List of Killings Ordered or Supported by Muhammad: Difference between revisions

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The sirah maghaazi literature, the earliest biographical literature produced by the Arabic tradition, portrays Muhammad as a warlord and statebuilder par excellence. Although it does portray him sometimes showing mercy to his opponents, just as often if not more so it portrays him as ordering the killings of transgressors agains the divine law, political and religious enemies, personal enemies or threats to his person, and poets who made fun of him. The earliest biographers such as ibn Ishaq are quite detailed in showing how the prophet did not suffer poetry against him and made a point of ordering the murder of such poets. As with the rest of the sira maghaazi literature many questions remain about the reliability of these accounts from the perspective of ''wie es eigentlich gewesen'' or "as it actually happened. " What is not in doubt, though, is the authority these hold within the Islamic tradition. These narratives, taken together as the sirah, form the most authoritative biographical source for Muslims on the life of the prophet. Their presentation of him as a warlord who ordered the execution of so many of his political and religious enemies thus bears considerable impact on the image that Muslims have of [[Muhammad ibn Abdullah]] as [[Uswa Hasana]], the perfect man and the founder of their religion, the great religion and final revelation by [[Allah (God)]] to mankind.  

Typically, academic scholars have doubts about the reliability of the sῑra literature and the maghāzī (raid, expedition) accounts therein. In a detailed analysis of protagonists, repeated motifs and textual devices, Ershan Roohi has identified that several accounts of political assassinations in the sira literature may have been motivated by tribes seeking to glorify their ancestors, or for apologetic purposes to exonerate them or their tribe for having at one time resisted acceptance of Islam, in the latter case particularly those stories which involve assassins of Jewish descent or affiliation killing members of their own tribe or confederates for the sake of Muhammad and the new religion.<ref>Eshan Roohi (2021) [https://www.academia.edu/56044561/Between_History_and_Ancestral_Lore_A_Literary_Approach_to_the_S%C4%ABras_Narratives_of_Political_Assassinations Between History and Ancestral Lore: A Literary Approach to the Sīra’s Narratives of Political Assassinations] Der Islam, Vol. 98 (2) doi:10.1515/islam-2021-0029</ref>