religions that preceded Islam, were swept aside in favor of an overarching principle of expediency.

The Battle of Badr

Soon after Nakhla came the first major battle the Muslims fought. Muhammad heard that a large Quraysh caravan, laden with money and goods, was coming from Syria. “This is the Quraysh caravan containing their property,” he told his followers. “Go out to attack it, perhaps God will give it as a prey.”
³
He set out toward Mecca to lead the raid. But this time the Quraysh were ready for him, coming out to meet Muhammad’s three hundred men with a force nearly a thousand strong. Muhammad seems not to have expected these numbers and cried out to Allah in anxiety, “O God, if this band perish today Thou wilt be worshipped no more.”
⁴

Despite their superior numbers, the Quraysh were routed. Some Muslim traditions say that Muhammad himself participated in the fighting, others that he exhorted his followers from the sidelines. In any event, it was an occasion for him to see years of frustration, resentment, and hatred toward his own people, who had rejected him, avenged. One of his followers later recalled a curse Muhammad had pronounced on the leaders of the Quraysh: “The Prophet said, ‘O Allah! Destroy the chiefs of Quraish, O Allah! Destroy Abu Jahl bin Hisham, ‘Utba bin Rabi’a, Shaiba bin Rabi’a, ‘Uqba bin Abi Mu’ait, ‘Umaiya bin Khalaf (or Ubai bin Kalaf).’”
⁵

All these men were captured or killed during the battle of Badr. One Quraysh leader named in this curse, ‘Uqba, pleaded for his life, “But who will look after my children, O Muhammad?”

“Hell,” responded the Prophet of Islam, and ordered ‘Uqba killed.
⁶

Another Quraysh chieftain, Abu Jahl (which means “Father of Ignorance,” a name given him by Muslim chroniclers; his real name was ‘Amr ibn Hisham) was beheaded. The Muslim who severed the head proudly carried his trophy to Muhammad: “I cut off his head and brought it to the apostle, saying, ‘This is the head of the enemy of God, Abu Jahl.’”

Muhammad was delighted. “By God than Whom there is no other, is it?” he exclaimed, and gave thanks to Allah for the death of his enemy.
⁷

The bodies of all those named in the curse were thrown into a pit. As an eyewitness recalled, “Later on I saw all of them killed during the battle of Badr and their bodies were thrown into a well except the body of Umaiya or Ubai, because he was a fat man, and when he was pulled, the parts of his body got separated before he was thrown into the well.”
⁸
Then Muhammad taunted them as “people of the pit” and posed a theological question: “Have you found what God promised you is true? I have found that what my Lord promised me is true.” When asked why he was speaking to dead bodies, he replied: “You cannot hear what I say better than they, but they cannot answer me.”
⁹

The victory at Badr was the legendary turning point for the Muslims. Muhammad even claimed that armies of angels joined with the Muslims to smite the Quraysh—and that similar help would come in the future to Muslims who remained faithful to Allah: “Allah had helped you at Badr, when ye were a contemptible little force; then fear Allah; thus may ye show your gratitude. Remember thou saidst to the Faithful: ‘Is it not enough for you that Allah should help you with three thousand angels specially sent down? Yea, if ye remain firm, and act aright, even if the enemy should rush here on you in hot haste, your Lord would help you with five thousand angels making a terrific onslaught” (Qur’an 3:123–125). Another revelation from Allah emphasized that it was piety, not military might, that brought victory at Badr: “There has already been for you a Sign in the two armies that met in combat: one was fighting in the cause of Allah, the other resisting Allah; these saw with their own eyes twice their number. But Allah doth support with His aid whom He pleaseth. In this is a warning for such as have eyes to see” (Qur’an 3:13). Another Qur’anic passage asserts that the Muslims were merely passive instruments at Badr: “It is not ye who slew them; it was Allah” (Qur’an 8:17). And Allah would grant such victories to pious Muslims even though they faced odds even more overwhelming than those they had overcome at Badr: “O Prophet! Rouse the Believers to the fight. If there are twenty amongst you, patient and persevering, they will vanquish two hundred: if a hundred, they will vanquish a thousand of the unbelievers: for these are a people without understanding” (Qur’an 8:65).