Criticism of Muhammad

During the Middle Ages, various Western and Byzantine Christian polemicists considered Muhammad to be a false prophet, the Antichrist, a heretic, Satan possessed by demons, a sexual deviant, a polygamist, and a charlatan. Thomas Aquinas criticized Muhammad's handling of doctrinal matters and promises of what Aquinas described as "carnal pleasure" in the afterlife.

Modern criticism by some Western scholars has raised questions about Muhammad’s prophetic claims, personal conduct, marriages, slave ownership, and mental state. Criticism has also focused on his treatment of enemy captives, particularly the case of mass killing of men of the Banu Qurayza tribe in Medina. Muslim scholars often respond by emphasizing the historical context of 7th-century Arabia and Muhammad’s role in promoting justice and social reform. Some historians say the punishment of the Banu Qurayza reflected the norms of the time and was ordered by Sa'd ibn Mu'adh, though others question Muhammad’s role or the scale of the event.

Points of contention

Muhammad's marriages

One of the popular historical criticisms of Muhammad in the West has been his polygynous marriages. According to American historian John Esposito, the Semitic cultures in general permitted polygamy (for example, the practice could be found in biblical and postbiblical Judaism); it was particularly a common practice among Arabs, especially among nobles and leaders.

Muslims have often pointed out that Muhammad married Khadija bint Khuwaylid (a widow whose age is estimated to have been 40), when he was 25 years old, and remained monogamous to her for more than 24 years until she died. Norman Geisler frames Muhammad's marriages as a question of moral inconsistency, since Muhammad was unwilling to abide by the revealed limit of four wives that he enjoined on other men. Quran 33:50 states that the limit of four wives did not apply to Muhammad.

Muslims have generally responded that the marriages of Muhammad were not conducted to satisfy worldly desires or lusts, but rather they were done for a higher purpose and due to God's command. Medieval Sufi, Ibn Arabi, sees Muhammad's relationships with his wives as a proof of his superiority amongst men. John Esposito explains that polygamy served several purposes, such as strengthening political alliances among Arab chiefs and providing protection through marriage to the widows of companions who had died in combat.

Aisha

In classical sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad, with the marriage being consummated when she reached the age of nine or ten years old. Some modern sources, however, state her age to be twelve or older. Christian polemicists and orientalists attacked what they deemed to be Muhammad's deviant sexuality, for having married an underage girl; early twentieth-century criticisms came from the likes of Harvey Newcomb and David Samuel Margoliouth while others were mild, choosing to explain how the "heat of tropics" made "girls of Arabia" mature at an early age. While most Muslims defended the traditionally accepted age of Aisha with vigor emphasizing cultural relativism, the political dimensions of the marriage, Aisha's "exceptional qualities" etc., some modern scholars chose to re-calculate the age and fix it at late adolescence as a tool of social reform in their homelands or to appeal to different audiences. In the late twentieth century, opponents of Islam have used Aisha's age at marriage to criticize Muhammad and to explain the great prevalence of child marriage in Muslim societies.

From mid-20th century, amidst growing concerns of Islamic extremism, as Muslim societies and Islam itself came under renewed scrutiny, pointed criticisms of Aisha's young age at marriage began to be abundant; this has since prompted some Muslim scholars to attempt to contextualize the traditionally accepted age of Aisha with renewed vigor emphasizing on anachronism and the political dimensions of the marriage, often at the expense of historical accuracy. Since the late-twentieth century, polemicists have used Aisha's age to accuse Muhammad of pedophilia and to explain a reported higher prevalence of child marriage in Muslim societies.

Zaynab bint Jahsh

Western criticism has focused especially on the marriage of Muhammad to his first cousin Zaynab bint Jahsh, the divorced wife of Zayd ibn Harithah, an ex-slave whom Muhammad had adopted as his son. Orientalists and critics such as Edward Sell have criticized the marriage, questioning its motivations and implications, while some like William St. Clair Tisdall have viewed certain aspects, such as the associated revelation, through a lens of self-interest. According to Tabari, taken from Al-Waqidi, Muhammad went in search of Zayd. A curtain covering the doorway had been moved by the wind, revealing Zaynab in her chamber. Zayd subsequently found her unattractive and divorced Zaynab.

In her 2006 biography of Muhammad, Karen Armstrong contextualizes this event by portraying Zaynab as a devout woman and a talented leather-worker who dedicated the earnings from her craft to charity. Muhammad’s reported affection for her is said to have arisen during an unplanned visit to her home when Zayd was away and Zaynab happened to be dressed more revealingly than usual.

According to William Montgomery Watt, Zaynab herself was working for marriage with Muhammad and was not happy being married to Zayd. Watt also places doubt on the story outlined by Al-Waqidi and states that it should be taken with a "grain of salt." According to Watt, Zaynab was either thirty-five or thirty-eight years old at the time and that the story initially outlined by Al-Waqidi in which he detailed Muhammad's incident with Zaynab during the absence of Zayd may have been tampered with in the course of transmission.

According to Mazheruddin Siddiqi, Zaynab as the cousin of Muhammad was seen by him many times before her marriage to Zayd. Siddiqi states: "He [Muhammad] had seen her many times before but he was never attracted to her physical beauty, else he would have married her, instead of insisting on her that she should marry Zaid."

In the book "The Wives of the Messenger of Allah" by Muhammad Swaleh Awadh, it is noted that Zaynab married Muhammad during the fifth year of Hijra in Dhu al-Qadah. This marriage was unconventional and disapproved by the standards of pre-Islamic Arabia, due to the prevailing belief that adopted sons were considered as true sons, making marriage to an adopted son's former wife uncommon, even after divorce.

Munafiqs of Medina used the marriage to discredit Muhammad on two fronts, one of double standards as she was his fifth wife, while everyone else was restricted to four, and marrying his adopted son's wife. This was exactly what Muhammad feared and was initially hesitant in marrying her. The Qur'an, however, confirmed that this marriage was valid. Thus Muhammad, confident of his faith in the Qur'an, proceeded to reject the existing Arabic norms. When Zaynab's waiting period from her divorce was complete, Muhammad married her. In reference to this incident, Quran 33:37 says:

Behold! Thou didst say to one who had received the grace of Allah and thy favour: "Retain thou (in wedlock) thy wife, and fear Allah." But thou didst hide in thy heart that which Allah was about to make manifest: thou didst fear the people, but it is more fitting that thou shouldst fear Allah. Then when Zaid had dissolved (his marriage) with her, with the necessary (formality), We joined her in marriage to thee: in order that (in future) there may be no difficulty to the Believers in (the matter of) marriage with the wives of their adopted sons, when the latter have dissolved with the necessary (formality) (their marriage) with them. And Allah's command must be fulfilled.

Following the revelation of this verse, Muhammad rejected the prevailing Arab customs that prohibited marrying the wives of adopted sons, which was considered taboo and culturally inappropriate. Thereafter the legal status of adoption was not recognised under Islam. Zayd reverted to being known by his original name of "Zayd ibn Harithah" instead of "Zayd ibn Muhammad". Watt interprets this event as part of Muhammad’s broader role as a social reformer, aimed at ending the pre-Islamic practice of equating adopted sons with biological ones. He also notes the political significance of the marriage, rejects claims of sensual motivation, and argues that criticism arose more from cultural norms than from actual moral concerns.

Ownership of slaves

According to sociologist Rodney Stark, "the fundamental problem facing Muslim theologians vis-à-vis the morality of slavery" is that Muhammad himself engaged in activities such as purchasing, selling, and owning slaves, and that his followers saw him as the perfect example to emulate. Stark contrasts Islam with Christianity, writing that Christian theologians wouldn't have been able to "work their way around the biblical acceptance of slavery" if Jesus had owned slaves, as Muhammad did.

Forough Jahanbaksh notes that Muhammad never preached the abolition of slavery as a doctrine, although he did moderate the age-old institution of slavery, which was also accepted and endorsed by the other monotheistic religions, Christianity and Judaism, and was a well-established custom of the pre-Islamic world. According to Murray Gordon, Muhammad saw it "as part of the natural order of things". While Muhammad did improve the condition of slaves, and exhorted his followers to treat them with kindness and compassion, and encouraged freeing of slaves, he still did not completely abolish the practice.

His decrees greatly limited those who could be enslaved and under what circumstances (including barring Muslims from enslaving other Muslims), allowed slaves to achieve their freedom and made freeing slaves a virtuous act. Some slaves earned respectable incomes and achieved considerable power, although elite slaves still remained in the power of their owners. Muhammad established a system to encourage manumission, and several of his companions, including Abu Bakr and Uthman ibn Affan, are recorded to have freed thousands of slaves, often purchasing them for this purpose. Many early converts to Islam were the poor and former slaves like Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi.

Treatment of enemies

Norman Geisler accuses Muhammad of "mercilessness" towards the Jewish tribes of Medina. Geisler also argues that Muhammad "had no aversion to politically expedient assassinations", "was not indisposed to breaking promises when he found it advantageous" and "engaged in retaliation towards those who mocked him." The Orientalist William Muir, in assessing Muhammad's character, described him as cruel and faithless in dealing with his enemies.

Jean de Sismondi suggests that Muhammad's successive attacks on powerful Jewish colonies located near Medina in Arabia were due to religious differences between them, and he claimed that he subjected the defeated to punishments that were not typical in other wars.

Muhammad has been often criticized outside of the Islamic world for his treatment of the Jewish tribes of Medina. An example is the mass killing of the men of the Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe of Medina. The tribe was accused of having engaged in treasonous agreements with the enemies besieging Medina in the Battle of the Trench in 627.

After the Qurayẓah were found to be complicit with the enemy during the Battle of the Trench, the Muslim general Sa'd ibn Mu'adh ordered the men to be put to death and the women and children to be enslaved. Moreover, Muslims believe that the Prophet did not order the execution of the Jews of Medina, but many Western historians believe that he must have been, at the very least, informed of it. Regardless, "this tragic episode cast a shadow upon the relations between the two communities for many centuries, even though the Jews, a "People of the Book" [...] generally enjoyed the protection of their lives, property, and religion under Islamic rule and fared better in the Muslim world than in the West."

According to Norman Stillman, the incident cannot be judged by present-day moral standards. Citing Deut. 20:13–14 as an example, Stillman states that the slaughter of adult males and the enslavement of women and children—though no doubt causing bitter suffering—was common practice throughout the ancient world. According to Rudi Paret, adverse public opinion was more a point of concern to Muhammad when he had some date palms cut down during a siege, than after this incident. Esposito also argues that in Muhammad's time, traitors were executed and points to similar situations in the Bible. John Esposito notes that Muhammad’s motivation was primarily political rather than racial or theological, aiming to unify Arabia under Muslim leadership and establish stable governance.

Some historians, such as W.N. Arafat and Barakat Ahmad, have disputed the historicity of the incident. Ahmad argues that only the leading members of the tribe were killed. Arafat argued based on accounts by Malik ibn Anas and Ibn Hajar that Ibn Ishaq gathered information from descendants of the Qurayza Jews, who exaggerated the details of the incident. He also maintained that not all adult males were killed but only those who actually fought in the battle, however, William Montgomery Watt described this argument as "not entirely convincing."

Rabbi Samuel Rosenblatt has said that Muhammad's policies were not directed exclusively against Jews (referring to his conflicts with Jewish tribes) and that Muhammad was more severe with his pagan Arab kinsmen.

Religious syncretism and compromise

John Mason Neale (1818–1866) accused Muhammad of pandering "to the passions of his followers", arguing that he constructed Islam out of a mixture of beliefs that provided something for everyone.

Thomas Patrick Hughes (b. 1838) said that the Hajj represents an expedient compromise between Muhammad's monotheistic principles and Arabian paganism.

Islamic scholar Yasir Qadhi stated that while non-Muslims believe Muhammad "adopted certain things from paganism and then added his own two cents for us", he instead states that Muhammad resurrected the original teachings of the Islamic prophet Ibrahim, citing an Islamic narrative of a man named Amr ibn Luhay who later introduced paganism in Arabia. Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allāh Azraqī mentions the story in his book titled Kitāb akhbār Makkah.

Psychological and medical condition

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) noted that Muhammad's revelations were accompanied by intense physical symptoms.

According to Temkin, the first attribution of epileptic seizures to Muhammad comes from the 8th century Byzantine historian Theophanes who wrote that Muhammad's wife "was very much grieved that she, being of noble descent, was tied to such a man, who was not only poor but epileptic as well." In the Middle Ages, the general perception of one who suffered epilepsy was that of an unclean and incurable wretch who might be possessed by the devil. The political hostility between Islam and Christianity contributed to the continuation of the accusation of epilepsy throughout the Middle Ages. The Christian minister Archdeacon Humphrey Prideaux gave the following description of Muhammad's visions:

He pretended to receive all his revelations from the Angel Gabriel, and that he was sent from God of purpose to deliver them unto him. And whereas he was subject to the falling-sickness, whenever the fit was upon him, he pretended it to be a Trance, and that the Angel Gabriel comes from God with some Revelations unto him.

Some modern Western scholars also have a skeptical view of Muhammad's seizures. Frank R. Freemon states Muhammad had "conscious control over the course of the spells and can pretend to be in a religious trance." During the nineteenth century, as Islam was no longer a political or military threat to Western society, and perceptions of epilepsy changed, the theological and moral associations with epilepsy were removed; epilepsy was now viewed as a medical disorder. Nineteenth-century orientalist Margoliouth claimed that Muhammad suffered from epilepsy and even occasionally faked it for effect.

Sprenger attributes Muhammad's revelations to epileptic fits or a "paroxysm of cataleptic insanity." In Schaff's view, Muhammad's "early and frequent epileptic fits" provided "some light on his revelations." The most famous epileptic of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) wrote that epileptic attacks have an inspirational quality; he said they are "a supreme exaltation of emotional subjectivity" in which time stands still. Dostoyevsky claimed that his own attacks were similar to those of Muhammad: "Probably it was of such an instant, that the epileptic Mahomet was speaking when he said that he had visited all the dwelling places of Allah within a shorter time than it took for his pitcher full of water to empty itself."

In an essay discussing views on Muhammad's psychology, Franz Bul (1903) is said to have noted that "hysterical natures find unusual difficulty and often complete inability to distinguish the false from the true," regarding this as "the safest way to interpret the strange inconsistencies in the life of the Prophet." In the same essay, Duncan Black Macdonald (1911) is credited with stating that "fruitful investigation of the Prophet's life (should) proceed upon the assumption that he was fundamentally a pathological case."

Modern Western scholars of Islam have rejected the diagnosis of epilepsy. Tor Andrae rejects the idea that the inspired state is pathological attributing it to a scientifically superficial and hasty theory arguing that those who consider Muhammad epileptic should consider all types of semi-conscious and trance-like states, occasional loss of consciousness, and similar conditions as epileptic attacks. Andrae writes that "[i]f epilepsy is to denote only those severe attacks which involve serious consequences for the physical and mental health, then the statement that Mohammad suffered from epilepsy must be emphatically rejected." Caesar Farah suggests that "[t]hese insinuations resulted from the 19th-century infatuation with scientifically superficial theories of medical psychology." Noth, in the Encyclopedia of Islam, states that such accusations were a typical feature of medieval European Christian polemic.

Maxime Rodinson says that it is most probable that Muhammad's condition was of the sort that was found in many mystics rather than epilepsy. Fazlur Rahman refutes epileptic fits for the following reasons: Muhammad's condition begins with his career at the age of 40; according to the tradition seizures are invariably associated with the revelation and never occur by itself. Lastly, a sophisticated society like the Meccan or Medinese would have identified epilepsy clearly and definitely.

William Montgomery Watt also disagrees with the epilepsy diagnosis, saying that "there are no real grounds for such a view." Elaborating, he says that "epilepsy leads to physical and mental degeneration, and there are no signs of that in Muhammad." He then goes further and states that Muhammad was psychologically sound in general: "he (Muhammad) was clearly in full possession of his faculties to the very end of his life." Watt concludes by stating "It is incredible that a person subject to epilepsy, or hysteria, or even ungovernable fits of emotion, could have been the active leader of military expeditions, or the cool far-seeing guide of a city-state and a growing religious community; but all this we know Muhammad to have been."

According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Muhammad's sense of fairness and justice was famous, even before his claim of prophet-hood, as people called him al-Amin, the trusted one.

Frank R. Freemon (1976) argues that the above reasons given by modern biographers of Muhammad in rejection of epilepsy come from the widespread misconceptions about the various types of epilepsy. In his differential diagnosis, Freemon rejects schizophrenic hallucinations, drug-induced mental changes such as might occur after eating plants containing hallucinogenic chemicals, transient ischemic attacks, hypoglycemia, labyrinthitis, Ménière's disease, or other inner ear maladies.

Freemon concludes that if one were forced to make a diagnosis, psychomotor seizures of temporal lobe epilepsy would be the most tenable one, although our lack of scientific as well as historical knowledge makes unequivocal decision impossible. Freemon cites evidence supporting and opposing this diagnosis. In the end, Freemon points out that a medical diagnosis should not ignore Muhammad's moral message because it is just as likely, perhaps more likely, for God to communicate with a person in an abnormal state of mind.

From a Muslim point of view, Freemon says, Muhammed's mental state at the time of revelation was unique and is not therefore amenable to medical or scientific discourse. Muslim neurologist GM. S. Megahed, criticized Freemon's article, arguing that there are no scientific explanations for many religious phenomena and that, if Muhammad's message is a result of psychomotor seizures then by the same basis Moses's and Jesus's messages must also result from psychomotor seizures. In response, Freemon attributed such negative reactions to his article to the general misconceptions about epilepsy as a demeaning condition. Freemon said that he did plan to write an article on the inspirational spells of St. Paul, but the existence of such misconceptions caused him to cancel it.

Legacy

Some scholars claim that following Muhammad's death, the Muslim community who were joined together by the unity of the faith became "leaderless" and a "haphazard" group. In the absence of established dynastic traditions and political customs, divisions emerged among Muslims. Muhammad did not compile the Quran into a single text during or his prophetic tradition during his lifetime; the Quran was compiled into book form during Uthman's Caliphate, and the hadith were collected and codified by scholars and companions in the 8th–9th centuries.

According to both Sunni and Shia Muslims, on his way back from his last pilgrimage to Mecca, Muhammad stopped in a place called Ghadir Khumm, and appointed his cousin Ali as his executor of his last will and his Wali. The word Wali was interpreted differently by Sunni and Shia Muslims. Shia believes Muhammad explicitly appointed Ali as his successor at the location. Shia also believe Muhammad's Ahl al-Bayt, are the trusted collectors and transmitters of Muhammad's ahadith and trusted interpreters of Quran.

Muhammad reportedly stated that leadership was to remain within his own tribe, the Quraysh, a directive often seen as a pragmatic effort to preserve tribal unity but interpreted by some modern scholars as introducing a hierarchical structure into Islam. Christophe Jaffrelot argues that this contributed to the formation of a hereditary elite led by Muhammad's family and descendants (the Ahlul Bayt and sayyids), followed by his clan (Banu Hashim) then his tribe, the Quraysh.