A Christian polemicist read an intimate Muslim deathbed scene as filth

Evidence

For Ramon Martí, missionary friar under a vow of celibacy, the most false and shocking thing about Muhammad and his followers is their sexual practices: polygamy, homosexuality, even sex in heaven! This gulf of incomprehension flavors Martí’s portrayal of Muhammad’s death. Earlier polemicists related horrendous fables about Muhammad’s shameful murder and the defilement of his corpse by pigs or dogs. The Muslim story of his death, by contrast, shows him surrounded by his loved ones, peacefully dying with his head in the lap of his beloved wife ‘A’isha. For Muslims, this touching scene emphasizes Muhammad’s humanity (just as, for Christians, the birth and death of Christ emphasize his humanity). Yet Martí is unable to see anything other than filth in this scene: “When he died he had his head between ‘A’isha’s breast and her chin, and she mixed her saliva with that of Muhammad. In this way the death or end of Muhammad was vile, unclean, and abominable. And such a death is in no way appropriate for a prophet or a messenger of God.” In a standard Christian deathbed scene, an attentive priest would hear confession and administer communion and extreme unction, and the dying man would prepare his soul to meet its maker. Instead of the Body of Christ, Martí seems to be implying, Muhammad’s last solace was the saliva of profane kisses; instead of the anointing hand of a priest, he is caressed by the breasts of a woman; instead of confessing and turning away from sin, he is clinging desperately to it. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1203 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

That is particularly exemplified by the stress on such points as the humanity of Muhammad, which were significant only from the Christian point of view. Those things were stressed that appealed to Christians as scandalous, not those that Muslims think important; and in this kind of picture-building exaggerations had an important part. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1472 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Sensing his imminent destruction and knowing that he would in no way be resurrected on his own merit, he predicted that he would be revived on the third day by the angel Gabriel, who was in the habit of appearing to him in the guise of a vulture, as Muhammad himself said. When he gave up his soul to hell, they ordered his body to be guarded with an arduous vigil, anxious about the miracle which he had promised them. When on the third day they saw he was rotting, and determined that he would not by any means be rising, they said the angels did not come because they were frightened by their presence. Having found sound advice—or so they thought— they left his body unguarded, and immediately instead of angels, dogs followed his stench and devoured his flank. Learning of the deed, they surrendered the rest of his body to the soil. And in vindication of this injury, they ordered dogs to be slaughtered every year so that they, who on his behalf deserve a worthy martyrdom here, might share in his merit there. It was appropriate that a prophet of this kind fill the stomach of dogs, a prophet who committed not only his own soul, but those of many, to hell. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 527 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval polemicists recast Muhammad’s tender deathbed scene as sexual filth. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1203; Medieval Christian polemicists fabricated a grotesque death for Muhammad to discredit him. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 527; Medieval Christian polemicists sexualized Muhammad into a monstrous hyperfertile pimp — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 139 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval polemicists recast Muhammad’s tender deathbed scene as sexual filth. #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1203
• Medieval polemic attacked Muslim aspects that scandalized Christian observers #exemplifies (1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1472
• Medieval Christian polemicists fabricated a grotesque death for Muhammad to discredit him. #expands (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 527