The famous 14th century Muslim traveller, Ibn Battuta, witnessed brutality
towards Hindu prisoners and their wives and children during a jihad
campaign
of the Sultan Ghiyath al-Din. He wrote:
"Any infidel found in the jungle they took prisoner. They made wooden
stakes
sharpened at both ends and put them on the prisoners' shoulders to carry.
Their wives and children were with them and they brought them to the camp.
The stakes they had carried the day before were fixed in them and driven
through them. Their women were killed and tied by the hair to the stakes.
Their little children were killed in their laps and left there... In the
end
the infidels were disastrously routed. Their leader was eighty years old,
and Nasir al-Din, the son of the sultan's brother, seized him and took him
to his uncle, who treated him with apparent respect until he had extracted
from him his wealth, elephants and his horses. He was promising to set him
at liberty, but when he had extorted everything he possessed, he killed
and
flayed him, stuffed his skin with straw, and hung it on the walls of
Mutrah,
where I saw it hanging." ("The Travels of Ibn Battutah" ed
Mackintosh-Smith,
p250).
And some Muslims claim that Muslim International Law is superior to
International Law developed by the West, citing in particular the laws
governing war laid down by Muhammad.
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