Geert Wilders - Fitna

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   The Life of Mohammed

In the year 622 seventy-three citizens of the Arabian city of Medina came to the prophet Mohammed in Mecca and asked him to make Medina his home. Mohammed asked that they protect him with their lives. They asked what reward they would receive should they be killed in the process. He answered: paradise.

In Medina, Mohammed commissioned his lieutenants to raid passing caravans. Over a ten-year period he planned sixty-five campaigns and raids, and personally led twenty-seven of these himself. One fifth of the booty was to be allocated directly to him. Any of the raiders who died while plundering the caravans, Mohammed said, would automatically enter heaven.

In 623 Mohammed organized a band of 300 armed men to waylay a rich caravan bound for Mecca from Syria. A force of 900 men from Mecca hurried to defend the caravan. Mohammed personally led his followers to victory, took many prisoners, and put some of them to death.

Because Mohammed had shown a lack of mercy toward the defeated, he was reviled by many Arabs. In Medina, the renown poetess Asma criticized him in rhyming verse. One of Mohammed�s lieutenants, Omeir, made his way into the sleeping woman�s room and plunged his sword so fervently into her breast that it affixed her to the couch. In the mosque the next morning, Mohammed asked Omeir, �Hast thou slain Asma?� �Yes,� answered Omeir, �is there cause for apprehension?� �None,� said Mohammed; �a couple of goats will hardly knock there heads together for it.�

Asma was not the only literary victim under Mohammed's rule in Medina. Another poet, Afak, composed a satire about him, and was slain as he slept in his courtyard. A third poet, Kab ibn al-Ashraf, offended Mohammed by criticizing the compulsory conversion of the city�s Jews. �Who will ease me of this man?� Mohammed asked. That evening, the poet�s severed head was laid at the prophet's feet.