Intermission

Our story so far:
Way long time ago, Mecca was a big famous city out in the middle of nowhere. It was rolling in dough because it had a meteorite. With a flawless nose for marketing, they built the Kaaba around it and installed shrines to every god in the neighborhood, 360 of them, one for every day of the year. They always had a light on, like Motel 6. There were neighborhoods of Jews, and Christians, and religions you've never heard of, all hanging together and raking in loot selling tacky souvenirs to all the different kinds of pilgrims.

Next, a guy named Mohammed had some kind of mystical experience. It scared the shit out of him, till his wife convinced him he was a prophet, like Jews like her believed in. He started going around Mecca, preaching that everyone was an evil sinner and doomed to hell. The Meccans, naturally, were insulted and they mocked the shit out of him, but they left him alone to carry on, partly because he belonged to a rich family and his bigshot uncle stuck up for him.


To hear muslims tell it nowdays, the pagans tortured and killed them like the Romans did to the early Christians, but that's mostly bullshit. There was apparently one murder, and there were some fights and all, but the muslims started it. What did they expect? He ran around for ten years, preaching the overthrow of the powers that be. What would the Vatican do if you set up a soapbox and a bull horn in their Kaaba and started ranting “THE POPE SUCKS! CATHOLICS WILL BURN IN HELL!”? Think you could get away with it for ten years? Ha. Not to mention, what if you went to Mecca, like Richard Burton did? All the pagans did was laugh at him, offer to pay him off, and finally boycott him. Poor Poor Pitiful Mo.


He's not making converts, and every time he gets depressed he claims to have a revelation with god telling him “buck up bucko”(93:3-5)
When people keep calling him crazy, he has god appear and say he isn't (68:2).
When he is pissed at his personal enemies he has god appear and curse them (ch111)..
When he sucked at poetry, he had god condemn poets (26:224).
When he says something stupid, god comes and says it doesn't count. (satanic verses, anyone?)
When people got suspicious of how self-serving his little dribs and drabs of revelation were, Presto, god has an answer for that too: it was to strengthen their heart, like spinach (25:32).

Yeah, you can see why nobody will join his cult. Finally, he gives up and leaves town. Ahhh, but it's not over yet ...