What the Apologists Want You to Believe
DTT claims to have come up with authentic verses from the Hadith which prove that the Quraish stole the property of Muslims when they left for Medina - thus implying that the Muslims were justified in subsequent caravan raids (although not necessarily the killing).
What They Offer as Proof
Were this true, one would expect to see verses that actually say 'so and so' had their property
stolen. Instead, DTT uses two verses which refer to the same episode, in which a Muslim living
in Medina made arrangements with a friend in Mecca to look after his property:
Narrated `Abdur-Rahman bin `Auf: I got an agreement written between me
and Umaiya bin Khalaf that Umaiya would look after my property (and family) in Mecca
and I would look after his in Medina. From this, DTT "deduces" that the wealth of other Muslims was stolen.
What They Leave Out and Why They are Wrong
This is about as weak as it gets. Abdur-Rahman bin 'Auf was a Muslim living in Medina. Umaiya was a Quraish living in Mecca. The verse simply says that there was an agreement to look out for the property of the other, and it does not even imply that the property of one was at any greater risk than the other.
If anything, the verse proves that Muslims still had property in Mecca, meaning that it was not stolen!
Incidentally, this hadith is truncated somewhat suspiciously by Discover the Truth. The reason is that it goes on to say that Umaiya, the non-Muslim who kindly agreed to look after Abdur-Rahman bin 'Auf's property, was later viciously slaughtered along with his son by the Muslims. Yet another indication of the
paucity of decent material for the apologist.
There is one other hadith verse quoted on the page - from the lesser known Sunan an-Nasa'i.
The key fragment as quoted by Discover the Truth is:(And there is also a share in this booty) for the poor emigrants, who were
expelled from their homes and their property [stolen]
The
full textual context of the verse is quite broad, however. It pertains to the allocation of war booty, which
ironically refers to wealth stolen by the Muslims - and this at a time long after the hijra. The passage
does not specifically refer to 'emigrants'who lived at Mecca, but just any
Muslim had been been expelled from their property at any point. Even this last
part has to be embellished by Discover the Truth, which adds the word "stolen,"
even though it does not appear in the original.
It is feasible that some property was abandoned by Muslims when they left Mecca, but that hardly rises to the level of stealing and killing as they later did to the Quraish. If property was actually stolen, then it is curious that the biographers did not allude to that despite meticulously documenting the contents of certain caravans later raided by Muhammad.
Also, according to the Hadith and Sira, Muhammad's own business affairs were sewn up by his son-in-law, Ali, after he left. It is highly unlikely that this would have happened in the climate of looting and 'ravishing' that DTT wants to believe existed.
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