“May
the diggers of the trench be destroyed for what they did!” (Quran 85:4)
1.
The trenches were dug
all through the main streets.
2 In
droves of ten, Jewish men were lead
to be slaughtered.
3 Their
corpses and severed heads were
buried together in the trenches.
4 All
was done in cold blood.
5 Eight
hundred men in all had to suffer
this fate.
6 The
women and children were all
made slaves.
7 The
property was confiscated.
8 There
was no shame involved in this,
no sense of guilt.
9 After
all, this had been God’s
judgment from the Highest
Heaven.
10 After
all, the killers bore in mind the
fate of the people of Jericho.
2.
Muhammad,
you are the truest embodiment of
moral perfection,
or so you claim.
2 In
you, a Muslim has a good example
to follow and imitate.
3 But
the stench of blood, o
Muhammad.
4 That
merciless methodical killing that
went on all day.
5 That
massacre,
that divinely sanctioned massacre
that makes a holy and moral act
out of the cold-blooded
shedding
of human blood.
6 That
Islamic justification, no matter
how unintended,
of Deir Yassin,
of Sabra and Shatila,
of the Killing Fields,
of the ethnic cleansing
in Bosnia and Kosovo,
of the
Holocaust.
7 All
that, o Muhammad,
make me doubt all your claims.
8 They
make me reject all your claims,
and all similar claims
to prophethood,
and divinity.
3.
You have made an atheist out
of me, Muhammad.
2And
you continue to repulse me from
beyond the grave.
3 I
don’t want any part of your
morality.
4 Damn
all Judeo-Christian ethics.
5 To
hell with all forms of religious
piety.
6 Give
me back that old-fashioned
pragmatic humanism.
7 Give
me back my freedom of
conscience.
8 Give
me back my sense of humanity.
Notes
This poem deals with the infamous
massacre of the Arab Jewish tribe of Bani Qurayzah, which took place in AD 627.
The massacre came in the aftermath of an attempted invasion of Madinah, the capital
of Muhammad’s feldglign kingdom at the time, by the people of Makkah, his
original birthplace, and their allies, and was meant as a punishment and a
warning to all neighboring tribes to beware Muhammad’s wrath should they
entertain any traitorous ideas about their Muslim neighbors. Indeed, Bani
Qurayzah had entertained for a while joining the anti-Muslim alliance. The
massacre, then, had more political than religious motivations, and formed a
unique event in Islamic history with regards to the way Jewish minorities were
treated over the course of Muslim history. Still, having been perpetrated by
the Prophet has created a precedent that is often invoked today by Islamic
extremists in their statements aimed at Israel.
The irony in the Quran’ic verse quoted
as subtitle lies in the fact that it refers to and condemns a different
massacre, one that had occurred in Yemen sometimes before Prophet Muhammad’s own birth. This
particular massacre, or so Islamic sources contend, was ordered by the Jewish
king Dhu Nuwas against his Christian subjects.
Deir Yassin. A
Palestinian village where a massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Jewish
terrorist groups known as the Irgun and Stern Gangs, took place on April 9,
1948 – a month before the declaration of Israeli statehood. The death toll was
estimated at 250 victims, and included women and children. Menachim Begin, the
leader of the Irgun, hailed the massacre as a “conquest,” and declared:
“Continue thus until victory. As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack
and smite the enemy. God, God, thou hast chosen us for conquest.” In due
course, Begin would become the Prime Minister of Israel, and would be awarded
the Nobel Prize in 1979, alongside the president of Egypt at the time, Anwar
Al-Sadat for signing the Camp David peace accord ending the war between Israel
and Egypt.
Sabra and Shatila.
The names of Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, where another massacre of
Palestinian civilians took place in September 1982. The perpetrators this time
were Christian Phalangists, and are
reported to carried the massacre under the watchful eyes of Israeli troops
stationed nearby at the time, a fact that would soon force the resignation of
then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The death toll was estimated 762 and
3,500 civilians, a figure that included Lebanese Shia residents of the camps.
Again, the toll includes women and children.