| Pain, Pleasure and Prejudice The Complete Layman’s Guide to the Koran Chapter 23 Whose Words Are They Anyway? Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in a television interview on CBS, argued that most of the Koran, if not all of it, cannot be the word of God, any god. No god, she claims, could sanction, among other unspeakable brutalities, the rape and beating of one’s wife. I agree that portions of the Koran don’t read like the words of a god, but then again, who is to say that they’re not. My own reason for believing that some portions of the Koran are not the word of God – the Almighty not being in communication with me as He may have been with the Prophet Muhammad – are different from those expressed by Hirsi Ali and are typically male. Let’s begin by eliminating reasons that, on the surface make the Koran doubtful as the word of a deity. Conflicting Messages Jesus, as the Son of God is, of course, revered and worshipped by Christians everywhere and will be their flag bearer in their final battle against the forces of evil when humanity’s earth-bound existence comes to an end. One big difference, in this battle to end all battles, Old Testament Christians e.g. Evangelicals believe that Jesus will convert thousands of Jews to Christianity, while Muslims maintain He will convert thousands of Jews to Islam. Allah said that He sent messengers like Jesus all the time. Tiring of His instructions being misinterpreted or misunderstood, He sent His last and greatest Messenger, to whom He revealed the Koran, His final, complete, unchanging and unambiguous instructions for mankind. When you compare Jesus’ message to the one delivered by the Prophet Muhammad you are left to wonder who got God’s instructions right. When in the Presence of the Prophet Do any of the following revelations about how to behave in the presence of the Prophet, and the threats of dire consequences if proper etiquette is not followed when in the presence of God's last messenger make any sense in a book meant for the ages, or as a prayer, which all verses of the Koran are intended to be? 24:62 The true believers, who believe in Allah and His Messenger, if they are with him for some common affair, will not depart till they take their leave. Indeed, those who ask leave from you are those who believe in Allah and His Messenger. If they ask leave from you for some affair of theirs, give leave to whom you wish and ask Allah’s forgiveness for them. Allah is surely All-Forgiving, Merciful. 24:63 Do not make calling the Messenger out among you like your calling one another out. Allah knows those of you who slip away stealthily. So, let those who disobey His command beware of an ordeal that might befall them, or a very painful punishment that might befall them. ---- 49:2 O believers, do not raise your voices above the Prophet’s voice and do not be loud in speaking to him, as you speak loudly to one another, lest your works come to grief while you are not aware. 49:3 Surely, those who lower their voices in the presence of Allah’s messenger are those whose hearts Allah has tested for piety. They will have forgiveness and a great wage. 49:4 Those who call you from behind the Chambers, most of them do not understand. 49:5 Had they waited for you to come to meet them, it would have been better for them. Allah is All-Forgiving and Merciful. In the Prophet's House In verse 24:27, Allah warned the believers not to “enter houses other than your own before you ask leave and greet their occupants.” He placed additional restrictions as to when you can enter the Prophet’s houses, how to behave once inside, what type of interaction is permitted, if any, with the Prophet’s wives while inside His Messenger’s house. 33:53 O believers, do not enter the houses of the Prophet, unless you are invited to a meal, without awaiting the hour; but if you are invited, then enter; but when you have eaten, disperse, without lingering for idle talk. That is vexing to the Prophet who might be wary of you, but Allah is not wary of the truth. If you ask them (the wives of the Prophet) for an object, ask them from behind a curtain. That is purer for your hearts and theirs. You should never hurt the Messenger of Allah, nor take his wives in marriage after him. That is truly abominable in the sight of Allah. Allah ends this curious revelation with an admonishment for the men, warning them to keep their distance from His Messenger’s wives after His Messenger has left this world on route to a better one. Why would Allah, in His Holy Koran, issue a prohibition against His Messenger’s widows marrying again, thereby making His Prophet out to be the most jealous of human beings, a man who would seek to control the lives of his former wives from beyond the grave. For Muslim women, having sex with a man other than their husband is flirting with a gruesome death and risking spending an eternity on fire in the depth of Allah’s Hell. The interdiction in verse 33:53 against taking “his wives in marriage after him” is equivalent to condemning the then fifty something Prophet’s young wives to never enjoying being intimate with a man again after his passing. The interdiction cannot in any way be construed as setting a lasting example since it would disappear with the passing of the Prophet’s last wife. So why include such a revelation in a book meant to guide humanity till the end of time? If the instructions about how men should behave in the home of the Prophet, and the prohibition about being intimate with his widows did not come from Allah, you might be forgiven for thinking that God’s Messenger was an excessively jealous, insecure man where his wives were concerned. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Making matters worst, the Prophet’s widows were deprived of most of their inheritance by his immediate successor Abu Bakr. He claimed God’s Messenger had told him that after his death, if they were in need, they should “accept alms." Paying for an Audience Allah revealed to His Messenger that a believer to whom the Prophet granted a private audience should pay for the privilege, if he had the means. 58:12 O believers, if you converse privately with the Messenger, then tender a free offering before your secret conversing. That is better for you and purer; but if you do not have the means then Allah is All-Forgiving, Merciful. 58:13 Do you dread to make free offerings before your private converse? If you do not do so and Allah pardons you, then perform the prayer, give the alms and obey Allah and His Messenger. Allah is Aware of what you do. Nothing sinister here. The offering would probably have gone to charity anyway. But what is it with Allah’s pre-occupation with the minutia of his Messenger’s daily life? The Messenger, as Allah reminds us on numerous occasions, was mortal, therefore Allah’s recommendations concerning etiquette and what is expected when you meet with His Messenger were bound to be short-lived (no pun intended) considering the life span of an ordinary human being. These revelations to the benefit of His Messenger exclusively leave a layman with the impression that the Prophet was using God to advance his own position and well-being. Sex and the Messenger Why would a god, who denied the existence of all other gods and goddesses, including the pantheon of gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman antiquity, the same gods and goddesses who loved to interfere in the lives of mortals, indulge in the same behaviour when it came to His Messenger? Especially His Messenger’s sex life; going as far as allowing His Messenger to marry the wife of his adopted son Zayd. The Prophet walked in on his adopted son’s wife when she was almost naked and “was troubled by her beauty”. He just had to have her. To get her he had to break two taboos. The first was the taboo against divorce; his son would have to divorce his wife for his father to marry her. The second, marrying your living son’s wife. Allah would make an exception, as he always did when it came to indulging His Messenger’s apparent weakness for beautiful young women and girls. He made it “alright” for Zayd, the Prophet’s adopted son to divorce his wife and His Messenger to marry her. 33:37 And [remember] when you said to him whom Allah favoured and you favoured: (this is addressed to Zayd regarding his wife Zaynab) “Hold on to your wife and fear Allah”, while you concealed within yourself what Allah would reveal and feared other men, whereas Allah had a better right to be feared by you. Then, when Zayd had satisfied his desire for her, We gave her to you in marriage; so that the believers should not be at fault, regarding the wives of their adopted sons, once they have satisfied their desire for them. For Allah’s Command must be accomplished. 33:38 The Prophet was not at fault regarding what Allah prescribed for him as was His Way with those who were gone before. And Allah’s Command is a pre-ordained decree. His Messenger had not broken any laws because He, Allah said he had not. When you read these verses you get the distinct impression that the Prophet may have been inadvertently, or deliberately, using God to satisfy his carnal desires. In a long verse with which you should already be familiar, Allah enumerates all the women that His Messenger can sleep with, including women to whom he is not married (my interpretation of “and any believing woman who gives herself freely to the Prophet.”) It is worth reading again in its entirety to appreciate how attentive to detail Allah was when it came to His Messenger’s sex life. 33:50 O Prophet, we made lawful, for you, your wives, whose dowry you have paid, what your right hand owns (slave-girls) out of the spoils of war that Allah gave you, the daughters of your paternal uncles, the daughters of your paternal aunts, the daughters of your maternal uncles, the daughters of your maternal aunts who emigrated with you, and any believing woman who gives herself freely to the Prophet, if the Prophet desires to marry her, granted exclusively to you, but not the believers. We know what We have prescribed for them regarding their wives and what their right hands own, so that you may not be at fault. Allah is All-Forgiving, Merciful. Allah also relaxed the divorce rules for His Messenger, if His Prophet married a woman who had given “herself freely.” For these women, having shared His Messenger’s bed should be reward enough if he decided to send them on their way with little or no compensation. 33:51 You may defer any of them you wish, and take in any of them that you wish or any that you may have cut off. So you are not liable to reproach, For thus it is more likely that they will be delighted and will not grieve, but be content with what you have given each one of them. Allah knows what is within your hearts; and Allah is All-Knowing, Clement. The Prophet's child-bride Aisha wondered about Allah's readiness to indulge His Messenger in everything sexual. In a Bukhari hadith she offers a rather wry comment about Allah hastily fulfilling her husband’s wishes when it came to the ladies after this revelation was received. Narrated Aisha: I used to look down upon those ladies who had given themselves to Allah's Apostle and I used to say, "Can a lady give herself (to a man)?" But when Allah revealed: "You (O Muhammad) can postpone (the turn of) whom you will of them (your wives), and you may receive any of them whom you will; and there is no blame on you if you invite one whose turn you have set aside (temporarily).' (33.51) I said (to the Prophet), "I feel that your Lord hastens in fulfilling your wishes and desires." Bukhari 60.675 When it came to sex there would be one law for the believers and another law for God’s Messenger. Is it Allah or is it His Messenger who realises that He may have gone too far? Is the following verse meant to reassure the believers that no further exceptions will be granted the Prophet when it comes to the females that he can bring into his household or with whom he can have intimate relations? 33:52 Thereafter, other women are not lawful to you, nor is substituting other wives for them, even if you admire their beauty, except for what your right hand owns. Allah is Watchful over everything. Why would God, in a book meant to be a moral guide for mankind for centuries to come, spend so much time on the sex life of just one man? If that sex life was to be held up as an example to the faithful then perhaps it would have its place in such as book. But as an exception to Allah’s rules for the ordinary believer! For a book that was meant to be the moral compass for countless generations of men and women, does it make any sense for Allah to indulge, in such a book, one very mortal Prophet, a man whose life in this world was to come to an end in a few short years. We explore this question at greater lengths in Of Poets and Men, the next chapter. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jay Ingram in Theatre of the Mind – Raising the Question on Consciousness (2005) introduces the reader to Julian Jaynes’ controversial idea which he presents in his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976) that consciousness first developed among city dwellers about three thousand years ago because their brain could no longer depend on voices or hallucinations to guide them in their increasingly complex everyday affairs. Jaynes makes this controversial leap by pointing out that most of the myths and legends that survive to this day in religious rituals, traditions and beliefs come from mainly nomadic, desert dwellers. In essence, he seem to be saying that until about three thousand years ago most of humanity could have been diagnose as schizophrenic for hearing voices constantly telling them what to do. According to Ingram, there is good evidence that schizophrenics are hearing their own voices. In one experiment “a schizophrenic man wore a microphone, which recorded his own voice uttering the very commands that he later reported as hallucinations.”
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