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MUHAMMAD & ISLAM: Stories not told before.
By Mohammad Asghar
PART - 13
Putting way Maria in a separate house did not solve Muhammad's problem, for she began to blackmail him on the paternity of her child. He tried to subdue her, but failed. Consequently, he brought her to his harem where Hafsah found her in Muhammad's company in her own room. That was the event that led him to threaten all of his wives with mass divorce (Sura 66). We shall talk about it shortly. In vain attempts to defend Muhammad's lascivious deeds, some modern historians of Islam disagree with the accounts of the earlier writers, such as Waqidi and Ibn Ishaq et al. They give us the following account: Maria and Shiren were the daughters of Simon, one of the most respected Coptic leaders and these two girls were sent to Muhammad by the Archbishop of Alexandria with the request to treat them with all the honor due to them. They were, therefore, not slaves as stated by Waqidi et el (Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, op. cit. p. 53). Modern historians, however, do not explain why the Archbishop had sent those girls to Muhammad, and what was he supposed to do with them. Without answering these basic questions, the scholars insist that Muhammad had married Maria and also had Shiren married to his friend, Hasan Ibn Thabit. DISSENSIONS IN THE HAREM Within a few years of his arrival in Medina, Muhammad became rich for the second time in his life, the first occasion being after his marriage with Khudeija. He now possessed abundant resources, which he acquired through plunder and seizure. He also owned several oasis properties confiscated from the Jews (R. V. C. Bodley, op. cit. p. 229-30). He could now lavish his largesse once again upon whomsoever he pleased. He also set up a Fund to bribe those people who had inclinations towards his faith, but refrained from becoming its adherents (9:60). Despite the affluence he acquired, the state of his sex health made him greatly sad. Failure to achieve erection made him the object of his wive's scorn. Their meaningful glances at each other made him look like an unwanted man; their demand for sex made him feel like a eunuch; their giggles at his helplessness made his ears burn; their inattention to his presence made him feel like abandoned and their clandestine efforts at procuring lovers made his blood boil (33:53). Their attitude and conduct made him feel helpless once again in his life; the first one being when his mother left him in Mecca with the strangers, the second one being at Abdul Mutallib and Abu Talib's homes where no woman had come forward to help or console him in his distress. As if all insults already heaved on him were not enough, all of his wives joined together in demanding hefty increases to their allowance. He could not do it, for this would have made him bankrupt soon. His refusal to oblige caused all of them to rebel against him. Finding no easy and practical solution to his domestic problems, Muhammad resorted to his usual revelations. Instead of admitting that he was impotent, he asked, through one revelation, all his wives to give up their clamoring for sex; telling them, at the same time, that his mere presence in their midst should be more satisfying than engaging him with them in real sex (33:51). Through another revelation, he chastised them for demanding increase in their allowances, telling them: If you desire the life of this world and its glitter, then come! I will provide for your enjoyment by setting you free all together in a handsome manner (33:28). Thus making his intentions clear, he took to spending his nights in Aisha's room. In choosing Aisha for his nightly companionship, he had two purposes: First, it would help him avoid all the sex-starved women, and, second, he would use her in the same manner in which he had been engaging her, from the time of her infancy, to gratify his own perverted sexual needs. To Muhammad's dismay, his move not only failed to solve his problem, it unwittingly made him a victim of Aisha's caprices. Feeling proud and elevated by his regular nightly companionship, she despised even the slightest variation in his timetable. Despite herself not having been at all exposed to the pleasures and ecstasy that the penile penetration of vagina gives the females, Aisha is believed to have developed a weird possessiveness towards her man. One day he was late in coming to Aisha's room. Seizing the opportunity to take him to task, she wanted to know where he had been before coming to her room? Muhammad replied, "I have been with Umm Salamah." "Hast thou not had thy fill of Umm Salamah?" she asked, and he smiled without answering. She added, "O Messenger of God, tell me thyself. If thou wert between the two slopes of a valley, one of which had not been grazed whereas the other had been grazed, on which wouldst thou pasture thy flocks?" "On that which had not been grazed," said Muhammad. "Even so," Aisha said, "and I am not as any other of thy wives. Every woman of them had a husband before thee, except myself." Aisha's continuous nagging and the persistent haranguing of his other wives had its toll on his mental health; it turned him into a sadist. He practiced sadism on all of his wives by depriving them not only the pleasures of sexual intercourse; he also denied them the happiness of motherhood. His ego still remaining unhealed, he chided women for wearing trinkets in their childhood; he derided their allegedly foolish nature (16:92); he declared them incapable of winning debates against men; he equated one man's intelligence with that of two women (2:282); he decreed man's hegemony over woman; he put the right of marriage and divorce in the man's hands (2:236, 229-230); he permitted Muslim men to beat their wives (4:34) even on slightest pretext and last, but not the least, he turned the existence of women to an inanimate thing, with which he encouraged his followers to have sex "in any manner, when and how they willed."(2:222,223). Contrary to what we have mentioned about the dysfunctional aspect of his sex life, some Muslim writers tell us that Muhammad satisfied all his wives, concubines and the slave-girls in a single night, for 'he had the virility of twenty men.'(Martin Lings, op. cit. p. 271). The learned writers, however, do not tell us why any of his fully satisfied women, who joined his harem in Medina, never conceived, even after living with him for as long as ten years? It had been an Arab custom, from time immemorial, to procure slaves, either by abduction or by purchase. Their male Masters engaged both the male and female slaves in sexual acts whenever they fancied. Females Mistresses, too, engaged the male slaves to satisfy their sexual needs (Philip K. Hitti, op. cit. p. 235). Relying on the pagan Arabs' promiscuous behavior, Muhammad allowed his own followers to satisfy their sexual inclinations in the same manner. To make his doctrine on sex more attractive to his followers, Muhammad assured them of having in Paradise a multiple of doe-eyed virgin houris with whom they would have sex ad infinitum. For those men who would not be interested in females, he made a different provision for them. They would be attended in Paradise, he told them, by young boys, graced with eternal youth, who to the beholders' eyes, will seem like sprinkled pearls. When they would gaze upon the scene (a reference, perhaps, to human anatomy), said he, they would behold a kingdom blissful and glorious (human anatomy, again?). The boys shall be arrayed in garments of fine green silk and rich brocade, and adorned with bracelets of silver. Muhammad himself would give them pure and holy wine, mixed with camphor, to drink 76:19-21). In their state of drunkenness, those boys would be providing complete sexual pleasures to their pious masters, a tantalizing concept that induced many homosexual pagan men to accept Islam without having any regard to the consequences they were likely to face, before their death, in this world. From the Quran, we have learned much about the Paradise and the amenities it holds for its residents. It width is alone that of the whole of the heavens and the earth (3:133). It has everything to provide a blissful life to all of its occupants. It has more fruits than all the fruits our whole earth has; it has neither rain nor heat of the sun. It does not experience storms nor does it have the snow of the winter (76:13). By virtue of the controlled climate that the Paradise has, neither its present occupants need now nor its future inhabitants would need any homes to live within. All of its present occupants, prophets Idris and Isa (Jesus Christ to the Christians), being two among many others, have all along been living in the Paradise's open sky. For comfort, they wear silk robes (76:12). They spend their time reclining on soft couches, shadowed by tree branches, from which always hang clusters of fruit (76:14). Paradise's inhabitants partake their meals from silver dishes; they have large silver goblets for drinking not only the purest water but also the delectable wine (47:15); its measure being dependent on the drinker's wish (76:16). No matter the quantity of wine one consumes, he never gets drunk. Instead, he feels a soothing sensation that makes him yearn for sex. If the blessed soul wishes for a female, a doe-eyed virgin houri presents herself for copulation. On the other hand, if another soul wishes for anal sex, he will find a boy, graced with eternal youth and appearing like sprinkled pearls, ready to satisfy carnal lust. Depending on the length of their respective erections, the Paradise's inhabitants may remain locked with their partners for an indefinite period of time. And this goes on in an open space, where God appears every now and then to witness his beloved Muslim men's performance. Aroused by unending erotic scenes, celibate Isa must also be enjoying uninterrupted sex either with the houris or with the boys to compensate for what he had missed during his short stay on earth. Copulations over, both the houri and the boy turn virgins once again, ready to serve those men who may wish to have them without a moment's notice. Since pious Muslim men - - and their number is huge- - avoid excessive and entertaining sex in their ephemeral lives, the sight of most of their brethren engaging themselves, before their eyes, in sex in a large group will not appear to them like an orgy. Instead, it would appear to them as being another pious act in Paradise; its methodology, composition of partners and duration having been determined by God himself. Muhammad's concept on homosexual bliss his followers are supposed to have in their next life prompted Abdel Hamid Kisk, a blind preacher of Egypt, to tell his audience that "Muslims who entered paradise would enjoy eternal erections and the company of young boys draped in earrings and necklaces." Some of the Ulemas, the religious scholars at al-Azhar University, the Egyptian government's seat of Islamic learning, disagreed. "Yes," they said, men in paradise would have erections, but merely protracted, not perpetual (Judith Miller, God Has Ninety-Nine Names, p. 26). Those scholars, however, did not dispute the possibility of pederasty in Paradise. Convinced fully that God could not have said or prescribed all the licentious acts for Muslims to enjoy in Paradise, we are of the opinion that all those statements came from Muhammad himself. He used God as a shield all the times to make his nonsensical and perverted statements efficacious. Where he felt necessary, he intertwined God's existence with that of his own. Those statements, which have God and Muhammad jointly proclaiming certain orders or decrees (33:36 et al), should suffice to prove our claim. In the backdrop of our stated position, we have, in some places, substituted the Quranic words "Lord" or God by the word "Muhammad" in order to restore relevancy to the matters or issues under our discussion. Muhammad's mere interaction with other females evoked his wives' wrath, even after he had become sexually dysfunctional. The following incidence illustrates the intensity of their distrust in their husband. One day, Muhammad was in Hafsah's room with Maria Qibtia, the slave-girl, given to him as a present by the ruler of Alexandria. Returning unexpectedly, she found them together (see Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall, The Glorious Koran, p. 405, R. V. C. Bodley, op. cit. p. 266 & N. J. Dawood, op. cit. p. 398). Dismayed, she asked him what he was doing in her room with a slave-girl. He replied: "Be quite! I swear in the name of God that I shall never see her again. But whatever you know about me and her, you must not tell anyone else."(Dr. Humayun Azad, Nari {Woman}, p. 77. He has a slightly different account on their togetherness). Her anger inflamed, perhaps, by the disclosure of Maria's pregnancy as well as by his casual dismissal of the affair, Hafsah narrated her conversation with Muhammad to Aisha. Both of them confronted him, demanding an explanation of his conduct as well as of what he had told Hafsah about his having a child from the slave girl. Unashamedly, he tried, in vain, to calm the infuriated and shrieking women with repeated promises not to be with her again. The women would not believe him and kept on clamoring like a band of maniacs. Finally, Muhammad cracked up. "Hell is inhabited by women!" he cried and added: "You women are more contemptuous of God than me. I shall not visit you for a month!" and then he stormed out of Hafsah's cabin. Though Muhammad had promised not to be with Maria again to please his wives, but soon he realized that by not having a relationship with her, he was going to lose his claim on her child. To grant obviation to himself from his promise to Hafsah, he declared: "Prophet, why do you prohibit that {Maria} which God has made lawful to you in seeking to please your wives? God is forgiving and merciful. God has given you absolution from such oaths. God is your Master. He is the Omniscient One, the Wise one. When the Prophet confided a secret {i.e. Maria's child} to one of his wives {Hafsah}; and she disclosed it {to Aisha} and God informed him {Muhammad} of this, he made known one part of it and said nothing about the other. And when he acquainted her {Hafsah} with it she said: "who told you this?" He {Muhammad} replied: "The Wise One, the All Knowing, told me." If you two {Hafsah and Aisha} turn to God in repentance (for your hearts have sinned?) you shall be pardoned; but if you conspire against him {Muhammad}, know that God is his protector, and Gabriel, and the righteous among the faithful. The angels too are his helpers. It may well be that, if he divorce you, his Lord will give him in your place better wives than yourselves, submissive to God and full of faith, devout, penitent, and given to fasting; both formerly wedded and virgins."(66:1-5). We note that the references to what God had supposedly told Muhammad about his domestic problem; what he hid from one of his wives and her response to God's disclosure are obscure (N. J. Dawood, op. cit. p. 398). The language of the declaration makes it clear that the incident of Maria had not remained confined to Muhammad and to his two wives only. Rather, it seems to have spread to his entire harem, making it impossible for him to contain their revolt. It also makes it known to us that Muhammad's wives were in the habit of disobeying him. Furthermore, they were not used to observing the basic rituals of Islam, such as praying and giving alms. He admonished them in the past for their shortcomings, but it seems, they did not pay him heed, and continued to live and do things in manners that suited their fancies and characters. Before the showdown that took place between Muhammad and his wives on the questions of Maria and her child, he had tried various means to bring them under his control. He cajoled them; he implored them to act like a prophet's wives (33:32); he demanded of them to stay home quietly and not to make a dazzling display of themselves (33:33) in order to avoid drawing to themselves the attention of lurking lovers; he instructed them to establish regular prayers, to practice charity, to obey him and to recite what he taught them about his Signs and his Wisdom (33:34). When all the above failed, he even threatened them with a double punishment that would await them in their next life, should they continued to disobey him with their guilty conducts (33:30). Nothing seems to have changed his wives' conducts. He used the threat of divorce as the last resort, knowing that it would be effective at least in two ways: Aisha was the daughter of Abu Bakr, while Hafsah was Omar's daughter. Both those men aspired to achieve power, wealth and fame after their son-in-law's death. Consequently, they always supported him even on those matters, which other considered false and untenable. Muhammad knew their state of mind. He also knew that in his dispute with his wives, they would not support their daughters. Instead, they would support him in order to maintain the congeniality of their relationship. He was right, and his fathers-in-law came to his aid. Upon hearing Muhammad's threat of divorce, both Abu Bakr and Umar approached their daughters. They chastised them for disobeying their husbands. They also made it clear to them that should their husband really carry out his threat, they would not have any support from them, nor would they get shelter in their homes after being divorced. Muhammad's trick worked this time. Both his wives weighed in the consequences of a divorce. With their own eyes, they saw the despicable lives that the divorcees lived. They also visualized the difficulties that they would have to endure after being divorced by their highly vindictive husband. Bereft of parental support and the consequential prospects of a difficult and uncertain life after divorce, Muhammad's helpless wives had no option but to cave in to his demands. Following their surrender to their husband, they lived in the manner he wanted them to live; they breathed the air he wanted them to breathe and they lived on what he gave them to support their lives (33:51). They also lived their lives, until his death in 632 A.D., without enjoying the pleasures of sex and motherhood. Much before he was able to saddle his rebellious wives, he made various laws that favored only his whims and lust. In doing so, he paid no consideration to those who were likely to be his victims. Through one such law or decree, he ordained for himself: "Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty; the daughters of your paternal and maternal uncles and of your paternal and maternal aunts who fled with you; and any believing woman who gives herself to the Prophet and whom the Prophet wishes to take in marriage. This privilege is yours alone, being granted to no other believer. We well know the duties We have imposed on the faithful concerning their wives and slave girls. We grant you this privilege so that there should be no difficulty for you. God is forgiving and merciful"(33:50). The pagans, we believe, married their cousins, but they abhorred the idea of having sex with them without binding themselves together in marital knots. Muhammad flaunted this requirement of decency and had sex with his cousins without marrying them. Frowned upon and criticized by the pagans for his illegitimate and unethical behavior, he retaliated by decreeing what appears to be a license for him to undertake open acts of fornication. Nature eventually reacted to his excesses; it turned his tool of excessive vigor and prowess into a useless lump of flesh. CHILDREN Opinions vary on the number of Muhammad's legitimate children. The commonly held belief is that he had seven children with Khudeija, his first wife. They were Qasim, Tayyab, Taher, Zainab, Rokeya, Umm Kulthum and Fatima. All his daughters lived long, but none of his sons survived beyond their infancy. Why they died so young, or what had caused them death, remains shrouded in secrecy. Historians should focus some of their attention on this intriguing matter so that the students of Islamic History could put to rest their suspicion, which surrounds the death, in infancy, of all of Muhammad's male descendents. We believe that had one of his legitimate sons survived him, he would not only have inherited most of Muhammad's wealth, his followers would also have turned him into a highly venerated spiritual leader. Were those factors responsible for their death are something that we cannot pass our judgment on, however, we hope that the future investigative historians would dig out the truth and lay it bare for everyone to draw their own conclusions. Muhammad's eldest daughter, Zainab, was married to Abu Aass. Rokeya and Umm Kulthum, his second and third daughters, were married respectively to Othba and Otabaya, two sons of his uncle, Abu Lahab. When Muhammad began preaching Islam, Abu Lahab and his wife, Umm Jamil, became his inveterate enemies. In order to punish him, they forced their sons to repudiate their wives, causing the aggrieved Muhammad to express his anger in a malediction against Abu Lahab and his wife in the words recorded in the Quran (Sura 111, titled Abu Lahab, the Father of Flame). After their divorce, Muhammad gave Rokeya in marriage to Othman Ibn Affan, his companion and confidante. She died in Madina after her return from Abyssinia, following the battle of Badr. Othman subsequently married Umm Kulthum, his sister-in-law. Following the battle of Badr, Abu Bakr and Omar, Muhammad's elderly fathers-in-law, sought Fatima, his youngest daughter, who was about twenty years of age, in marriage. He refused their solicitations, and arranged her marriage to his cousin Ali who was one of the first persons to embrace Islam after Muhammad had begun its preaching. In spite of Ali being a poor man, Muhammad decided to marry off his daughter with a lavishness that was hitherto unknown to the people of Madina. With this ambition in mind, he slaughtered a ram; supplementing it with grain donated by the local people, he prepared a feast for the entire population of the city. People, who attended the occasion, confessed later that they had never before seen its equal anywhere in their entire land. The responsibility for preparing the nuptial bed in the house of the bridegroom fell to the stepmother, Aisha who then was barely eleven years old. She had some soft sand collected from the river, and scattering it on the earthen floor, she covered it with sheepskin. Placing on top of it a pillow of leather stuffed with palm-fibre, she completed the grand nuptial bed to the admiration of all who happened to see such a rare display for the first time in their life. MUHAMMAD'S DEATH After Muhammad returned to Madina, upon completing his last pilgrimage to Mecca in 632 A.D., he issued orders for assembling of an army to go on an expedition to Syria. When a powerful army had been collected, he appointed Osama, a twenty-year son of Zaid, as its commander. Muhammad bade it farewell on a mission that was destined by circumstances to remain unaccomplished during his lifetime. On the eve of the day on which he had dispatched Osama to Syria, Muhammad suffered a violent headache. He attributed the pain to the lingering effects of the poison given to him by a Jew of Khaybar. The agony was accompanied by vertigo, as well as delirium, which seemed to have been a part of all of his paroxysms. When he felt slightly better, he retired to Aisha's apartment to tell her about his illness. It so happened that Aisha herself was suffering from a headache that day. On entering her room, he heard her moaning, "Oh, my head!" "Nay, Aisha," said Muhammad, "it is my head!" Having said so, he looked at her searchingly, seeking some sign of mortal sickness in her face; finding none, he said to the girl, "I wished that you died whilst yet I was alive, that I might ask forgiveness for thee and bury thee" (Martin Lings, op. cit. p. 338) Aisha retorted, "Yes, I know what you wish. You wish that I should die so that you could bring in a new wife in my place" (Gulam Mustafa, op. cit. p. 259). Amused by Aisha's teasing, Muhammad settled down in her room. Muhammad's headache intensified, and on the second day he developed fever and a serious pain in his stomach. After finding some relief, he was aided in going to the mosque, which was adjacent to his residence. Here he seated himself on the pulpit, he addressed the congregation on certain issues. In his final remarks, he asked, "Is there anyone from whom I have taken something and not paid it back?" Let him come forward and be identified," At this, a man from the throng reminded him of an unpaid debt of three dinars of silver he owed him. Muhammad instantly paid back the loan, with interest (Washington Irving, op. cit. pp.190-191). If the story of payment of interest on his debt, as told, were to be accepted as being true, in that event, we must point out that Muhammad had done so in violation of his own doctrine (2:275), which forbade usury. Within its purview also falls the debtor who pays interest on a loan. Of course, Muhammad was a special person and he did not have to live by his own rules or doctrines. Dictators never make rules for themselves; they make them for their subjects only. After a few days of intolerable suffering from great pain and dementia, Muhammad breathed his last on Monday, June 8, 632 A.D (Philip K. Hitti, op. cit. p. 119). According to one Muslim account, Muhammad was inflicted by the black magic of a Jew and his daughter. Under its impact, he remained almost insane until about the time of his death. His sufferings intensified with the onset of severe headache. Under intolerable conditions, he ran from place to place, in search of relief, but he found none. Eventually, he found relief in his own revelations. It consisted of eleven verses, invocations or statements. Through them, he sought refuge in the Lord alone (not Lord and him) from the mischief of his creation; from the mischief of the night's darkness; from the mischief of the conjuring witches; from the mischief of the envier; from the mischief of slinking prompter who whispers in the hearts of men as well as from jinn (Suras 113 & 114). Eleven invocations removed eleven spells of black magic. Removal of the evil's effect from his body made him recover from his illness for a brief period of time. He fell sick again and died. Whatever was the cause of his death, his departure ended a long period of tyranny. His death freed his wives from his bondage; it gave a sigh of relief to the pagans who he forced to abandon their ancestral faith and it also removed the shadow of his omnipresent sword from the heads of the Jews. On the flipside, he left behind a set of religious doctrines, which have been impacting the lives of a vast number of his followers even after his death some 1400 years ago. While some of his teachings have proven instrumental in crippling the lives of many of his own followers, others have been helping them to create schism and hatred in those humans who follow different philosophies of life. Allah-o-Akbar, essentially a Muslim war cry, still turns many Muslims engaged in battles, interfaith riots and sectarian conflicts into ferocious animals; alleged support given in the past by angels to the warring Muslims against the infidels drive small and weaker Islamic States to challenge the combined might of the world's all industrialized nations; murder of the Jews by Muhammad and his hateful teaching against them (5:54) still generate fiery desire in most of the Muslims the elimination of all Jews from the face of planet earth and his call to kill the pagans whenever and wherever they are found (59:5) is a constant source of inspiration for many of his followers to engage themselves in the murder of all the Hindus of the world. His belligerent teachings, as Bernard Lewis has pointed out in his book, "The Crisis of Islam," are considered by many Muslims to be a duty for them to "destroy the entire world before their apocalyptic design of restoring the Islamic caliphate can be realized."
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