Thanks to my friend, Farid, for sending this joke: Wikileaks released the following taped conversation between President Obama and Pakistan's President Zardari, who is well known for taking kickbacks.
President Obama: Mr. President, I am going to make the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death to the world. Would you like to take any credit for this operation?
President Zardari: No, sir. No credit. I take cash only.
Jokes aside, bin Laden's death has ignited the "who gets the credit" debate. Who gets the credit for his death, who gets the credit for extracting actionable intelligence and who gets the credit (or blame) for sanctioning torture?
While some ascribe the critical discovery of bin Laden's courier to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times, many reject this notion. Senator John McCain, someone belonging to the latter group, recently remarked in an Op-Ed, "I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners sometimes produces good intelligence but often produces bad intelligence because under torture a person will say anything he thinks his captors want to hear -- true or false -- if he believes it will relieve his suffering."
Yes, I admire the Senator for publically rejecting the use of torture. But his statement also leaves me perplexed. Why have politicians and talking heads refrained from giving credit to one specific person? Someone whose denunciation of torture is unprecedented and predates the Geneva Convention by centuries: Prophet Muhammad.
Not only did Muhammad categorically reject torture, but he espoused equal treatment -- both physically and emotionally -- for prisoners of war in an era plagued with enslavement, limb severance and mutilation of corpses.
Take the Battle of Badr for example. The Prophet encountered an attack three times the number of all his adult male followers. Early in the battle, Muslims captured a water carrier from the enemy side. They enquired from him about the whereabouts of Abu Sufyan, a lead enemy general. The water carrier confessed to knowing the location of four other generals but maintained that he did not know about Abu Sufyan's location. The Muslims started beating him. In turn, the water carrier would fake cooperation to avoid beating. But as the beating stopped, he would reiterate his ignorance about Abu-Sufyan's location, and a new round of beating would commence. The Prophet, praying nearby, concluded his prayers due to the commotion and said, "You beat him when he is telling you the truth, and you let him go when he tells you a lie."
Wait, wait. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?
But Muhammad went on to prohibit inflicting even emotional pain on the prisoners by declaring, "When prisoners of war are put under guard, those closely related should be placed together" and by mandating the return of enemy corpses instead of mutilation.
Why would Muhammad employ such a policy?
Policies have to be aligned with goals. If our goal is to get into the minds of terrorists, we must do that by "going to school on each captive," says Colonel Stuart Herrington, a retired army intelligence officer who advised teams at Guantánamo Bay. He and his teams "collected mountains of excellent, verified information" in Vietnam, Panama and the first Gulf War, he said, "by learning the prisoner's beliefs and fears, his hatreds and his loyalties, his family details and his core vulnerability."
Muhammad's goal was not to get into the minds of his prisoners; his goal was to get into their hearts. And he achieved this goal by preaching equal -- not just fair -- treatment between the captor and the captive.
In his farewell address the Prophet reminded all who were present, "O men, you still have in your possession some prisoners of war. I advise you, therefore, to feed them and to clothe them in the same way and style as you feed and clothe yourselves ... To give them pain or trouble can never be tolerated."
Muslims were expected to free the prisoners, if they could not meet these standards.
Such equality, not war, allowed many prisoners to embrace Islam. As one of them related in later days, "They made us ride while they themselves walked; they gave us wheaten bread to eat when there was little of it, contenting themselves with dates."
As an American Muslim, I feel waterboarded every time my politicians and pundits revere The Hague and Geneva Conventions but fail to acknowledge Muhammad's pioneering contributions toward eliminating torture against prisoners of war.
So this is my call to the Pakistani leaders: Instead of pocketing cash in kickbacks, focus on building credibility for your country. You must root out your corrupt laws and corrupt practices in order to root our extremism.
And this is my call to the U.S. leaders: We might be able to thwart the next terror plot by getting into the minds of the extremists, but we cannot win the moral debate on torture without winning over the hearts of Muslims. Recognizing Muhammad's contributions, instead of glossing them over, would be a good first step in achieving that goal.
Give credit please. No cash needed.
And it's not a joke.
Faheem Younus is an adjunct faculty member for religion/history at the Community Colleges of Baltimore County and a clinical associate professor at the University of Maryland. He can be reached at faheem.younus@ahmadiyya.us
Doug Bandow: Getting Osama Bin Laden: The Case Against Torture
I wanted to take a moment to thank all those who engaged in a well-intentioned rigorous dialogue about this article.
Stay tuned. This subject is not going away. My future blogs will discuss other hotly debated topics (forced conversions, shariah law, women rights, polygamy, treatment of Jews etc) where the actions of some extremist Muslims have allowed people to attack the character of the Prophet Muhammad (sa).
If you are interested in a specific topic, please feel free to suggest.
Thanks,
FY
American and muslim for almost 8 years now so when i say things like you said in this article, all i get is " you're being fooled " Well no i am not but how to get by the prejudice built by 10 years of ignorant media hype by "experts " that realy know nothing about Islam. How do we get by the idea that all muslims believe exactly the same when we are as varied as Catholics , protestants and mormons in the christian world and then with local culture piled on true islam even when it is opposed to the teachings of Islam. Nice try i hope you are more sucessful than i have ever been ( lol and dont lose your temper as often, my own personal "jihad" or struggle with myself)
The title of this piece is "Muhammad Never Tortured Prisoners of War". Alternate titles could be "Give credit where credit is due" or "A strategy for winning the war on terrorism".
Professor Younus is saying that war strategists can learn from Muhammad's lack of use of torture. Perhaps sallysees is confusing one part of the whole with another. I think the point put forth is simple, whether one agrees or not.
I have to say that even as a comment, this 'off the record' stuff is more like tongue in cheek, wink wink!!!.
Lets stick to the topic and on the record references.
A Defence Department analyist, and a counter-intelligence agent, said off the record, that the highest levels of the American government have been infiltrated by Islamist.
He was given an assignment from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to find out what the Jihady ideology and operational methods were.
He said, that, what he expected to find, was while there were basis for the Jihadist arguments for warfare but there were competing arguments, and his hope was that he could leverage them and gain a means to counter it, but as the Jihadist were operating on the basis of Islamic law, he had to start there.
So over a long period of time, he collected a large body of Islamic law, since there's a large body of it in English.
He said that, to his surprise, he soon learned that if you use Islamic law as a criterior to measure legitimacy and illegitimacy, you can't show that the moderates have a doctrinal basis for the position they hold, and you can't show, that on the basis of Islamic law, the Jihadist are wrong.
So, if the Moderates are not actually arguing on the basis of Islamic law., how can we accept their argument that Islam is a Peaceful religion?
On the other hand you won't give credit to someone just because he is muslim. In this thread you have repeated this argument so many times. come on man, relax, why do you feel so unsecure that you can't admit one good thing about Prophet Mohammad? Take a deep breath and repeat after me "Muhammad Never Tortured Prisoners of War". See how simple it is.
The point is that there were so many people who have inspired the Geneva Convention and if only he can prove that P. Mohamad was the one who inspired it.
As far as I am concerned, he is just generalising. I thought when one writes an article, one has to be more specific and not mislead others.
That's the crux.
At the same time, people fail to know that there were parallel civilizations at the same time, so mercy and compassion do not belong to one particular group.
Frankly speaking, there are muslims in my family, so I don't have problems with them.
Agreed. We should give credit to all worthy ideas, regardless of origin.
MiraMcB wrote: "One thing to note is that, for the most part, the Bible, the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon - all were written after the fact by devoted fans, so I have always suspected the presence of massive embelishmeÂnts to all these "documentsÂ"."
Qur'an was written in the lifetime of Muhammad. Objective thinking is a good quality to have. Have you had a chance to substantiate your doubts? This may help: http://www.alislam.org/library/books/Introduction-Study-Holy-Quran.pdf (page 354)
MiraMcB wrote: "Perhaps Muhammad wouldn't approve. Someone should tell the Taliban, Al Quaeda, Hammas, Hezbollah, etc. Oh, and it would be nice if we could put a stop to the social and sexual disfigurmeÂnt of women, honor killings, etc."
Agreed. Muhammad would most certainly not approve and we should do our part in removing misunderstandings from all sides.
However, I would like to know the definition of 'superstition' in the context of historical lessons on torture. And kindly also elaborate and differentiate 'foreign superstition' from 'our own stone age superstition' so we are on the same page.
Who had what idea and how important that all is is very diminished in the face of the perversions of the credo. The Qur'an, in particular, is waved around as a justification for some of the most horrific mass murders, torture, genocide, you name it, in the modern era.
Perhaps Muhammad wouldn't approve. Someone should tell the Taliban, Al Quaeda, Hammas, Hezbollah, etc. Oh, and it would be nice if we could put a stop to the social and sexual disfigurment of women, honor killings, etc.
Just a few thoughts...
Not true. Quran was not only written but also memorized word by word by many companions of the Prophet (pbuh) in real time. Please make that correction. There is no embellishment in the Quran.
Just because something is older doesn't mean we throw it out and move one. We don't throw away old jewelry. We cherish the experience of our elders.
The whole western civilization borrowed its ideas of democracy from the Greek. Both the US and the Athenian government had the Legislative, Executive, and the Judicial branches. We seem to be doing OK with these archaic ideas. Same goes for modern medicine, sports, philosophy which were influenced by the Greek. Myron's famous sculpture, the Discus Thrower is an example of a kind of sport in ancient Greece that is a part of modern Olympics.
1). 1500 years is not the same as 'thousands of years'. Islam is the most modern of major religions.
2). The author is trying to say that each idea has to be judged on its own merit.
3). Nothing about word of God was mentioned in my comment or in the article. That subject may be best dealt with in an altogether separate piece. The author is making the case for an unbiased analysis and giving credit where credit is due. I think we can agree on that in principle.
The Quran and Hadith without doubt preceded & inspired the The Hague and Geneva Conventions as well as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But in a pluralistic world these latter ones have one major advantage over the first ones: they are based on CONSENSUS (instead of revelation). As a world citizen please do not feel waterboarded about that.
I hate sweeping statements ..la di da.. just prove it.
I am afraid bloggers like Dr. Faheem Younus hate it when commentators do not ... la di da ... read their blogs in the first place :)
can we stop pretending that these guys provide really great direction for the 21st century? Its time to move on.
Your thoughts on that one?
I know what is teaches; if you say that I am wrong, then its just because you haven't studied the Koran yourself.
In what other religion in history are its followers commanded by the head of the religion to cut off people's heads en mass, my goodness?
In what other religion in history are its followers commanded by the head of the religion to take innocent non-Muslim women and use them sexually as slaves?
In what other religion in history are its followers encouraged to lie (Satiyya) by the head of the religion?
In what other religion in history are its male followers commanded by the leader of the religion to treat iits women worse than cattle?
Name one thing, just one, of any single instance where either Islam or its leader have shown any such thing as kindness?
Its infuriating to me to hear anyone say this bloodly religion is in any manner kind, when the majority of the rest of us decent people on this earth want to run for our lives from anything to do with Islam.
They much earlier,far more, peaceful and relatively mild ones, or a later, far more bloody and ghastly ones, such as cutting off the heads of any who would rather keep their own religious beliefs?
I'm sure, as anyone familiar with the teaching of Islam would know, those instructions are very clear about which ones any believer must choose.
If there is any doubt, the later ones always have authority over all earlier commandments the prophet had a change of mind on.
Therefore, no faithful follower of the prophet Mohammad can refused to follow his command to strike off the heads of all unbelievers..under pain of death.
Anyone who teaches otherwise, is denying the holy sayings of the prophet of Allah!
I challenge anyone, whoever he is, to prove the above statements are not the true teachings of the Koran?