Certainly, her understanding of Mohammed is ahistorical. Based on the best evidence we have, the real Mohammed was a misogynist and a rapist. Not unusual qualities for men of his era, of course, but nothing we should hold in high esteem today. However, what's interesting... https://twitter.com/NazShahBfd/status/1321942829095100418

...is that she and many, many other Muslims sincerely believe this (yes, she's a politician, and I'm as cynical about them as anyone else; but I have no reason to believe she doesn't mean what she says here). It illustrates how many variants of Mohammed there are within...

...popular imagination. We see the same with other historical figures, such as Alexander the Great. He was either an awesome action hero, a thoughtful uniter of men, or a drunken murderous scumbag, depending on which sources you go with. But with Mohammed, whose legends have...

...so vastly eclipsed his actual historical reality, we might be better off thinking of him as akin to Dracula. The Islamic tradition (i.e. the stories people made up in the generations after his death) depict various different Mohammeds. In some ahadith, he's a total bastard.

Whereas others depict him as a decent person. Because of that, it's easy enough for someone raised with only "good Mohammed" stories to be genuinely unaware of both what a prick the real one was, and what a prick he is in the rival myths and legends that shape mainstream Islam.

The key problem is that belief in "good Mohammed" can easily become a gateway drug to fundamentalist evil. Here's how:

1) Muslim parent teaches kid that Mohammed was a perfect role model for mankind, and should be emulated. Only brings kid up with "good Mohammed" stories.

2) Kid grows up religious and clings to the "obey / emulate Mohammed" concept.

3) Kid reads the Quran and Hadith*, filled with stories in which Mohammed did horrible things.

4) Kid decides it's fine to kill blasphemers, or join ISIS etc. After all, Mohammed's example = great.

Obviously that sequence of events doesn't happen for everyone, and can be disrupted at any stage in a whole load of different ways. But either way, belief in the central claims of Islam becomes a potentially risky proposition, even if you only teach your kids the "good" version.

By contrast, if you remove those core beliefs, then you can pick and choose in safety, since it becomes about the values, without any pressing obligation.

"Yeah, Mohammed was a dickhead. But there are some stories about him that can be of moral and philosophical interest." etc.

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* I cite reading the Quran and Hadith as being the thing that introduces such kids to "scumbag Mohammed", but realistically I suppose it's more likely to come from dawah types, especially in online spaces, and their hate-preaching.