Mohammed and the Pirates

Remember when Mohammed agreed to move there, he had the Medina d00ds pledge to fight for him? Remember how Mo has had revenge fantasies all along? Remember those caravan routes? Remember human nature?






Maps are cool. This here one has gray patches that are volcanic mountains that'll eat a set of Air Jordans in one afternoon. The dotted lines going around them are major trade routes, like Interstates

but with more camel poop. All the freight between India and Egypt and Europe goes right through Mohammed's back yard, just like the Manila Galleons ran through the Caribbean. Who could resist, me mateys? Arrgh!

Not Mohammed. Six months after the big move he sent his Uncle and 30 guys to attack a caravan at el-Ais, #1 on the map. They had a spiritual moment and said, “Hey, this is just wrong” and all went home to burn incense and contemplate lint.

Just kidding, the caravan had 300 d00ds guarding it, see, which is god's way of saying “Thou shalt not steal.”
So they got up a mob with twice as many guys and went after another caravan, #2 on the map, down by Rabigh. They shot arrows at them but nobody got hit and they gave up. They made about ten more raids but they couldn't find the caravans. Hey, don't laugh, it's a big desert. They didn't have GPS, no radio, not even binoculars. They needed an intelligence branch, these spiritual leaders did.

You gotta ask, what would Buddha do? These ship of the desert guys were long haul truckers, rolling down the highway, with camels for 18-wheelers, all about moving freight, no bodink religious cults. Try hijacking a semi and claim your guru told you you had to, to aid in your spiritual development, see how many years that adds to your sentence. Good luck, I'll bring cigarettes on visiting day, douche boat.

Mo led a couple of these raids in person. One down south by Mahkla and one up north by Yanbui, the flags on the map. He might not have been much of a general but he was a hella good politician. He made treaties with these tribes, so now he's got Mecca bracketed, spies catching traffic coming or going. Finally, jackpot, about a year and a half after the big move to Medina, they nailed a convoy. Gee, that's about the time he said piss on the Jews. Think there's a connection?

The pirates went covert this time, sent out an 8-man squad with secret sealed orders [hey, if Mo can't read how keep this secret?]. Once they were out of sight they opened the envelope and followed directions: go east, sneak down along the inland side of the mountains to Naklah and ambush a small caravan on its way into Mecca. For the Lord, y'unnerstand. They made a surprise attack at dawn, killed one of the four guards, kidnapped two for ransom, stole all the camels and the freight, gave a fifth of it to Mo. Tithing, to the max. Some left wing liberal pussies started bitching about their ancient traditions that all fighting stops during the Holy Month of Rajab, so this was no time to be attacking your own kinsmen, so Godhammed sent down an epileptic fit to say it was all good, so stop whining you traitors.

^2:217 They ask you of war in the holy month. Tell them: "To fight in that month is a great sin. But a greater sin in the eyes of God is to hinder people from the way of God, and not to believe in Him, and to bar access to the Holy Mosque and turn people out of its precincts; and oppression is worse than killing. They will always seek war against you till they turn you away from your faith, if they can. But those of you who turn back on their faith and die disbelieving will have wasted their deeds in this world and the next. They are inmates of Hell, and shall there abide for ever.

NOW it all makes sense. No need to convert Jews anymore, piracy pays better than passing a collection plate, and passing out booty is a a better way to get converts anyway. All these fight verses are convincing the cult to get on board with the new warfare state. Support the troops, yo.

I totally get it now why moslems always claim they were so persecuted and only defended themselves when the polytheists were all torturing and killing them and stealing their ipods. There's nothing in the records about the pagans doing any of this, even though they have every gory detail of what the moslems did to pagans, like who they killed and how much blood money they paid. Seems like the family album would have room for “Uncle Fred got murdered” even if it meant leaving out “how to wipe your ass”.

But it's all good, see. Godhammed said the killing at Naklah, in the holy month, was ok cuz what the pagans did was worse. So, the pagans had to have done something worse than murder. Tough call—admit you're a murdering thief, or find some excuse, like 'oh yeah look what they did' So, ... stories of torturing mo-men spring up like flies on shit. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Boo-yah, there really is prophecy in the quran.

Making up the story that Abraham built the Kaaba lets him make the pagans all evil for taking over “his” mosque [just like nowadays with the temple in Jerusalem: cant argue with success] and his references to the Holy Mosque give him a freebee—he gets revenge on the Meccans for all those years of being laughed at. It's fair all around, in a psychopath kind of way.