Category Archives: Muhammad

Satire is Religion

Danish Cartoon Controversy, Ethics, Islam in America, Lithographs, Muhammad


Birth and Origin of the Pope by Lucas Cranach, illustration for Martin Luther’s “Against the Papacy at Rome, Founded by the Devil,” 1545

Satire is Religion

By Austin Dacey, Religion Dispatches, May 12

Scatological humor. Crude drawings mocking revered religious figures. I am speaking, of course, of Lucas Cranach’s Birth and Origin of the Pope [image above], one in a series of woodcuts commissioned by Martin Luther in the 1540s under the title “The True Depiction of the Papacy.” In it, an enormous grinning she-devil squats in the foreground, excreting the Pope along with a heap of bishops while in the background another infant pontiff suckles at the teat of a serpent-haired wet nurse.

Forget the South Park dust up; forget Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. If you want to see truly shocking anti-religious cartoons, you have to go back to the sixteenth century. Near the end of Luther’s life, his propaganda campaign against Rome grew increasingly vitriolic and his language grotesquely pungent. He took to calling his ecclesiastical enemies ‘asses,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘pigs,’ ‘blockheads,’ ‘basilisks,’ and ‘pupils of Satan,’ and the Pope himself ‘Her Sodomitical Hellishness’ and ‘fart-ass’ (no, it doesn’t sound much more dignified in German—fartz-Esel). Eric Cartman would be in awe. Continue reading Satire is Religion →

Why Islam does (not) ban images of the Prophet

Danish Cartoon Controversy, Miniatures, Muhammad


Prophet Muhammad with the Angel Gabriel. Miniature from the Ottoman Empire, c. 1595 CE (Topkapi Museum, Istanbul)

Why Islam does (not) ban images of the Prophet

By Omid Safi, Newsweek, May 2, 2010

When a pair of adolescent and anonymous Muslim bloggers (“Muslim Revolution”) threatened the producers of South Park for depicting the Prophet Muhammad in a bear suit in an April 2010 episode, pundits responded by saying that the “Muslim Revolution” folks were extremist idiots (true) and that they were offended because Islam bans the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad (not true).

When the Danish cartoon controversies broke out in 2005, many pundits–and some Muslims–stated that Muslims were offended because Muslims have never physically depicted the Prophet.

That is actually not the case, and marks yet another example of what is at worst an acute sense of religious amnesia, and at best a distortion of the actual history of Islamic practices: Over the last thousand years, Muslims in India, Afghanistan, Iran, Central Asia and Turkey did have a rich courtly tradition of depicting the various prophets, including Prophet Muhammad, in miniatures. Continue reading Why Islam does (not) ban images of the Prophet →

South Park, but not so funny

Film and Video, Humor and Satire, Islam in America, Islamophobia 101, Muhammad

Who’s Afraid of the Free Speech Fundamentalists?: Reflections on the South Park Cartoon Controversy

by Jeremy F. Walton, The Revealer, April 28, 2010

Recent days have, alas, been marked by a sense of déjà vu all over again for scholars of contemporary Islam. On April 14th, the American cable network Comedy Central aired the first half of a double episode of the immensely-popular cartoon sitcom “South Park.” The episode specifically parodied Islamic prohibitions on the pictorial representation of the Prophet Muhammad by portraying him in concealment, first within a U-Haul truck and then inside an ursine mascot costume. On the day prior to the episode’s airing, the American website revolutionmuslim.com posted the following comments by one Abu Talhah al-Amrikee:

We have to warn Matt and Trey [Matt Stone and Trey Parker, co-creators of South Park] that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.

Continue reading South Park, but not so funny →

Muhammad Is Not the Father of any of Your Men

Books You Should Read, Languages, Muhammad, Qur'an


David Powers of Cornell University has recently published what is sure to be a controversial analysis of early redaction of the Qu’ran. This is his
Muhammad is Not the Father of any of Your Men: The Making of the Last Prophet, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. He provides a discussion of the book on Rorotoko, the first part of which I attach here.

Muhammad Is Not the Father of any of Your Men is about the Islamic assertion that Muhammad was the last in a series of prophets sent by God to mankind in order to facilitate human salvation. This assertion is mentioned once in the Qur’an, in verse 40 of chapter 33 (“The Confederates”). Here, addressing an unidentified audience, the voice that controls the text announces, “Muhammad is not the father of any of your men but the Messenger of God and the Seal of Prophets.”

The meaning of the phrase “Seal of the Prophets” (in Arabic, khatam al-nabiyyin) is equivocal. Some early Muslims understood this phrase as signifying that Muhammad confirmed the revelations sent previously to Moses and Jesus, while others understood it as signifying that Muhammad brought the office of prophecy to an end, that is to say, he was the last prophet. By the end of the first century AH, the latter understanding had come to prevail.

The assertion that prophecy ends with Muhammad is central to the claim that Islam supersedes Judaism and Christianity. It is understandable that this doctrine is taken for granted by Muslim scholars. Less understandable is the general neglect of this doctrine by students of Islam.

In Muhammad Is Not the Father of any of Your Men, I attempt to shed light on the emergence of this key theological doctrine and to show how the Islamic foundation narrative was constructed in order to assure its integrity. Specifically, I focus on the intersection between the theological assertion, on the one hand, and the collective memory of the early Muslim community, key legal institutions, and the text of the Qur’an, on the other.

For the full article, click here.

Islamic Folk Astronomy #4

Algeria, Egypt, Folklore and Proverbs, Kuwait, Muhammad, Saudi Arabia, Yemen


Modern photograph of the Pleiades

The Pleiades in Arab Folklore

The most famous star in Islamic folklore is undoubtedly the Pleiades. Commentators regard the reference in surah al-Najm (#53) of the Quran as the Pleiades; in fact the Arabs often referred to the Pleiades simply as al-najm (the star par excellence), a usage parallel to that in Sumero-Akkadian (Hartner 1965:8). In a well-known tradition, Muhammad links the early summer heliacal rising of the Pleiades with the beginning of the heat, crop pests and illnesses. In another tradition, more political than weather-related, Muhammad is supposed to have told his uncle Abbas (for whom the Abbasid caliphate was later named) that kings would come from his descendants equal to twice the number of stars in the Pleiades. This would imply that Muhammad thought there were 13 stars in the asterism, since the Abbasid caliphs numbered twenty-six (Ibn Mâjid in Tibbetts 1981:84). Continue reading Islamic Folk Astronomy #4 →

The Wives (make that Wife) of the Prophet

Muhammad, Qur'an, Traditions (hadith literature)

[Webshaykh’s Note: Revisionism is found in all religions. I recently came across a blog posting that seeks to restore the marital status of Muhammad to one wife at a time, although it appears to be more an attack on at-Tabari, Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham. I post the commentary not because I agree with it, but as an example of the variety of views held by Muslims in representing the Prophet Muhammad.]

THE PROPHET (S) HAD ONLY ONE WIFE AT A TIME by Dr. Shabbir Ahmed, The Quran as it Explains Itself, August 30th, 2009

THE PROPHET (S) HAD ONLY ONE WIFE AT A TIME

MARRIAGE WITH HAZRAT AYESHA 622 CE:
Contrary to the Imamist propaganda, the exalted Prophet had no more than one wife at a time. And Hazrat Ayesha was a sister, not daughter of Hazrat Abu Bakr. The Prophet (S) did not marry for three years after Hazrat Khadijah’s demise in Makkah three years before Hijrah. Hazrat Ayesha was the widow of a martyr, Saleh bin Saleh Al-’Ataib. She was 48 years old at the time of marriage to the exalted Prophet. Sahaba Kiraam including Hazrat Abu Bakr strongly recommended that the Prophet (S) and she got into the solemn union of marriage. The blessed wedding took place in 622 CE when Muhammad (S) was 52 years old. Kitab-e-Dalail-e-Nabawwut Syedna Muhammad (S), by Abdul Jabbar Fatimi, written 150 years before Tabari, the first ever ‘canonized’ historian. Azwaaj-in-Nabi wal-Ashaab, by Sheikh Hammad bin Hakam. The rest is nothing but slanderous imagination of the Zoroastrian “Imam” Tabari and the Jewish biographer Ibn Ishaq and his Parsi follower Ibn Hisham. Continue reading The Wives (make that Wife) of the Prophet →

Loaves, Fishes and Tharid

Bible and Holy Land, Food and Drink, Muhammad


Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, St. Savior in Chora, Istanbul

One of the miracles attributed to Jesus is the feeding of the multitude with a mere five loaves of bread and two fishes (probably not large as the one that swallowed Jonah). The Gospel of Mark (6:30-44). In this story about five thousand were fed with a dozen baskets leftover. Who could top that among the prophets? Well, it turns out that a similar legend is recorded for the Prophet Muhammad. But instead of bread and fish the main dishes were tharid (a bread and meat dish), and dates. The famous early linguist Qutrub (died 206/821) is attributed with the following poem:

And there was a dish of tharid, food for one person:
with it he sated the crowd, while the crowd was witnessing it. Continue reading Loaves, Fishes and Tharid →

Watch Out for Jihad Watch

Islamophobia 101, Judaism, Muhammad, Teaching Resources, Terrorism Issue

Among the cyber Islamophobes, few are more obsessed than Robert Spencer, a self-styled expert whose The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and The Crusades) should be published in a new version without the word “Politically” in the title. Spencer writes for a specific audience, either those who already hate Muslims or others lacking the knowledge and common sense to see through his rhetorical jihad against Islam. There are numerous rebuttals to Spencer’s work available on the web. Some of the best comes from the pen of Dr. Khaleel Mohammad, whose website is worth looking at.

I attach below an excerpt from Khaleel Mohammad’s “Robert Spencer’s Obsession With Islam: What Would Jesus Do?” published in The American Muslim, September 30, 2008.

Here is something that Spencer might consider next time he chooses to pray to the Creator—while ranting and raving about Islamic radicalism and the threat it presents. Spencer should examine himself and his agenda and motivation closely. The danger to this country presented by radical Islamists is an overt one and is being confronted. Spencer, on the other hand, turns a blind eye to the extremists who are not Muslim who would see this country turned into a theocracy that imprisons people simply because they are Muslim. Continue reading Watch Out for Jihad Watch →