Muhammad Quotes

In the early stages of Islam, Muhammad had hoped to convert the Jews and others on the Arabian Peninsula. When they refused to be converted, he warred against them usually killing the men, and taking the women and children as slaves. The result was that non-believing tribes were “cleansed” from the Arabian Peninsula. The Muslims at the time preferred children as slaves. For then they could convert the children against their will. Adults in Islam must accept Islam in order to convert. Children are regarded as having no such maturity of decision making and therefore opposition to conversion may be ignored and they may be forced. Critics of Islam and those who argue that Islam is at odds with all other religions point to this quotation. They claim that it is the only religion whose founder and fundamental scriptures demand war against others for no other reason than that they believe in a different religion. The Catholic Church during the Crusades and the Inquisition had a similar philosophy as did Christian missionaries colonizing Africa later. One difference is that most Christians today repudiate the doctrine as against the true spirit and teachings of Christ and view it as historical error, while very few modern Muslims repudiate this quotation of the Prophet.

If some Islamic cleric declares a war or dispute to be an attack on Islam, the penalty is indeed severe for those Muslims who do not join the fight. In some Islamic lands, unbelievers are put to death. Note that the children become the Islamic society’s hostages for the behavior of the father.

This sura is interpreted in two ways. For many modern Muslims it means that in discussions and debates on religion with non-Muslims, do not back off, and if you do it is a religious transgression. Defend the faith. For the fundamentalists and extremists, they interpret the same sura in physical warlike terms. So if there is a fight or battle with disbelievers, retreating from the battlefield is not only cowardice and perhaps a crime under military regulations as it is in the West, but it is in Christian terms a mortal sin for which there one will go to hell. So the most religious of Muslims will fight to the death using this sura as their guidance. On the other hand, Muhammad himself as the military and civil leader of Islam made strategic retreats. In the history of almost all warfare between the West and Muslims—especially the Arabs—courage on the battlefield has been lacking and the Israelis, British, French, Americans, and Hindus of India all observe this military weakness and accounting for this is built into their military doctrine.

For many extremists Muslims, this sura calls for the torture or killing of the enemies of Islam. For the more moderate Muslims, the penalty of opposing Islam should be expulsion or banishment. The further modern complication of this sura is the definition of “making war with Allah.” To some extremists, it is writing or publishing anything contrary to their view of Islam; it is occupying any Islamic nation or warring with that nation even though the basis of the war might have nothing to do with religion; it is bringing a Bible into an Islamic nations; it is allowing alcohol to be sold and served; it is opposing their discriminatory customs and laws; it is pressuring them not to stone adulteresses.

See {586916} for a passage from the Koran supporting his point.

Collection of Spoken Words of the Prophet

This is the justification that some Muslims use for the murder of prisoners of war if the war is perceived to be an attack on Allah. This for most includes Westerners.

This is the “logic” by which Islamic terrorists have justified murder of civilians. Just as all Muslim men are fighters for Allah, all infidels are fighters against Allah and thus should die.

This threat of massacre by the Arabs backfired in that the Israelis had no other alternative but to fight and win or else die. It also gained them a great deal of world sympathy and revulsion at the Arab call for massacre. See related quotes for another of the many examples.

Religious obligation of Islam requires all Muslims to try and convert all others. However that is not different from some of the Christian, fundamentalist religions where attempted conversion of non-believers is a duty. However, where many in the Islamic world see that obligation as a peaceful, nonviolent, effort to persuade others to accept Islam, there are many others who believe that Jihad should impose Islamic law—Sharia—upon the world and the use of force and violence is not only acceptable but is necessary and desirable to achieve their objection.

Hazrat Omar ibn al-Khatab

the home of the British Prime Minister

It is this verse that for some Muslims justifies terrorism against non-Muslims. See {584354} for a specific example. There are similar provisions in the Old Testament which a few extremely conservative Jews and Christians have used to advocate for blasphemy being a capital crime. Note that if an unbeliever repents and becomes a Muslim, he should be spared.

Fanatic Muslims believe that suicide bombers when they blow themselves up have done so to defend Islam and therefore will not only go directly to heaven but will get 72 Virgins when they get there. Most of the suicide bombers are young men with very little or no sexual experience. At the time that Trainor made this remark, there had been an enormous increase in suicide bombers in the Iraq war.

In September of 2006 Pope Benedict XVI, quoted this statement in a lecture to theological students. There was much distress and protest among Muslim leaders.

She is a leading American Arab who is a Syrian expatriate.

This sura is one of the quotations that causes major anxiety on the part of the Israelis. If the Arabs ever win a major battle and invade Israel, they are instructed to kill the Israelis who in the view of the Arabs “turned them out” of Palestine. Not doing so would produce “tumult and oppression” which, in contrast to most religions, are considered to be worse calamities than slaughter of human beings. A little later in the sura, the Prophet tells the faithful that the infidels need not be killed if they cease to oppose Islam.

Since Muslims try and convert others, one who changes religion and becomes a Muslim is exempt. The death penalty is reserved for Muslims who leave the religion.