So I thought I'd expand on the above, because I honestly meant these to be arguments.
1) The quran:
The quran claims itself to be the perfect uncorrupted word of god. That's it's biggest flaw. It invites challenge in a way other holy texts don't, and is really to arrogant for it's own good. The level is enough that it doesn't have the flexibility needed to stand the test of time. The fact that it doesn't have this flexibility, and that it needs it in the first place, is an argument against it in my opinion.
2) Sanity
There's only so much a human being can reasonably be held accountable for when it comes to spiritual matters. There's a verse in the quran which says allah has not given us two hearts. I personally view this as metaphorical, not literal. We view and believe certain things a certain way. I cannot at the same time believe in the quran while seeing flaws in it.
3) Reality
The quran, like all the other holy texts, claims to be the word of god. The way to verify this is testing it, see if it stacks up. Quite frankly it doesn't. Dust devils and jinns, spontaneous human creation, great flood, there's a lot to choose from, but I'll pick a few.
The story of the arc and the great flood. This would have happened around 4000 years ago. It's quite simply impossible for the number of races, ethnicities and the huge amount of genetic traits to come from one incestuous family in just 4000 years. It cannot happen. Something else that puts a hole in the story is the amount of people who were thriving at this point. God flooded the entire world. Except for the Chinese who were developing at an incredible rate and remained unaffected from a global flood that wiped out every human on the planet. The Japanese were also unaffected. And the Africans. And the Europeans. And the Native Americans. And the Aztecs. And the South Americans. And most of the middle east. The flood never happened. It's not real.
The quran teaches that humans were created from clay in a specific creation. If you're to count on the hadiths, then it's just even more ludicrous. We know the first human was not a 90 foot tall clay giant. Even if you don't take the hadiths into account, it also doesn't account for evolution, the proof of which is overwhelming. Nor does it account for the number of people today who have Neanderthal DNA in them from before the Neanderthals went extinct. Everything I know to be proven fact contradicts the claims of the quran. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that it was a story told by ancient societies because they didn't have any answers. Adam never existed. It's not real.
The sun orbits the Earth...yeah, we've known that's bullshit for a few centuries now.
It says in the quran that in the embryo/foetus the bones are the first thing to form. "So we made the clot a morsel, so we made the morsel bones, so we clothed the bones (with) meat". This is wrong. The skeleton is actually among the last to be formed. You'd think the all knowing creator of everything would realise this. It's wrong.
The stars are missiles to be hurled at jinns. Or they hunt demons. I haven't read the quran in a while so I can't remember the exact quote, but you can look it up to see exactly what it says. This is also wrong. The stars are just stars, they do the exact same thing as the star we orbit, the sun.
Women are defective in intelligence. Coming from a culture where gender mixing is the norm and close relationships aren't looked down upon, I can tell you this isn't true from my own experience. And then there's current trends in school grades, sciences, IQ and employment performance, the fact there are women in MENSA (if you don't know MENSA is like a super genius club, only 2% of the human population globally have a high enough IQ to qualify for membership). Now we live in an age men and women have equal rights, women are on the same level and even starting to out preform men. So I'm going to say this is wrong.
4) Nonsense
Do you believe that allah puts a veil over our hearts? If the answer to this is yes, then my reply to that would be that I'm blameless. If the reason I don't see the truth of islam is because allah put a veil over my heart, then it stands to reason I'll be punished (by being sent to hell) for a crime I didn't commit. My reason for saying I'm being punished for a crime I didn't commit is that allah delibertly put a veil over my heart so I would never know him, therefore the fault is allah's, not mine.
Do you believe nothing happens accept by allah's will? If so then it's the same as above. If nothing happens except by allah's will, then allah made sure I wouldn't believe in him. So again the fault lies with allah, not myself.
Do you believe islam teaches there's no compulsion in religion? If so does that mean if you don't accept islam as true, then you go to hell? If so, this means that allah has told us something to be taken as truth, and he punishes us for taking him at his word instead of assuming he was lying.
Do you believe in the virgin birth? If so, can you understand why I might think it's more likely that a teenage girl told a lie rather than a virgin magically conceiving a child, carrying it to term, birthing it, and the child while still an infant speaking?
Can you also understand why it may be confusing that said infant would only speak once to a few people and refuse to speak again to others, which would cause all doubt in the divinity of allah to be wiped away?
Here's a situation. Let's say there's something in your house you don't like. It offends you. Let's also say you have the power of a god. Would you A) throw away the thing you didn't like or give it to charity, or B) bring it to life, give it intelligence so it can understand what's happening, enable it to feel pain, and torture it forever and ever and ever? Which is more merciful?
5) Common sense
It becomes a common sense issue. Let's say that I'm wrong. Let's say all the things I'm of the opinion are true are wrong. It doesn't change the fact that I find the quran unbelievable. I can't have more knowledge than what's available to me. Let's take evolution. I find it believable. I'm convinced of it. The quran goes against it. I have no reason whatsoever, nothing at all compelling me to believe the quranic story over proven scientific fact.
Or another, let's take the big bang. I'm convinced by what knowledge I have that before the universe, and after the universe, there was no Earth. This planet did not exist. It took a very long time for our star to be born and for our planet to form. This seems plausible to me. From what I know of physics and cosmology, I can accept this. I have no reason whatsoever to believe that the Earth existed from the start and was ripped apart from heaven.
Or another. The quran and hadiths suggest a flat Earth. At one point it's spread out like a carpet, at another the Earth is like an ostrich egg (had to pick the bird that buries it's egg and flattens the soil), allah will roll up the Earth like parchment/paper, and on and on it goes. Everything I'm aware of tells me this is wrong. It becomes less and less believable to me. So with all this in mind, common sense tells me that the only truth that lies hidden in the quran is simply the truths of the cultural norms and mindset of that society and time. Historically and psychologically it's interesting, but that's all it is. No more, no less.
And I have to admit, these aren't even my strongest arguments. I haven't thought about this endlessly, I haven't delved into the theology to throw things at you. The above is just what came to mind as I sit here filling the time on a lazy Sunday evening.
I have never seen the evidence for or against Moses existing. What is the main reason why some believe he is fictional?
There's no evidence at all, for any of it. Not for a historical Moses, not for the slaves, not for the plagues, not for the desert wanderings, nothing. I'm a little drunk right now but I'll try to give an idea.
The first thing to mention is that there's no real evidence of jewish slaves in ancient Egypt, at least not in the scale the abrahamic religions would have us believe. At the time of the supposed uprising there were 600,000 families, which works out to about two million people. Two million people who lived under hardship and tyrannical rule. Let's not even mention that the ancient Egyptians treated slaves as a common practise in ways that are completely contradictory to this. Let's not even mention that they couldn't of built the pyramids because they were supposedly enslaved around three centuries AFTER the completion of the pyramids in 1750 B.C.
First off, the Egyptians kept good records. It's how we know so much about them. If they lost two million of their slaves, the economy would have collapsed overnight. Never happened. The competing empires would have smelled blood in the water. Never happened. There's not a single footnote even among the Roman Empire that says "Hey, hear what happened in Egypt?" It would of been big news. No mention of it. Anywhere. Nothing.
The desert they were lost in for 40 years? 120 miles across. They could of walked from one end to the other in a week. There are people who crossed the width of America, which is what, 2700 miles? 3000 miles? Took them a year. The better part of three thousand miles and you cross it in a year. 120? Two million people, used to the desert, are lost for four decades.
You also have to wonder why they did it in the first place. Egypt is basically the Nile. Just 50 miles the other way a huge body of fresh water that no one knew was there. If god wanted them safe, wouldn't that make more sense? But no. Two million desert natives lost for 40 years in a desert they would of crossed in one week.
While living there for all that time, they left nothing. No pottery. No hebrew writing. No camp remains. No food remains. No place of worship, no discarded or ripped piece of cloth, nothing.
And that really sums it up, there's nothing. No records of losing a quarter of the entire population. No records of economic downturn. No evidence of families surviving in the desert. There wasn't even a labour shortage.
You'd almost think it was made up.
The entire story seems to be a plagiarism of Sargon of Akkad, a story that pre-dates Moses by a millennia. While he was clearly a brilliant military leader, it was the story he told of his youth and rise to power that exerted a powerful influence over the Sumerians he sought to conquer. Instead of representing himself as a man chosen by the gods to rule, he presented a much humbler image of himself as an orphan set adrift in life who was taken in by a kind gardener and granted the love of the goddess Inanna. His mother could not reveal her pregnancy or keep the child, and so she placed him in a basket which she then let go on the Euphrates River. She had sealed the basket with tar, and the water carried him safely to where he was later found by a man named Akki who was a gardener for Ur-Zababa, the king of the Sumerian city of Kish. In creating this legend, Sargon carefully distanced himself from the kings of the past (who claimed divine right) and aligned himself with the common people of the region rather than the ruling elite. Sound familiar?
Just to give a clear idea, compare his birth to Mose' birth in the bible and quran..
Exodus 2, 1-10
And there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi.
And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months.
And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the reeds by the river's brink.
And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him.
And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the river's side; and when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her maid to fetch it.
And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children.
Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee?
And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child's mother.
And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the women took the child, and nursed it.
And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.
Surat Al-Qaşaş 2-13
These are revelations of the Scripture that maketh plain.
We narrate unto thee (somewhat) of the story of Moses and Pharaoh with truth, for folk who believe.
Lo! Pharaoh exalted himself in the earth and made its people castes. A tribe among them he oppressed, killing their sons and sparing their women. Lo! he was of those who work corruption.
And We desired to show favour unto those who were oppressed in the earth, and to make them examples and to make them the inheritors,
And to establish them in the earth, and to show Pharaoh and Haman and their hosts that which they feared from them.
And We inspired the mother of Moses, saying: Suckle him and, when thou fearest for him, then cast him into the river and fear not nor grieve. Lo! We shall bring him back unto thee and shall make him (one) of Our messengers.
And the family of Pharaoh took him up, that he might become for them an enemy and a sorrow, Lo! Pharaoh and Haman and their hosts were ever sinning.
And the wife of Pharaoh said: (He will be) a consolation for me and for thee. Kill him not. Peradventure he may be of use to us, or we may choose him for a son. And they perceived not.
And the heart of the mother of Moses became void, and she would have betrayed him if We had not fortified her heart, that she might be of the believers.
And she said unto his sister: Trace him. So she observed him from afar, and they perceived not.
And We had before forbidden foster-mothers for him, so she said: Shall I show you a household who will rear him for you and take care of him?
So We restored him to his mother that she might be comforted and not grieve, and that she might know that the promise of Allah is true. But most of them know not.
Sargon -
Sargon, the mighty king, King of Agade, am I. My mother was a vestal, my father I knew not, while my father's brother dwelt in the mountains. In my city Azuripani, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates, my mother, the vestal, bore me. In a hidden place she brought me forth. She laid me in a vessel made of reeds, closed my door with pitch, and dropped me down into the river, which did not drown me. The river carried me to Akki, the water carrier. Akki the water carrier lifted me up in the kindness of his heart, Akki the water carrier raised me as his own son, Akki the water carrier made of me his gardener. In my work as a gardener I was beloved by Ishtar, I became the king, and for forty-five years I held kingly sway.
Debunking Jahannam: Why Islamic Hell Is Not Real by happy murtad
There are few concepts that have haunted the human psyche more perverse and absurd than that of an eternal hell.
Jahannam, Islam’s rendition of the fiery abode of the damned, is an exceptionally gruesome world of endless torture and grotesque physical anguish.
The Quran, the sacred text of Islam—believed by millions of Muslims to be the unchanged pronouncements of an all merciful God, is quite literally filled with countless obscene and ugly descriptions of the torment that is said to await billions of non-Muslim souls and even an untold number of Muslim souls.
Muslims are actively encouraged to live in a constant state of terror at the prospect of being banished to Jahannam for all eternity, as the Qur’an states “Fear ye the fire, whose fuel is men and stones, prepared for the disbelievers!” Surah 2:24
What is more, generation upon generation of Muslim children have been frightened into submission with nightmare-inducing scenes of suffering from Allah’s custom designed torture lair. The fear of hell is often reported as the single-most disturbing Islamic facet that lingers on, even after one has come to the rational conclusion that Islam is not true.
“The day they shall be dragged through the fire on their faces, taste ye the touch of hell!” Surah 54:48
“Those who shall dwell for ever in the Fire, and be given, to drink, boiling water, so that it cuts up their bowels!” Surah 47:15
“Verily, with Us are fetters (to bind them), and a raging Fire. And a food that chokes, and a painful torment.” Surah 73:12
“But those who deny (their Lord),- for them will be cut out a garment of Fire: over their heads will be poured out boiling water. By which is melted that within their bellies and [their] skins. In addition there will be maces of iron (to punish) them. Every time they wish to get away therefrom, from anguish, they will be forced back therein, and (it will be said), "Taste ye the Penalty of Burning!" Surah 22:19-22
Whilst torment by fire, iron maces, and bowel-tearing water are undoubtedly a clear violation of the Geneva Convention against Torture, there exist still in today’s modern world those who would adamantly assert that such cruel and unusual punishments are morally justifiable. While a marginal number of interpreters would assert that these verses are merely allegorical, a great deal more throughout the ages have taken these descriptions of pain and bodily harm with dead seriousness.
They would attempt unimpressive twists of logical gymnastics in a feat to explain that not only is such a deranged sentence true, it is also a wise and fitting judgement that ought to be imposed upon the vast majority of humanity.
In the same vein, and without the slightest perception of irony, advocates for the necessity of such a depraved notion will concede that it is entirely the brainchild and construction of a God who dubs himself “the most merciful of those who show mercy.”
The inhabitants of Islamic hell are not simply the hedonist tyrants of the days of old. They are the billions upon billions of people who did not reach the less than obvious conclusion that Islam was God’s only religion.
They are our colleagues, our doctors, our teachers, our mail men, our friends, and often times, our family.
They are fellow human beings.
Now, if Allah is indeed all knowing and all powerful, then he knew in advance that billions of these poor souls would be cast unto such unspeakable tortures, mostly on account of the beliefs they happened to be indoctrinated with from birth. He could have given all of them guidance and saved them from such a fate, but he chose not to. As Allah is quoted as saying in the Qur’an, “If We had so willed, We could certainly have brought every soul its true guidance: but the Word from Me will come true, "I will fill Hell with Jinns and men all together." Surah 32:13
This is troubling on many levels. Would it not be more merciful for him to simply not create the inhabitants of hell to start off with?
And if, for reasons beyond our comprehension, Allah was compelled to create humanity as he did, and was compelled to punish billions of them for their failures and transgressions as he will, then would not a death sentence be sufficient? Why could he not just cause them to stop existing if he is angered by them so much? Why is it necessary to keep them alive in order to sadistically subject them to eternal torture?
Consider for a moment the example of a rich man who anonymously sends money to his many poor children. These children, who have never seen their father, differ with each other about his true identity. Some of these children believe the milk man to be their father. Others believe the local judge to be their father. Still, some of the children curse their father for his absence. Nonetheless, the father continues to send money to his children. What would we say about such a father if on the day he finally revealed himself to his children, he physically punished them in a state of anger for their ignorance as to his true identity? What more would we say if he tortured them with fire and hooks, deliberately keeping them on the cusp of life so that they should gain no respite from his rage? Consider that every time they fell unconscious, he injected them with a dose of substance to reawaken them and heighten their capacity to feel pain. What might we say of such a father?
Indeed, the descriptions of hell in the Qur’an seem to have more befittingly arisen in the mind of a deranged sadist than in the wise plan of an all merciful god.
As we find it highly suspicious that an all-wise and all merciful deity could find within himself no better method of administering the eternal fate of billions of human souls, it is our duty to also call the history of such silly claims into the light of scrutiny.
It is no secret that Islam borrows heavily from the lore and legend of earlier Jewish and Christian writings. Islam acknowledges the mission and scripture of messengers such as Noah, Moses, and Abraham. One would therefore rightfully expect to find at least one example of said patriarchs warning their people against the blazing fires and unspeakable torments said to await the disbeliever.
Instead, we find no references to anything resembling Islamic hell in the Taurah (Torah). As the alleged destination for countless a wayward soul, jahannam is curiously absent from the writings of the earliest Hebrew prophets. Instead, the word that is sometimes translated as “hell” in Hebrew scripture is the Hebrew word “sheol,” which actually just means “grave” or “pit,” and is also translated as such into English many times.
While these alternate translations seem to lend credence to the idea of the early inception of a jahannam-styled hell, sheol was the destination of all living men, regardless of their righteousness. It is defined by early biblical scholars as simply the place or state of the dead. It is a shadowy, non-physical existence that encompasses the gloom and decay of death, but does not imply torment.
The following are examples of how the word “sheol” is understood in the Torah to simply mean grave:
"Ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." Gen. xvii 38. "I will go down to the grave to my son mourning." xxxviii 35. "O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave!" Job xiV 13. "My life draweth nigh to the grave." Ps. lxxxviiI 3. "In the grave who shall give thee thanks?" lxxxvi 5. "Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth." cxlI 7. "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Ecc. ix. 10. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there." Ps. cxxxix. 8. "Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee, at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee," &c. Isaiah xiV 9-15.
(Thayer, 1855)
In the days of the Hebrew prophets, Allah did not threaten his detractors with blazing fires. Instead, a reading of the Jewish bible will show that the righteous were rewarded with worldly riches and power. Incentives to be righteous included a prolonged life, healthy offspring, abundant livestock (donkeys, goats, cattle, etc) and victory over one’s enemies. Earthquakes, floods, disease, and defeat were all interpreted as signs of divine disfavor. Once a human being was dead, they were dead. In sheol, there were no blazing flames, no iron maces, no choking fruits, and no molten brass. These ideas would only be born much, much later.
Jesus of Nazareth, known for his use of the parable, was the first to speak of Gehenna, the indisputable root of the Arabic phrase Jahannam.
Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom, was a well known, physical location on the outskirts of Jerusalem. In olden days, certain idolatrous Jews would sacrifice doves, livestock, and their own babies to appease pagan gods. As the Jews were admonished back into the worship of a singular deity, the place became a wretched dump, receiving the town’s rubbish, the decaying bodies of animals, and the worm-ridden corpses of executed criminals. There were perpetual fires necessary to control the filth and stench, and the decay of the place became a thing of infamy. When Jesus spoke of the fires of Gehanna, his listeners would have received a powerful mental image, a hell. Someone who committed a crime worthy of Gehanna had committed a serious offence indeed. (Schleusner)
The writers of early Christian scripture, who were directly influenced by earlier Greek ideas of the underworld Hades, embellished greatly upon the concept of hell. Sheol and Gehenna were both translated as hell and modeled largely on the Greek ideas of Tartarus in Hades. Tartarus, both a deity and a gloomy abyss of torment in the afterlife, was believed to be a place of suffering for the wicked within the Greek underworld. Indeed, Hades and Tartarus were used interchangeably to refer to hell in the Greek versions of the New Testament.
This is not a surprising turn. As Christianity emerged and spread during the oppressive reign of the pagan Roman Empire, the faithful were at a loss to explain why God’s favor was not being showered upon the righteous in the form of prosperity and victory.
This idea is common in the apocalyptic writings of the time, and the notion emerged that God must be waiting until an afterlife to reward the righteous and punish the sinful. Heaven and hell seemed like suitable replacements for goats and diseases, respectively.
Many centuries later, Muhammad would pick up on these ideas of Gehenna and Tartarus to use them for his own purposes. Having nothing to offer his followers of a worldly nature in return for their absolute obedience, Muhammad built upon the Christian ideas of heaven and hell, threatening his detractors with Jahannam and promising Jannah to his followers. While the New Testament spoke of Gehanna only 12 times, Muhammad made more than 75 references to Jahannam in the Qur’an. Not to be outdone by the Christian writers, Muhammad added significantly to the countless torture tactics that jahannam has become notorious for today.The amount of times that blazing fires and endless torments of all sorts are mentioned are too many to count.
Muhammad threatened the Arab tribes with hell not simply for being immoral, but for not obeying his every command, for not financing his campaigns, and for not going to battle for his cause. Similarly, as an incentive, the Kingdom of Heaven became filled with lush palm trees, rivers, wine, and full-breasted maidens. It was manipulation of the worst kind that has lived on to this day.
As part of our basic instincts, all living beings have a natural aversion to death. This manifests itself through our struggle to survive against all odds. As human beings who are consciously aware of our impending worldly demise, the concept of an afterlife can be comforting. When this yearning for eternal existence is manipulated through extravagant bribes and threats of torture, it can have a lasting effect on the mind.
Fortunately, there really is no reason to fear. Everything about the descriptions of heaven and hell in the Qur’an suggest that they were invented only to appeal to the base desires, fantasies, and fears of the desert tribes Muhammad was trying to recruit.
I alluded earlier to the Geneva Convention on torture. It is important to note the great strides of progress that the nations of the world have accomplished by recognizing and banning the evil of torture. Article 1 of the convention defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person…” Article 2 goes on to ban all forms of torture and states that “no exceptional circumstances whatsoever" may be invoked to justify it. It compels signer states to take measures to prevent torture in all territories under their jurisdiction. As the all merciful lord of the universe, who has all of creation under his jurisdiction, is it not ironic that Allah himself would stand in violation of these internationally accepted principles?
The next time you are out and about, take a look around you. When you are at the grocery store perhaps, or in a crowded shopping mall, or stuck on a congested freeway, ask yourself if you could really imagine a merciful god subjecting all of those innocent people to a grotesque and sadistic torture. Could you imagine yourself doing that? Could you imagine anyone that you know doing that? Surely, it is a disgrace to a wise and merciful god to believe that he would do that.
The concept of jahannam, as it has evolved over the millennia, is a uniquely human construction of the worst kind, designed and embellished upon solely in the minds of scheming men.
It is only a relic of a darker time in human history, a lingering hangover of a time when tyrannical kings commanded complete authority and ruled over their kingdoms through fear and persecution. Men who lived in such dark times imagined a god that was, as kings then were, necessarily ruthless and brutal. As the world has moved beyond those dark eras, so too should we relegate the idea of a divinely sanctioned, torturous hell to the pages of history. Such horrible ideas have no place in our world today.
It is difficult to try to be neutral when describing the enslavement and rape of Safiyyah. I generally try to let the ahadith speak for themselves, which is bad enough, but I think that the story of Safiyyah needs to be told in a manner that portrays its repulsive nature. Feel free to cross-reference everything that I say with Islamic sources.
After years of virtual stalemate between himself and the Meccan army, Muhammad decided to plunder the Jewish village of Khaybar, to the north of Madinah. Khaybar was a fertile oasis filled with lush palm trees flourishing vegetation. Furthermore, the Jewish inhabitants, many of whom were expelled from Madinah by Muhammad just a few years earlier, were skilled craftsmen with stores of gold and valuable weaponry. Muhammad gathered his troops on the outskirts of the town. Preparing his armies for a surprise raid at dawn, he shouted “When we descend upon their precincts, terrible indeed shall be the morning of those who had been warned!”
With that, Muhammad’s men descended upon the sleeping town, wreaking havoc, cutting palm trees, killing men, and enslaving women. One of the men that was captured was Kinana. Kinana was rumored to have knowledge of the location of a great treasure. Muhammad had his men torture Kinana to learn the treasure’s location, threatening him with death if he refused to disclose it. After finding the treasure, Muhammad had Kinana killed.
As the village lay in defeat, the bloodied and bruised bodies of the dead scattered about the rode, Muhammad had his men tie up the women and force them into sexual slavery. The women, bounded by rope and completely distraught, were screaming, wailing, pulling at their own hair and rubbing their faces in dust. Walking by, Muhammad referred to them as “she devils.” He gave orders to his companions to “chose whatever women they wanted.”
One of those women was 17 year old Safiyyah Bint Huyay. Safiyyah was the daughter of the tribe’s chief. She was also the wife of Kinana, whom Muhammad had tortured and killed earlier. Once Muhammad learned of her status, and of her striking beauty, he ordered her to be reserved for himself. He threw his cloak over her to show that she was his property.
She was cleaned, beautified, and prepared for the pleasure of the 60 year old self proclaimed prophet—the same man who ordered the raiding of her village, the enslavement of her friends, the murder of her father, and the torture and death of her husband.
Al- Bukhari Narrates:
Narrated Abdul Aziz:
Anas said, "When Allah's Apostle invaded Khaibar, we offered the Fajr prayer there (early in the morning) when it was still dark. The Prophet rode and Abu Talha rode too and I was riding behind Abu Talha. The Prophet passed through the lane of Khaibar quickly and my knee was touching the thigh of the Prophet. He uncovered his thigh and I saw the whiteness of the thigh of the Prophet. When he entered the town, he said, ‘Allahu Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. Whenever we approach near a (hostile) nation (to fight) then evil will be the morning of those who have been warned.’ He repeated this thrice. The people came out for their jobs and some of them said, ‘Muhammad (has come).’ (Some of our companions added, ‘With his army.’) We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, ‘O Allah's Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.’ The Prophet said, ‘Go and take any slave girl.’ He took Safiya bint Huyai. A man came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Allah's Apostle! You gave Safiya bint Huyai to Dihya and she is the chief mistress of the tribes of Quraiza and An-Nadir and she befits none but you.’ So the Prophet said, ‘Bring him along with her.’ So Dihya came with her and when the Prophet saw her, he said to Dihya, ‘Take any slave girl other than her from the captives.’" Anas added: "The Prophet then manumitted her and married her."
Thabit asked Anas, "O Abu Hamza! What did the Prophet pay her (as Mahr)?" He said, "Her self was her Mahr for he manumitted her and then married her." Anas added, "While on the way, Um Sulaim dressed her for marriage (ceremony) and at night she sent her as a bride to the Prophet. So the Prophet was a bridegroom and he said, ‘Whoever has anything (food) should bring it.’ He spread out a leather sheet (for the food) and some brought dates and others cooking butter. (I think he (Anas) mentioned As-Sawaq). So they prepared a dish of Hais (a kind of meal). And that was Walima (the marriage banquet) of Allah's Apostle." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 8, Number 367)
Ibn Hisham states:
“Safiyah was born in Medinah. She belonged to the Jewish tribe of Banu 'I-Nadir. When this tribe was expelled from Medinah in the year 4 A.H, Huyaiy was one of those who settled in the fertile colony of Khaibar together with Kinana ibn al-Rabi' to whom Safiyah was married a little before the Muslims attacked Khaibar. She was then seventeen. She had formerly been the wife of Sallam ibn Mishkam, who divorced her. One mile from Khaibar. Here the Prophet married Safiyah. She was groomed and made-up for the Prophet by Umm Sulaim, the mother of Anas ibn Malik. They spent the night there. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari guarded the tent of the Prophet the whole night. When, in the early dawn, the Prophet saw Abu Ayyub strolling up and down, he asked him what he meant by this sentry-go; he replied: "I was afraid for you with this young lady. You had killed her father, her husband and many of her relatives, and till recently she was an unbeliever. I was really afraid for you on her account". The Prophet prayed for Abu Ayyub al-Ansari (Ibn Hisham, p. 766)
Topic: It is a grave issue not to believe in a soul. Said my Mom.