This is a most extraordinarily subservient view, and is not
borne out by any objective analysis of the Muslim accounts
of what happened. For thirteen years the Pagans in Mecca
allowed Mohammed to create a new religion and to foment
dissent. These Pagans were tolerant multiculturalists. They
offered to let Mohammed put an icon to represent his new
god Allah in their pantheon, the Kabaa.^189 Let us compare
how “abusive” these seventh-century Pagans were, with the
subsequent history of Mecca - once Mohammedʼs religion
had control of the Kabaa.
We canʼt examine what the original people of Mecca
have to say about this, as their account of the rise of Islam is
not known, so the history we have is that which came from
the victors.^190 The authoritative Muslim biography
records that the Pagan Meccans were not hostile to
Mohammed or Islam until Mohammed spoke
disparagingly about the gods worshipped by the Pagans:
Mohammed mocked not just their gods but their customs
and the ancestors of the Pagan people of Mecca.^191 Even
with all this provocation, the first violent blow between a
Pagan and a Muslim was struck by a follower of “the
religion of peace”.^192 And before Mohammed decided to
leave Mecca with his handful of followers, this was not the
only act of violence from the Muslims towards the tolerant
Meccans.^193 In the authoritative biography of Mohammed,
there is no record that the Pagan Meccans responded to
these violent incidents with violence themselves. By the
time he was ready to leave left Mecca for Medina the
founder of Islam had already entered into an alliance with