To-Do
May be useful information to verify and incorporate:
“Muhammad ordered Fatima to be tortured and a crippled slave to rape her daughter in front of him. After the slave has finished, Muhammad called Zayd bin Haritha and ordered him to kill Fatima. Many people begged the prophet to have mercy on Fatima because she was only an old woman, and already 70 years old. But Muhammad ignored them all”.
Al Tabari wrote: “Muhammad ordered Zayd bin Haritha to kill Fatima, who was also knownas Umm Qirfa. He killed her in a sadistic way, he tied both of her legs ontwo camels. He forced those two camels to run in different ways until shewas torn into two pieces”. (The History of Nations and Kings oleh Al-Tabari, vol.II, hal.127).
There is something...
There is something in Hadith study that is called "Sanad". You know what it means? It means the series of narrators who have narrated the Hadith. If any narrator of the series proves to be a lier or unreliable in any way, the Hadith is considered invalid. And if there is no Sanad, the Hadith is also considered invalid. So can you please bring the Sanad you relied on in this story?
It also seems interesting that one might think that muslim men had the superhuman ability to come back from death-before the end of the universe- and walk and talk and kill, as Zaid bin Haritha is supposed to have died 4-5 months before Mecca was opened by muslims!!! Hard luck making your lies believable! Meg 14:07, 23 October 2009 (PDT)
- You are referring to the 1st of Bukhari's criteria which is the 'isnad (chain of narrators). The other criteria you refer to is 'adl (the character of each person in the 'isnad). The criteria for judgement as a Sahih narration was made up by Bukhari (and used also by his student Muslim). It is unreasonable (and ridiculous!) to expect that those who lived and collected there narrations many decades (even centuries) before Bukhari to use the criteria that Bukhari came up with. The other collections (ie. Tabari & Ishaq) are very important for Muslims because they give a lot of insight into Muhammad's life and the frmation/expansion of Islam. Without them you have basically no idea who Muhammad was. So to discard every narration that does not contain a reliable 'isnad is foolish and leaves you with a husk of a religion.
- So, it is your duty, if you feel that the narration is not authentic, to find out about it and ask your own scholars. ie. YOU need to prove it is unauthentic. Of course many unfavourable narrations are being declared 'unauthentic' by many Muslims solely because of the Internet - these narrations make their religion and their prophet look very bad indeed. Sanitarium 14:13, 23 October 2009 (PDT)
- Nice reply Sani! I hope Meg responds. --Whale 14:24, 23 October 2009 (PDT)
Why do you think Al-bukhari spent years writing his book? He wanted to make sure that every single word was true and every narrator was reliable. But that's not the point of discussion. Al-tabari and ibn Ishaq might be two of the most important historitions, but they're not the only ones. There are lots of other reliable books that give us insights of the life of Prophet Mohammad. The problem with the narrations of these 2 historitions is that they lack proper "sanad", and some narrators were proven to be liars on unreliable. It's not fooloish to look for "Sanad" in every Hadith we face, a lot is said these days about our religion by people we don't know if they can be trusted. It's reasonable to search for the right information. But you still haven't explained the contradiction of events in the story; how is Zaid bin Haritha supposed to have killed the so-called Umm Qirfa when he has been dead for almost 2 years? Meg 14:55, 23 October 2009 (PDT)
- While it is true that Bukhari spent years on his collection and did his best to make sure all narrations adhered to his criteria, he did admit that some might have slipped through, and this is why even Sahih narrations (Bukhari and Muslim) are still scrutinized against Bukhari's own criteria. Also he 'spent years' because he had to handwrite it all, and he spent a lot of time during those years teaching and touring the world. It was not a 'full time job' and that's why it took longer.
- Yes undoubtedly in Tabari's & Ishaq's collection there were unreliable narrations - but this is no reason to discard the collections as a whole - this is why you have 'ahadith science' and scholars who scrutinize these things. If it were the case that you found just ONE narration in a collection that violated Bukhari's criteria and you then throw out the whole collection, then you would have to throw out Bukhari & Muslim too, because some of those narrations fail the test too.
- I have only replied to your comments about the isnad I have no comment on the Zaid issue sorry. Perhaps go ask an Alim? Thanks for your comments! Sanitarium 15:05, 23 October 2009 (PDT)
Hello Meg, I'll clarify with the author the point you brought up about Zaid, however - those are just little details of the story. The main story is present in the hadiths:
- By putting a rope into her two legs and to two camels and driving them until they rent her in two.
Prove that this certain hadith and the other that supports it, is invalid. Then get all the Islamic scholars in the world to agree with you and maybe we'll revise the article. Your argument "some hadiths are lies" isnt valid because you cant reject certain hadith just because they're making Islam look bad. --Whale 15:10, 23 October 2009 (PDT)
Meg, the author of the article (Haik) has fixed the issue about Zaid and given the following explanation.
The Muslim is right in pointing out Zaid was dead before the conquest of Mecca. We don’t know exactly when the raid of Banu Fazara took place. Ishaq does not give the date but this account appears later to Meccan conquest in his Sirah. That’s why I put it as “After the conquest of Mecca”.
This could be the reason we find Abu Bakr and NOT Zaid leading the same raid in Sahih Muslim account. Either way, the raid’s historicity and the killing of Umm Qirfa can not be doubted because we have given Sahih Muslim hadith (in the article) to confirm them. Sahih Muslim’s authenticity is not doubted by the doubters of Ibn Ishaq and Tabari. And we see in the Sahih Muslim hadith the old woman and her daughter being taken as prisoners.
To clear the confusion on this matter, I will edit the portion which says the expedition took place after the conquest of Mecca. It will be solving this issue.So as I said, the issue of Zaid is/was a minor issue in the article. The main point of the article was to show that this women was tied between two camels and was split apart by Muhammad's men. Later Muhammad ordered her decapitated head to be paraded on the streets of Madina. Now if you think these hadiths are invalid, you'll have to prove it. Rejecting hadiths because they make Islam look bad is not acceptable. And let me tell you this: Quran 5:38 asks Muslims to cut off the hands of a thief. Hell has punishments like:
- Exchangeable skins so that people can be roasted all over again (Qur'an 4:56)
- Boiling water (Qur'an 56:41-42)
- Maces of iron (Qur'an 22:21-22)
900 men of Banu Qurayza were beheaded on the orders of Muhammad and their women and children enslaved. All of this comes from the same mindset of torture that is also applicable to tying a person between two camels, splitting their body and beheading them so the story of Umm Qirfa shouldnt be a surprise to you. Its not very different from everything else in Islam. Both Quran and hadith are full of the tortures that non-Muslims went through, should go through and will go through in Islamic hell (according to Islam). Even Muslims can be tortured by stoning to death and cutting off their hands and so on.--Whale 06:59, 24 October 2009 (PDT)