Arabology

OK, I've been looking stuff up, I've earned 796 credits in Ancient Mideast Studies, now I can say what Chapter 59 is about. First of all, it's in the wrong damn place. It's talking about Mohammed's cult running the Nadir tribe out of Medina, BEFORE the trench massacre, that was in ch 33, that was ten chapters back. ?!? Whoever put the out-of-order chapters in order screwed up. Color me unsurprised.

Our story so far:
Mohammed gets run out of Mecca in 622, immediately starts sending his peeps to ambush caravans. They murder a guy at Naklah during the Holy month and use Chapter 2 to justify that, then how to divide up all their pirate loot is Chapter 8.


The Meccans tried to intercept a raid at Badr but Mo kicked their butts, went home and ran the Qaynuqa tribe out of town. Then the pagans sent a punitive expedition, and won the Battle of Uhud because the cult chose looting over fighting. Both those battles are in chapter 3, and then is this chapter 59, where Mohammed runs the Nadir tribe out.


After this comes The Battle of the Trench we talked about in chapter 33, where the Meccans finally sent an army to besiege them for a whole two weeks, after which the cult rounded up and beheaded all the Qurayzah tribesmen.

This is all so spiritual and uplifting. It just gives me an urge to go donate to a girl scout. Or beat one up.

Date, A.D.	Event	Discussed in Blog post	Date posted	Mentioned in Surah
622 on, start right after he gets there	Attacks on caravans	Mo & the pirates	10/9	Ch 2
	Spoils distributed	God told me to kill you	10/17	Ch 8
624 A.D.	Battle of Badr, evict Qaynuqa tribe	BB of Badr	11/19	Ch 3
	Assassinates Ka'b	Mohammed's Hit Men
625 A.D.	Battle of Uhud	More bloodshed	11/10	Ch 3
625 A.D.	Evict Nadeer tribe			Ch 59
627 A.D.	Battle of the Trench/ massacre Qurayzah	The Trench	11/24	Ch 33

In my post on chapter 8, I missed something.

Quran 8:67: It is not for a Prophet that he should have prisoners of war until he had made a great slaughter in the land. You desire the good of this world (i.e. the money of ransom for freeing the captives), but Allâh desires (for you) the Hereafter. And Allâh is All-Mighty, All-Wise.

Holy shit, Yes, it really says that. I missed it because I was reading Khalifa's translation and all he says is ... unless he participates in the fighting. Little bit of white-washing going on there?

His version of 8:69 is a little different, too, reminds me of the nightly newscasts:

(Khalifa) Therefore, eat from the spoils you have earned, ...
(Hilali & Khan) So enjoy what you have gotten of booty in war, ...

Spin control much?

I missed something about Badr, too. Mohammed wanted to kill all the Qaynuqa tribe! Srsly.

Muhammad besieged them for fifteen days and prevented any of them from getting out. They then surrendered at the discretion of Muhammad. They were fettered, and he wanted to kill them, but Abd Allah b. Ubayy spoke to him on their behalf. ....
... he said: "Damn you, you treat my mawali well. Four hundred men without armour and three hundred with coats of mail, who defended me from the Arab and the non-Arab alike, and you would mow them down in a single morning? By Allah, I do not feel safe and am afraid of what the future may have in store." So Muhammad said: "They are yours."   (Quoting Tabari here)

So this is the muslims own historians telling about their dude, there doesn't seem to be any doubt about this happening, Mohammed wanted to murder 700 surrendered, tied-up guys. Somehow muslims still consider this guy to be the perfect man. WTF?!?  Some people just don't see mass murder as character flaw.