In the morning after Ashraf—a Jew—was killed, Muhammad told his followers to “kill any Jew you can lay your hands on.” One Muhayyisa bin Mas’ud, to prove his devotion, killed Jewish merchant Ibn Sunayna, his ex-employer. When six of Muhammad’s henchmen murdered an elderly Jew by the name of Abu Rafi in his sleep, they argued whose weapon had actually ended the victim’s life. The prophet decided that the owner of the sword that still had traces of food on it was entitled to the credit: Abu Rafi had just eaten his dinner before falling asleep, and the fatal slash went through his stomach.

Muhammad’s attack against the Jewish tribe of Banu-’l-Mustaliq was the next step towards his Endloesung. His followers slaughtered many tribesmen, looted thousands of their camels and sheep; and kidnapped 500 of their women. The night after the battle, Muhammad and his brigands staged an orgy of rape.

In Mecca Muhammad had hoped to be accepted as God’s messenger by the Jews, but he underestimated their allegiance to their scriptures. His superficial, second-hand knowledge of the Bible made it impossible for him to argue on par with the learned merchants of Medina steeped in their Tradition. The result of their unsurprising refusal to give it up in favor of the claims of a poorly educated refugee was that Muhammad’s earlier, favorable pronouncements about the Jews evolved into a harshly hostile position. The result is summarized in a chillingly euphemistic account by a Muslim scholar: “the final result of the struggle was the disappearance of these Jewish communities from Arabia proper.”

This “disappearance” was not a spontaneous phenomenon but the result of ethnic cleansing and genocide, culminating in the attack the last surviving Jewish tribe in Medina, Banu Qurayzah. Accused of treachery and forced to surrender, some 600 and perhaps up to 900 men were decapitated in front of their women and children. “Truly the judgment of Allah was pronounced on high,” Muhammad gloated, and Allah responded by praising him for the way “he struck terror into their hearts.” (33:25) The women were subsequently raped, of course; Muhammad chose as his concubine one Raihana Bint Amr, whose father and husband were both slaughtered before her eyes some hours earlier. Such treatment of captive women had already been sanctioned by prophetic revelation, and applied to the captive women of Banu-’l-Mustaliq.

Around that time Allah’s messages concerning “the infidel” grew ever harsher: “Take him and fetter him and expose him to hell fire.” (69:30-37) Others “will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off.” (5:33-34) In this world for the captured infidel “We have prepared chains, yokes and a blazing fire.” (76:4) In the hereafter things get even worse: “garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling fluid will be poured down their heads. Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted . . . And for them are hooked rods of iron.” (22:19-22) One single Kuranic verse, “the Verse of the Sword,” (9:5) Islamic scholars agree, abrogates 124 earlier verses—the ones that are quoted most regularly by Islam’s character witnesses and apologists to prove its alleged tolerance and benevolence.

The image of a victorious leader, merciless with the defeated infidel and feared by his foes, worked wonders for Muhammad. On January 12, 630, he marched into Mecca in triumph, having violated the ten-year truce of Hudaybiyya signed two years previously. That violation was predictably condoned by Allah. (60:10) Ever since, the view of Islamic jurists has been that truces with the infidel could only be temporary and that their only permissible objective was to enable the Muslim side to gain strength for a new onslaught.

Muhammad’s progression from a marginalized outsider to a master of life and death produced a transformation of his personality in the decade preceding his death in 633 AD. Allah was invoked as the authority supporting the prophet’s daily political objectives and his personal needs. Nowhere was this more obvious than when it came to his exaggerated sensuality.

Contrary to his own regulations he had at least fifteen wives. The youngest was Aisha, a daughter of his close aide and the first caliph Abu Bakr, who was seven years old “and with the dolls” when Muhammad—44 years her senior—“married” her. Two years later, when she was 9 and he 53, the “prophet” consummated the “marriage,” i.e. raped the little girl. Some years later he came up with a Kuranic verse approving his nightly trysts with an Egyptian slave girl, and admonishing his jealous wives for their objections to the practice. (66:1-3) Allah’s revelation also enabled Muhammad to take his daughter-in-law Zainab as a wife when he lusted after her. (36:37)

Many commands of the Kuran and Muhammad’s actions and words recorded in the Traditions are morally abhorrent and/or criminal by the standards of our time. But even in the context of 7th century Arabia they were often considered repugnant. Muhammad had to resort to “revelations” as a means of justifying his actions and suppressing the prevalent moral code of his own society. Attacking caravans in the holy month, taking up arms against one’s kinsmen, slaughtering prisoners, reserving a lion’s share of the booty, murdering people without provocation, violating treaties, and indulging one’s sensual passions, was also at odds with the moral standards of his Arab contemporaries. Only the ultimate authority could sanction it, and Allah duly obliged him.

Muhammad’s practice and constant encouragement of bloodshed are unique in the history of religions. Murder, pillage, rape, and more murder have “impressed his followers with a profound belief in the value of bloodshed as opening the gates of Paradise” (cf. Margoulith 1914) and prompted countless Muslim governors, caliphs, and viziers, to refer to Muhammad’s example to justify their treatment of the infidels. Allah’s order to “kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” is an injunction both unambiguous and powerful. The word “genocide” was not even coined when Muhammad conveyed Allah’s alleged dictum, “When we decide to destroy a population . . . then we destroy them utterly.” (17:16-17) Disobedient people “we utterly destroyed.” (21:11)