The Remarkable Similarities Between Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) and Muhammad (founder of Islam).

Both Joseph Smith (above) & Muhammad endured special persecution.

• Both Joseph Smith and Muhammad suffered through certain attacks on just them.  Muhammad had garbage dumped on him, and children pelted him with stones; Joseph Smith had sticky tar followed by bird feathers applied to him (presumably making him look like a chicken).
• Both prophets had little or no education.  Muhammad could not read and write, Joseph Smith could read, but received little formal education.
• After becoming self-proclaimed prophets, both men enjoyed having many wives, though each had but a single wife before prophethood.  Muhammad had at least a dozen wives after his first wife died, though some of Muhammad's marriages ended in divorce. In the afterlife, Muhammad's polygyny continues, with marriage to 3 more human wives (including Jesus' mother, despite her already having a husband), as well as marriage to many, many virginal "houris." Joseph Smith according to one source had at least 30 wives.
• Both prophets were contacted primarily by angels.  And no one else ever saw these angels.
• Both prophets married minors.  Joseph Smith had several marriages to girls under 18 years old; the youngest bride was a 14-year old.  Muhammad famously married his third wife, Aisha, when she was six years old. In addition, he married 16-year old Safiyah, not even waiting 4 months (as required by Quran 2:234) before consummating the marriage to this widow (the Muslims had made her a widow by killing her husband).  Muhammad was about 40 years older than Safiyah, but, unlike Joseph Smith, Muhammad prohibited his wives from remarrying after his death, so Safiyah had to endure decades as a childless widow.  And Muhammad married Mulaykah, reported in al-Tabari as "She is small and has no mind of her own; she was beguiled."  Happily for young Mulaykah, she divorced Muhammad before he died, so she was able to remarry after his death.
• Both prophets declared that the all-powerful god of the  universe had permitted the Bible to be corrupted.  Adherents of Islam do not believe that the Quran has been corrupted, while followers of Mormonism do not believe the Book of Mormon has been corrupted.
• Yet evidence exists that both the Quran & The Book of Mormon were corrupted, though the corrupting verses were later expunged.  Both prophets revealed verses later proclaimed to be from the devil.  The Satanic Verses of the Quran are well-known, with the angel Gabriel admonishing Muhammad that Muhammad had recited certain verses from Satan and not from Allah.  Joseph Smith seemingly never believed that any of his revelations were from Satan, though he did believe that certain individuals guided by Satan tried to get verses from the devil into his Book of Mormon.  Prominent Mormon contemporaries of Smith, such as David Whitmer, came to believe that the Book of Mormon was rife with both abrogations (the god of the universe changing his mind) as well as with devilish verses.
• Both prophets were murdered.  Joseph Smith was killed by an angry mob as he awaited trial for inciting a riot and treason.  Certain Shia Muslims believe that Muhammad was murdered by his child-wife, Aisha.  Still, hadiths indicate that Muhammad just before he died thought he was dying from lasting effects from being poisoned a few years earlier by a female Jew from Khaibar. (The Muslims had at that time marched from Medina to Khaibar, found the Jewish men in the fields working, declared jihad against them, defeated them, killed some of them, and confiscated their property as well).

To the Muslims and to the Mormons:  Think of all the reasons you reject Joseph Smith as a prophet, or all the reasons you reject Muhammad as a prophet.  Which of these reasons for rejection do not also apply to your own prophet as well?