In my wanderings around the internet recently I came across this: Prophet of Doom.

It’s written by a fundamentalist Christian, so I take it with a pinch of salt – well, a cellarful actually – but he says something about Mohammed which took me completely by surprise and which I would like to discover the truth about. He quotes ‘Tabari’ (apparently one of the ‘great’ authorities on Islam) IX:131

“My mother came to me while I was being swung on a swing between two branches and got me down. My nurse took over and wiped my face with some water and started leading me. When I was at the door she stopped so I could catch my breath. I was brought in while Muhammad was sitting on a bed in our house. My mother made me sit on his lap. The other men and women got up and left. The Prophet consummated his marriage with me in my house when I was nine years old.”

I thought I was reasonably well informed about Mohammed – I’ve read, eg, Maxim Rodinson’s biography, Karen Armstrong’s History of Islam, and a few other books (and completed a term’s course on Islam as part of my training). But I hadn’t come across this.

Is it true?

I just can’t get over the distance between this and Jesus. Mohammed seems closer to King David, to put it no more harshly. Better shut up before I say something more controversial.