Subject: Re: OK! Religious Tolerances...
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:47:35 +1100
From: Richard Kerr <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian,aus.religion

Campbell Yahya White wrote:
> 
> Richard Kerr wrote:
[snip debate abouT the details. I am willing to move forward with your
account of them. I don't think the changes you suggest really affect my
point.]

> > Now it's worth dwelling on this for a bit because it's easier to say
> > "behead 700 people" than do it. It would have taken the better part of a
> > day, and the women and children, who were forced to be present,
> 
> how do you know? This is your own addition,

It is all my own work, but you can check my sums if you like.

If we work on one beheading every five minutes it would take one man 33
and a bit hours to kill four hundred people. If you had three axemen
working all day you could get the killing over in a single day.
Obviously there must have been more than three axemen working in shifts.

In order to keep the three axemen supplied with victims at the required
rate you'd have to have comprehensive logistical support, including
martialling yards for the queue of Jews waiting to be killed, several
guards to bring the victims to the axeman and possibly three more to
drag the corpses into the pit. Again you'd need men working in shifts to
keep up the pace.

You'd have to be pretty careful about the drainage of the site, though.
The amount of blood would be phenomenal. The accounts of the beheadings
of the french revolution talk of streets flowing red with blood after a
mere 20 beheadings. Ideally the blood spouting from the victims necks
would drain straight onto the corpses already in the pit, this would
reduce the threat of disease and allow the market place to be used again
as soon as the mass grave in its middle was covered over.

Now I know that this sounds like an attack on Muhammad, but it's not.
I'm trying to point out that for Muhammad to actually have done this he
could not have been a particularly merciful man by the standards we use.
On the contrary, he must have been so focussed on his military goals
that he would have seen this as something you just roll up your shirt
sleeves and do.

> or the orientalist you read it
> from.

My first account of this story was Ibn Warraq's book "Why I am not a
Muslim". I don't advise anyone read this. I thought it was hopeless
polemic against Islam. I have read enough unfair criticism of
Christianity to sympathise with others who are exposed to it.

The first fair account I read was in Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad: A
Biography of the Prophet". The book is overtly sympathetic towards
Muhammad and gives the minimum amount of detail of the incident and
follows it with a long discussion of why Muhammad cannot be judged by
our standards on this issue. Her argument was that the times were more
violent, so Muhammad had to be strong to survive. I don't buy her
argument. I don't think Muhammad had to kill all the men of the tribe.
read her book for yourself and then se if you think she is an
orientalist (whatever that means).

Armstrong gives a comprehensive list of sources in her bibliography and
I looked up the two earliest Muslim accounts in the University's
library. Armstrong obviously relied on her sources heavily, by the way,
they both agree with her account, even down to the number of men. 

> I cannot find any report which says that the women and children were
> FORCED to be present. Granted, some of them may have chosen to be with their
> husbands to the end, but that is completely different from what you, without
> any knowledge, are insinuating.

Hmmmm... I admit that "forced" is my word there. The two muslim accounts
I read simply said that the women and children were present. I assumed
that they would have fled in terror after the first couple of hours of
the slaughter, had they been free to leave. I may be wrong, I'm happy to
let others decide for themselves.

[snip]
> > the smell of
> > drying blood, vomit and faeces would have been revolting.
> 
> A little bit of hyperbole, surely?

Nope. Apparently the corpses of the victims of the guillotine almost all
voided involuntarily as the blade struck. Accounts from the french
revolution describe people vomitting because of the stench.

[snip]
> > The word we use for this now is "Genocide" and Muhammad pursued it
> > ruthlessly.
> 
> What nonsense. Genocide is a term that is frequently used inappropriately. It
> must be killing to exterminate an entire race, not for mere political or social
> reasons. You don't spare the women and children if you want to do this. Also, a
> large number of Arabian Jews embraced Islam. The Prophet married a Jew. It is
> zionist propaganda that the punishment of Banu Qurayzah in any way approximates
> genocide. Also, how did Muhammad "pursue" it? It was they who violated their
> agreement, opened the Muslims up towards death and sealed their own fate. If
> they hadn't committed treason, nothing would have befallen them.

This sounds like a history written by the victors to me. "If they hadn't
disagreed with us we wouldn't have had to kill them."

The world has quite rightly condemned the "ethnic cleansing" of the
Balkans, directed against Muslims incidently, as genocide. That is
exactly what Muhammad did in Medina, isn't it?

[snip]
> > How do modern Muslims, who are overwhelmingly peace loving people,
> > reconcile their faith with the violent actions of their prophet?
> 
> I can't answer this because I see the Prophet as a man who never moved a hand
> against anyone except in the cause of justice. Justice is an integral part of
> Islam, and cannot be seperated from compassion, piety and all other human
> endeavours.

I understand where you're coming from, but to me it looks like you have
a prior belief that Muhammad was perfect, therefore everything he did
was perfect, even if that includes exterminating non-muslim tribes.
This, at least, is an answer to my question about the Muslim reaction to
Muhammad's military exploits. I can understand that this suffices for
you.

To me the matter is not so simple. Muhammad continued the pre-Islamic
practice of "ghazu", that is raiding, as a method of building support
for his religion. He started out attacking trading caravans, but by the
time we are talking about he was attacking cities. In the last years of
his life he moved out of the Arab world and was laying seige to the
southernmost cities of Europe. Thousands of people died during these
campaigns. If you have no prior belief in Muhammad's perfection this
looks like military expansionism, and has very little to do with
justice, compassion and piety.

> > This is not an attack, it's an honest question...
> 
> pull the other one buddy...don't make me laugh.

I understand that this makes you uncomfortable, but on the other hand
it's a valid line of historical enquiry, isn't it? Why should Muhammad's
military career be exempt from the examination that other military
figures are subjected to?

-- 
Regards,

Richard Kerr            Ph: (02) 9351 5320
SUHRF 2000 Project      Fx: (02) 9351 5323
University of Sydney