Muhammad and the Natural Law: Murder for Prophet-Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf

MUHAMMAD WAS DRIVEN BY POWER, however justified by invocation of Allah, and the Jews simply got in the way. No matter, the Jew that got in the way, that opposed the will or whim of this vicious man who covered it with Allah's mantle, was promptly dispatched. The Fifth Commandment did not apply to Muhammad. He doubtfully read Exodus, since he was supposed to be illiterate. It might have done him some good had he read:

لا تقتل, Thou shalt not kill.

Exodus 20:13; Deut. 5:17.

After all there was no need to read the Scriptures, they were corrupted on Muhammad's account, Qur'an 5:13, 41, and whatever was therein contained was of no moment since whatever Muhammad did was perfect, and if the Fifth Commandment has to take a back seat to Muhammad's perfect desires, then so be it: Allah and his messenger know best. God did not say, "Thou shalt not kill." Rather, God said, "Thou shalt kill." Or so Muhammad would have it.

The name Muhammad in Arabic

Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf (كعب بن الاشرف‎), a chief of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadi, was another victim of Muhammad's rise to power and moral failings. Once Muhammad gained in political power, some of the Jewish tribes around him grew mistrustful and opposed both his message and his rising influence. Though Muhammad had ostensibly entered into an informal treaty with the Jewish tribes, there was tension between Muhammad's followers and the Jewish tribes, including the Banu Nadi. Al-Ashraf, it's true, was an opponent of Muhammad, believed Muhammad a false prophet, and opposed himself to Muhammad's rise. After Muhammad's victor at the battle of Badr, al-Ashraf grew particularly concerned. But is that a crime? In Muhammad's eyes, opposition to him and his doctrine was anathema: nay, it was more than that; it was a virtual death sentence.

Moreover, Muhammad was like the devil, "the proud spirit [who] cannot endure to be mocked,"* and al-Ashraf mocked both Muhammad and the Muslim women: "He inveighed against the apostle," wrote a plaintive poem at the loss by the Quraysh tribe defeated at Badr, and "composed amatory verses of an insulting nature about Muslim women" Muhammad's biographer Ibn Ishaq tells us.**

The enmity between al-Ashraf and Muhammad and Muhammad's response to it is found in several sources, including Sahih Bukhari 3.45.687 and 5.59.369. The second hadith is particularly long, so only parts will be quoted here.

The hadith begins:

Allah's messenger said "Who is willing to kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His apostle?"**
Thereupon Maslama got up saying, "O Allah's messenger! Would you like that I kill him?"
The prophet said, "Yes".
Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Ka'b). The prophet said, "You may say it."

So here we have two questionable moral lapses by Muhammad. The first, a willingness to put a political opponent to death. The second, a willingness to use all manners of deceit. Here we find the questionable doctrine of taqiyya (تقیة) or dissimulation approved by the alleged prophet of Allah, of the Arab war idol who--unlike Christ who says, "I am the truth" (John 14:6)--says of himself that he is the "best of deceivers," Allahu khayru al-makirina, اللَّهُ خَيْرُ الْمَاكِرِينَ (Qur'an 3:54).

Based on the pretense that, as an opponent of Muhammad, he wanted to borrow a camel load or two of food, Maslama visits al-Ashraf at night and, together with his foster brother Abu Naila, is invited into Maslama's fort. The plan is to compliment al-Ashraf on his perfumed hair, and when he is distracted to cut off his head. The plan worked, and together Maslama and Abu Naila cut of Muhammad's enemy's head. The poet Ka'b bin Malik said:

Sword in hand we cut [Ka'b] down
By Muhammad's order when he sent secretly by night
Ka'b's brother to got to Ka'b.
He beguiled him and brought him down with guile
Mahmoud [bin Maslama] was trustworthy, bold.**

Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat records Muhammad's delight:

Then they cut his head and took it with them [and] . . . they cast his head before him [Muhammad]. He (the prophet) praised Allah on his being slain.***

The pseudo-prophet can rejoice at an innocent's man's death, just like many of his followers could rejoice at the attack of the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the deaths of thousands who did none of their killers wrong. This is what happens when you are the prosecutor, the alleged victim, and the judge. The defendant, even if innocent, has no voice. This is because, in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
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*St. Thomas More, Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (London: Charles Dolman, 1847), II.XVI, p. 160.
**The matter is extensively treated in Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, on pages 364-69 of A. Guillaume's translation. Muhammad is related to have said: "Who will rid me of Ibnu'l-Ashraf?" To which, Muhammad bin Maslama said that he would kill him. Muhammad, for his part, responded "Do so if you can." With respect to the lying, Ibn Ishaq puts it this way: "'O apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies.' He answered, 'Say what you like for you are free of the matter.'" A. Guillaume, Life of Muhammad: Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 367.
***Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kabir (Pakistan Historical Society, 1967), II, p. 37.

Muhammad and the Natural Law: Murder for Prophet-The Case of Abu 'Afak

“WHO WILL DEAL WITH THIS RASCAL FOR ME?” were Muhammad's words regarding the poet Abu 'Afak. In this post, we shall assess Muhammad's role in the murder of the Jewish poet Abu 'Afak (أبو عفك‎). The event is evidence of Muhammad's intolerance, and is evidence further of Muhammad's willingness to dispense with his personal, political, or religious foes (Muhammad did not distinguish between the three) through assassination, setting the stage for the imitation of intolerance and murder as virtues for his followers. What one may perhaps excuse in a political leader is not something one would excuse in the perfect man, the supposed al-Insan al-Kamil (الإنسان الكامل).

The Jew Abu 'Afak was an old man, reputed to be 120 years old, a member of the Banu Ubayda tribe. He was a poet, and refused to convert to Islam or acknowledge Muhammad as a legitimate prophet. Abu 'Afak was upset with Muhammad's role in killing al-Harith bin Suwayd bin Samit, and so he had the temerity to lampoon Muhammad through his poetry. The event, and Muhammad's response to it, is related in the Sirat Rasul Allah, the preeminent traditional biography of Muhammad by Ibn Ishaq.

Abu 'Afak was one of the B. 'Amr b. 'Auf of the B. Ubayda clan. He showed his disaffection when the apostle killed al-Harith b. Suwayd b. Samit and said:

Long have I lived but never have I seen
An assembly or collection of people
More faithful to their undertaking
And their allies when called upon
Than the sons of Qayla* when they assembled,
Men who overthrew mountains and never submitted,
A rider who came to them split them in two (saying)
"Permitted", "Forbidden", of all sorts of things.**
Had you believed in glory or kingship
You would have followed Tubba'.***

The apostle said, "Who will deal with this rascal for me?" Whereupon Salim b. 'Umayr, brother of B. 'Amr b. 'Auf, one of the "weepers", went forth and killed him. Umama b. Muzayriya said concerning that:

You gave the lie to God's religion and the man Ahmad [variant of Muhammad]!
By him who was your father, evil is the son he produced!
A hanif gave you a thrust in the night saying
"Take that Abu 'Afak in spite of your age!"
Though I knew whether it was man or jinn
Who slew you in the dead of night (I would say naught).†

The story is also found in the Kitab al Tabaqat al Kabir:

"Then occurred the sariyyah [raid] of Salim Ibn Umayr al-Amri against Abu Afak, the Jew, in [the month of] Shawwal in the beginning of the twentieth month from the hijrah [immigration from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD], of the Apostle of Allah. Abu Afak, was from Banu Amr Ibn Awf, and was an old man who had attained the age of one hundred and twenty years. He was a Jew, and used to instigate the people against the Apostle of Allah, and composed (satirical) verses [about Muhammad].

Salim Ibn Umayr who was one of the great weepers and who had participated in Badr, said, "I take a vow that I shall either kill Abu Afak or die before him." He waited for an opportunity until a hot night came, and Abu Afak slept in an open place. Salim Ibn Umayr knew it, so he placed the sword on his liver and pressed it till it reached his bed. The enemy of Allah screamed and the people who were his followers, rushed to him, took him to his house and interred him.††

What sort of man is this Muhammad?

The whipping of King Henry II for his role in the murder of St. Thomas Becket
Would that it would have happened to Muhammad for the killing of Abu 'Afak!

The story of Muhammad and Abu 'Afak is redolent of King Henry II and the murder of St. Thomas Becket when the latter refused to assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon and the King's efforts to gain control over the Church. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" is what the King is supposed to have said in an unguarded moment. To which careless statement the King's loyal knights Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton, thinking the King had authorized his enemy's murder, set out to rid King Henry II of his erstwhile-friend-become pest.

Henry II repented of his indirect role in encouraging the murder of Thomas Becket, and suffered to be whipped by the monks of Canterbury by order of the Pope. Muhammad suffered no such remorse, and suffered no such penance for his role in encouraging the killing of Abu 'Afak.

Under the natural law, a King can do wrong, but he can also do right. There is a law above the King to which he, like all men, is answerable. Under Islam, however, Muhammad can do no wrong and can only do right. There is no law above Muhammad. So when Muhammad kills or encourages the killing of his political enemies, it becomes the rule, it becomes canonical. Muhammad's behavior is normative even when it violates the natural moral law, which is to say even when it violates the law of God. And this is because, in Islam, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.

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*Qayla was the putative ancestress of the Banu Aus (or Banu Aws [Arabic: بنو أوس‎]) and the Banu Kharaj (or Banu al-Khazraj [Arabic: بنو الخزرج‎]), the two great Arab tribes of the town of Medina.
**A gibe at the language of the Qur'an.
***i.e., "You resisted Tubba' who, after all, was a king in fact and a man of great reputation, so why believe in Muhammad's claims?" Tubba' (تُبَّع) refers to the Kings of Yemen. See Islamic Encyclopedia, s.v. "Tubba'"
†A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006).
††Ibn Sa'd, Kitab al-Tabqat al-Kabir, II.31.

Muhammad and the Natural Law: Sex with Slaves

MUHAMMAD's MARITAL MORAL TRAVESTIES are legion, and include polygamy, incest, pedophilia, concubinage, temporary marriage (nikah al-Mut‘ah or نكاح المتعة‎), and divorce. In prior postings we have focused on Muhammad's multiple sexual partners, on his sexual relationship with his aunt Khaula, and on his marriage and conjugal visitation of nine-year-old Aisha and desires for further young brides as he approached his sixth decade of life. In this posting, we shall focus on Muhammad's relationships with his slave-women, his concubines.

Under any ordinary moral standard, sex with concubines is considered adultery and not consonant with the ends of marriage. Under Muhammadan logic, sex with concubines is right because Allah revealed it to be so and because his messenger had sex with concubines. Allah locutus, causa finita est. Mahometus fecit, causa finita est.* (They are the same thing.)

Muhammad's treatment of women alone should disabuse any human of finding this man to have a legitimate prophetic bone in his body, much less a legitimate claim to being the "seal of the prophets," the خاتم اﻟﻨﺒﻴﻴﻦ, or Khatamun Nabiyyin. Muhammad's rank disregard of natural moral law is proof positive that his message is inauthentic. His inability to control his sexual faculties makes Muhammad more a prophet of Priapus than a prophet of the Most High God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Jesus. As man, Muhammad is not exempt from the natural moral law. The judgment of practical reason condemns Muhammad; that is one reason Muslims are so suspicious of practical reason and why they cannot brook any opposition or criticism to their alleged prophet. The moment natural moral law steps into the picture, the entirety of Islam falls like a deck of cards that it is. Islam is founded entirely upon sheer positivism: the positivism of Allah and the positivism of Muhammad's actions.

In assessing Muhammad's activities with his concubines, we start, of course, with that part of the Qur'an, the Surat Al-Ahzab, known as "The Confederates," or "The Allies," specifically, the fiftieth ayah, which was so generous and accommodating to the sexual life of this pseudo-prophet: "O Prophet! Verily, We have made lawful to you . . . those (captives or slaves) whom your right hand possesses--whom Allah has given to you." These are the ma malakat aymanukum (ما ملكت أيمانکم). Qur'an 33:50. Ah, but this privilege was not reserved for Muhammad alone: all Muslim men, in imitatio Muhammedi, enjoy the privileges associated with those whom their right hand possess. So we find in the Sūrat An-Nisa' that Muslim men in general enjoy the sexual benefits of those women whom their right hand possess. Qur'an 4:4. Naturally, the Muhammadan bias against women is reflected here: while men can have sex at will with women concubines, women are not allowed to have sex with men concubines.

The Name Muhammad in Arabic Calligraphy

And Muhammad's right hand possessed many such female concubines, and his penis exercised his rights over some, the prophet pounding his throbbing Muslim member into Mariyah or Raihanah, respectively, his Christian and Jewish concubines. The former, to the consternation of his legal wives, even gave him a child, whom Muhammad called Ibrahim (Abraham), but who died young.

At the outset, so that we are not accused of slighting Muhammad and accusing him of sex with concubines when he was innocent of that moral lapse,** we might quote from the popular Islamic biography of Muhammad, Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) by Saifur Rahman al-Mubarakpuri (translated by Issam Diab):

Besides these [Muhammad's wives], he had two concubines. The first was Mariyah, the Coptic (an Egyptian Christian), a present gift from Al-Muqauqis, vicegerent of Egypt — she gave birth to his son Ibrâhim, who died in Madinah [Medina] while still a little child, on the 28th or 29th of Shawwal in the year 10 A.H., i.e. 27th January, 632 A.D. The second one was Raihanah bint Zaid An-Nadriyah or Quraziyah, a captive from Bani Quraiza. Some people say she was one of his wives. However, Ibn Al-Qaiyim gives more weight to the first version. Abu ‘Ubaidah spoke of two more concubines, Jameelah, a captive, and another one, a bondwoman granted to him by Zainab bint Jahsh. [Za'd Al-Ma'ad 1/29]

Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum, 312.

There is, in fact, a rather humorous story involving (naturally) the jealousies of the wives arising from Muhammad's enjoyment of the "honey" given to him by Mariya the Copt. It can be found in the Sahih Bukhari 3.43.648. The event is corroborated in the Sahi Muslim 9.3511 and Sahih Bukhar 7.62.119. It seems that the pseudo-prophet's foresight was rather limited, or was perhaps limited by lust. He could not hear Allah while he was trying to achieve orgasm. In one of his first flings with Mariya was at the home of one of his wives, Hafsa. Muhammad found a pretense to send Hafsa to her father's house, and then bedded Mariyah. But the perfect man is found out by Hafsa who unexpectedly returns to her home when she finds that her father did not seek her. She catches the pseudo-prophet in flagrante delicto with Mariyah the Copt.

Hafsa is unfuriated, but Muhammad, as is his bent, finds fault with everyone but himself. He gets Hafsa to shut up by promising not to sleep with his maid servant anymore, but on the condition that she keep this moral failure between herself and him. But Hafsa tells Aisha, and soon Muhammad's whole harem learns of the mess. Muhammad's response is to do two things. First, he punishes his wives by depriving him of his sexual services for a month.*** But this overreaction presented the sex-starved Muhammad with a problem: where would he get his sexual satisfaction? He had promised Hafsa no longer to have sex with Mariya. He had promised no longer to have sex with his wives for a month.

Where Muhammad has a need, Allah conveniently provides. Behold, a new revelation! Recite! God in the eternal Qur'an threatens Muhammad's wives with divorce (as if they did something wrong). Moreover, Allah releases Muhammad of his oath to Hafsa so that he can enter into Mariyah to his heart's content while he punishes his wives with his sexual absence! After all, Allah would not let such a small thing as marriage or promises get in the way of Muhammad's ejaculations.

O Prophet! Why do you ban (for yourself) that which Allāh has made lawful to you, seeking to please your wives? And Allāh is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Allāh has already ordained for you (O men), the dissolution of your oaths. And Allāh is your Maula (Lord, or Master, or Protector, etc.) and He is the All-Knower, the All-Wise.

And (remember) when the Prophet (SAW) disclosed a matter in confidence to one of his wives (Hafsah), so when she told it (to another i.e. 'Aishah), and Allāh made it known to him, he informed part thereof and left a part. Then when he told her (Hafsah) thereof, she said: "Who told you this?" He said: "The All-Knower, the All-Aware (Allāh) has told me."

If you two (wives of the Prophet SAW, namely 'Aishah and Hafsah) turn in repentance to Allāh, (it will be better for you), your hearts are indeed so inclined (to oppose what the Prophet SAW likes), but if you help one another against him (Muhammad SAW), then verily, Allāh is his Maula (Lord, or Master, or Protector, etc.), and Jibrael (Gabriel), and the righteous among the believers, and furthermore, the angels are his helpers.

It may be if he divorced you (all) that his Lord will give him instead of you, wives better than you, Muslims (who submit to Allāh), believers, obedient to Allāh, turning to Allāh in repentance, worshiping Allāh sincerely, fasting or emigrants (for Allāh's sake), previously married and virgins.

Qur'an 66:1-5.

Muhammad's relationship with Mariya the Copt is morally inexcusable. Muhammad's utter insensitivity and disregard for the natural moral law brands him a moral decrepit. In light of Muhammad's polygamy, incest, concubinage, divorce, pedophilia, and other sexual sins, it becomes harder and harder to say without rank hypocrisy, calculated blindness, or the murder of conscience, what the Muslims always say, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.

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*Latin: God has spoken, the case is closed. Muhammad has done it, the case is closed.
**Some Muslim sources deny the concubinage relationship between Mariya the Copt and Muhammad. For example, Ibn Kathir (700AH/1301AD-774AH/1373AD) wrote that Mariya and Muhammad married. The majority would seem to regard Mariyah as a concubine. Sources suggest that Muhammad had between four and eleven concubines. The number is not particularly relevant. Just one concubine disqualifies Muhammad as a prophet since just one concubine offends against the natural law of marriage and is adultery by definition. Muhammad was thus an adulterer.
***This, of course, is the second level of punishments advised by Allah in the treatment of wives who misbehave. The first is to admonish them. The second level is to refuse to share their bends. The third level is to beat them. Qur'an 4:34. Presumably, if all else fails: divorce.

Muhammad and the Natural Law: Sex with Girls

UNTIL THE يوم الدين‎, THE YAWM AD-DIN, the Day of Judgment Muhammad so eloquently preached about, Muhammad's character will be tarred by his relationship with his third wife, Aisha (عائشة). Considered one of the Mother of the Believers, Aisha bint Abu Bakr is generally regarded to have been Muhammad's favorite wife. Perhaps for the purpose of cementing Muhammad's political relationship with Abu Bakr, Aisha's father, who later would take over the reigns of that politico-religious bellicose machine called Islam that Muhammad had founded, perhaps motivated out of simple lust,* the marital relationship between Muhammad and Aisha spells the death knell to any claim of authentic prophethood by Muhammad.

Muhammad and Aisha in Arabic

The traditional ahadith put Aisha at six or seven years of age at the marriage, and at age nine at its consummation by Muhammad, then in his mid-50s, the young Aisha quite clearly at a premenarcheal age. There is not much prophetic or divine in the image of a 55-year old erect penis entering the virginal vagina of a nine-year-old girl and discharging vainly its semen in a orgasmic groan of ecstasy, regardless of how many Allahu Akbars are said. Less prophetic is the suggestion that God would positively will this moral enormity. Regardless of how common or not this practice was in the sexually-corrupt Bedouin society in which Muhammad rubbed his shoulders,** marriage and sex with a nine-year-old was not required, and certainly is not something that a man ostensibly holding himself out as the pattern for all men should do. Even supposing that child marriage and consummation had been the standard convention for the Bedouin, this is something a far-seeing prophet and his Allah, it seems, would not have encouraged, but would have banned. This is not something one should expect from the man hailed as al-Insan al-Kamil (الإنسان الكامل), the person who has reached perfection. This is not a moral zenith, but a moral nadir, at least if we are to judge by objective standards of natural moral law.***

It is no use to whitewash this historically probable situation. All the standard, approved and orthodox ahadith relating to this issue are consistent. For Muslims or their Western cronies to deny this fact is intellectually dishonest: nay, it is a plain lie. The Sahih Muslim 8.3310 relates:

'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.

The same text continues with another hadith, 8.3311, which has a slight, but ultimately meaningless, discrepancy in her age:

'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old.

Various ahadith in Sahih Bukhari attest to Aisha's age at marriage and at consummation, 7.62.64, 7.62.65, and 7.62.88.

Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death).

Narrated 'Aisha: that the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old. Hisham said: I have been informed that 'Aisha remained with the Prophet for nine years (i.e. till his death)." what you know of the Quran (by heart)'

Narrated 'Ursa: The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

Similarly, in other parts of Sahih Bukhari, 5.58.236 and 5.58.234, we find the same evidences:

Narrated Hisham's father: Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed [sic: consummated] that marriage when she was nine years old.

Narrated Aisha: The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became Allright, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, "Best wishes and Allah's Blessing and a good luck." Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah's Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age.

Muhammad! What hast thou wrought!

In another collection of ahadith, the Sunana Abu-Dawud, 41.4915, 41.4916, and 41.4917 we have the same attestation of marriage at six and consummation at nine:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) married me when I was seven or six. When we came to Medina, some women came. according to Bishr's version: Umm Ruman came to me when I was swinging. They took me, made me prepared and decorated me. I was then brought to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him), and he took up cohabitation with me when I was nine. She halted me at the door, and I burst into laughter.

Narrated AbuUsamah: The tradition mentioned above [i.e., 41.4915] has also been transmitted by Abu-Usamah in a similar manner through a different chain of narrators. This version has: "With good fortune, she (Umm Ruman) entrusted me to them. They washed my head and redressed me. No one came to me suddenly except the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) in the forenoon. So they entrusted me to him.

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin: When we came to Medina, the women came to me when I was playing on the swing, and my hair were up to my ears. They brought me, prepared me, and decorated me. Then they brought me to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) and he took up cohabitation with me, when I was nine.

As I was exploring these ahadith, I saw immediately below 41.4917, this interesting hadith, 41.4920: "Narrated AbuMusa al-Ash'ari: The Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) said: He who plays backgammon disobeys Allah and His Apostle." Muhammad condemns backgammon as against the will of Allah, but enjoins sex with premenarcheal girls? Most of us will see the absurdity in some of Muhammad's edicts, banning the gnat and swallowing the camel. The natural law will scream in our inner ear, the forum of our conscience, that something is deadly wrong with this self-acclaimed prophet. But remember, for a Muslim, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.
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*In Sahih Bukhari 9.87.139, 9.87.140, and 9.87.141, Muhammad seems to confess a prior longing for Aisha, as he even had dreams about her being uncovered. Seeing Aisha naked in a dream (at age six) meant to Muhammad that this desire "is from Allah, then it must happen."
**It seems that Aisha's father, Abu Bakr, was not initially excited about the prospect, but, being under the thrall of Muhammad appears to have conceded to the pseudo-prophet's proposal after weakly trying to deflect it on the grounds that he was Muhammad's brother: Sahih Bukhari 7.18: "Narrated 'Ursa: The Prophet asked Abu Bakr for 'Aisha's hand in marriage. Abu Bakr said 'But I am your brother.' The Prophet said, 'You are my brother in Allah's religion and His Book, but she (Aisha) is lawful for me to marry.'" In other words, Islam--not Bedouin practices--made it legitimate for Muhammad (and by implication any Muslim) to marry and bed premenarcheal girls. This precept in itself is so repugnant to the natural law and to reason that, by itself, it destroys any possible divine warrant underlying Islam.
***The problem is even worse that just Aisha. In Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad we discover the lecherous Muhammad planning to wed an infant Ummu'l-Fadl even while she was a baby crawling before him. Since this event appears to have occurred during the Battle of Badr, Muhammad would have been approximately 55 years of age, which of course meant that he would have been in his mid sixties when he married the nine-year-old Ummu'l-Fadl. "(Suhayli, ii. 79: In the riwaya of Yunus I. I. recorded that the apostle saw her (Ummu'l-Fadl) when she was a baby crawling before him and said, 'If she grows up and I am still alive I will marry her.' But he died before she grew up and Sufyan b. al-Aswad b. 'Abdu'l-Asad al-Makhzumi married her and she bore him Rizq and Lubaba. . . ." A Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 311. Lucky for young Ummu'l-Fadl, Muhammad died before he could fulfill those plans. This is not the only hadith that suggests Muhammad had set his eyes on other infants for future marriage as girl brides. In the collection of ahadith entitled Musnad Ahmud 26329
we have the following

حدثنا يعقوب قال حدثنا أبي عن ابن إسحاق قال وحدثني حسين بن عبد الله بن عباس عن عكرمة مولى عبد الله بن عباس عن عبد الله بن عباس عن أم الفضل بنت الحارث أن رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم رأى أم حبيبة بنت عباس وهي فوق الفطيم قالت فقال لئن بلغت بنية العباس هذه وأنا حي لأتزوجنها

The body of this hadith may be translated:

The Messenger of Allah (peace upon him) saw Um Habiba the daughter of Abbas while she was al-futim (still nursing) and he said, "If she grows up while I am still alive, I will marry her.

[This hadith is often miscited on the internet as Musnad Ahmad 25636].

Muhammad and the Natural Law: Sex with Aunt Khaula

THE NUMBER OF WIVES that Muhammad gathered as if they were pets or playthings is, as we have noted, not consonant with the natural moral law. The practice of polygamy appears to have been abandoned by the Jews of the time of Muhammad. In the work by the Muslim scholar Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi (168/784 - 230/845), the Kitab al-Tabaqat Al-Kabir, we read that the Jews, when they witnessed the self-professed prophet Muhammad marrying more than one woman commented: "'Look at this man who never has enough of food and cares for nothing else as he does for women.'" Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 1:398. While the Muslim scholar Ibn Sa'd attributed the Jews' complaint to envy, he did mention that they pointed to it as counter-indicative of any claim to prophethood: "'If he were a prophet," the Jews said among themselves, "'he would not desire women'" Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 8:202. The Jews' ruminations seem rather common sense.

Muhammad's desire for women seems to have possessed him after the death of his wife Khadija. "I was the least man in sexuality," Muhammad is related to have said, "till God brought down on me the kafit." This divine gift of sexual prowess, a sort of divine Arabic-Viagra, was readily given to Muhammad by his Allah: "Whenever I seek it I find it." Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd, 8:192. According to the dictionary Lisan al-Arab (2:71), kafit is the ability to have sex and to marry. The Tabaqat Ibn Sa'd also relates: "The Messenger of God said, 'Gabriel met me with a pot, of which I ate, and I was given the kafit [sexual ability] of forty men.'" Gabriel was Allah's interlocutor only after Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina.

The Name Muhammad in Arabic

In addition to the practice of polygyny, which of itself, as the Jews of Muhammad's time noted, puts Muhammad out of running as a legitimate prophet, we saw in our last posting that the manner in which Muhammad obtained the hand of young Safiya, the Jewess from the Banu al-Nadir tribe, in marriage raises serious questions of his moral sensitivity. He displayed all the moral sensitivity of a rapacious animal in marrying the young woman whose father, uncle, husband, and kinsmen he had killed. While we may recognize the behavior as one in keeping with a warrior chieftan, it is not the sort of behavior that one would ascribe to an ideal or perfect man, one with the title al-Insan al-Kamil.

Muhammad's marriage to young Safiya is not the only relationship that raises eyebrows. We may also turn to other relationships that raise issues of moral propriety, specifically, relationships that are arguable incestuous, and if not incestuous highly unseeming. We shall focus first on Muhammad's relationship with Khaula bint Hakim (خولة بنت حكيم‎) in this posting. In the next, we shall focus on Muhammad's relationship with his adopted son's wife, Zainab.

In a prior posting, we had cause to quote Qur'an 33:50 and the Islamic scholar Watt's observations regarding this verse in the Qur'an. It is apparent that Muhammad expanded the range of women which were available to him sexually to include a number of categories: (i) wives formally so called; (ii) slaves or concubines which Muhammad's "right hand possessed"; (iii) daughters of maternal uncles and maternal aunts; (iv) those who migrated from Mecca to Medina; (v) any Muslim woman if she offered herself to Muhammad and Muhammad wished to marry her; (vi) a privilege special for Muhammad apart from the other believers, the khalisatan la-ka min dun al-mu'minin ( خَالِصَة ً لَكَ مِنْ دُونِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ ).

The category that Muhammad could enjoy any Muslim woman who offered herself to Muhammad appears to have been broad enough to include even maternal aunts, given the hadith that relates to a certain Khaula bint Hakim.

Khaula bint Hakim was Muhammad's maternal aunt, his mother's sister. This we learn from the book of ahadith Musnad Ahmad 26768.

مسند أحمد - مِنْ مُسْنَدِ الْقَبَائِلِ - عن المرأة تحتلم فقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم لتغتسل
26768 حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ جَعْفَرٍ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا شُعْبَةُ وَحَجَّاجٌ قَالَ حَدَّثَنِي شُعْبَةُ قَالَ سَمِعْتُ عَطَاءً الْخُرَاسَانِيَّ يُحَدِّثُ عَنْ سَعِيدِ بْنِ الْمُسَيَّبِ أَنَّ خَوْلَةَ بِنْتَ حَكِيمٍ السُّلَمِيَّةَ وَهِيَ إِحْدَى خَالَاتِ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ سَأَلَتْ النَّبِيَّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ عَنْ الْمَرْأَةِ تَحْتَلِمُ فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ لِتَغْتَسِلْ

What is striking is that this Khaula bint Hakin (خَوْلَةَ بِنْتَ حَكِيمٍ ), "one of the aunts of the prophet, " إِحْدَى خَالَاتِ النَّبِيِّ , was one of the women who presented themselves to Muhammad. We learn this from another hadith, this one found in Sahih Bukhari 7.62.48. In this hadith, related by Hisham's father, the subject involves one of the women who offered themselves to Muhammad for marriage, as allowed by the Qur'an 33:50. The woman happens to be Muhammad's aunt, Khaula bint Hakim. The prospect of Muhammad's aunt offering herself to Muhammad elicits a natural aversion by young Aisha, one immediately squelched by a Qur'anic revelation:

Khaula bint Hakim was one of those ladies who presented themselves to the Prophet for marriage. 'Aisha said, "Doesn't a lady feel ashamed for presenting herself to a man?" But when the Verse: "(O Muhammad) You may postpone (the turn of) any of them (your wives) that you please,' (33.51) was revealed, " 'Aisha said, 'O Allah's Apostle! I do not see, but, that your Lord hurries in pleasing you.' "

The Qur'anic revelation that effectively squelched Aisha's aversion is the following:

You (O Muhammad SAW) can postpone (the turn of) whom you will of them (your wives), and you may receive whom you will. And whomsoever you desire of those whom you have set aside (her turn temporarily), it is no sin on you (to receive her again), that is better; that they may be comforted and not grieved, and may all be pleased with what you give them. Allāh knows what is in your hearts. And Allāh is Ever All­Knowing, Most Forbearing.

Qur'an, (Al-Ahzab) 33:51.

The Qur'anic revelation suggests that Aisha, or for that matter any other wife of Muhammad, ought not to feel aggrieved if Muhammad engaged in sexual relations with women who belonged to the other categories allowed him, whether they be slaves or concubines or women who offer themselves to him, even if they are maternal aunts. Indeed, the Muslim wife, like any submissive creature or well-trained pet, ought to be pleased with the arrangement.

Remember, for a Muslim, الله ورسوله أعلم, Allah and his messenger know best, the natural law notwithstanding.