Quote:You list a grand total of two expeditions that come anywhere close to a "slaughter"
I provided a link to the wikipedia list of all his military exploits, and selected two good examples. I obviously did not mean to imply that that was the extent of it. Do you?
Quote:both happening within 2 months of the prophet's death
His entire military career happened towards the end of his life, when he was most powerful. He started by negotiating his way into power. Then when he had a band of thieves, he started robbing. Then when he had enough followers he could mount what counted for conventional war at the time (it was still a tribal time). Then when he had even more military power he went about slaughtering people. The chronology makes perfect sense. It would be a bit dismal if he started out leading an army and ended up begging for his life, don't you think?
Quote:neither of which included non-combatants
Yes, people tend to struggle a bit when you are chopping their heads off and dragging their women away. They should have surrendered without a fight, no?
Quote:We know very little about these raids (most of all you), but there is no reason to think that it went against Muhammad's entire 10 year career of acting only in accordance to a strict "just war" theory.
Muhammed never stuck to any kind of standard. He did whatever he could get away with, based on the power he wielded at the time. The more power he had, the more brutal he became, and there was no line he would not cross.
Quote:Does it make sense that The Prophet spends an entire 10 years of preaching non-aggression and constantly castigating his men for wanting to take a militant path, only to suddenly say to his men "go forth and slaughter" on his deathbed?
It makes perfect sense, if at the start you are not in a position to win. Imagine Gandhi or Mandela gaining a bit of power, seizing total control, then turning into Hitler. That's the story of Muhammed the warmonger.
Quote:If its all the same, I'd rather trust the informed assessment of Karen Armstrong and Montgommery Watt, and the other (non-muslim) observers, who insist that Muhammad was the very opposite to your idea of a "warmonger".
Or you could try thinking for yourself. Remember the whole "suck it up and be objective" thing? Didn't last long, did it?
Quote:Yeah tell me about it, similar to how the muslims are hunted down by the west.
Would you mind pointing out where a western country rounded up and executed 800 Muslim citizens because some of them were in communication with Al Quaida? Then can you point to all the westerners deciding that the person who committed such an atrocity must be God's messenger and the ideal example for all mankind to follow? Even Nazis don't count, because they do not actually worship Hitler. Only Muslims would hold such a person to be a great spiritual leader, and only with an absurd amount of arm waving, apologising, obfuscating and looking the other way.