By Kamala
September 9, 2010

The Lies About Muhammad, a new book written by Moustafa Zayed (and self-published via Amazon.com), is a difficult read.

For one, the book literally has hundreds of grammatical, spelling and editing errors. In a 400 page book, that alone would make for a tough slog.

As a taste, to the right is page 362, which is typical of the book. Count the capitalization errors, inconsistent paragraph formatting styles, punctuation mistakes, wrong verb tenses, and gramatically incorrect sentences.

Moving on to the actual content: Moustafa Zayed has taken it upon himself to respond to almost every page of Robert Spencer's book, The Truth About Muhammad. Why? Because he "wanted to show how far the intentional fabrications against everything Muslim have gone, and in details of its process and how it is done." (p. 14)

One of Zayed's key arguments is that Spencer makes extensive use of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah (Biography of the Prophet of Allah) as a source. Ibn Ishaq is known as Muhammad's first biographer. According to Zayed, "Ibn Ishaq was like a man who gathered every dollar he found: the real money and the counterfeit. Then later, others came with mechanisms that filtered his real dollars from the fake. Mr. Spencer ignores all the real dollars and looks almost exclusively inside Ibn Ishaq's bag and picks on the counterfeit ones." (p. 26) Zayed repeatedly invokes his distrust of Ibn Ishaq as a response to Spencer.

For example: in his book, Spencer recounts how Muhammad, while consolidating his power in Medina, had called for two poets to be killed because they "had mocked him and his prophetic pretensions." (p. 162) Spencer cites Ibn Ishaq as his source. One of the poets was a woman, 'Asma bint Marwan. Insulted by one of her poems (which had hoped for someone to "attack him by surprise"), Muhammad asked, "Who will rid me of Marwan's daughter?" A Muslim killed her and her unborn child but was worried he may have committed a sin. Muhammad reassured him, "You have helped God and His apostle... Two goats won't butt their heads about her."

For Muslims who believe Muhammad is the perfect role model, this episode is difficult to reconcile. A pro-Islam web site claims "Muhammad was as kind as he was polite. He always treated people with kindness and tenderness and never showed harshness even to his enemies. The people who abused him, threw thorny bushes and stones and dirt on him and were thirsty for his blood, received nothing but kindness from him. He showed kindness to all, irrespective of whether they were friends or foes. God mentions this quality of Muhammad's in the Qur'an."

What is Zayed's response? "Maybe the reader is now tired of us asking the truth-seeker, 'Where did you get that from?' And who does the author, again, only quote for the two incidents? Again and again, none other than Ibn Ishaq." (p. 316)

Thus the important question is, how credible a source is Ibn Ishaq? Consider the words of Karen Armstrong, author of a modern hagiographic biography of Muhammad. Zayed himself writes that Armstrong is a "scholar" that he "respect[s] personally." (p. 235) In her 1994 book, A History of God, Armstrong writes that Ibn Ishaq's Sirat is "the most authoritative biography of the Prophet." (p. 147)

Similarly, as Spencer himself points out in his book, Ibn Ishaq is the first listed source for another modern biography, Muhammad, by Yahihya Emerick. Note that Emerick's book has been blessed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which went so far as to offer the book for free to anyone who wanted a copy. True to form, Zayed describes CAIR as "one of the leading peaceful Muslim civil rights organizations in America," (p. 380) despite the fact that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal Holy Land Foundation terrorism funding trial.

As for the specific case of the poetess 'Asma bint Marwan, it's clear that many Muslims accept Ibn Ishaq's narration as fact.

Dr. Khalid Zaheer, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of University of Central Punjab, who aims to "realize his dream to promote the cause of the true Islamic message, which is neither extremist nor liberal," runs a Q & A section on his web site. In one submitted question, the writer, who found the killing of bint Marwan "disturbing to learn and harder to defend or explain," asks Zaheer for clarification; after all, "the killing of Asma is mentioned in Ibn Ishaq's sira, and from what I know Ibn Ishaq's sira or biography is the most authentic one." In Zaheer's response, he does not refute Ibn Ishaq or the episode itself; rather, he argues that bint Marwan was "killed not by the prophet but by Allah."

Another biography of Muhammad, A Biography of the Prophet of Islam, by Dr. Mahdi Rizquallah Ahmad, presents the bint Marwan affair almost exactly as Spencer does. This biography was written in Arabic in 1992 and published in English in 2005 by Darussalam, a Saudi publishing house whose mission is to "publish most authentic Islamic books in the light of the Qur'an and the Sahih Ahadith in all major International languages." In Ahmad's version, Muhammad told bint Marwan's murderer, "Two goats will not lock horns over this affair." (p. 431) As Spencer does, Ahmad attributes the narration to Ibn Ishaq; he also adds that "it obtains strength from the trustworthy narrative in Abu Dawud..." and that "Nasa'i has also collected this report in his Sunan as well as Tabarani in his Kabir." (Abu Dawud, Nasa'i, and Tabarani are all collections of hadith — sayings of Muhammad and narrations of his behavior; Abu Dawud and Nasa'i are often considered among the six most authentic hadith collections.)

Finally, on a web site called Islam Question & Answer, Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid answers questions about Islam "using only authentic, scholarly sources based on the Quran and sunnah, and other reliable contemporary scholarly opinions." As part of a response, Al-Munajid writes, "And there was the daughter of Marwaan who was killed by that man, and the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) called him the supporter of Allaah and His Messenger."

If citing Ibn Ishaq makes Spencer guilty of "fiercely marketing" a "defectively dangerous" "product," then Karen Armstrong and Yahihya Emerick must be equally guilty. If writing about Muhammad's hair-trigger sensitivity to mockery makes Spencer guilty of "hate mongering," then Darussalam Publications, Dr. Khalid Zaheer, and Sheikh Muhammad Salih Al-Munajjid must be equally guilty. Will Zayed's next book be a windy "refutation" of Dr. Mahdi Ahmad's biography of Muhammad?

Zayed uses other creative tactics to address Spencer's points, such as in his explanation of Muhammad's marriage to a six year old girl, Aisha. In his book, Spencer introduces the topic via a provocative quotation from Jerry Vines, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who called Muhammad a "demon-possessed pedophi'le who had twelve wives, and his last one was a nine-year-old girl." Spencer examines the "factual basis for his words": "According to ahadith reported by Bukhari, the Prophet of Islam 'married Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed [i.e., consummated] that marriage when she was nine years old.'" (p. 170)

Why is this an important issue? Spencer explains: "...in light of Muhammad's status for Muslims as the supreme example of human behavior, his marriage to Aisha becomes more important. Problems arise when an action like this is forcibly removed from its historical context and proposed as a paradigm for human beings of all times and places. Yet this is what has happened in the umma. Imitating the Prophet of Islam, many Muslims even in modern times have taken child brides. In some places this even has the blessing of the law: article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine." (p. 171)

In this case, Zayed responds with an argument that reveals his true, frightening world view — that Muhammad defines morality: "If the Prophet of God had thought that at his age of fifty marrying a nine year old was righteous in whatever set of circumstances at the time, then it is, and it is accepted by every Muslim, and the issue here would be the craziness of Mr. Spencer and his polite, well-mannered Mr. Vine [sic] thinking that their idea of right and wrong versus those of the last Prophet of God himself, could possibly be of any worth or value to Muslims." (p. 332 - 333)

In other words, the issue to Zayed isn't whether or not Muhammad did the right thing. Rather, whatever Muhammad did is the right thing. And the "lie" Spencer tells is the "crazy" suggestion otherwise. Ironically, this logic is exactly what Spencer warns of regarding Muhammad's example among Muslims.

Regardless, Zayed continues to rattle off a series of excuses for Aisha's age, such as this nugget of scientific wisdom: "Ayesha's marriage was 1400 years ago, where [sic] the life-expectancy of people was much less, almost by over twenty years than it is nowadays. Consequently, reaching puberty whether in the west or the east- [sic] at the time - [sic] happened naturally much sooner." (p. 335)

Zayed seems unconvinced by his own arguments and closes out the topic by returning to his first point: "Again, I reiterate, had Ayesha been truly nine, in the circumstances of that time, and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) accepted her for marriage, then that is accepted by every single Muslim, no matter how many self-proclaimed righteous haters rant!" (p. 336) Apologists often claim that critics of Islam make broad, sweeping generalizations about Muslims — yet here it is Zayed who bluntly tells his readers that "every single Muslim" accepts Muhammad's behavior.

And so it goes, for hundreds of pages.

One more point bears mention. For someone so obsessed with exposing the "lies" of others, Zayed is awfully cavalier with his own "facts." When discussing the attacks of 9/11, Zayed writes, without citation, "How could killing five hundred innocent Muslims amongst another twenty-five hundred innocent civilians [sic] victims of 9/11 even remotely be called an act of anything Islamic to begin with?" (p. 330). Just a few lines later, he again mentions the "killing of five hundred innocent Muslims." Later, he repeats this claim, writing about "three thousand innocent victims of September 11th, of whom five hundred were Muslim." (p. 383)

Five hundred Muslims? More than 15% of the 9/11 victims? In reality, the number wasn't even close. The New York times says "roughly 60." USA Today says "about 60." Even an August, 2010 article in the Atlanta Post decrying the "Bigotry at the Center of [the] Ground Zero Mosque Protest" puts the number at 60.

Lies, indeed.