Replies

"Do not go back after [my death] to being infidels who strike each other's necks."

"If two Muslims fight with their swords and kill each other, the place of both the killer and the killed is in Hell."

"A Muslim is the brother of a Muslim; he does not abandon him and he does not give him away."

-Prophet Muhammad

(hadith)

The Muslim command to kill Jews in order to emulate the Prophet. The treatment of the Jews by the Prophet has became the standard by which the classical Muslim jurists formulated their policy toward non-Muslims, as embodied in the Shari'a and in the jihad’s rules. Hence, when non-Muslims (primarily Hindus and Christians) were killed in Bali, Amrozi, the Indonesian terrorist, invoked the fate of the Jews in the oasis of Khaybar, perhaps confusing them with the mass slaughter of their co-religionists, the Qurayza. Although many of the Jews of Khaybar were killed in an unprovoked jihad campaign by Muhammad, those vanquished Khaybar Jews who surrendered were not killed, but were dispossessed and became exploited dhimmi tributaries, until, within a decade later, they were expelled by the "Rightly Guided" Caliph Umar.

As Mr. Akyol stated rightly, this was not exceptional at that time. The problem now is that such acts have been attributed to the Prophet Muhammad who is the model to be emulated by all Muslims. Hence, while even worse wars might have been perpetrated in the world by rulers long since forgotten, the acts and sayings of Muhammad concerning non-Muslims are still binding for over a billion Muslims today. To decry Dr. Bostom’s analyses, based on 13 centuries of Islamic teaching and writing, and accepted today in all Muslim countries, is almost surrealistic.

In fact, there is no way for us, in the 21st century, to know what really happened in a small Arabian oasis in the seventh century given the lack of contemporary evidence. But Mr. Akyol again contradicts himself by implying that the Qurayza’s punishment was justified, because they acted treacherously while of course there are no objective proofs for such accusations, which rest merely on the demonization of the victims. Moreover the problem does not concern only the Qurayza Jews but the Jews and Christians throughout the Hedjaz, who were, soon afterward dispossessed, and within a decade of Muhammad’s death, expelled, according to his professed (i.e., again, in the sira) deathbed wishes. http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2004/10/003675print.html

muslims don't go to hell if they kill a Christian or a Jew, right? After all, according to all one-billion of you, we are just dogs, or pigs.

And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

(Deuteronomy 10:12-13 KJV)