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

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 against 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. " This caution is found not only in academia, but also among Islamic modernists, and to some extent in the broader Islamic tradition in terms of the sirah containing many weak narrations, a perception which to some extent has filtered through to public awareness today. What is not in doubt, though, is that these narratives, taken together as the sirah, traditionally form the most authoritative biographical source available 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 for some Muslims on their image 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.