⚡ Muhammad — Character, Actions, and the Prophetic Test
Type: Apologetics Reference Document — Muhammad's Life and Prophethood Central Claim: The canonical Islamic sources describe Muhammad as a man who sinned and sought forgiveness, whose revelation experiences match descriptions of Satanic interference, who ordered assassinations and massacres, who had an unusual sexual life, and who died from poison — which, by the Quran's own test (69:44–48), marks him as a false prophet. Christians are not importing foreign standards; they are applying the Quran's own criteria and the hadith literature's own testimony.
Overview
This document organises primary source material from the canonical hadith collections regarding the life, character, and actions of Muhammad. Every reference is from sunnah.com (translations of the kutub al-sittah), quran.com, or archived primary Arabic sources. The goal is apologetic clarity, not polemic: these are questions that any honest investigation of Islamic prophethood must engage.
2.1 — Sin and the Need for Forgiveness
Islam insists Muhammad was the perfect moral exemplar (al-Insan al-Kamil). Yet the Quran itself records Allah telling Muhammad his past and future sins are forgiven:
"Indeed, We have granted you a clear conquest so that Allah may forgive you your past and future sins." — Quran 48:1–3
Apologetic note: A prophet who requires forgiveness of future sins cannot be a perfect moral model. Compare this with Quranic statements about Jesus ('Isa) as "a pure boy" with no sin (Quran 19:19) and as "the Word of God" (4:171). The Quran's own Christology surpasses its own prophetology.
2.2 — Revelation Experiences
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Muhammad received revelation like the ringing of a bell | Tirmidhi 3634 |
| The ringing bell is described as the instrument of Satan | Abu Dawud 2556 |
| Muhammad appeared to be possessed during revelation | Bukhari 5763 |
| Muhammad and "Gabriel": violently pressed against a wall at the first encounter | Bukhari 4953 |
Apologetic note: These two facts — that Muhammad's revelation came like a ringing bell, and that the ringing bell is Satan's instrument — appear in the same corpus and are never reconciled. The first encounter with "Gabriel" involved violent physical compulsion, which does not match the angelic appearances in the biblical record (Daniel 8:15–17; Luke 1:11–13). Paul warns explicitly: "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). The Quran's own test for false prophecy (69:44–48) intersects with the death-by-poison material below (section 2.9).
2.3 — Physical Attributes and Strength Claims
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Muhammad had the sexual strength of 30 men | Bukhari 268 |
2.4 — Interactions with Women
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Muhammad allegedly slept with his dead aunt | Al-Mu'jam Al-Awsat by Al-Tabarani §6935; sunnah2.com/761; Bukhari 1285 (contextual) |
| Muhammad in a threesome under a blanket | Archive source 1162/5564 |
| Muhammad received special sexual privileges beyond the four-wife limit | Tafsir al-Qurtubi (archive) |
| Muhammad justified a woman delivering a black baby (probable adultery) by citing ancestral genetics | Bukhari 6847 |
| Muhammad was rejected by a queen who called him a commoner | Bukhari 5255 |
| Muhammad kissed a child in the mosque | Adab 1183 |
| Adult breastfeeding commands and fetish claims | Bukhari 6195 / Bukhari 1382 / Bukhari 3255 / Bukhari 7148 / Bulugh 1399 |
2.6 — Killing, Violence, and Assassinations
This is one of the most significant sections for Christian apologetics because it bears directly on the character of the prophetic office. The Islamic argument is that Muhammad's violence was defensive and contextually justified. The sources below show a pattern of offensive killings, assassinations by deception, and authorised terrorism.
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Muhammad ordered the killing of Umm Qirfa (an elderly woman) by tying her to two camels and splitting her in half | Sirat Rasul Allah, p.356 |
| Muhammad wanted a man killed for fornication even though he had no penis | Muslim 2771 |
| Muhammad commanded the killing of dogs | Muslim 22/57 / Muslim 2/119 / Mishkat 20/36–38 |
| Muhammad ordered Ibn Khattal killed the day he entered Mecca — even if the man was clinging to the Kaaba cloth | Bukhari 1846 |
| Muhammad sent Ka'b ibn al-Ashraf's own foster-brother to assassinate him using deception (taqiyya) | Bukhari 3031 |
| Muhammad accused a man of spying and ordered him killed and his money taken | Bukhari 3051 |
| Muhammad ordered two people burned alive, then changed to decapitation (since "only Allah burns with fire") | Bukhari 2954 |
| Muhammad sent Muslims to destroy a Yemeni temple (Dhu al-Khalasa) and kill all who resisted | Bukhari 4355 |
| "I have been made victorious with terror" | Bukhari 2977 |
| Muhammad ordered the expulsion of all pagans from Arabia | Bukhari 3168 |
| Authorised to attack villages even if women and children would be harmed | Bukhari 3012 |
| Muhammad used child soldiers as young as 15 | Muslim 1868a |
| Allah orders: keep fighting until people become Muslim | Bukhari 25 |
| Muhammad vowed to expel Jews and Christians from Arabia | Muslim 1767a |
| Muhammad told generals to fight until disbelievers convert or pay jizya | Muslim 1731a |
| Muhammad says the best deed is jihad | Nasa'i 2624 |
| Muhammad boasts about terrorising disbelievers | Muslim 523a |
| A Muslim who lives without fighting or desiring jihad has hypocrisy in his heart | URN 2115490 |
| A believer who kills a disbeliever will never be in hell | Muslim 1891a |
| Muhammad killed a thief, pierced his eyes, and left him to die in the desert | Bukhari 5686 |
| Muhammad attacked Khaybar, killed Safiyya's family, then took her that same night | Bukhari 34/181 |
| Muhammad commanded killing a Jewish poet who had mocked him | Bukhari 4038 |
| Muhammad stoned a Jewish man and his wife | Muslim 29/45 |
| Muhammad expelled all Jewish tribes; for Banu Qurayza, he killed all the men and enslaved the families | Bukhari 64/77 |
| Muhammad distributed the women and children of Banu Qurayza as slaves | Muslim 32/79 |
| Muhammad ordered killing children of enemies ("they are of them") | Muslim 1745b |
Apologetic note: Compare the biblical test for a true prophet: "If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and the thing does not come to pass… the prophet has spoken presumptuously" (Deuteronomy 18:22). The broader test is that a true prophet bears God's own character. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel — none of them assassinated critics, commanded terrorism, or claimed personal victorious terror as a divine gift. Jesus explicitly reversed the "eye for an eye" principle, commanded love of enemies, and died voluntarily as the victim of religious violence rather than as its perpetrator.
2.7 — Unusual Incidents and Claims
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Muhammad was ridden by al-Zutt (a demon according to commentators) | sunnah2.com/8229 / sunnah2.com/262 |
| Animal fetish claim | Abu Dawud 4465 |
| Muhammad accused of homosexuality | Abu Dawud 5224 |
| Muhammad commanded adult breastfeeding (Salim's case) | Muslim 1453b |
| Muhammad called a dayuth (a man who tolerates his wife's unfaithfulness); dayuth do not enter Jannah | Musnad archive §6113 |
| Muhammad's prayer parallels the Lord's Prayer | Abu Dawud 3892 |
| Muhammad called trash; only thieves follow him (recorded in the Sirah) | Bukhari 3516 |
| Muhammad attempted suicide by jumping off a cliff | Bukhari 6982 |
| Muhammad hugged a tree and wept | Bukhari 2095 |
| Muhammad was bewitched by a Jew (under magic for a year) | Bukhari 5765 |
| Muhammad says everyone has a devil assigned to them | Muslim 2815 |
| Muhammad was called a Sabi' (one who has abandoned his ancestral religion) | Bukhari 344 |
| Muhammad says the evil eye is real | Muslim 2187 |
| Eating 7 ajwa dates in the morning protects from magic for the rest of that day | Bukhari 5779 |
Apologetic note on the suicide attempts: Bukhari 6982 records that after the first gap in revelation Muhammad was so distressed he tried to throw himself off a cliff repeatedly. His comforter each time was "the same entity" he later identified as Gabriel. The pattern of violent compulsion (first encounter), terrifying silence, suicidal despair, and resumed contact exactly matches the manipulative cycle documented in occult deception — not the peaceable, fear-dispelling pattern of biblical angelic encounter (Luke 1:13; Matthew 28:5).
2.8 — Hygiene and Daily Habits
| Claim | Source |
|---|---|
| Muhammad did not wash his hands after defecation before eating | Muslim 374b |
| Muhammad had lice in his head | Bukhari 56/7 |
| Muhammad had intercourse with nine wives using only one bath | Muslim 3/30 |
| Dogs urinated in the mosque and Muhammad did not stop this | Bukhari 4/40 |
2.9 — Death by Poison: The Quranic Self-Test
This section is the most decisive apologetic point regarding Muhammad's prophethood and it relies entirely on the Quran's own criterion.
The Quranic test (69:44–48):
"And if he had fabricated against Us some of the sayings, We would certainly have seized him by the right hand, then We would certainly have cut off his aorta." — Quran 69:44–46
This passage promises that a false prophet's aorta would be severed. The canonical hadith record that Muhammad died from the effects of poison administered by a Jewish woman at Khaybar — poison that, by multiple accounts, he said he still felt at the time of his death, cutting him "from the inside."
| Source | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tirmidhi 80 | Death from poison |
| Bukhari 4428 | Death from poison |
| Bukhari 2617 | Poisoned sheep |
| Bukhari 4467 | The Jewish woman who poisoned the sheep |
| Bukhari 2741 | Death from poison |
| Abu Dawud 4510 | Death from poison |
| Bukhari 4446 | Aisha traumatised at his death |
| Bukhari 6299 | Muhammad died, not ascended |
| Tirmidhi 3050 | Muhammad died, not ascended |
| Mishkat 124 | Death from poison |
Apologetic note: The poison severed his health progressively, attacking what the Arabic sources describe as his internal organs — exactly the aorta-severing metaphor of Quran 69:46. Muslim scholars have attempted to argue this proves his prophethood (he felt the poison as a martyr). But the Quranic text says a false prophet would be cut off — it does not say a true prophet would also be cut off as a bonus. The text is a conditional negative test, not a description of holy suffering.
2.10 — Age at Death: Internal Contradiction
The hadith literature cannot agree on Muhammad's age at death:
| Age | Sources |
|---|---|
| 63 | Bukhari 3536 / Tirmidhi 3654 / Shamail 381 |
| 65 (contradiction) | Tirmidhi 3622 / Tirmidhi 3650 / Tirmidhi 3651 / Shamail 383 |
Apologetic note: This is a minor internal inconsistency but useful when Muslims claim the hadith corpus is perfectly preserved. The most basic biographical facts — the age at which the prophet died — are unresolved across the Tirmidhi collection alone.
2.11 — Circumcision and Other Claims
Biblical Contrast: What a True Prophet Looks Like
The biblical prophets were not morally perfect — Scripture does not hide the failures of Moses (Numbers 20), David (2 Samuel 11), or Jonah. But they were accountable to the God who spoke through them, and their words were measured against fulfilment and character. The prophetic standard from Deuteronomy 18:20–22 is twofold: the prophet must not speak in the name of other gods, and what he says must come to pass.
More significantly, the New Testament identifies the pinnacle of prophetic revelation not in a warrior-prophet who commands terror, but in a suffering servant: "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son" (Hebrews 1:1–2). The Son is not victorious through violence but through resurrection from the dead.