Loonwatch and Defending Muhammad

This was first posted at Staring at the View:

Many websites dedicate themselves to the defense of Islam, a religion that seems to continually require defending. One site I've recently come across, Loonwatch, does this by attacking critics of Islam. Their title says it all; if you don't see things the way we do, you are crazy, incompetent, and a loon.

I've often thought that Muslims have a love-hate relationship with their Prophet and his Deity. It's like a relationship with someone who accepts no criticism, who always tries to make you feel that every problem in the relationship is your fault. Unable to criticize Muhammad, or even verbalize or discuss doubts and questions they might have about him, Muslims are forced to attack those who do.

I recently attended a church-related class taught by a woman who is a serious Christian. She related that during a moment of frustration the day before had she shouted out, "God, you suck!"

"Immediately," she continued, "I felt as if God responded to me, 'Good for you! I'm proud of you. You've finally reached the point where you tell me honestly how you feel!'"

A Muslimah reading the above would be shocked. "Astaghfir Allah, may God forgive me!" she would say. She would never dare even think, much less say, such a thing.

One of the most amazing suras of the Quran that emphasizes the dysfunctional relationship between Muhammad and his followers is Al Tahrim (Quran 66). I've told the story here, and won't repeat it again except to say that Muslim apologists in the West love to say Muhammad was upset with his wife Hafsah because she told Ayesha he had bad breath from eating honey. It was in Riyadh, where Muslims are much less concerned with presenting a white-washed version of the Prophet's life than their Western counterparts, that I learned the true story. At any rate, whether the issue was honey or Muhammad sleeping with Mary the Copt in Hafsah's own bedroom, the result was the same. Rather than accept any responsibility for his behavior he put all the blame on his young wives (Ayesha was still a teenager and Hafsah in her early twenties), threatening to divorce them and using his trump card that Allah would be really angry at them if they ever did this again. It is always the fault of the Muslim or the Muslimah, never the fault of the Prophet.

I was once in a group discussion where an associate I'll call Mansour was explaining to us the "true meaning" of Jihad. He gave us the usual line of how it means a peaceful struggle to achieve spirituality, and repeated the weak Hadith, so often used in the West, of Muhammad telling his warriors they had finished the lesser Jihad of battle to dedicate themselves to the greater Jihad of spirituality.

Mansour had no idea I knew the difference between a Sufi and a sunflower seed, and when he was finished I told him I'd never heard an Arabic-speaking Shaykh in the Middle East even mention that Hadith, because it was not authentic. I reminded him there are entire chapters of the authentic Hadith collections entitled Jihad and they refer without exception to the primary meaning of the word, which is effort put forward for the strengthening and conquest of Islam.

After the discussion was over, another Arabic-speaking colleague said to me, "Don't you know that Mansour was upset by what you said today? Why do you ask him those hard questions? Why don't you just let him be a happy Muslim!"

And so I say to the writers and readers of Loonwatch, "Baraka Allah fikum, wa uwafiq-kum fi Nasr Rasul Allah wal-Deen". May God bless you, and grant you success as you strive to achieve victory for the Prophet of Allah and his Religion. And may you continue to be happy, happy Muslims!"