Mohammed (570-632 A.D.)

By Richard E. Noble

(Pssssttt ... if there is a dark complicated, rather swarthy, looking guy, possibly wearing a turban and carrying a sword, sitting next to you, hide this document immediately. I don’t want no trouble. These type people take this stuff serious!!)
Mohammed was an illiterate, orphan, who lived some place in Arabia. He became a businessman, first working for a semi-prosperous uncle. The uncle felt that this kid was good, and sent him to see a widower aunt who had a bigger and better business than he. Mohammed and his rich auntie became very close. They married. Mohammed was not a disappointment to his new bride, and the business prospered.
Then one day, Mohammed, off on a hill somewhere or in a cave someplace, had a vision. Some critics say it wasn’t so much of a vision as an epileptic fit ... BUT I AIN’T SAYING THAT. NO SIR-EE!! I say that the guy had a vision, most definitely a vision - and a darn good one too. And I’m also sure that he wasn’t smoking any wacky weed or anything like that either.
In this vision and in subsequent visions God, via the Archangel Michael, dictated to this illiterate, the Koran. And you gotta remember this, Mohammed was not only illiterate, he didn’t know how to write either. So that just goes to prove, how could he have possibly written the Koran, if it didn’t come directly from God.
I have absolutely no problem with this, and if that guy with the turban and the sword sitting next to you is still looking, you better not either.
MOHAMMED WAS NOT GOD!!
All right! And he is the one who said it, not me. Mohammed said Ia ilaha illa-l-lah, and a heck of a lot more than that too.
Mohammed was doing fairly well with this new religion, preaching love, kindness and charity to the poor, but conversions were a little slow. So Mohammed tried a new technique. Well, it really wasn’t all that new. At first Mohammed said believe in the one true God or donate your head to a bucket.
This did well for awhile, but then Mohammed adopted a more liberal attitude. He said that you didn’t have to believe in Islam or the one and only, positively true, MY one and only God if you choose not too. But, if you were so inclined you had to cough up some bucks, otherwise lose your head.
This was very liberal, at least a lot of Jews who had been getting their heads lopped off by Christians for a few hundred years thought so.
There are those that criticizes Mohammed for this and say that he was not really a devoted prophet but a money making businessman, capitalist type of a guy who was more devoted to getting rich and powerful than spreading any inspired message from God - somewhat like a few of our Evangelist of today. Some even go so far as to say that the whole thing was a scam to get the poor onto his side in order to have enough power to intimidate the rich into giving alms. That’s what some people say, but I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. I ain’t saying anything like that at all. In fact, if I have anything to say, it is this ... La ilaha illa Allah, Mohammed rasul Allah. And if I were to add anything to that it would be a simple Amen, or Hallelujah, and that is it.