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Friday, July 4, 2014

Muhammad vs Witchcraft

According to the Quran, Surah 113--al Falaq (The Daybreak) the Muslim prophet Muhammad is supposed to seek refuge with God "from the evil of the blowers in knots" in Surah 113:4:

وَمِن شَرِّ النَّفَّاثَاتِ فِي الْعُقَدِ--Quran, Surah (al-Falaq) 113:4 

 Sahih International: And from the evil of the blowers in knots

Pickthall: And from the evil of malignant witchcraft, 

Yusuf Ali: From the mischief of those who practise secret arts; 
Shakir: And from the evil of those who blow on knots, 
Muhammad Sarwar: from the evil of those who practice witchcraft 
Mohsin Khan: "And from the evil of the witchcrafts when they blow in the knots,  
Arberry: from the evil of the women who blow on knots,
We see many of these translations translate the "blow on knots" as referring to witchcraft. In fact, on a Muslim commentary website for the Quran Tafsir ibn Kathir under this verse it states:
(And from the evil of the blowers in knots,) Mujahid, `Ikrimah, Al-Hasan, Qatadah and Ad-Dahhak all said, "This means the witches.'' Mujahid said, "When they perform their spells and blow into the knots.''
Then, following on with Tafsir on this verse, it tells about a hadith in Sahih al Bukhari about how Muhammad was the victim of witchcraft while he was a prophet! But rather than reproduce Tafsir on this, which just quotes the hadith (a Sunni one), here is the hadith itself:

Narrated by Aisha:
Magic was worked on Allah's Apostle so that he used to think that he had sexual relations with his wives while he actually had not (Sufyan said: That is the hardest kind of magic as it has such an effect). Then one day he said, "O 'Aisha do you know that Allah has instructed me concerning the matter I asked Him about? Two men came to me and one of them sat near my head and the other sat near my feet. The one near my head asked the other. What is wrong with this man?' The latter replied the is under the effect of magic The first one asked, Who has worked magic on him?' The other replied Labid bin Al-A'sam, a man from Bani Zuraiq who was an ally of the Jews and was a hypocrite.' The first one asked, What material did he use)?' The other replied, 'A comb and the hair stuck to it.' The first one asked, 'Where (is that)?' The other replied. 'In a skin of pollen of a male date palm tree kept under a stone in the well of Dharwan' '' So the Prophet went to that well and took out those things and said "That was the well which was shown to me (in a dream) Its water looked like the infusion of Henna leaves and its date-palm trees looked like the heads of devils." The Prophet added, "Then that thing was taken out' I said (to the Prophet ) "Why do you not treat yourself with Nashra?" He said, "Allah has cured me; I dislike to let evil spread among my people."--Sahih al Bukari Volume 7 [Medicine], Book 71, Number 660
 We see Muhammad's own wife, in fact his favorite one who he married when she was still but a child about 7 that still played with dolls, claimed Muhammad was harmed by magic and was fooled into thinking he had sex with his wives (polygamist, of course) when he did not!  Interestingly, the near by hadith explains what Muhammad should have done to prevent being harmed by magic:

 Narrated by Saud:
The Prophet said, "If somebody takes some 'Ajwa dates every morning, he will not be effected by poison or magic on that day till night." (Another narrator said seven dates).--Volume 7, Book 71, Number 663
 So, we see "God's Apostle" failed to eat his daily dates to prevent witches spells! You'd expect maybe Muhammad would have prescribed a prayer of some sort, but no! Besides, the strangeness of this commentary, and its relationship to Quranic verse and the absurdity of the story of why a wizard/witch/sorcerer would care to make Muhammad think he had sex with his wives, we must ask an even bigger question: How can Muhammad be trusted? If he is supposed to be God's own messenger, apostle and prophet, then why did God allow Muhammad to be fooled by magic? Furthermore, if Muhammad can be fooled by evil people in such a earthly matter, why should be trust him in even greater matters that relate to God and heaven?

Muhammad seems to be at the mercy of evil forces like demons who are the only power behind witchcraft. Whereas, we see no mention of Moses and Aaron being at the mercy of the Egyptian magicians (Exodus 7:22) they encountered in the book of Exodus--in fact they defeated them! Likewise, Jesus when confronted with demons--they cowered in His presence since they knew He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God, for instance:
They cried out, “What have you to do with us, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?"--Matthew 8:29
We also see St Paul, whom Muslims generally think very lowly of, in our Christian scriptures relates how when confront with a sorcerer:
they met a magician named Bar-Jesus who was a Jewish false prophet. He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who had summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. But Elymas the magician (for that is what his name means) opposed them in an attempt to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all that is right, full of every sort of deceit and fraud. Will you not stop twisting the straight paths of [the] Lord? Even now the hand of the Lord is upon you. You will be blind, and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately a dark mist fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he came to believe, for he was astonished by the teaching about the Lord.--Acts 13:6-12
We see Paul could deal with magicians and was under God's protection, yet we see no mention of him seeking the aide of dates!

If magicians and demons can fool a man claiming to be a prophet of God about something like sex, why can't he be fooled about other things? And why does he have no protection from deceit of evil?

 
 

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