Muhammad in Medina: from Refugee to Conqueror
4th December 2015
As concerns the Syrian refugee crisis, Christians are regularly reminded that the Holy Family were once refugees in Egypt. Yes, but the culture brought into the world by the Holy Family is worlds apart from the one introduced six centuries later by Muhammad.
You can say that again. And Egypt wasn’t Muslim at the time; does anyone seriously think that a Muslim Egypt would have welcomed a trio of Jewish refugees?
Muhammad and his followers were also once refugees. He and his group of about 100 men, women, and children had long overstayed their welcome in Mecca. According to Muslim chroniclers, they had to flee in order to avoid persecution. Fortunately for Muhammad, the more “enlightened” citizens of Medina extended an invitation to the Muslims to come and live in their city. It is not recorded whether or not they held up large “welcome refugees” banners as is now the custom at European train stations, but they soon enough experienced the kind of regrets that Europeans are now having. Muhammad gradually acquired wealth and converts, and within a half-dozen years he was the master of Medina. Those Medinans who were not exiled or slaughtered were thoroughly subjugated. Muhammad then used Medina as the launching pad for his conquest of all Arabia. Within a century of his death, his followers had conquered nearly half of the civilized world.
When Muslim ‘refugees’ go to a place, they seek to take over and run that place. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.