Was Muhammad a bad person?

Alexander the Great wasn't a spiritual prophet sent by God.

They don't follow his actions like gospel, do they?

I'm pretty sure most Muslims aren't warlords.

Yeah like based Admiral Yang Wenli

Neither was Mohammed (pbuh)
Well, the second part at least.

You've been browsing too much /pol/

>bad

He was about as bad as any skilled political and military leader of his place and age. Was Julius Caesar a bad person?

>that episode when Yang raped Cazerne's daughter Charlotte, but no one did anything because they needed him to survive

It was a lot harder to root for the Iserlohn Gov after that

Germans aren't people, so yes. Maybe the whole "sleeping with other men's wives" wasn't very cool of him.

What does that have to do with anything?

Your argument doesn't make any sense. I could follow any religion or ideology, the way I act wouldn't affect the way the life of the founder of said religion/ideology was.

And instead of bringing /pol/ or any other site you don't like, try to argue.

Unrelated to Muhammad but -- yes, very much so. Caesar was undoubtedly bad person. His evil was covered up with romanitas. Read his own commentaries on the Gallic war with historical notes and you'll probably agree with me.

It's impossible to judge because the Muhammad we can know from the historical biographies we have is every kind of person imaginable all at once. We don't know a lot about him as a person, and instead we have to guess at what might have been like based on literal memes by writers centuries later who all had different ideas they wanted and needed to reflect in him, whether it was true or not.

Not everything is an argument autist. I'm simply telling you to get off /pol/ because your view on the project muhamed is backwards

opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/mohammed_3866.jsp

Try telling me how my view of Muhammad is backwards without making an argument.

OH WAIT.

Do your own research. Also stop replying. I'm no longer going to view this thread

Most Muslims insist he wasn't actually a pedophile. They've spent centuries trying to rationalize this.

Muhammad was a pedophile

...

By today's standards, so we're a lot of people.

More like one century.

Probably not.

Most of that people weren't founders of one of the biggest religions on the Earth.

Yeah. But if they were, they might've known a very young woman carnally.

Well, there you go. If you're willing to look back and say that Caesar was a bad person, then I think it's fine to say Muhammad was a bad person. Certainly the Banu Qurayza would agree.

That's untrue common people married between 15 and 25. Not really pedophilia (if at all ) in the same way a 6/9 year old is.

>mohammed wasn't a warlord
>"do your own research"
>casual boogeyman
Veeky Forums everybody

More like a few decades.

Fucking prepubescent children was not common then or now. The earlier ages for marriage were meant to produce heirs. Diddling children doesn't help with that.

Friendly reminder that Muhammad is a pedophile
>inb4 "he didn't consummate until she was 9!!!"
Not a fucking justification for your pedophile warlord

>y-your an autist and you should do your own research to prove my point!
>now I'm gonna give up becuz ur so wrong!!

Muhammad wasn't any worse than anyone else around him during his time.

>A prophet is betrothed to a 6 year old
>Muslims defend this by saying they didn't fuck until she was 9
Some fucking Prophet you have there mate. Aren't they suppose to be a tad more morally righteous than others?

Sure he was. He spawned Islam.

>Literally a pedophile, warlord, insane, murdered people for absolutely no reason, claimed to be a prophet when really he wasn't, started a religion that still terrors people to this day, is impossible to leave even with Muslims in the western world, fuels European crisis
>Wonders if he was a bad person

He was a great person for his time. Was Thomas Jefferson a bad person for owning slaves? No. Holding centuries old historical figures to modern moral standards is fucking retarded.

No, it isn't. How much of a moral sense that someone has tells how much knowledge they're able to accumulate.

Thomas Jefferson deserves to be criticized for owning slaves. But there is an important difference between him and most slave owners throughout human history. Jefferson did not want to own slaves and thought slavery was immoral. He owned slaves because he was in a massive amount of debt and needed them to maintain his life style.

Not a muslim. am buddhist. I dont consider him a pedophile, wasnt it just as common in europe for knights or high ranking officials ot marry young girls too?
It seemed common at the time that older men married younger women to take care of them (thats how i saw it anyway) and because they were fertile and fresh, or at least seemed that way (have just puberty that is)

>
Makes good point.
If Thomas Jefferson didnt have slaves it would have shown how compassionate he was or how he thought it was wrong. It would have shown that he was ahead of his time, which shows just how great of a person they would have been during their time.

Yes but it's not like that was unique to early Islam
I do think it's important to note how shitty he was though since Islam has a false immunity when it comes to discussing historical (and current) atrocities

>I dont consider him a pedophile,
>He's not a pedophile because other people that I alleged with no source did it too
If they were marrying, it wasn't to 6 year olds, and it sure as hell doesn't negate the pedophile argument

According to unauthentic hadiths which mean jackshit

Hes a paragon Muslim, which is to say he was a total shitlord

Who cares? All that matters is he wasn't a prophet.

TWO TUSEN SEXTEEN

Many (fortunately) don't.

Not really most of them either.

Fucking pre-pubesent boys doesn't help at that either, and it was fucking common around the world.

No, there was nothing wrong with being pedophile warlord

No. He was a person.

You're one of those moralfags who thinks Alexander was a big meanie because he acted like any normal leader, aren't you?

You know literally nothing of hadith sciences. Please just watch a documentary on the life of bukhari, for example. Not even trying to denigrate here, but I went from a quran aloner to studying hadith with great fervor just because I started actually studying hadith science. In all of Islamic theology, it is the most rigorous aspect.

If you study hadith science and the history of Hadith science for a bit, you would know better. There is a reason why muslims, almost universally, study bukhari with such fervor. I have been listening to about 85 hours of lecture about the first 5 books of bukhari alone. 85 hours in and we're at 480/7200. After I finish this lecturer, I will move onto another and start all over. This is the norm.

Did muhammad codify modern dictator tactics? Make yourself a divine is old of course, but the kinda fear and encouraging self regulation seems sorta modern. It reminds me of good Korea.
Also no, Muhammad was bad.
How come every single islamic nation has inhuman hateful opinions in the majority? On an international scale most muspims believe in stoning gay, most believe suicide bombing for faith is justified, etc etc

Banu Qurayza were allowed to be judged by a rabbi according to the laws of their own people, at their request. The rabbi they chose decided that the toraic punishment for a people breaking an alliance is the death of all men. If you study the biography, you might notice the prophet also pardoned plenty of tribes that opposed him and treated prisoners better than he treated his own. Look up the article "Muhammad the Abolitionist".

I don't think Alexander was a messenger from God and thus expected morally pure

Fuck off Muzzie

No to mention he's supposed to live by God's intemporal truth which renders the "but le historical context" and "by today's standards maybe" arguments useless

The hadith detailing Aisha, radiallahu anha, 's age are mostly very strong, narrated by Aisha herself and have been accepted throughout muslim history. The problem has never existed until recently, and quite frankly, only online. Not even the orientalist writers of today or of old have made a problem out of our prophet(peace be upon him)s marriage to Aisha because anyone reading the biography and knowing the least bit about pedophilia knows it's a laughable claim.

First of all, the prophet did not make the initiative to marry Aisha. It was after the death of Khadija, may allah be pleased with her, that a woman asked the prophet if he would remarry. Khadija was older than the prophet, and until his last days he loved her. Even after her death. When the lady asked him about remarrying, he asked her if she knew anybody suitable. She told him Aisha and another lady, whose name I cant recall, were suitable matches. Aisha young, the other lady a widow. He sent the woman to propose to them both and both accepted. Throughout his life, the prophet would only marry grown, older women from here on out, mostly widows. If he had been a pedophile, he would have married more than one young woman.

All of this shows that the prophet behaved according to the norms of his time, most marriages being suggested to him, rather than the other way around, for the sake of politics and the welfare of widows and single women, or to protect the status of high ranked women.

Don't just rant that hadith are weak just because you don't like them or are embarrassed by them. Study, mate. Our religion is not something to be embarrassed of.

Because morality of today's standard is what Gods intemporal truth needs to abide by? I'm sure you are a paragon of timeless morality, right? You have all of morality figured out from now until forever?

Do you also believe the hadith about a goat eating verses of the Quran? That hadith is also "narrated by Aisha(r.a)". Do you even listen to your self? Justifying child marriage!
>HIsham ibn Urwa "said it"(he did not), that means Aisha(r.a) said it!
>Its in muh hadith book, so it must be true! >Bukhari,Muslim,Abu Dawud etc. can do no wrong! No mistake! Infaillible imams! If you disagree you are a KAFFIR!
>WHAT?! You do NOT believe that Muhammad(a.s) married a 6 year old?! Muʿtazila! Shia! Hadith rejector! Quranist!
NOTE: I am not attacking the Imams of hadith, I only attack the idea of treating hadith(no matter how absurd and blasphemic they might be) being equal to revelation and that the imams were incapable of mistakes.

So you, despite being 1400 years after the prophet, decide now with no academic source or reason, that you don't like a hadith and therefore it cannot be true? I never said hadith are all infallible, and I myself reject plenty of them. I personally fought the hadith on Aisha's age for a long time, but academic integrity forced me to accept them.

I'm not saying the imams or the scholars are infallible, but I am saying that we need academic integrity and we need to be able to back up our claims woth solid evidence. If you have good evidence of Aisha's age being different than the consensus of 6/9 or 9/12, I am interested. I'm not interested if your only evidence is the fact that we frown upon marrying a girl at the age of fertility nowadays in the west. Remember the prophet went to Abu Bakr r.a. and spoke with him about this marriage. Her father approved. This qualifies the situation as being dependent on cultural norms, rather than being absolute for all times. Today, I oppose child marriage. Then, things were much different and we cannot change the life of the prophet (s.a.w) just to avoid feeling uncomfortable.

If you want to study, disassociate yourself from the subject matter and study honestly.

Muhammad was the most merciful man in the most brutal era in the most backward place in the world. The problem was that people were ruining his image centuries after his death to justify their actions, pretty much like isis and salafists today. Bukhari did a great effort but some hadiths have huge holes and flaws and bad reference and still manage to get in the Sahih, those same hadiths that condridict the Quran and Muhammads life , those same hadiths isis and salafists use to hate people, such backward fuckin lunatics ruined Muhammads image and non muslims believe them.

not a Muslim myself but what about the people who say Aisha couldn't have been that age because she participated in a certain (forgotten which) battle that had some sort of age limit to it?

I've seen this used as proof that she was 'mature' by the time she married Muhammad because the battle supposedly was before their union

These arguments are often used by Ahmadi muslims, and the arguments have a certain value to them. The problem is that they base themselves on hadith as well, which (seem to) contradict other hadith. In such cases, we go by the stronger hadith as being authoritative. In this case, the stronger hadith(the ones with the better and more reliable chains of narration) indicate that she was either 6 or 9 years old at their betrothal and that Aisha moved in with the prophet at age 12. Note that there is no actual, literal mention of when the prophet(peace be upon him) first laid with her. The term often translated as "consummated the marriage" literally means that she moved into his home. This is another reason that, historically, people never made a big deal out of the marriage.

No, but if Mohammed's morality was God's morality as claimed by muslims, why are mzz always trying to justify his behavior with historical context instead of straight saying that pedophilia is okay according to God?

how can you reconcile this to your modern beliefs as a Muslim though?
you're against child marriage today for obvious reasons, but isn't Muhammad someone you should try to imitate?
or are his actions considered fallible?

>This qualifies the situation as being dependent on cultural norms, rather than being absolute for all times. Today, I oppose child marriage. Then, things were much different

Remember that's not Caesar or Napoleon we're talking of, Ahmed
It's a dude who claimed he was bringing the universal and intemporal truth of God to the men
Historical context shouldnt apply to him

Yes, he was a fucking horrible person. I, myself, am a former Muslim. He married a 9 year old girl, slaughtered Jewish tribes (and others) in Mekkah and forced people to convert to Islam very brutally. If you look through Islamic history, you will immediately understand where ISIS got their disgusting and sickening methods of war from. It's all from their Prophet. I suggest you look at David Wood's videos on Youtube.

My problem is not with you in particular. But it hurts me to hear such things being said about Muhammad(a.s) from the mouth of Muslims them selves(edgy memers do not hurt me in any way), I know people who lost faith because of what they read in Bukhari. It makes me frustrated and angry. I did not want to insult you. And if I have insulted you than i ask for your forgivnes. And I get most Muslims see it a a historical thing of that particular period, but there are young girls in the world suffering because of certain peoples ignorance. I think that there are scholars who bring valid point of critique to the claim of a 6 year old bride. Maybe I came over to angry. I want to hear what you think about what this scholar says in the video. Are his points valid enough to justify doubt about the age matter?:
youtube.com/watch?v=sGOyEt5szM0

>gotta make it inarguable that Aisha was a virgin
>dude just make her like, 6?
>woooooahhh

That's literally how it happened.

>slaughtered Jewish tribes

Because, throughout muslim history, our academic methodology has been based on academic difference, respectful disagreement and changing historical contexts defining changing norms with a common core. The prophet himself, peace be upon him, reflected this by accepting different clothing, pronunciations, habits and behaviour from different people in different situations.
In sunnism alone, there are 4 major schools of law which disagree and differ over many minor and some very important points. Each of these schools accept the other as being equally valid, and there is no discrimination between them. Often, one can find a study circle for one such school(madhab) in the same mosque as one will find a study circle for the other.
Muslim scholars would, for this reason, always end their works with "If I am right, it is because of God, and if I am wrong, may God forgive me. And Allah knows best."

The ideology was one of academic pursuit, and there are ahadith that indicate that if one makes a mistake when it comes to interpretation of the religion, but that mistake was made out of an earnest intellectual pursuit for the sake of Allah, then said mistake is forgiven and even becomes a good deed.

Adam, upon him peace, was created for the sake of learning. The prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, was given as the first revelation the words "Iqra, bismirabbika alladhee khalaq", or "Read, in the name of your lord who has created". Reading, studying, learning is at the center of our civilization, which is why we call ourselves "the people of the book". It is said the scholars are the heirs of the prophets.

Basically, norms change. Plenty of things the prophet did was sanctioned for him exclusively for specific reasons, and plenty he did was to indicate laws for all of humanity after him. But if you imagine an act or saying of the prophet as a powertool, the historical context should be seen as the instruction manual of said powertool.

I'm pretty sure Moham wasn't 'pure' until hadith > quran Islam became the majority.

Most of the quran is Moham questioning things he wants to do, has done, needs to do, etc. and then God sends him a message about the right way to do the thing. He's not infallible.

>Plenty of things the prophet did was sanctioned for him exclusively for specific reasons
How convenient

I refer you to
Also, I recommend you read the book "the search for beauty in Islam" by Khalid Abu al Fadl, if you are really interested in the matter and not just looking to argue. It is very beautifully and easily written and very clearly depicts the classical scholarly attitude in Islamic history.

Give me 10 minutes to watch his, akhi.

He makes an excellent point, and I revise my position. I do believe the confusion between "before hijra" and "before bitha" is a very viable theory.

But what I am trying to emphasize is that this is not, to us, something that our faith should stand or fall on. The scholar in this video himself states the same thing towards the end. The point is, for me, I respect the science of hadith too much to make sweeping statements like that out of my own reasoning as of yet. My arabic is not good enough, my knowledge and understanding of usool ul hadeeth is not good enough, and I am simply not ready yet.

All we can do is study and search for truth, brother. Thank you for showing me this video.
And Allahu 'Alim.

I don't think that it matters what Muhammad did or didn't do or what he did or didn't believe however many years ago. What's relevant is that whether it's according to his intentions or not his legacy is a fucking awful thing for the world right now.

Beyond mental exercise what do you get out of studying Islam so closely?

If I may take the liberty of talking about myself, I believe I have become a better person. I have found an inner peace that I've looked for all my life. I have become much less jaded (softened the heart, as we call it) and I have become less worried about material possessions and circumstances. I have memorized a small portion of the Qur'an so far, and with every surah that I memorize, I find more peace of mind and warmth of heart.

Most importantly, the way I treat people has improved a lot. I used to take pleasure in making fun of people and showing my intellectual "superiority", since I (just like most people on Veeky Forums) could win most debates with people out in the real world. Now, I learned that satisfying my ego by "winning a debate" is just not worth it. Basically, I've become less insufferable.

And if I'm wrong about all this, then may God forgive me and make it possible for me in the future.

Thank you for your time and wisdom, brother. I have yet much to learn. And sorry again for that first post, I truly regret it.

It's no problem at all. I'm grateful for the exchange!
Jazakallahu khairan wa barakallahu feeka, ya akhi!

Most sources talking about Muhammad is Muslim ones and they're biased as fuck. So pretty hard to say really, but I'd say he was bad regarding how he treated the people of Khaybar

>You know literally nothing of hadith sciences.
Which isn't true at all, but also missing the point. I'm not speaking from the perspective of a Quranist, I'm speaking from the perspective of a history student with an interest in early Islamic studies. What I said earlier is with that knowledge of hadith sciences in mind, and a firm skepticism of its basic premises. Its theoretical rigor in the 9th and 10th century is irrelevant to its complete absence and sudden appearance in an atmosphere of intense cultural and political chaos decades after the 7th century.

t. Abdul Mohammed Al-Hassan

Sort of. More likely the sheer number of conflicting accounts led to some conflicting chronology, and in order to decide on a set timeline things like Aisha's age at marriage had to be guessed at, which leads to numbers like 6, 8, 9, and 14, 15, and 18. Age 9 was then a likely popular choice, with age 6 being the age of betrothal as a compromise, in order to satisfy both the increasingly accepted chronology being made at the time and likely some sort of popular belief about the importance of 9. It's probably no coincidence that Fatimah was also supposedly 9 (or 19, again, chronology) when she was married to Ali.

>fucking a 9yr old is nothing to be embarrassed about

Let's see. Murdered 800 men and boys (they checked for pubic hair) by decapitating them in front of their wives, mothers, aunts and grandmothers, in order to loot the village.

No war, no betrayal, no reason other than to loot them.

Liar, thief and murderer, just like his father the devil.

No, but he was son of Zeus.

Sounds like Julius Caeser

>Thinking that a man fucking a 9 year old isn't a pedophile and should be seen as okay in the year 2016?
Absolutely problematic.

Actually I'm pretty sure muslims think he was. They call him Dhul Qarnayn