Boreal
FAREWELL POSTINGS
My Passing May Mimic Muhammad’s Official Cause of Death
December 2, 2024
Unless I get hit by a bus, or suffer some other misfortune before the blessed event, my official cause of death will be a ruptured aorta, not unlike what Muhammad believed was happening to him.
Muhammad's Official Cause of Death
A HUNDRED YEARS OF NOTHING
(Abbreviated from From Merchant to Messenger, Boreal Books)
When Muhammad allegedly died nestled in Aisha's lap in Medina in 632, he not only left this mortal realm but history altogether. I say allegedly because, with the possible exception of the letter of Caliph Umar II (717-720) to the Byzantine emperor Leo III in which he brags about how Muhammad led his followers out of Arabia "to fight against the largest empires", there is no contemporary Muslim account of how and when he died or what came after for about one hundred years even if Medina, at the time, was known for its scribes. None of the many citizens of the city who could read and write and on whom Muhammad depended, including the indispensable Zaid bin Thabit Al-Ansari, it would seem, could be bothered to note the passing of its most illustrious resident; unless, of course, this is not where and when he died.
The first written text on the life of Muhammad appeared in the first half of the 8th century from a few Muslim clerics such as the Kitâb al-saqîfa (the book of saqîfa) by Shiite author Sulaym Ibn Qays al-Hilâl, one of the oldest such texts to have survived to this day. Saqîfa is Arab for refuge or a large covered space. Saqîfa Banî Sâ’ida was such a place, a large covered veranda in Medina where a group of people gathered in secret following the death of Muhammad, according to Shiite sources, and named Abu Bakr as his successor, thereby depriving his son-in-law Ali of the caliphate. On the Sunni side, the first clerics to have written on the life of Muhammad are Urwa Ibn al-Zubayr (d. 712) and his disciple al-Zuhrî (d. 741), who lived during the Umayyad caliphate.
Urwa is alleged to have written about different parts of Muhammad's life at the request of Caliph Abd al-Malik (685-705) in the form of letters addressed to his patron. None have survived. We only know of his writings because they are cited by subsequent authors such as Ibn Ishaq (b. 704 d. 767), whose teacher was none other than al-Zuhrî. Ibn Ishaq's biography of Muhammad, which he wrote at the request of Abbasid caliph Al-Mansur (754-775) for his son, has much to say about his military expeditions. Like the letters of Urwa, Ishaq's biography has not survived to this day. We know some of what he wrote because he is quoted in later works by 9th and 10th century authors and from reworked fragments such as those found in the seminal Sirat al-Rassûl, Example of the Prophet or Life of the Prophet by ibn Hisham (d. 832).
Ibn Ishaq was a controversial figure, in part because he approached his subject in much the same way a modern historian would: by considering all information available, including the testimonies of Christians and Jewish converts whom his detractors dismissed out-of-hand as unreliable compared to those of Arab converts or those born into the faith. Ishaq's most vocal critic was renowned authority on the sayings and deeds of Muhammad (the so-called hadiths), Malik ibn Anas (b. 711 d. 795).
The methodology pursued by Ibn Ishaq was, first and foremost, that of an historian and biographer while Malik was steeped in Islamic Jurisprudence. The main reason why Malik and others questioned Ibn Ishaq's reliability as a hadith narrator was due largely to the fact that he had obtained information about the Prophet's military campaigns (including that of the Battle of Khaibar) from both Jewish and Christian converts to Islam.
Muhammad Mojlum Khan, The Muslim 100 - The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of the Most Influential Muslims in History, Kube Publishing, 2008.
Ibn Hisham transformed what Ishaq wrote about Muhammad into a panegyric. Hisham's plagiarized biography has achieved canonical status and the immunity from criticism that comes from being elevated to the equivalent of holy writ.
Thanks to its success the Sira of Ibn Ishaq (as redacted by Hisham and others) is practically our one source for the life of Muhammad preserved within the Islamic tradition. The work is late; written not by a grandchild, but a great great-grandchild of the Prophet's generation, it gives us the view for which classical Islam had settled. And written by a member of the "ulema" the scholars who had by then emerged as the classical bearers of the Islamic tradition, the picture which it offers is one-sided: how the Umayyad caliphs remembered their Prophet we shall never know. That it is unhistorical is only what one would expect, but it also has an extraordinary capacity to resist internal criticism, a feature unparalleled in either the Skandhara [the life of the Buddha] or the Gospels, but characteristic of the entire Islamic tradition, and most pronounced in the Koran: one can take the picture presented or one can leave it, but one cannot work with it.
Stephen Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet - The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, cf. Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses
Professor Shoemaker on the early biographies of Muhammad:
The manifold shortcomings of the early Islamic traditions, particularly with respect to the period of origins, invite the strong possibility that the beginnings of Islam differed significantly from their representation in the earliest biographies of Muhammad. Not only were the narratives composed at only an arresting distance from the events they describe, but modern scholarship on the traditional biographies of Muhammad has repeatedly found them to be unreliable sources... their failings as historical sources almost required that we look elsewhere to supplement our knowledge about the beginnings of Islam.
The Antichrist in Palestine
Christian, Jewish, Egyptian, Persian, Spanish… sources quoted in Professor Shoemaker's book as to the whereabouts of Muhammad before he died:
1 Doctrina Iacobi nuper Baptizati (July 634 CE)
2 The Apocalypse of Rabbi Shim`ōn b. Yohai (635-45?)
3 The Khurzistan Chronicle (ca. 660 CE)
4 Jacob of Edessa, Chronological Charts (691/692 CE)
5 The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria: The Life of Patriarch Benjamin (before 717 CE)
6 The Spanish Eastern Source (ca. 741 CE)
7 The Syriac Common Source: The Chronicle of Theophilus of Edessa (ca. 750 CE)
8 The Short Syriac Chronicle of 775 (ca. 775 CE)
9 The Zuqnin Chronicle (ca. 775 CE)
10 A Report from the Continuation of Abū l-Fath's - Samaritan Chronicle (7th century)
11 An early Islamic witness: `Umar's letter to Leo (8th century)
Some of these impartial accounts, such as the Doctrina Iacobi, describe a doomsday prophet—of which the Dark Ages abounded —alive and well leading military incursions into Palestine up to two years after Muhammad's purported death in Medina. Since the invention of the clay tablet, people have exchanged information, e.g., letters, about what is happening in their neck of the woods. Because such letters are often written by individuals who have no particular axe to grind, they are invaluable to historians as unbiased eyewitness accounts of what may be later revealed to be historically significant events. This is the case with a letter gleaned from the Doctrina by a fellow by the name of Justus to Jacob about Saracens in Palestine. The letter begins with Justus informing Jacob about a correspondence he has received from his brother Abraham regarding a Roman official in Palestine killed by Arabs led by a man who should have been dead.
My brother Abraham wrote to me that a false prophet has appeared. Abraham writes, "When the canditatus was killed, I was in Caesarea, and I went by ship to Sykamina. And they were saying 'The canditatus has been killed,' and we Jews were overjoyed.
"And they were saying, 'A prophet has appeared, coming with the Saracens and he is preaching the arrival of the anointed one who is to come, the Messiah.'[28]
"And when I arrived in Sykamina I visited an old man who was learned in the scriptures, and I said to him, 'What can you tell me about the prophet who has appeared with the Saracens?'
"And he said to me groaning loudly, 'He is false, for prophets do not come with the sword and a war-chariot. Truly the things set in motion today are deeds of anarchy, and I fear that somehow the first Christ that came, which the Christian worship, was the one sent by God, and instead of him we will receive the Antichrist. Truly Isaiah said that we Jews will have a deceived and hardened heart until the entire earth is destroyed. But go, master Abraham, and find out about this Prophet who has appeared.'
"And when I, Abraham, investigated thoroughly, I heard from who had met him that one will find no truth in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of human blood. In fact, he says that he has the keys of Paradise, which is impossible." These things my brother Abraham has written from the East.
Stephen Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet - The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
It would seem that Muhammad was intent on making his way north—Dabiq being the most likely destination—with the idea of fulfilling his own prophecy of a Muslim victory over the Romans, which would be the signal for Allah to bring an end to His Creation and begin the process of settling scores in an end-of-times extravaganza for the ages.
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: The Last Hour would not come until the Romans would land at al-A'maq or in Dabiq. An army consisting of the best (soldiers) of the people of the earth at that time will come from Medina (to counteract them). When they will arrange themselves in ranks, the Romans would say: Do not stand between us and those (Muslims) who took prisoners from amongst us. Let us fight with them; and the Muslims would say: Nay, by Allah, we would never get aside from you and from our brethren that you may fight them.
They will then fight and a third (part) of the army would run away, whom Allah will never forgive.
A third (part of the army) which would be constituted of excellent martyrs in Allah's eye, would be killed and the third who would never be put to trial would win and they would be conquerors of Constantinople.
And as they would be busy in distributing the spoils of war (amongst themselves) after hanging their swords by the olive trees, the Satan would cry: The Dajjal has taken your place among your family. They would then come out, but it would be of no avail.
And when they would come to Syria, he would come out while they would be still preparing themselves for battle drawing up the ranks.
Certainly, the time of prayer shall come and then Jesus (peace be upon him) son of Mary would descend and would lead them in prayer.
When the enemy of Allah would see him, it would (disappear) just as the salt dissolves itself in water and if he (Jesus) were not to confront them at all, even then it would dissolve completely, but Allah would kill them by his hand and he would show them their blood on his lance (the lance of Jesus Christ).
Sahih Muslim 041.6924
In Muhammad's doomsday scenario, which largely mimics that of the Christians, Jesus returns shortly before the onset of Judgement Day to render the Earth and its people more to Allah's liking.
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until the son of Mary (i.e. Jesus) descends amongst you as a just ruler, he will break the cross, kill the pigs, and abolish the Jizya tax. Money will be in abundance so that nobody will accept it (as charitable gifts)."
Bukhari 43.656
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said "How will you be when the son of Mary (i.e. Jesus) descends amongst you and he will judge people by the Law of the Quran and not by the law of Gospel."
Bukhari 55.658
The Muslims would be in possession of Dabiq within a decade of Muhammad's death, but still no Judgement Day.
When Muhammad died before the eschaton's (the end of the world) arrival and the Hour continued to be delayed, the early Muslims had to radically reorient their religious vision. The Hour was thus increasingly differed into the distant future, and in less than a century Islam swiftly transformed itself from a religion expecting the end of the world to a religion that aimed to rule the world.
Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Death of a Prophet - The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012
OF SCRIBES AND LAWYERS
December 2, 2024
With my mortality coming into focus I decided to simplify my will.
Mon 2024-11-25 8:30 AM
To: Lawyer
The following changes will greatly simplify my will:
...
Thu 2024-11-28 1:31 PM
To: Lawyer
When can I expect a revised will to review?
Mon 2024-12-02 8:28 AM
To: Me
Given current work load, will do what I can to get this done before the holidays.
Not unlike Muhammad during the negotiations that would lead to the Treaty of Hudaibiyah, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Mon 2024-12-02 9:50 AM
To: Lawyer
I understand. I am somewhat concerned about my durability; therefore, if you could send me the Word copy of my will, I will make the changes myself then have them notarized.
Muhammad rewrote a section of the treaty, to which the Meccans objected, after his scribe refused to make the modification. This raises the question as to whether the successful merchant was actually an illiterate.
PROPHETIC MEDICINE AND NOT BLEEDING INTO MY RISOTTO
December 3, 2024
Should I have an aortic graph to extend my life for maybe five years I will, for the rest of my life, be on blood thinners; this, after a five hour operation under general amnestic and being put on and off a heart-lung machine which will probably leave me somewhat stupider than when I agreed to the procedure. My sister tells me I have brain cells to spare so I should not worry about that. She is being kind.
What I worry about is a quality of life that now hinges on going out for dinner without having to worry about my nose bleeding into my food because of blood with a viscosity approaching that of water. Of course, if I followed Muhammad’s medical advice for whatever ails you the idea of surgery would never come up.
At one time, there was talk of setting up a school of Prophetic Medicine. A concerted effort was made to set up such a school based on the sayings and the example of Muhammad and his Companions.
An attempt was made to create an alternative system of medical science, 'prophetic medicine' (tibb mabawi). This represented a reaction against the tradition which came from Galen. Its system was built upon what the Hadith recorded of the practices of the Prophet and his companions in regards to health and sickness. It was not created by medical men, however, but by lawyers and traditionalists who held the strict view that the Qur'an and Hadith contained all that was necessary for the conduct of human life. It was the view of a minority, even among religious scholars, and a critical opinion was expressed, with his robust good sense, by Ibn Khaldun. This kind of medicine, he asserted, could occasionally and accidentally be correct, but it was based on no rational principle.
Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab People, Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 203
The idea was dropped when it became clear that much of it was nonsense. Examples:
Narrated Abu Sa'id al-Khudri:
I heard that the people asked the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him): Water is brought for you from the well of Buda'ah. It is a well in which dead dogs, menstrual clothes and excrement of people are thrown.
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) replied: Verily water is pure and is not defiled by anything.
Abu Dawud 1.0067
Narrated Anas:
The climate of Medina did not suit some people, so the Prophet ordered them to follow his shepherd, i.e. his camels, and drink their milk and urine (as a medicine).
Bukhari 71.590
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "If a fly falls in the vessel of any of you, let him dip all of it (into the vessel) and then throw it away, for in one of its wings there is a disease and in the other there is healing (antidote for it) i.e. the treatment for that disease."
Bukhari 71.673
Narrated Maimuna:
Allah's Apostle was asked regarding ghee (cooking butter) in which a mouse had fallen.
He said, "Take out the mouse and throw away the ghee around it and use the rest."
Bukhari 4.236
Hadiths, sayings of Muhammad, like to above, along with the Koran, make up the immutable laws of Islam, if not the universe. When it comes to treating what ails you, it is a law that is often broken with impunity. The reason that Saudi Arabia, until recently, was ruled by a gerontology was more the result of modern medicine, especially advances and innovations in the treatment of coronary and heart disease, than whatever Muhammad prescribed.
Muhammad’s understanding of human anatomy, and the cause of diseases, was on par with the god for whom he spoke who could not even accurately describe conception that is the fertilization of the ovum of a female by male sperm, giving the sperm all the credit. He even got the length of the gestation period wrong.
According to Ya'qubi, an Arab historian and geographer, Muhammad once said that his first wet nurse was the nastiest of women and that she would burn for all eternity in the fires of Hell. To quench her thirst she would only have the small amount of milk she allowed him to suckle in the days following his birth. The revelations on how long a mother or wet-nurse must suckle a child, and what the parents must do if they choose to shorten the weaning period decreed by Allah, may have had something to do with God’s awareness that His Messenger had not been adequately breastfed as a baby.
2:233 Mothers shall suckle their children for two whole years; [that is] for those who wish to complete the suckling. Those to whom the children are born (the fathers) shall maintain and clothe them kindly. No soul is charged beyond its capacity. No mother should suffer on account of her child and he to whom a child is born should not suffer on account of his child. The same [duties (the maintenance and clothing of divorced women)] devolve upon the [father’s] heir (if the heir is a child and has a guardian the latter would be charged with those duties). But they commit no offence if by mutual agreement and following consultation they choose to wean the child. You also commit no offence if you engage wet-nurses, provided that you give them what you promised to give kindly. Fear Allah and know that Allah has knowledge of what you do.
If the decreed suckling period is 24 months then Allah, in the following verse where He reveals a gestation and weaning period totaling 30 months, has underestimated the gestation period of the human fetus by three months (30 - 24 = 6 months in the womb).
46:15 We have commanded man to be kind to his parents; his mother bore him painfully and delivered him painfully, his gestation and weaning totalling thirty months. When he is fully grown and turns forty, he will say: “Lord, inspire me to be thankful for the favour, with which You have favoured me and favoured my parents; and to do a righteous deed, well-pleasing to You. Grant me righteousness in my progeny; I have truly repented to You and one of those who submit.”
Suckling an non-relation adult male rendered him the equivalent of a close relation.
Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hadhaifa, lived with him and his family in their house. She (i. e. the daughter of Suhail) came to Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) and said: Salim has attained (puberty) as men attain, and he understands what they understand, and he enters our house freely, I, however, perceive that something (rankles) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa, whereupon Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) said to her: Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hudhaifa feels in his heart will disappear. She returned and said: So I suckled him, and what (was there) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa disappeared.
Sahih Muslim 8.3425
WHAT'S IN A NAME
December 6, 2024
Muhammad was the top choice for parents naming their baby boys in England and Wales in 2023.
BBC Dec. 5, 2024
Islam divides the world into two major areas: the Land of Peace where Islamic Law is the law of the land; and the Land of War where it isn’t.
Just like in the Land of Peace —the land where wars are never-ending—Muhammad has become the most popular boys name in England and Wales, proving once again that, you can take the boy out of the Land of Peace but you can’t take the Land of Peace out of the boy, starting with his parents.
The less deserving a religious icon’s reputation for propriety the louder will be the call to silence his critics.
Most Common Lies Told About Muhammad
I DREAM OF LUCETTE, HE DREAMT OF THE KORAN
February 20, 2025
More than five years after her passing I still dream about her all the time. In my dreams she is alive and well, except for last night. In last night’s dream I am looking for her in our old neighborhood, which in my dreams we have never left. A neighbour shouts “isn’t that her over there?” I walk towards to where she is pointing and a sort of billboard, not unlike like the whiteboard in my home office on which I wrote notes to myself, comes into view. As I get closer I notice that someone is pinned to that white surface, it is Lucette. As I struggle to remove her lifeless body from whatever is holding her up, I wake up.
For Muhammad dreams where not only omens but how God in Paradise communicated to him much of the content of His book, the Koran.
The Koran is all over the place as to when it was revealed. In one instance, it is during one night, the night of power (97:1); in another, it is over an entire month, the month of Ramadan (2:185); and in still another instance, it was revealed “piecemeal” (17:106). Nowhere in His Book does Allah mention revealing what He revealed of His Koran in dreams, yet this is how Muhammad’s companions remember him receiving many of God’s communications.
Narrated Safwan bin Ya'la bin Umaiya from his father who said:
"A man came to the Prophet while he was at Ji'rana. The man was wearing a cloak which had traces of Khaluq or Sufra (a kind of perfume). The man asked (the Prophet), 'What do you order me to perform in my Umra (the lesser pilgrimage)?' So, Allah inspired the Prophet divinely and he was screened by a place of cloth.
I wished to see the Prophet being divinely inspired.
Umar said to me, 'Come! Will you be pleased to look at the Prophet while Allah is inspiring him?'
I replied in the affirmative.
Umar lifted one corner of the cloth and I looked at the Prophet who was snoring. (The sub-narrator thought that he said: The snoring was like that of a camel).
When that state was over, the Prophet asked, "Where is the questioner who asked about Umra? Put off your cloak and wash away the traces of Khaluq from your body and clean the Sufra (yellow color) and perform in your Umra what you perform in your Hajj (i.e. the Tawaf round the Ka'ba and the Sa'i between Safa and Marwa)."
Bukhari 27.17
Communications from Paradise sent while Muhammad slept would explain the horrific descriptions of Judgement Day and Hell, which mere words could not have conveyed. Aisha remembered her husband receiving “the Divine Inspiration” in what she refers to as “true dreams” while he slept.
Narrated Aisha:
The commencement (of the Divine Inspiration) to Allah's Apostle was in the form of true dreams in his sleep, for he never had a dream but it turned out to be true and clear as the bright daylight. Then he began to like seclusions, so he used to go in seclusion in the cave of Hira where he used to worship Allah continuously for many nights before going back to his family to take the necessary provision (of food) for the stay.
Bukhari 60.478
Dreams, Muhammad explained, convey religious knowledge. What is the Koran, if not religious knowledge?
Narrated Ibn Umar:
I heard Allah's Apostle saying, "While I was sleeping, I was given a bowl full of milk (in a dream), and I drank of it to my fill until I noticed its wetness coming out of my nails, and then I gave the rest of it to Umar."
They (the people) asked, "What have you interpreted (about the dream) O Allah's Apostle?"
He said, "It is Religious) knowledge."
Bukhari 87.134
Why you did not dare wake up a sleeping Muhammad.
Narrated Imran:
Once we were traveling with the Prophet and we carried on traveling till the last part of the night and then we (halted at a place) and slept (deeply). There is nothing sweeter than sleep for a traveler in the last part of the night. So it was only the heat of the sun that made us to wake up and the first to wake up was so and so, then so and so and then so and so (the narrator 'Auf said that Abu Raja' had told him their names but he had forgotten them) and the fourth person to wake up was Umar bin Al-Khattab.
And whenever the Prophet used to sleep, nobody would wake him up till he himself used to get up as we did not know what was happening (being revealed) to him in his sleep.
Bukhari 7.340
It was in a dream that Muhammad was given the keys to the treasures of the Earth.
Narrated Abu Huraira:
The Prophet said, "I have been given the keys of eloquent speech and given victory with awe (cast into the hearts of the enemy), and while I was sleeping last night, the keys of the treasures of the earth were brought to me till they were put in my hand."
Bukhari 87.127
Another hadith expressing more succinctly what inspires terror in the name of Allah to this day:
Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah's Apostle said, "I have been sent with the shortest expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made victorious with terror, and while I was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the world (the booty) were brought to me and put in my hand."
Bukhari 52.220
In his dreams Muhammad was served food and drink.
Narrated Abu Sa'id:
That he had heard the Prophet saying, "Do not fast continuously (practise Al-Wisal), and if you intend to lengthen your fast, then carry it on only till the Suhur (before the following dawn)."
The people said to him, "But you practice (Al-Wisal), O Allah's Apostle!"
He replied, "I am not similar to you, for during my sleep I have One Who makes me eat and drink."
Bukhari 31.184
It was in dreams that Muhammad was first shown the baby that was destined to be his bride. Aisha was as pretty as a picture. Considering Allah and Muhammad’s aversion to lifelike reproductions of people and animals, the following hadith is quite extraordinary.
Narrated Aisha:
That the Prophet said to her, "You have been shown to me twice in my dream. I saw you pictured on a piece of silk and someone said (to me), 'This is your wife.'
When I uncovered the picture, I saw that it was yours. I said, 'If this is from Allah, it will be done.'"
Bukhari 58.235
In another hadith, it is Aisha in the flesh wrapped in silk, and the disembodied voice has been identified as that of a man.
Narrated Aisha:
Allah's Apostle said (to me), "You were shown to me twice in (my) dream. Behold, a man was carrying you in a silken piece of cloth and said to me, 'She is your wife, so uncover her,' and behold, it was you."
I would then say (to myself), "If this is from Allah, then it must happen."
Bukhari 87.139
The difference between a dream and a nightmare is its source.
Narrated Abu Qatada:
The Prophet said, "A true good dream is from Allah, and a bad dream is from Satan."
Bukhari 87.113
If that is the case, I have to wonder what Satan is trying to tell me by what He showed me last night. If I don’t live to publish Farewell Postings, you will have your answer.