This is going to be an article not necessarily about Abu Bakrs potty mouth, but rather the distortion committed by Muslims to his insult as recorded in Sahih-Bukhari and Ibn Ishaq. However, for those interested, the context of the comment of Abu Bakr is that Muhammad along with just over 1000 of his followers went to Mecca to perform Umrah and camped at Hudaybiya. While there a number of emissaries of Mecca came Muhammad, as did Urwah Ibn Masud assuming that Prophet had actually come to fight. In the ensuing back and forth between the muslims and Urwah, Urwah said the following:

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O Muhammad! Won’t you feel any scruple in extirpating your relations? Have you ever heard of anyone amongst the Arabs extirpating his relatives before you? On the other hand, if the reverse should happen, (nobody will aid you, for) by Allah, I do not see (with you) dignified people, but people from various tribes who would run away leaving you alone.”

Bukhari 2731

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At those words claiming cowardice among the Muslims, Abu Bakr uttered:

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امْصُصْ بَظْرَ اللاَّتِ “Go suck the clitoris of Al-lat”

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Which then in turn caused anger and then it went to physical altercation with Urwah angry at Muhammad and grabbing his beard continuously, essentially meaning a rise in tensions occurred because Abu Bakr got triggered.

Anyway, we now turn to the translations. The most famous and commonly used one is that of Mushin Khan, who’s translation is used by many websites such as Sunnah. Com and others:

Sunnah .Com:

The distortion here is obvious as it completely removes what the actual abuse was and instead leaves the reader with no clue as to what the comment was nor the severity of it. The reason I make this point is because as well as it being a much more severe insult in comparison to other comments, it also has Sharia implications as well as Ibn Hajar explains:

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The clitoris is the piece of flesh that remains in the woman’s vulva after circumcision. Al-Laat is the name of one of the idols that Quraysh and Thaqeef used to worship. It was the custom of the Arabs to revile one another in this manner, but by mentioning the mother, so Abu Bakr wanted to go further in reviling ‘Urwah by referring to his object of worship instead of his mother. What made him do that was his anger towards him when he accused the Muslims of being cowards and saying that they would flee. This also indicates that it is permissible to say words that are regarded as foul or bad for the purpose of rebuking one who behaves in a manner that leads to him deserving that. Ibn al-Munayir said: In the words of Abu Bakr we see an insult to the enemy, rejection of their beliefs, and highlighting the flaws in their belief when they said that al-Laat was the daughter of Allah – exalted be Allah far above that – by suggesting that if she was a daughter that she would have what every female has

Fath al-Bari 5/340

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Aisha bewley goes another route, instead changing the bodily anatomy that Abu Bakr orders Urwah to suck:

Alfred Guillaume did the same:

Even worse, the Spanish version replaces Abu Bakr’s words with entirely different words. The passage is translated as “Abû Bakr le dijo: ‘Húndete en la ignominia!’” translates into English as “Abu Bakr said to him: ‘Bury yourself in ignominy!’”

But however, we have one honest translator in the form of Michael Fishbein:

Whether or not you oppose, support or are indifferent to Abu Bakrs insult, we should all at the very least be able to agree that distorting the Prophetic hadith is deceptive and puts into doubt much more of the content which is translated, more content that I shall examine in time.