If you love criticizing Islam to a pulp, Muhammad is the gift that just keeps right on giving. And today, we’re examining yet another story that Muslims are going to wish just wasn’t written into their official materials, so they wouldn’t have to do quite so much damage control for their false prophet.

If the name Muhammad rings a bell, you might remember him from such stories as the time he accepted the Quraysh bargain, selling out his own monotheistic god by attributing three daughters to him, then when he realized the blunder he made, he claimed that Satan made him say it, not knowing the optics of a prophet being made to say Satan’s words, or the time when he poopered a nine-year-old while he was in his fifties.

That Muhammad.

But before we get into today’s story, let’s first frame it with how Islam handles homosexuality. Relevance? Don’t worry, we’ll get to that.

“And Lot! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: Will ye commit abomination such as no creature ever did before you? Lo! ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk.”

-Quran 7:80-81

“WHEN A MAN MOUNTS ANOTHER MAN, THE THRONE OF ALLAH SHAKES”

-Hadith

“Do you approach the males of humanity, leaving the wives Allah has created for you? But you are a people who transgress”
-Quran 26:165-66

There are various Hadith which states, in addition to these things, that if males commit sodomy, they are to be put to death, both the one who commits the act and the one who passively allowed it to be committed upon him.

Nearly every single Islamic scholar has stated, in no uncertain terms, that homosexual acts are unIslamic, and affirm the penalty of death for those who commit them.

Now, with that framing out of the way, let’s move on to Islam’s new most embarrassing story, the encounter with the men of Al-Zutt.

The following is the full account. I’ll offer a synopsis afterwards.

Ibn Mas’ūd narrated :

The Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) performed ‘Ishā, then he turned and asked for me. He took my hand and we set out until I came to the wide valley of Makkah. He drew a line for me and said to me: ‘Stay within this line, and do not cross it, for indeed there shall come some men to you, but do not speak to them for they shall not speak to you, and if you cross (the line), you will perish. ‘ So I stayed within it. So the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) went on a little, as far as one could throw a stone or a little further.

While I was sitting within the line, some men/shapes of figures [i.e. jinn] came to me that appeared as if they were black people (i.e. dark people, like from North Africa or India), both their hair and bodies. They were not wearing any clothes but I could not see their private parts, and they were tall and they had little flesh (i.e. slim).

Then they returned towards Allāh’s Messenger (ﷺ) and began towering on top of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ). The Prophet of Allāh (ﷺ) began to recite the Qur’ān to them. And they started coming to me and surrounding me, and getting in my way. I was extremely scared of them, so I sat down – or words to that effect.

When dawn entered, they started to leave. Then the Messenger of Allāh came and entered into the line with me, looking heavy and in pain, or almost like he was in pain from their towering over him. He (ﷺ) said:’I find myself tired’ – or words to that effect. So the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) placed his head on my lap to sleep. And the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) would snore when he slept.

While I was sitting there, after a while, these men came, wearing long white garments, and Allāh knows best how handsome they were. The Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) had gone to sleep. They came towards me – I was more afraid than I was the first time – a group of them sat at the head of the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) and a group at his feet. So some of them said to each other: This servant has been given good, his eyes are asleep, but his heart is awake.

Some of them said to one another: Come, let us give him a parable. Some of them said to one another: You coin for him a parable, and we will interpret it, or we will coin for him a parable and you will interpret it.

So some of them said to each other: His parable is that of a leader who built a fortified fort, then he placed a table-spread in it and he invites people to eat and drink. So whoever answers his invitation, he eats from his food and drinks from his drink. And whoever does not come and eat his food, or who does not answer his invitation, he will punish him with a severe punishment.

The others said: As for the leader, he is the Lord of the worlds, and as for the fort, it is Islām, and the food is Paradise, and he (the prophet) is the one who invites, so whoever follows him will be in Paradise. And whoever does not follow him will be punished.

Then the Messenger of Allāh (ﷺ) woke up and said: ‘What did you see, Oh Ibn Umm ‘Abd?’ ‘Abdullāh said: I saw such-and-such. The Prophet (ﷺ) said: ‘Nothing of what they said was hidden from me.’ The Prophet of Allāh (ﷺ) said:’ They are a group of the angels.’ Or he said:’ They are the angels.’

Musnad Ahmad 3788

Muhammad and Ibn Masud went to a remote area, just the two of them. Muhammad drew a circle around Ibn Masud, telling him to stay within to avoid death. Then, a group of black men appeared (the men of Al-Zutt). They were tall, skinny, and naked, though Ibn Masud couldn’t see their genitals. They began “towering” over Muhammad, and Muhammad began reciting the Quran. When their attention turned towards Ibn Masud, he responded by sitting down.

After the men left, Muhammad returned to Ibn Masud weary and in pain by reason of what they had done to him (their “towering” over him). Muhammad fell asleep on his lap. The men briefly appeared in white clothes again, spoke to Ibn Masud (even though Muhammad had said that they would not), then they left again.

This account does bear dissecting, as it has faced some slight attempt to revise, probably because Muslims have come to understand just how embarrassing this account is, or at least it’s potential to be interpreted in an embarrassing manner.

For one thing, you might have noticed the word “jinn” in brackets. The brackets indicate an addition to attempt to either revise or to attempt to add clarity. One way or another, it contains an assumption that the revisionist wants you to come to. The popular interpretation is that these men were actually Jinn, as the interpretation of them as humans has a high potential to be interpreted in a manner that’s very embarrassing to Islam.

Yet, this interpretation is defeated by a simple observation: Jinn are supposed to be invisible. If the men were jinn, Ibn Masud should not have been able to see them. What’s more, because jinn are supposed to be demons, they should not have been able to directly interact with the natural world. From a Biblical perspective, the most that demons could do is mess with people’s minds.

And yet, not only were these men able to physically interact with Muhammad, whatever they did to him left him tired and in pain.

Now, let’s get to that. According to this translation, the men were “towering on top” of Muhammad. It was to the point that “he was in pain from their towering over him.” So, whatever it was they were doing, it involved physical contact, and was not just standing near him menacingly while being taller than him.

The “towering” comes from a word that could instead be translated “rode” or “mounted”. This is interesting, because like the latter two English equivalents, they could be interpreted to mean getting on top of someone to be carried by them, like a piggyback ride, or they could be interpreted as meaning a person attached themselves to someone else in a sexual sense.

Yeah, that could be very embarrassing for Muhammad, Islam, and many Muslims around the world.

If it weren’t already evident that the revisors are trying to hide something, the original was actually more specific than referring to the men as “black people”. They were “men of Al-Zutt”. While this phrase could refer to men of African ancestry, it was more commonly known to refer to men from North Indian and Pakistani origin.

The men of Al-Zutt were famed, not just for their dark skin, but also for their libidos. They were said to have immense sexual appetites and persistent erections. And these men were the ones who met with Muhammad. If not, then the original texts wouldn’t have told us as much. But they did, and now we see the Islamic world going into damage control.

Again.

Interestingly, when Ibn Masud felt intimidated by the men, he responded by planting his butt down on the ground.

As more and more about Muhammad comes to light, it’s becoming more and more difficult for a person to be a Muslim, because there’s more and more about Islam and Muhammad for non-Muslims to laugh at.

Muslims themselves have to start asking themselves just what it is that they’re clinging to. I mean, do they really believe this stuff?

Again, just what is it that Muslims are clinging to?

Islam has one prophet, and only one. He claimed to be the greatest and final prophet, though no Biblical prophet foretold him. He wallowed in decadence, and the violence he committed funded his lavish lifestyle. He performed no miracles. None of them. Absolutely none. Not only that, he said as much.

He made prophecies which failed to come true, including his famous Day of Doom prophecy, which was supposed to involve huge, dramatic events which would lead to the deaths of all non-Muslims. He stated that this was to occur within 500 years of his own lifetime. It’s been over 1400 years since, and Muhammad’s biggest and most important prophecy was just a big nothing burger.

He sold out his own monotheistic religion for the wealth offered by the Quraysh, then said that Satan made him accept after he realized the blunder he had made. He made claims about the beliefs of Christians and Jews, attributing these claims to his god, which Christians and Jews didn’t actually believe in. Jews don’t call Ezra the Messiah. Muhammad was dead wrong.

He claimed to receive a revelation affirming that he could be pleasured by his sex slaves if he wanted, even his his wives wanted attention, with Muslims having that detail of his life to study for ages to come. When he was in his fifties, he consummated a marriage with a girl whose age consisted of a single digit.

He didn’t know what the Scriptures said, because he couldn’t read. After someone read them to him, he repeated them back wrong. And after he was called out for it, he claimed that the Scriptures were all edited in a widespread and conspiratorial manner, including the ones he insisted were right immediately after they were read to him.

By saying that the Christian Gospels were the source of all wisdom, he inadvertently called his own Quran completely unnecessary. He claimed that if he was lying while serving in a prophetic capacity, then his aorta would be severed. Which is interesting, because he described the pain of his own death with the same language.

He failed to foresee his own poisoning by a Jewish woman, leading to his own slow, agonizing, miserable death by reason of the complications in the years to come. He attempted sorcery to try to keep himself from dying. He claimed to receive a revelation telling him that he would live, then died shortly afterwards. And because he failed to appoint a successor, the resulting infighting among those lusting for control over the empire resulted in a divide which continues to this day.

And on top of all this, Muhammad went to meet men of Al-Zutt, to be “mounted” by them to the point that he’d be exhausted and in pain. And he was a willing party to it, as evidenced by the fact that he went to that spot, suggesting that he knew what was coming.

For Muslims, this account of the men of Al-Zutt has to be like a bad memory, and a pain in the backside to explain. Because, what exactly are we supposed to come away from with this story? If we’re to accept that the men were demons, the implication that they’d have anything positive to say about the religion of Islam doesn’t make Islam or Muhammad look any better. Seriously, what kind of selling point is it that demons think your religion is great?

But if we were to take the account at face value, that Muhammad was “rode” by men famous for their sexual appetites, doesn’t that mean that Muhammad is condemned to death by his own religion?

Christians don’t have to deal with this kind of thing, because no account like this is anywhere in the Bible. So, how come it’s Islam that frequently finds itself going into damage control? After spending hours and hours researching different ways to translate and interpret different passages so they don’t look nearly as incriminating for Muhammad and Islam, one would think that Muslims would come to the conclusion that their prophet wasn’t worth believing in.

But now, here we are, with Muslims trying to explain away that their own prophet, the central prophet of their religion, might have actually willingly engaged in group sex with other men.

Score one more for those who think that the official Islamic materials were authored by hostile sources.

Muhammad died slowly, painfully, and miserably.

Also, ironically.

When you think of groups of people who Muhammad disserviced the most, two groups come to mind: women, and the Jewish people. They’d both get their revenge.

Muhammad had committed genocide against multiple Jewish tribes and settlements. Many men were killed, children enslaved, and women became sex slaves.

One female Jewish survivor was tasked with preparing a meal for Muhammad.

I’m going to admit that being a megalomaniac is outside my area of expertise. But I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re not supposed to trust your professed enemies to prepare food for you, especially after you give them plenty of reason to hate your guts.

Because bad things could happen to your guts. Bad things.

Also, I think that that thought goes together well with the common sense advice that you don’t upset the person who cooks for you.

So, a Jewish woman who saw her community ravaged, her husband probably killed, and her children probably taken away from her, has a poison on hand, and an opportunity to prepare a meal for the person who destroyed her entire life. And she knows just what cut of lamb that he likes best.

And it’s an opportunity that she took.

Muhammad and his friends began feasting. One of them didn’t begin until he saw Muhammad begin, because he trusted him. As with so many others, his trust was misplaced.

When Muhammad tasted something funny, he demanded that everyone stop eating, saying that the food told him that it was poisoned.

This would have been more impressive if the food would have told him that before he started eating it.

Muhammad had the chef called in, and asked her to explain herself. Her explanation was that, if he were a prophet, the poison would have killed him, but if he were a king, then her people would have been rid of him.

Ready for a surprise? Muhammad forgave her. Yes, really. Except, not really. When one of Muhammad’s men, who also ate from the same meal, had died, Muhammad rescinded his forgiveness, and had the woman put to death.

But ultimately, the poison would kill Muhammad. But it took years for it to happen. And as the poison worked away at Muhammad’s system, he was in worsening pain by reason of the complications.

Some might point out that it probably wasn’t the poison that killed him. Some attribute his death to a fever. But Muhammad himself attributed his worsening condition to the poison.

It’s the inclination of Muslims to believe their prophet. But if they do that, they admit that their prophet was killed by a Jewish woman. Or they can decide not to, but why stop there when they can disbelieve many of his other ridiculous claims?

In the ancient world, it was considered humiliating for a man to be killed by a woman. Because of this, it might be difficult for Muslims to accept the way that their own prophet died. But would they disbelieve the claim made by their own prophet?

Because of this, Muhammad’s death puts Muslims in a difficult spot. They could accept the humiliating way Muhammad died because he said that that’s how he died, accepting this humiliation as an indelible feature of their religion, or they could disbelieve him, and risk losing their status as Muslims.

Over the course of years, Muhammad’s condition got worse. He was in such pain that he required the help of two men to carry him about.

Speaking of his pain, Muhammad complained that it felt like his aorta had been severed. This is interesting, because Muhammad had previously said that if he was lying, then his aorta would be severed. While it’s possible that he meant this as a colloquialism for a great amount of pain, there’s still a lot of potential in that phrase to be interpreted in a way that’s disfavorable to Muhammad.

But is that really needed considering that he was a false prophet, traitor, oath breaker, rapist, child molester, torturer, and on, and on…

Muhammad turned to folk remedies, such as cumin, to no avail.

In his desperation, Muhammad turned to blowing on knots. This was a form of sorcery where a knot was formed which represented one’s illness, and the act of undoing it by blowing it undone has been said by practitioners to cure the illness. As you might expect, it didn’t work.

Practicing sorcery is a huge no-no. It’s been forbidden by Abrahamic religions. Even Islam forbids it. But Muhammad practiced sorcery by blowing on knots. He was supposed to be Islam’s greatest prophet (an easy hurtle to clear, considering that he was Islam’s only prophet). Was he disqualified by his own religion? More than he already was?

But then, Muhammad claimed to have another visit from the angel, Gabriel. According to Muhammad, Gabriel told him that he wouldn’t die. We know how reliable Muhammad’s visions are, don’t we?

Muhammad would die days later. At his request, he would die in the company of his favorite wife, Aisha.

Muhammad didn’t anticipate his death, so he didn’t appoint a successor. He likely realized that if he did, the successor would have a motivation to assassinate him. And Muhammad probably didn’t care what would become of his empire after his own death.

In the days to come, those close to Muhammad would jockey for control of the caliphate, a battle that would continue in the centuries to come in the form of the Sunni/Shia divide. It’s a divide that’s so bitter that some Muslims consider one another infidels. Part of the reason why Islam hasn’t spread further than it could have is because Muslims have been divided against themselves.

One might imagine that Muhammad would go to heaven in his own religion. But in reality, Muhammad was unsure of his own salvation. And he didn’t die in battle, meaning that he wouldn’t have gotten the special 72 virgins treatment.

This is the reason why Muslims frequently append Muhammad’s name with the phrase “peace be upon him”. Even though he was supposed to be his religion’s greatest (actually, only) prophet, his religion might have still condemned him to hell.

In Christianity, there’s more than one kind of salvation, and they are provided for mankind. One is a spiritual salvation, preserving us from the eternal punishment for our sins, and another is a physical salvation, where the Messiah intervenes in a future time to prevent humanity from destroying itself. Both forms of salvation are undeserved. And considering the kinds of ideologies, including religions, that humans have invented, we definitely need a savior.

The legacy of Muhammad has been a legacy of terror, violence, and bloodshed, overlaid with suffocating legalism and mind-numbing ritual. If you’ve learned a few things about Muhammad, you’ve learned that he’s not worth believing in, and that the religion that he invented is the way it is because of him.

Muhammad was truly one of history’s worst people.

Back to Part 6

Before getting to how Muhammad died, let’s briefly get into how he lived.

When it comes to the religion that he taught, imagine rules that eliminate the graces of human life, alongside rituals and superstitions that sound like they were born from the mind of the worst case of OCD in the universe. Then, you’d have the general idea.

While the prohibition on pork was an idea that he took from the Jews, what’s really unusual is his prohibition on music, dogs, alcoholic beverages, and much more.

He also prohibited playing chess, comparing playing chess to dipping one’s own hand in pigs blood. I suspect that he’s not a huge fan of games of strategy.

Muhammad also practiced many superstitions. Among these was the belief that if a person has a bad dream, it won’t harm them if they spit on one side of the bed. Another is the belief that Satan might steal silverware if it’s not covered up at night.

They’re not all hokey folk practices, though. Some of them are bad health advice. For example, Muhammad taught that water cannot be contaminated. Using this as an excuse, Muhammad and his men drank from a pool of water that he knew had the corpse of a donkey in it.

On another occasion, after washing in a small pool of water, he was informed that a woman washed involving menstrual fluid in it, and he insisted that it was fine.

Again, Muhammad taught that water cannot be contaminated.

He also believed that if a fly fell into your drink, you should push it until it’s completely submerged, reasoning that one of it’s wings contains a disease, and the other one the antidote for it.

Muhammad seemed to like entertaining his men with tall tales involving historical figures, whether or not he understood them. Sometimes, this would involve persons in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.

Among these was King Saul, who he portrayed in a positive light, even though the Scriptures portrayed him mostly negatively. Famously, Saul mistreated David before David  became King.

He also told stories about Jesus, though it’s evident that he lifted stories from the gnostic gospels. And he told a story about Nimrod, saying that he strengthened a couple eagles by making them drink beer, then used them to fly into the sky.

There’s a reason why you want to be familiar with the Scriptures: there’s no telling when you might encounter a madman who calls himself a prophet mentioned in the Scriptures, though he himself hasn’t read a word of it.

Outside the Scriptures, Muhammad said that Alexander the Great was a Muslim, and he ventured so far to the west that he found the place where the sun set, in a giant mud pit surrounded by a city inhabited by extraterrestrials.

Now’s not a bad time to point out that Muhammad didn’t have a strong understanding of cosmology. For example, he said that the “smudges” on the moon were the result of Satan dragging his wings across it. I guess if he were here today, he might have claimed that Nimrod was on an Apollo mission.

The hadiths get into unnecessary detail about Muhammad’s married life. He had many wives and sex slaves at a time, and there was only one of him, so one could only imagine the adventures that were his home life.

In one instance, a couple of his wives pleaded with him for intimate attention, rather than the sex slave he wanted to give attention to. This resulted in a convenient revelation which, to the surprise of precisely no one, favored Muhammad and what he wanted to do.

Muhammad also had relations with a servant of one of his wives. That wife caught him, and afterwards, he promised not to have relations with the same servant again. But he did, with a revelation that, once again, favored him and what he wanted to do.

Muhammad discovered that his wives had a tradition of giving gifts to the one whose turn it was with Muhammad. Muhammad then discovered that Aisha, his child bride, got the most of any of them. Knowing this, Muhammad decided to take turns with Aisha more often.

Speaking of, Aisha liked to take dolls with her when it was her turn. Being that she was a child, it’s understandable that she’d have those. But in Muhammad’s legalistic mind, dolls were a form of idolatry. In spite of this, Muhammad allowed her to bring those with her.

Well, whaddaya know? He actually does have a soft spot.

Muhammad also had ideas on how to run a society. He taught that one’s children should receive an equal inheritance, except for females, who would receive half as much. That one caveat aside, this sounds egalitarian, so it might appeal to people who don’t understand second order consequences. But there’s a problem with this.

In Sharia, upon the death of a business owner, the business would have to be liquidated, laying off the entire staff in the process, and the contributions of the large business to the economy would be no more. Worse yet, large businesses tend to be owned by high status men with lots of children, making it less realistic that the children would pool the liquidated assets together to restart the business.

In most non-Sharia societies, the business could just be passed on to another person, often the owner’s firstborn, so its operations and its contributions to the economy could continue. This avoids the problems that would be caused by Muhammad’s silly approach.

Muhammad also taught that the testimony of a woman is less than the testimony of a man in a court of law. Depending on the verse, it could take the testimony of two or four women to equal a man’s testimony.

One of Muhammad’s favorite teachings is his famous “Day of Doom” prophecy, in which numerous cataclysms would take place, which he said would be bad news for non-Muslims specifically.

Muhammad claimed that the Day of Doom would occur within 500 years of his own life. For him, this probably seemed safe. After all, he knew he would not live to see his own prophecy’s failure. Therefore, by the time anyone might have otherwise called him out on it, he’ll have already died rich.

But for Muslims today, there’s a huge problem. Muhammad died in the year 632 AD. More than 500 years have passed since then, and Muhammad’s Day of Doom never happened. This is true whether we’re talking about solar years, used by most of the world, or lunar years without intercalary months, as the Islamic world does.

Muhammad was a failure in many ways. But in failing in his biggest prophecy, Muhammad would fail his own followers in the far future. Considering the nature of his failure, it’s a wonder why Islam still has any followers.

Also of note was the fact that Muhammad believed that he had sorcery cast upon him. This sorcery, according to Muhammad, was the reason why he sometimes thought he did something, such as having relations with one of his wives, when he didn’t. Realistically, such a delusion is consistent with dementia.

That Muhammad would have been affected by sorcery at all would cast doubts on his claim to be a prophet. Even if sorcery was something that would really work, I’d have imagined that a prophet would have a protection from it. Yet, Muhammad claimed to be the greatest prophet. And he blamed sorcery for his memory issues.

If Muhammad was a prophet, one might ask whether he performed miracles. If he was the greatest prophet, as he claimed, then one might think that he performed some great miracles.

He didn’t. Not only did Muhammad not perform miracles, he informed people that he wouldn’t perform miracles. He didn’t heal people, and he didn’t raise the dead. His men did the opposite of these things, with physical means.

He claimed to receive revelations and see visions, then demanded that other people take his word for it, but didn’t perform miracles.

Among these professed visions was Muhammad’s so-called “night vision”. Muhammad claimed to have literally visited the Temple in Jerusalem during the night, then ascended into heaven to meet people mentioned in the Bible.

It’s obvious that he made the whole thing up. But he didn’t seem aware that, at the time, there was no temple in Jerusalem, and there hasn’t been one there since the first century AD.

Aisha, being more wise than Muhammad, begged him to not share his “night vision”. Which is understandable, but she night have been shocked at how many Muslims have believed it.

Muhammad’s bogus night vision is the justification that Muslims today use for claiming the Temple Mount for their Dome of the Rock.

While Muhammad’s life had many examples of foolishness, it’s not a life that would go on forever. Death would come for him, and while he fought to resist, it was a fight that he couldn’t possibly win.

Back to Part 5

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