Hadith in Which Muhammad Sanctions Killing for Blasphemy

“Muhammad Orders the Execution of Critics,”  David Wood, Answering Muslims, January 11, 2015

When Muhammad entered Mecca, he ordered his followers only to fight those who refused to surrender to him, except certain people who were to be executed whether they surrendered or not. In our earliest detailed biographical source on the fall of Mecca, Ibn Ishaq lists eight people who were to receive the death penalty. The charges against four of the eight were “insulting Muhammad.” One of the four critics was eventually pardoned; the others were killed.

Politicians, the media, and Muslim groups assure us that Muhammad never retaliated against people who insulted him. Too bad these modern apologists weren’t there to tell Muhammad how tolerant they would one day imagine him to be.

Here’s the passage from Ibn Ishaq, with details on the critics underlined. Pass it on

“Enforcement Of Shari’a Law In The Muslim World For Insulting Islam, Prophet Muhammad: A Review Of Recent Arrests, Imprisonment, Flogging, Death Sentences,” MEMRI

In Arab and Muslim countries, defaming Islam and the Prophet Muhammad is still defined as an offense against the shari’a that entails punishment. Recent examples of enforcement include the arrest of Saudi intellectual Dr. Turki Al-Hamad and Saudi blogger Hamza Kashgari; another Saudi liberal, Raef Badawi, was sentenced to public flogging, and both Mauritanian blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir and Iranian blogger Soheil Arabi were even sentenced to death. 

These recent cases were preceded by well-known assassinations or assassination attempts against individuals accused of insulting Islam or the Prophet, such as the fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 against the author Salman Rushdie, which called to kill him for his book The Satanic Verses (this fatwa still holds in Iran); the assassination attempt against Nobel laureate Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz for irreverent allusions to Allah and the Prophet in his book Children of Our Neighborhood; the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh for his film Submission, which shows Koranic verses written on the body of a woman; and fatwas permitting the killing of the artists responsible for the Danish cartoons published in 2005.    

Historic Perspective: Punishment Of Prophet’s Defamers Based On Koranic Verses, Hadith, Authoritative Sirah Literature (Biographies Of The Prophet)  

According to the shari’a, defaming the Prophet is an act of blasphemy, the punishment for which is death even if the accused repents. This law is a Koranic decree, for Koran 9:61 says: “Those who hurt Allah’s Messenger will have a painful punishment.” The same Surah also states: “…Say: “(Go ahead and) mock! But certainly Allah will bring to light all that you fear. If you ask them (about this), they declare: ‘We were only talking idly and joking.’ Say: ‘Was it at Allah and His verses and His Messenger that you were mocking? Make no excuse; you have disbelieved after you had believed. [Koran 9:64-66].” In addition, the Sira literature (biographies of the Prophet) and the Hadith include many instances in which Muhammad ordered to kill his maligners or praised his followers for doing so. In the Muhammad’s era, writing poems against him was considered an unforgivable crime, and many poets were killed for this, including the Jewish poet Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf, who would ridicule the Prophet. According to a hadith, he was killed by Muhammad bin Maslama at the behest of the Prophet himself and with his blessing. Another poet who composed a poem against Muhammad, the Jewess ‘Asma bint Marwan, was assassinated by ‘Umayr bin ‘Adiy, who was later praised by the Prophet for executing her. Some sources state that Muhammad asked who would kill this woman on his behalf, and a member of her tribe volunteered. Two more poets killed for this crime were Abu ‘Afak, assassinated by Salem bin ‘Umayr, and  the Meccan poet Sarah, whom the Prophet ordered to kill on the day Mecca was conquered.

Prominent medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya, considered by many to be the father of the modern fundamentalist Islamic movements, wrote on this issue: “Mocking Allah, His verses or His Messenger is blasphemy.” He wrote further: “Whosoever curses the Prophet, be he a Muslim of an infidel, must be put to death. All [religious] scholars take this view.” The late Saudi mufti ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Bazz said: “Anyone who curses Allah or His Messenger Muhammad in any way is a heretic apostate.”

- See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2015/01/muslims-follow-muhammads-example-in-slaughtering-those-that-insult-islam.html/#sthash.HiSSIa10.dpuf

There are many references to the death penalty for blasphemy. Here is an excellent SAHIH hadith in which Muhammad approves of a man killing the mother of his children for making fun of Muhammad:

Sunan Abu Dawud 4361 (Muhammad on Killing Critics of Islam)

Here’s Sunan Abu Dawud 4361 (4348 in some editions), in English and Arabic, along with the rating (sahih). In this hadith, a man kills the mother of his children for speaking against Muhammad. Muhammad, in response, says that no one is to punish the man.