William Muir, one of the best 19th century historians on the Meccan moon cult named Submission, was certainly not an anti-Muhammadan. In fact Muir's rather concise histories on Islam take an admiring tone. Yet even Muir states at one point [p. 307-310], that the historian has to take into account the massive character failures of Submission's founder, and deep and dark they are indeed. Savagery permeates not only the Koran but the life of Mahomet, as Muir wrote in 1861, in the “Life of Mahomet” [free download]:
“ [during yet another raid of plunder]....Mahomet appears to have felt that this punishment exceeded the bounds of humanity. He accordingly promulgated a Revelation, in which capital punishment is limited to simple death or crucifixion. Amputation of the hands and feet, is however, sanctioned as a penal measure; and amputation of the hand is even enjoined as a penal measure for theft, whether the criminal be male or female. This barbarous custom has accordingly been perpetuated throughout the Moslem world.”
So mad Mahomet had yet another convenient 'Revelation', from his unknown 'god' [Hub'al the moon deity of Mecca]; this time on sordid, bronze-age inspired punishment for crimes real or imagined. Keep in mind that Sura 5:33 states clearly that those who make 'mischief in the land', with mischief meaning opposing Muhammadanism in any form, are to be killed, executed, humiliated and crucified.
In the Bronze-age code of Hammurabi circa 1750 BC, we see much that is found in the Koran, regarding 'crime and punishment'. In fact I would urge people to read Hammurabi's code and compare it to the Koran. From Encyclopedia Britannica 1910:
“In the criminal law the ruling principle was the lex talionis. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, limb for limb was the penalty for assault upon an amelu [the higher classes]. A sort of symbolic retaliation was the punishment of the offending member, seen in the cutting off the hand that struck a father or stole a trust; in cutting off the breast of a wet-nurse who substituted a changeling for the child entrusted to her; in the loss of the tongue that denied father or mother (in the Elamite contracts the same penalty was inflicted for perjury); in the loss of the eye that pried into forbidden secrets. The loss of the surgeon's hand that caused loss of life or limb or the brander's hand that obliterated a slave's identification mark, are very similar. The slave, who struck a freeman or denied his master, lost an ear, the organ of hearing and symbol of obedience. To bring another into danger of death by false accusation was punished by death. To cause loss of liberty or property by false witness was punished by the penalty the perjurer sought to bring upon another.
The death penalty was freely awarded for theft and other crimes regarded as coming under that head, for theft involving entrance of palace or temple treasury, for illegal purchase from minor or slave, for selling stolen goods or receiving the same, for common theft in the open (in default of multiple restoration) or receiving the same, for false claim to goods, for kidnapping, for assisting or harbouring fugitive slaves, for detaining or appropriating same, for brigandage, for fraudulent sale of drink, for disorderly conduct of tavern, for delegation of personal service, for misappropriating the levy, for oppression of feudal holders, for causing death of a householder by bad building. The manner of death is not specified in these cases. This death penalty was also fixed for such conduct as placed another in danger of death. A specified form of death penalty occurs in the following cases:-gibbeting (on the spot where crime was committed) for burglary, later also for encroaching on the king's highway, for getting a slave-brand obliterated, for procuring husband's death; burning for incest with own mother, for vestal entering or opening tavern, for theft at fire (on the spot); drowning for adultery, rape of betrothed maiden, bigamy, bad conduct as wife, seduction of daughter-in-law.”
Koranic Sharia law is an eye for eye process. Mischief including theft, brigandage, disobeying the Muhammadan cult, ignoring rites and rituals, or second class slaves such as Jews and Christians pretending to be the same as a Moslem; are all punished harshly. So it was in the time of Hammurabi some 2400 years before the advent of Muhammad's reign of terror. Codifying something as archaic and bronze-age as the Babylonian system of punishment is not, in my view, 'progress', but regression. Surely after 2400 years some other ideas should have been developed ?
Muir to his credit, though an admirer of Mahomet in many ways, does catalogue an endless tale of crime committed by the 'prophet' of Submission. These crimes are many and legendary and surely inform his cult and its present day modern savagery. I would offer that Mahomet's god was the devil since it was he who instituted in the guise of a religious lie, murder, polygamy, sex-slaving, Jihad, plunder, Jew hate, Christianophobia, and civilizational destruction. A prophet one assumes of death, wanton mayhem, totalitarianism and unenlightened sexual lust. The dichotomous aspect of Islam is very clear to any who have read the Koran, and who have read any objective work about Mahomet, such as Muir's. It is quite clear that Islam was a military-political project and was quite divorced from metaphysics. The Koran is focused not on spiritual development, but societal control.