It was a mercy from God that you were soft towards them; had you been harsh and mean hearted, they would have dispersed from you; so pardon them and ask forgiveness for them, and consult them in the matter; but when you are convinced, then put your trust in God; God loves those who trust.
Translation endnotes
[3:159] The Quran provides us with good examples of Muhammed's attitude, behavior and actions. Here we learn that he was not a harsh man. In hadith books, however, we see numerous bad actions attributed to Muhammed. For instance, in a hadith narrated by many so-called "authentic" books, including Bukhari, Muhammed advised a group from the Urayna and Uqayla tribes to drink camel urine as medicine, and then upon learning that they killed his shepherd, he cut off their arms and legs, gouged their eyes with hot nails and left them dying under the sun, denying his companions from giving them water. Bukhari and many other hadith collections contain many insults to Muhammed. The portrait of Muhammed in hadith books is a person with multiple personalities, oscillating between extremes: a merciful person and a violent torturer; a modest person and a sexual maniac; a genius and an imbecile. No wonder the Quran refers to those collections with prophetic language in 6:112- 114 as devils' revelation. See 33:21.