Prophet of Doom provides a comprehensive, contextual, and chronological review of the Islamic scriptures starting with the religion's rendition of creation and ending with the terror it inspired. The book brings Islam's five earliest and most trusted sources together, putting their words and deeds into the context of time and place to expose what the dogma's founder had to say about himself, his ambition, religion, and god. There is no better way to understand Muhammad, Allah, or Islam-or to evaluate their legacy.

When reviewing the primary papers of any dogma we must be mindful that context comes in three forms. There is the context of historical chronology-that of circumstance, place, people, and time. There is the context of adjacency -the proximity of related words and thoughts within the writings themselves. And context can be topical; in this case similar themes can be brought together and organized by subject. All forms of context provide clarity.

Unfortunately, the Qur'an fails its faithful on all three counts. The book lacks any semblance of chronology. It is deficient when it comes to providing the required context of place, people, and time. Adjacent verses are usually unrelated and often contradictory. In the Meccan surahs there is a preoccupation with railing against Muhammad's mockers and with describing Allah's torments, but the rejections and condemnations are strewn haphazardly through the text. This is also true of the Medina surahs and their fixation on submit and obey, perform and pay, fight or burn. Yes these are themes, and they are repetitive, but they are not presented in cohesive groupings.

The Qur'an's failures in this regard dictate Prophet of Doom's length, order, and format. The narrative and chronological Hadith compiled by Ishaq and Tabari were required to provide the Qur'an with the context of circumstance, time, and place that it otherwise lacked. Bukhari's and Muslim's topical Hadith were used to amplify important Islamic themes. Therefore, Muhammad's message has never been as clear as it is in these pages. Unfortunately for humankind, unmasked, his message is repulsive, even terrorizing. But that is precisely what makes this study important.

While the "Muhammad's Own Words" appendix isn't the best way to learn about Muhammad or to understand his Qur'an, its topical structure may be the most effective means to evaluate his religion. This format facilitates the study of important issues from various perspectives. Their relative significance can be evaluated based upon the volume of material relegated to them. So for your edification and convenience, this appendix collates nearly 3,000 quotes from the Qur'an, Sira, Ta'rikh, and Hadith under subject headings like Fighting, War, Jihad, Murder, Thievery, and Intolerance. In contrast to the book, "Muhammad's Own Words" ends with Islamic creation and begins by focusing on the tools of tyranny and terror. They represent the dogma's least understood and most lethal pronouncements. I trust you'll find this endeavor as sobering as it is enlightening.

Every passage in Prophet of Doom is recorded in one of Islam's prime sources: the Sira (biography), Ta'rikh (history), Hadith (report), or Qur'an (recital). They are all documented. Each quote fell from Muhammad's lips, no matter how it was inspired. Every recital, whether surah or hadith was passed along to us by the same group of men and by the same means-hearsay. As you will discover, the message does not differ from source to source because the author was always the same.

Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, provides the sole account of Muhammad's life and the formation of Islam written within 200 years of the prophet's death. It is a Hadith collection, comprised of oral reports from Muhammad and his companions. There is no earlier or more accurate source. While the character, message, and deeds portrayed within its pages are the antithesis of Christ's and his disciples, the Sira's chronological presentation is as indispensable to Muslims as are the Gospels to Christians. The Qur'an can't be understood or followed without it.

The Ta'rikh is the oldest, most trusted, and comprehensive history of Islam's formation and Muhammad's example, called Sunnah. It was compiled by Tabari. His History of al-Tabari is formatted like the Bible. It begins with Islamic creation and ends with the acts of Muhammad's companions. Tabari also composed Islam's most revered Ta'fir, or commentary, on the Qur'an. He was the dogma's first scholar. His history serves to explain Allah's Recital and Muhammad'sSunnah by way of his compilation's Hadith.

The most revered topical collections of early Islamic Traditions were compiled by Bukhari and Muslim. They, like the "Muhammad's Own Words" appendix, assort Hadith under important Islamic themes, such as Jihad, Islamic Raids, Knowledge, Creation, Fear, Taxes, Money, Witnesses, Punishment, and Predestination.

To confirm the validity and nature of the Islamic scriptures quoted herein, read what Muslim scholars wrote in the preface of the Hadith and Qur'an: "Bukhari is a Collection of sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad, also known as the Sunnah. The reports of the Prophet's sayings and deeds are called Hadith. Bukhari lived a couple of centuries after the Prophet's death and collected his Hadith. Each report was checked for compatibility with the Qur'an, and the veracity of the chain of reporters had to be established." "The Qur'an is one leg of two which form the basis of Islam. The second is the Sunnah of the Prophet. What makes the Qur'an different from the Sunnah is its form. The Qur'an is quite literally the Word of Allah, whereas the Sunnah [which is comprised of Hadith] was inspired by Allah but the wording and actions are the Prophet's."

When quoting from the Qur'an and Hadith, I have elected to use a blended translation. No language transfers perfectly-one word to another. Five of my twelve translations of the Qur'an were combined to create the most accurate conveyance of the message possible. For clarity and readability, I have trimmed unruly word patterns and meaningless repetitions, being careful not to alter the meaning or message of any passage. Insertions within parenthesis (like this) wereadded by the Arabic translators to fill in missing words or to clarify the text. Insertions within brackets [like this] represent my observations.

There are many reasons Islamic clerics are sensitive about having the Qur'an translated into a contemporary language. The most important are that they don't want anyone to know what it actually says or how poorly it's written, but we'll get to that in a moment. Muslims claim that Arabic was Allah's original tongue and that translations are simply paraphrases. But that would make Allah younger than man because Arabic is one of man's most recent dialects. Its written form didn't emerge until the 7th century. And most every important religious word, concept, and name used in the Qur'an was derived from Syriac, the language of Syrian Christians in the 6th century.

Muslims invest a quarter of their school day learning to recite the Qur'an -not reading it or understanding it. They simply learn to mouth its sounds in the arcane, inadequate, and odd dialect of Religious Arabic. That way they can be fooled into believing that it's "God's Book," and that it's written intelligently. Ignorant, they can be indoctrinated and thus manipulated by clerics and kings. Even turned into human bombs when it serves Islam's interests.

If Muslims were to shed their yoke of ignorance, they would discover that the real reason those who indoctrinate them, control them, suppress them, fleece them, and abuse them want them deceived is that the actual message contained in Allah's Book is horrendous. It is more intolerant, racist, punitive, and violent than Hitler's Mein Kampf. There are one hundred vicious verses for every nice one. The book inspires infinitely more terror than peace.

They would also discover that the Qur'an is poorly written. There are countless meaningless words, foreign words, and missing words which is why translations differ so significantly-everyone is guessing as to what Muhammad thought Allah was trying to say. This is why Gerd Puin, the world's leading specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Qur'anic paleography, studying the oldest manuscripts, speaks with disdain about the willingness of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to accept Islamic dogma. He says: "The Qur'an claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or clear, but if you just look at it, you will see that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, but the fact is that a fifth of the Qur'an is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxietyregarding translation. If the Qur'an is not comprehensible, if it can't even be understood in Arabic, then it's not translatable into any language. That is why Muslims are afraid."

By reading the Qur'an in a language they actually understand, Muslims would find that there is no semblance of order in the central book of Islam either. The Qur'an is a jumbled mess without context, chronology, or rational transitions. It is only by rearranging the Qur'an in the order it was revealed and infusing it with the context of the chronological Hadith narratives, that the book begins to make sense. But by so doing, it becomes obvious that the Qur'an was simply a reflection of Muhammad's demented character and of his misplaced ambition. The more you know, the more you will come to despise the fraud Muhammad perpetrated on his fellow Arabs and they on human kind. To know the Qur'an is to reject Islam.

The documented references in Prophet Of Doom were derived from English translations of ancient Islamic manuscripts. The Sirat Rasul Allah by Ibn Ishaq, circa 750 A.D., was edited and abridged by Ibn Hisham in 830 and translated by Alfred Guillaume under the title, The Life of Muhammad in 1955 by Oxford Press. The History of al-Tabari was written by Muhammad bin al-Tabari between 870 and 920 A.D. His work was translated and published in 1987-97 by S.U.N.Y. Press. I quote from volumes I, II, VI, VII, VIII, and IX. Al-Bukhari's Hadith, titled: Sahih Al-Bukhari-The True Traditions was collected by Imam Bukhari in 850 A.D. I have used the collector's original nomenclature. The following Qur'an translations were blended and amplified: Ahmed Ali, Pikthal, Noble by Muhsin Khan, Yusuf Ali, and Shakir.

Prophet of Doom's harsh portrayal of Islam does not represent my interpretation of the most negative Islamic scriptures or even a view derived from some jaundiced document crafted by an enemy of the religion. It is the only authentic picture; it's the original. By reading the Qur'an and Hadith you'll see Muhammad embarrass himself and deceive his compatriots-all with his god's blessing. This is the portrait of prophet and god that was painted by the first Muslims. One does not have to cull out the bad from the good to render this verdict. It's really hard to find anything good in their scriptures or behaviors.

To provide some objectivity to this startling reality, recognize that nothing is known about Muhammad and his creation, Islam, apart from five books. They represent the only surviving written record scribed within 250 years of the prophet's life. They, and only they, represent fundamental Islam. They are the authority, the "gospel truth." Any statement not derived from these sources is conjecture, speculation, and opinion.

The most respected Islamic scholars tell Muslims that the "Qur'an is literally the word of Allah" and that the "Sunnah was inspired by Allah." They say this because there are hundreds of commands in the Qur'an ordering Muslims to obey Muhammad, to believe in him, to follow his example. Since the Qur'an is supposed to be "Allah" speaking, the only way to obey Muhammad, to believe in and follow him, is to know what he said and did. The Hadith represents the sole repository of these words and deeds. So, despite all evidence to the contrary, Muslims believe what you are going to read from the Qur'an and Hadith is divinely inspired scripture directly from Allah.

Read Prophet of Doom. Each quote is explained and presented in the context of Muhammad's life.

Excerpt from The Quest of the Historical Muhammad, by Arthur Jeffery

Quite recently it was suggested that the time was ripe for a similar survey on the life of the Arabian Prophet, that we may take stock of the work that has been done, gather up the assured results that have been won, and note the trends of critical scholarship indicating the lines of investigation that the future will have to follow. We may have long to wait for the rise of an Islamic scholar with the genius and scholarly preparation of a Schweitzer, to undertake this task, but we may endeavor with more or less success to briefly sketch the outlines of such an investigation.

Sources

Our first consideration is that of sources, and naturally we look to the Muslim literature, for Muslims themselves are likely to have been the first to write lives of their own Prophet. Here at first glance the student's heart might almost fail him before the bewildering array of Muslim lives of the Prophet, for there are literally hundreds of them in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Malay, and even in Chinese and lesser Eastern languages. The briefest investigation, however, suffices to reveal that the problem of sources is relatively simple, for all these hundreds of volumes represent but workings over with fabulous and irrelevant additions and modifications of perhaps half a dozen Arabic texts of primary importance.

The earliest Life of Muhammad of which we have any trace was written by Muhammad Ibn Ishaq, who died in 768 C.E. i.e., one hundred and thirty years after the death of the Prophet. The book of Ibn Ishaq, however, has perished, and all we know of it is what is quoted from it (and these quotations are fortunately considerable) in the works of later writers, particularly Ibn Hisham and al-Tabari. This work of Ibn Ishaq, in addition to being the earliest known attempt at biography, has a further importance in that, whether because the writer was somewhat of a free thinker, or because he had not come under the influence of later idealizing tendencies, his work contains very much informa­tion of a character that is distinctly unfavorable to the Prophet. To quote Dr. Margoliouth: "The character attributed to Muhammad in the biography of Ibn Ishaq is exceed­ingly unfavorable. In order to gain his ends he recoils from no expedient, and he approves of similar unscrupulousness on the part of his adherents, when exercised in his interest. He profits to the utmost from the chivalry of the Mec­cans, but rarely requites it with the like. He organizes assassinations and whole-­sale massacres. His career as tyrant of Medina is that of a robber chief, whose political economy consists in securing and dividing plunder, the distribution of the latter being at times carried out on principles which fail to satisfy his fol­lowers's ideas of justice. He is himself an unbridled libertine and encourages the same passion in his followers. For whatever he does he is prepared to plead the express authorization of the deity. It is, however, impossible to find any doctrine which he is not prepared to abandon in order to secure a political end. At different points in his career he abandons the unity of God and his claim to the title of Prophet. This is a disagreeable picture for the founder of a religion, and it cannot be pleaded that it is a picture drawn by an enemy; and though Ibn Ishaq's name was for some reason held in low esteem by the classical traditionalists of the third Islamic century, they make no attempt to discredit those portions of the biography which bear hardest on the character of their Prophet." (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, volume 8, p. 878.)

Margoliouth also makes it a point in favor of this biography that it rarely has recourse to the supernatural, and even when the supernatural is introduced it does not appear to affect the causation.

The first important source that has actually come down to us, therefore, is Waqidi's Kitab al-Maghazi, or Book of the Wars. Al-Waqidi died 822 C.E. and his book may best be consulted in the translation of the important parts of it given in Wellhausen's Muhammad in Medina (Berlin, 1882). Al-Waqidi's work, however, has the serious limitation that it deals only with Muhammad's campaigns. Ibn Hisham died in 833 C.E., and Ibn Sa'd in 844 C.E. Later Arabic lives are of very secondary value as compared with these.

These works, however, are not primary sources, and are themselves based on two sources, Tradition and the Koran. The most important collections of Tradi­tion are those of Bukhari (who died in 870 C.E.), and Muslim (who died in 874 C.E.). What value can be placed on Tradition will be seen later; the important thing now to note is the dates of the collections, which are even later than those of the lives. The Koran, which was written down in approximately the form in which we have it within a generation of the death of Muhammad, will thus be seen to be our only primary source for the life of the Prophet. It will, of course, be evident to any one who has read the Koran, how very meager is the material it contains of a biographical nature.

The importance of the evidence from this source was first worked out by Nöldeke in the first edition (1860) of his "Geschichte des Qorans."

Excerpt from the Feedback Pages

I wonder if you could tell me a little more about the order of the suras, and how you matched them with the events of Muhammad's life. (MQ)

First, every surah is listed in the Qur'an as Meccan or Medinan. Second, most Qur'an commentaries break the Meccan surahs into early, mid and late Mecca. I used Mudaudi's in the early going and credited him often. Third, four scholars, two Muslim, two non-Islamic, have created chronological orderings. I reference them in the book and I used a blend of them. With the very early Mecca surahs it's pretty easy as the Islamic god was unnamed and the early subject matter gives them away. The mid-Mecca surahs are famous for their reference to Ar-Rahman, the name of Muhammad's first god. While there is no way to order them within the group, all I do is present them as a group. The late Meccan surahs pick up more Talmud overtones and they gradually replace Ar-Rahman with Allah following the Satanic Verses. However, you should know that the surahs themselves are jumbled. There are early and late Meccan, early and late Medinan verses in the same surah. Fourth, when it comes to Medinan surahs the task is made much easier because the Sira and Ta'rikh provide a chronological timeline of events that can be used to order the final 24 surahs correctly. (Craig)

You say that the Sira is a chronological presentation, and that Tabari's compilation provides the best skeleton upon which to flesh out Islam & Muhammad.

These are statements of fact. The reasons are explained in the book.

So first, where does the order of the suras come from? Is it explicitly stated in the Sira? Is there an explanation for how the order was determined back then?

I cover every point raised above in the early chapters.

And second, how did you figure out what was going on in Muhammad's life at the time of each sura?

I also specify this in the book. The Mudaudi commentary ties Hadith and surahs together. So do the Sira and Ta'rikh. The subjects of the Hadith themselves coincide with Qur'anic discussions.

I'm just curious about the nuts & bolts of it. Were there clues you had to stitch together or is the history clear enough that there's no real controversy about which sura goes with which events?

There is no history apart from these five books. All that is known about Muhammad comes from them. All I did was use the chronology and narrative of the Biography and History to put the pieces together. But you bring up a very condemning point. The reason that controversy swirls about the Qur'an is because it's so poorly written. It may be the only book jumbled without contextual or chronological ordering. As such, it must be read in conjunction with the other sources. And as such, it couldn't have been divinely inspired. The God who created the universe has to be able to express Himself more clearly than does the Qur'an.