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.

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