Extremely illuminating, and I must listen to this a few times more. Tying up all these loose ends just confirms what most people have long suspected, that islam is no more nor less than a cynically-contrived and fanciful pseudo-religious fabrication to sanitise its roots in grubby Dark Age Middle Eastern politics, and to validate a thoroughly spurious ‘Prophet’ status for a barbaric despot in order to cloak his true nature and justify his transparently imperialist political ambitions. It certainly explains the manifest moral bankruptcy of a ‘religion’ that has no genuine religious basis, and its striking similarity with more modern manifestations of this kind of ‘tribal’ political movement (e.g., German National Socialism).
The other striking thing is the uncanny similarity of some of the revelations presented here with medieval legends where a ‘King’ is ’empowered by God’ through some sort of ‘divine revelation’ (instructions carved on a mysterious black stone, or possession of a ‘Holy Grail’, or a mysterious ‘Lady in a lake’ handing over a ‘magical sword’ that confers pseudo-divine status, etc. etc.). In the West, we rightly wrote this sort of thing off as curious mythology long ago. Alarmingly, we’re now apparently supposed to respect it again as an acceptable template for humanity in the 21st. century!!
mortimersays
The word ‘muhammad’ is actually an HONORIFIC EPITHET similar to the AUGUSTUS / SEBASTOS epithet used by the Byzantine Romans as applied to the Roman caesars. It is an honorific epithet fit for a leader or a king, such as ‘his honor’.
‘Muhammad’ (praised one) = Sebastos / ‘August’ = venerable in a religious sense or political sense, revered or right-honorable, etc.
juleonlysays
I don’t think it matters if he existed or if Jesus existed because there is the following, the values taught to generations. Jesus is love & forgiveness for human beings. Islam is conquer for Supremacy.
I used to be very naive. Actually, I had never heard of Islam 1970’s. I traveled to Europe and went to Morocco. My friend and I thought there must be a big Catholic nunery close by.I knew nothing. Later when my curiosity was provoked enough to get to the bottom of these Mid East problems, I read the Qur’an (translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali) I had no bias. My first thought was that this was a Warlord Manual for Conquest and complete control of members to do the dirty work & to feel like the dirty work, even though it seemed wrong, it was what Allah commands. Its clever & very tight like a straightjacket. I looked into more and knew my first impression was correct. I found out why, in Morocco 1970s, the ‘nuns’ in black were not harrassed but my friend and I were until we knew we had leave.
I don’t see a way out unless Islam says the Qur’an was not correctly translated by the ones who wrote it down 100 years later. Its as useless to try to prove existence or not same as those who say Jesus as a man never was. I think only admitting there was bad translation with too many cultural things of time put in can make any difference
mortimersays
It is important to MUSLIMS to acknowledge that ‘Mohammed’ was a fiction based on the real leader of the Arab rebel … a real and more modest figure called Iyas ibn Qabisha al-Tayy who was the leader of the Tayyaye Tribe and who led them against the Persians and Romans.
If Islam is a manmade collection of legends, then it is NOT a revealed religion.
mortimersays
Key quote about the sudden appearance of the Koran in the 8th century:
“Ali al-Samhudi records: Malik said, “Reading from the Mushaf (Quran text) at the Mosque was not done by people in the past. It was al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf who first instituted it.”
-From: ‘Ali al-Samhudi, Wafa al-Wafa bi-akhbar dar al-Mustafa’, ed. Muhammad Muhyi I-Din Abd al-Hamid (Cairo, 1955; repr. Beyrouth: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1984), Vol. 2:667. (quoted in Alfred-Louis de Prémare, “ Abd al-Malik b. Marwan and the Process of the Qur’an’s Composition,” in Ohlig and Puin, The Hidden Origins of Islam, 205).
Note:
Early Mohammedan writings ‘Kitab’ (literal meaning = ‘scripture’) became an Arabic ‘Lectionary’ (note similarity of Aramaic: qeryana=lectionary).
Prior to Governor Hajjaj’s decree, the Koran was not read or heard by ordinary people at all. By Hajjaj’s order, the Quran was to be read out loud in public throughout the Ummayad empire, so it was named ‘The Lectionary’ … Al-Qur’an … i.e. ‘The Reading’ or ‘The Lectionary’.
Mojdehsays
Mohamed existed for a short time , Followers of Abu Abakr Umar Usman killed him . I called it a British COUP then installed the puppet Mohamed and we can clearly seen chapter 1-10 very good. After that is a crap and he was psycho i mean Imposter the one. With full due respect to you sir Robert Spencer and your ideal is also very possible. Some one wrote bunch of Surah together then made a story that Mohamed did it.
Is Allah the Name of God?
Allah is the name of the only God in Islam. Allah is a pre-Islamic name coming from the compound Arabic word Al-ilah which means the God, which is derived from al (the) ilah (deity).
The Arabic name for “God” is the word “Al-ilah.” It is a generic title for whatever god was considered the highest god. Different Arab tribes used “Allah” to refer to its personal high god. “Allah” was being worshiped at the Kaa’ba in Mecca by Arabs prior to the time of Mohamed. It was formerly the name of the chief god among the numerous idols (360) in the Kaaba in Mecca before Mohamed made them into monotheists. Historians have shown that the moon god called “Hubal” was the god to whom Arabs prayed at the Kaa’ba and they used the name “Allah” when they prayed.
Today a Muslim is one who submits to the God Allah.
Please watch Israelnewstalkradio on youtubeyou will be great host for Tamar in INTR. https://www.israelnewstalkradio.com #1 show in Israel
gravenimagesays
Mojdeh wrote:
Mohamed existed for a short time , Followers of Abu Abakr Umar Usman killed him . I called it a British COUP then installed the puppet Mohamed and we can clearly seen chapter 1-10 very good. After that is a crap and he was psycho i mean Imposter the one. With full due respect to you sir Robert Spencer and your ideal is also very possible. Some one wrote bunch of Surah together then made a story that Mohamed did it.
…………………………
Mojdeh, I know you have claimed many times that the “Prophet” Mohamed was great guy replaced by someone who looked and sounded *exactly* like him, to the extent that not a single one of his followers–or adversaries–ever noticed. This seems rather implausible, and you have never once provided a single proof of this claim.
Then, Islam does not claim that Mohamed wrote the Qur’an–he was supposed to have recited it, but not have authored it.
And it is outlandish enough that you claim that Britain created the Mullocracy in Iran–and assert that it has nothing to do with Islam.
But surely you realize that Britain didn’t even exist as a political entity in the time of the “Prophet”–the claim that they invented Islam makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, in the seventh century much of Britain was still pagan.
william carrsays
In fact Christianity arrived in Britain at the end of the 6th century, by the time the Vikings started attacking, there were established monasteries in the North of the country.
gravenimagesays
This is true, William. But even in the 630s, when Muhammed is supposed to have died, much of the British isles were still pagan.
mortimersays
No, Bill, Christianity came with the Romans and was well planted in Britain long before the Romans left.
– Dorothy Watts suggested that Christianity was perhaps introduced to Britain in the latter part of the second century.
– Circa 200, the Carthaginian theologian Tertullian included Britain in a list of places reached by Christianity in his work, Adversus Judaeos.
– The Roman theologian Origen also wrote that Christianity had reached Britain.
– Henig suggested that by the end of the fourth century, “a large proportion of British society, however materially impoverished,” was Christian.
gravenimagesays
Video: Robert Spencer on the question of whether or not Muhammad actually existed
…………………
Always an important question to be able to ask. Pious Muslims do not want this kind of investigation into Islam.
mortimersays
Muslims now realize that the historical critique of Islam is devastating, and contributes substantially to the growing numbers leaving Islam. Young Muslims are also questing for the historical Mohammed and they cannot find evidence to support the Mohammed in the Sira or hadiths.
The hadiths were collected by the Persian Bukhari, rather than by an Arab, and they were collected far too late to be considered reliable.
The hadiths and the Sira are increasingly seen as fairy tales and legends similar to the legend of King Arthur or the legend of Robin Hood.
gravenimagesays
Quite likely, Mortimer.
Rodsays
As I understand it mortimer, Islam is by far the most rapidly growing religion on earth, while Christianity is slowly fading away.
But perhaps Mr Spencer can find you some alternative figures if you prefer his version of reality.
James Lincolnsays
Rod,
You are correct, islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.
Christianity is the largest religion in the world, with about 2.4 billion adherents. Islam has about 1.8 billion. The implication that these are “alternative figures” is quite false–these are mainstream, widely accepted figures.
As for Islam growing, it certainly engages in a great deal of forced conversion. Is “Rod” OK with that? Certainly, he has never said anything critical about it.
“Pakistan: Each year, 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are forcibly converted to Islam”
Does “Rod” have a problem with the actions of these pious Muslim converts? Not so he says. Can he tell us why it is a good thing that Islam is the fastest growing religion? Don’t hold your breath…
Rodsays
Does it concern me?
James, it concerns me when people believe nonsense which rational people should be able to see is beyond belief.
What concerns me more is when people hate each other because they think their nonsense is better than some other nonsense.
Ever wondered how many billions of people have died, and how many more have suffered because of religion? Isn’t god great?
gravenimagesays
Actually, “Rod” has never rejected the violence of Islam.
mortimersays
The growth in Islam’s population doesn’t translate into practicing Muslims. 25% of the youth are estimated by the mullahs themselves to be apostates. I consider it more accurately to be over one-third of the Muslim youth who have left Islam. In Iran, about 60% have left Islam.
I believe Islam is only treading water and not increasing.
We cannot prove it because ex-Muslims fear to reveal their true thoughts. Few are attending the mosques.
mortimersays
‘Rod’ the Fraud makes a low blow against Robert Spencer, who is in fact a METICULOUS historian. He never imposes his own SPECULATIONS, but reads and interprets the LATEST research into foundational Islam.
If Robert Spencer speculates, he CLEARLY tells us when it is speculation and not an established fact.
The early Muslims burned most all of the original texts, so we must play ‘connect-the-dots’ in order to get any biography of early Islam.
‘Rod’ GRATUITOUSLY insults Robert Spencer … a very careful historian.
You can’t prove Mohammed existed merely by insulting people, ‘Rod’. That just tells us that YOU HAVE NO ARGUMENT for the existence of Mohammed.
It now seems Mohammed was IYAS IBN QABISHA.
Infidelsays
They’ll ignore it even if it’s discovered otherwise: they’ll go by the Abbasid rules as laid out by the ‘scholars’ at Baghdad and Buqhara in the 9th century, even if it’s proven that the Rashidun and the Umayyad caliphates were different
Peter Clemersonsays
@mortimer
Key quote about the sudden appearance of the Koran in the 8th century:
“Ali al-Samhudi records: Malik said, “Reading from the Mushaf (Quran text) at the Mosque was not done by people in the past. It was al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf who first instituted it.”
A lot depends on what is meant by “sudden appearance.” If its appearance at Mosques for the first time is meant, then fine as al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf was born in 661CE and would not have instituted the readings until very late in the seventh century or the early years of the 8th. If by sudden appearance is meant the generation of the Quranic text, then there is contrary evidence.
This site provides a wealth of carbon dating evidence in support of the existence of early copies of the Q circulating within 30 years or so of the standard date given for Mohamed’s death, namely 632 CE. Granted these documents are not evidence of M’s existence but do strongly suggest that:
1. the claim that the Qur’an was being written for the first time in the late 7th century CE (during the later years of the Umayyad caliphate) or later is unsupportable.
2 there was a body of religious belief being developed and written down by someone during the middle decades of the 7th century, rather than decades later.
Re the main burden to Robert’s talk, critics of the Muslim tradition, as first appearing in Ibn Hisham and the Ahadith, have to take into account the dates of these earliest copies of the Qur’an. Given that the name Mohamed is present only 4 times in the entire Quran and, to my knowledge, these early Qur’an texts exist as folios (pages) rather than in complete form, they can not evidence the existence of Mohamed himself. And as Robert states, they also do not evidence the existence of the four first caliphs. Nevertheless, somebody was writing the Qur’ans in the middle decades of the 7th century and not the later ones of the reigns of Mu’awiya and the later Umayyad caliphs. If the argument of silence is to be used to question or even deny the existence of these early caliphs, whose reigns cover the middle decades of the 7th century, and their associated scribes, who were the authorizers and authors of these early Qur’ans? To use a now famous phrase, to question or deny these people’s existence is to create “a hole in the narrative”.
Help
BTW, I am not a believer.
mortimersays
‘Unsupportable’? So … where, pray, is the text of the 7th-century Koran?
Abd al Malik said he ‘collected’ the Koran and al-Hajjaj said he could write the Koran as well as Mohammed. Abd al-Malik created a revolution.
The supposed Koran of Uthman was never found. Did it even exist?
– “I was one of the guards of Hajjaj b. Yusuf. Al-Hajjaj wrote the Mushaf. Then he sent them to the military capitals (al-amsar). He sent one to Medina. The members of Uthman’s family disapproved of that. They were told: ‘get out the Mushaf of Uthman b. Affan, so that we may read it!’ They answered: ‘It was destroyed on the day when Uthman was killed.'”
– “Malik also said: ‘Uthman’s Mushaf has disappeared [taghayyaba]. And we have found no information about it among the authoritative writers[al-ashyakh].”
-“Ibn Wahb reported back to us, and said, ‘I interrogated Malik concerning the Uthman’s mushaf, and he said to me ‘it has disappeared.”
mortimersays
Addendum: Why do they say that HAJJAJ wrote the MUSHAF (i.e. the text of the Koran)?
Why should we not take that literally? Namely: ‘Hajjaj wrote the Koran’?
gravenimagesays
Some fragments of the Qur’an may even predate Muhammed.
mortimersays
If the Koran predates the 7th century, then the Koran is fraudulent.
Carbon dating only tells when the animal died, but doesn’t tell us when the ink was applied.
Paleography will eventually reveal where and when the text was written, because handwriting style changes every 25 years on average.
gregbeethamsays
It looks like Yasir Qadhi’s ‘holes in the narrative’ are much larger than he suspected. When you do a deep enough dive Muhammad evaporates as well, right alongside the preservation of the Koran fable.
It is revealing that the writers of the Hadiths didn’t live in the area where Muhammad was supposed to have existed; they originate from much further north in a region between Jordan-Syria and Afghanistan and apparently none from Mecca which was where Muhammad was supposed to have existed and branched out from but there is no physical evidence that he was there at the time the fables claim he was.
Robert’s new book should prove interesting; I wonder if he has consulted with the Jay Smith & Mel forensic team? They’ve been working with coins and rock inscriptions of the period when Muhammad was supposed to exist.
mortimersays
Remix The Standard Narrative … has holes! Do a DEEP DIVE! This should not be said! It should not be brought up in public.
“Unsupportable’? So … where, pray, is the text of the 7th-century Koran?”
In the San’a1 palimpsest as the lower text and in Codex Ms. Qāf 47, as two examples.
Let me reproduce a quote from the web site I pointed you to.
“It is highly probable therefore, that the Ṣanʿāʾ I manuscript was produced no more than 15 years after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad.” The source of this quote is given as B. Sadeghi & U. Bergmann, “The Codex Of A Companion Of The Prophet And The Qurʾān Of The Prophet”, Arabica, 2010, op. cit., p. 353
Several folios from this palimpsest have been carbon dated by different authorities (read the entire web site) and the dates congregate around the middle of the 7th century. Likewise other manuscripts.
So why has Jay Smith made video after video denying the existence of anything from the 7th century. He can search the internet as well as I can.
If you think I am wrong to pay so much attention to these carbon-dated texts please tell me why. I am happy to go wherever the evidence leads me.
Cheers
Peter Clemersonsays
The reply above was intended as a reply to
mortimer says
Jan 21, 2021 at 12:06 am
Sorry – finger trouble apparently
Peter Clemersonsays
I have just looked up my copy of Robert’s first edition of Did Muhammed exist? and on page 192 he wrote “Recall that the Qur’an makes no appearance in the surviving documents and artifacts of Muslims until around six decades after the Arab conquest began.”
On the web site https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/radio.html there appear photographs of several folios (pages) of early Qur’ans which have been carbon-dated to the middle decades of the 7th century with high probability. For example, the dating of some folios of the Codex San’a 1 was published in 2010 by B. Sadeghi & U. Bergmann, in their article “The Codex Of A Companion Of The Prophet And The Qurʾān Of The Prophet”, in the journal Arabica, Volume 57, pp. 348-354. The authors write “Radiocarbon analyses of folios combinedly(sic) date the codex to 606–649 CE with 95.4% probability.” 649CE is only 17 years after Muhammed reputed death. On the same web site, there are several other photos of folios from separate early Quran’s which have also been carbon-dated to these early decades. It seems that there are now known to be several “surviving documents and artifacts of Muslims” dating from two or three decades after the Arab conquest began rather than the six that Robert originally suggested. However, Robert’s book was published in 2012 and therefore probably written during the preceding years. It is therefore understandable that it makes no reference to the Codex San’a 1. The other folios illustrated on the islamic-awareness web site had their carbon-dates of origin published a few years after Robert’s book had been published. No surprise therefore that they do not get a mention.
Strictly speaking the existence of these carbon-dated folios of Qur’anic texts does not prove that Muhammed existed at the claimed times, but it does clearly indicate that SOMEONE was writing at least SOME of Qur’an much earlier than six decades after Mohammed’s reputed death. Any book that casts doubt over M’s existence, and the associated accounts of the collection and writing of the Qur’an, now has to account for the existence of these folios and their dates of composition. Reconciling these early dates with the later dates of the other Islamic artifacts strikes me as a bit tricky. Given that the new book’s publication date is the middle of this year, I assume that he has already accomplished this. I will soon be ordering my copy of his book.
gregbeethamsays
A problem with dating parchment is that you can date the material the text was written on but you can’t reliably date the ink (so I’ve been informed) so there is no guarantee that the age of the parchment is the same age as the text there could be an unknown age difference, the parchment could have originated many years before the actual text was added.
Parchment was very expensive and only used for very good reasons, they often used the same parchment over again by cleaning the previous script off like they did with the Sanaa manuscript and the script underneath is a different version of the Koran, with quite a lot of differences.
Peter Clemersonsays
Everything in your first paragraph is well known so while it is true that the existence of a collection of parchments dated to the middle decades of the 7th century does not constitute totally solid evidence that they were written upon then, the existence of several of them does strongly suggest it. This is the problem facing Robert and anyone else doubting M’s existence. Let me concede; we are not talking certainties, only probabilities. The evidence documented in Robert’s first book on the M’s existence is all about probabilities.
The probability of the mid-7th century existence of someone collecting/writing the Q is increased when considering your second paragraph. Precisely because these materials were scarce and expensive, they were more likely to be used as soon as manufactured. As others have stated, it is extremely unlikely that these materials would be manufactured and then left unused for decades. This argument strengthens the likelihood that the several texts featured in the islamic-awareness web site were all written very shortly after the manufacture of the materials. BTW, this web site constitutes an education in itself and I urge you to read it fully.
Your last comment about different versions of the Q on the lower and upper writings is true but relevant to a different debate: the existence of multiple versions of the Q, once it was being written down. The debate of interest and of relevance to Robert’s video is the date of the writing of the lower text, the one that was, by the standards of that time, erased.
Let me say again. I am not a believer and have no personal interest in establishing M’s existence or non-existence. Until I read Robert’s updated book and see how he deals with this issue, I will tend to believe that in the middle decades of the 7th century, somebody was generating text somewhat like what we see today and someone was writing it down. We may have to accept that copies were not being circulated widely, that is, outside the Arabian peninsula, until the late 7th or early 8th centuries but, given the laborious nature of such copying, is this difficult to believe?
The web site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa_manuscript makes it clear that there are many other fragments of the manuscript that have not yet been dated. In due course more might be. Such new evidence may produce surprises, but I doubt it. More of the same is the most likely outcome.
gregbeethamsays
Yes I agree that we are dealing with probabilities much of the time concerning the whereabouts of Muhammad and the origin of the Koran.
The situation is complicated by a lack of trustworthy evidence given the penchant in the region was/is to get rid of any old conflicting evidence (stories fables etc.) and replace it with a new politically correct version and more than likely neither were historically accurate anyway.
Mel demonstrated this by showing a photo of a rock inscription that conflicted with the Muhammad-Koran-Mecca narrative which was later destroyed. The operating principal of the region isn’t to fix the fucked up narrative, the solution is simply to get rid of any historical evidence that conflicts with it.
I’m not sure anyone knows when the construction of the new religion began but much of it was probably transmitted by recitation but it seems likely that the wellspring was the area between Damascus and Baghdad and possibly Mesopotamia which had been influenced by the Abrahamic religions, there was no input from anyone in Mecca during the formative years I think, the insertion of the Muhammad-Mecca theme probably came later.
The Hadiths apparently all originate from the same geological area, Damascus-Baghdad and even as far away as Afghanistan but none from Mecca, yet according to the Koran and the Hadiths the Muhammad story concerns Mecca and Medina so you have story tellers living in one geological area writing stuff about Muhammad who operated in isolation in a remote geological area and the two bubbles were separated by large distances of space and time.
Possibly much of the Muhammad narrative is about Ilysa ibn Qabisah in reality and they just re-located him posthumously and gave him the Muhammad title in the story but we’ll probably never find out for sure because the Abbasids destroyed or re-adjusted much of the narrative originating from the previous Umayyad sultanate.
So far the trustworthy evidence seems to be the Byzantine correspondence-records and the coins of the period and the rock inscriptions, anything written by the story tellers of the Koran and the Hadiths would be viewed with great caution.
European pagansays
Did Muhammad exist?
Years before I told a muslim that we can not be sure that his prophet really existed. He was very angry.
gravenimagesays
No surprise there. Muslims become enraged when anyone questions Islam.
DME was written before Nicolai Sinai’s ‘When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure?’ in 2014, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, so I hope Robert Spencer will consider his arguments in the revised edition. Another issue is that various revisionists’ alternative explanations are conradictory: eg Lulling & Luxenberg’s linguistic approaches are not the same (& see even Gerald Hawting’s objections to Lulling as circular argumentation). There’s an excellent article by the late Harald Motski summarising the revisionist arguments plus Volker Popp’s work at Inarah and Marcus Gros’ article in the Routledge Companion to Early Islam which also contains standard views.
I am writing an answer to the DME thesis. Robert Spencer is an excellent synthesist and summarises the revisionist case very clearly. So it’s not going to take me the over 2 years I spent on ‘What is Islamophobia’ (published on Amazon) which is a detailed refutation of the construct of ‘Islamophobia.’ I anticipate it will take me 3 months at most. It will have a title something like ‘Did Muhammed Exist? A counterblast to the Revisionists,’ so I look forward to further debate.
Rodsays
Did Mohammed exist? A topic for historical research, perhaps, and who better that that eminent historian Robert Spencer to pronounce on it?
Real historians usually, in fact invariably, examine records from the past in painstaking detail, seeking out all available sources, weighing evidence, evaluating reliability, before reaching a considered conclusion.
As we saw only days ago, Spencer reached his conclusions about the levels of rightwing violence in the USA, by
a) presenting his own opinion as fact, clearly at odds with recent experience, and
b) ridiculing alternative views from other sources, no matter how reliable or credible they were.
It seems to me that Spence could perhaps be described as an ‘anti-historian’. Or would the most appropriate term be fantasist? Or propagandist?
Ecosse1314says
Rod the poor man’s Jean Plaidy. Won’t even have the guts to say which country he enhances.
Tell me Rod what evidence is there for Mecca existing at the time of Mo. Any written contemporary evidence of Mo his tribe or even his town. Prey tell us Richard Head.
gravenimagesays
Note that “Rod” is unable to refute a single point that Spencer brings up re Muhammed’s historicity. Note also that Spencer does not actually make pronouncements on the subject–he just notes what the historical record has to say. But “Rod” would much prefer this not be allowed.
Rodsays
Refute Spencer’s points? I haven’t read them. Detailed analysis of events over a thousand years ago? Seriously? By Robert Spencer? Why bother.
gravenimagesays
“Rod” has not read Robert Spencer’s points–and in fact refuses to do so–yet presents himself as being in a position to declare Spencer an “anti-historian”.
More proof that Muslim apologists reject reason.
Rodsays
Pinocchio, you don’t really need to read every one of Spencer’s words to form a view. It’s rather like listening to a Trump speech. You can easily see that they’re aimed at gullible simpletons.
But perhaps Spencer’s account of what Mohammed had for breakfast (based on his own original research) would have been amusing.
very old white guysays
mohammed did exist and he wrote nothing and he was a violent war lord who would gladly ki11 anyone who got in his way.
gravenimagesays
This is certainy how he is portrayed in the texts of Islam. A *very* nasty figure.
David Longfellowsays
Mohammed did exist and filled a niche much like mosquitoes and ticks do.
Mojdehsays
Mohamed may be existed he did not know that he was messenger of God. Now he messed up world after 1400 years, We need vaccines to bring populations down for Islam only, Iran Army Quods army and IRGC then Iran will be freed.
gravenimagesays
Mojdeh, vaccines have helped people survive diseases like smallpox and polio. Your idea that vaccines are intended to kill people is mistaken.
tim gallaghersays
I suspect that Muhammad never existed. It fits in with the lying and disgusting nature of islam if the central figure didn’t exist but was cynically made up by some scumbags later on. The main issue with islam, whether Muhammad existed or not, is the evil, appalling version of what god is like (if any god does actually exist) that islam has come up with. This evil version of god, allah, calling for the murder of non-Muslims, saying that marrying and having sex with 9 year old girls because allah told Muhammad it was OK, and all the other crap that is sanctioned in Islam, leads to all the evil and all the bloodshed that islam has brought to this world. Whether Muhammad existed or not, the idea that such a murderous, low life bandit and paedophile degenerate would be god’s chosen one, his prophet, is beyond belief. Whether there is a God or not, the Christian version of what God is like is the complete opposite of this creature, allah, and a million times more peaceful and pleasant than islam’s disgusting version of what god is like. Islam is just some backward, extraordinarily primitive throwback that should have gone the way of the dodo ages ago. That it should still be around in the 21st century is a terrible thing.
gravenimagesays
Spot on, Tim. Fine post.
tim gallaghersays
Thanks, gravenimage. I think Islam, and I guess also that evil, primitive African voodoo type religion, which I recall is supposed to have murdered a young African guy that they brought to England, so they could kill him in some disgusting human sacrifice type ritual, seem like the two left overs from mankind’s primitive past. Maybe there are others I don’t know about. The two things that strike me about islam, as a person from a reasonably civilised western society, are the evil concept of god, allah, a violent, vicious character if ever there was one, and also what an evil, repulsive creature, Muhammad, this Muslim idea of the the ideal man, god’s chosen one, is. Imagine thinking that Muhammad, this bandit, mass murderer, paedophile, etc, is someone god would choose. Very evil people would see a creature like Muhammad as some type of ideal person.The Aztec religion is gone, the old violent Germanic and Viking gods are gone, but Islam remains and even seems to be thriving. It’s very alarming and sickening. As I said up above, Islam should be as long gone as the dodo. If Muhammad, in fact, didn’t even exist, I think it would fit right in with all the lies and garbage that make up Islam.
gravenimagesays
Agreed, Tim. That voodoo murder was horrifying–the victim was a child, as well.
And Islam is the only major religion that preaches violence today
Boycott Turkeysays
Muhammed exist in hell and Charlie Hebdo
Kephasays
The business of the “oldest written text” being far later than the story is a straw man. Our earliest copy of Aristotle’s _Politics_ is a 12th century A.D. Latin copy from Spain, which appears to have been made from an Arabic edition (wich measn, probably, a Syriac version somewhere in the genealogy). There are a few slightly later Greek texts which were probably of East Roman provenance. Yet, the context of what Aristotle wrote “fits” a fourth century B.C. environment. Most other works of Classical Greek and Latin literature also lack any written evidence from close to their dates of composition. The best-attested Greek or Latin texts are the New Testament writings, for which we have a mass of manuscript material from the early 2d century (Rylands Papyri) to medieval times.
As for the higher criticism, a lot of it was trying to shoehorn the composition and earliest transmission of the Scriptures into a Hegelian framework. Hence, F.C. Baur proposed a Jewish Christianity of the Jerusalem Apostles and Gentile Christianity of Paul, then, in the 2d century, a tidy Hegelian synthesis of found in Luke-Acts. Then along came Harnack to pop that one, and William Ramsay’s noting that the narrative of Acts “fits” the times in which it was supposed to have occurred. I remain a pre-modern Christian who thinks that 95% of the higher criticism is the speculation of rankled 19th century German scholars who were so mad at the Jews for being emancipated by Napoleon’s army that they had to destroy the Jews’ most honored cultural monument.
I am no fan of Muhammad and the Qur’an. Eveyrone here knows that. Yet I remain convinced that Muhammad ibn Abdallah was a real person. You don’t have the kind of smoke left by early Islam without a real fire somewhere.
The questions about the Qur’an being lifted from the Torah–It stirkes me that much of the “biblical” lore in the Qur’an is actually form the Midrash more than from the Old Testament, and from a rich trove of heretical and semi-orthodox “expansions” rather than the New Testament. Mr. Spencer is ocrrect that his material is not from the actual Bible. However, it is scarcely evidence that Muhammad did not exist rather than evience didn’t know what he was hearing.
gravenimagesays
This is true, Kepha. But the fact there is *no* written evidence of the existence of Muhammed for about a hundred and fifty years after his supposed death surely gives one pause, and can rightly be researched.
Incidentally, for myself, I think that Muhammed likely was either a real person or at least an amalgam of several real people, if only because his evil is so bizarrely specific. (Of course I realize this is not historical proof).
gregbeethamsays
There are problems establishing Muhammad as a real person, he is a very slippery character; there is no physical evidence that he existed at the time and place depicted in the Hadiths or the Koran, as Jay Smith and Mel outlined in their recent video Mel and his helpers looked at 30 thousand rock inscriptions of the same time period as Muhammad and there is no mention of him. There are the coins of the same time period and there is no mention of him on any of those either and this backs up Robert Spencer’s research..
There is a strong possibility that the victorious Abbasids replaced much of the storytelling originating under the Umayyads with their own stories and fables and they used the real life Ilysa ibn Qabisah as the foundation for their ‘Muhammad’ story and they re-located him to Mecca like they did with the pagan black stone idol they stole from Petra; perhaps one of the items had a physical existence and one didn’t but why spoil a good story with the facts.
Arabs had a ‘thing’ about creating pagan stone deities apparently but the black stone in the Kaaba at Petra (destroyed) was a special stone it seems and wherever it was located all eyes would follow.
The Koran itself is a concoction of various belief systems prevalent at the time and in the area where Ilysa ibn Qabisah lived (according to those who know) and could have been under construction for quite a long time prior to the eventual chosen best version (many conflicting fables were junked) but still had modifications done for some time after the inclusion of Muhammad.
If I was to read between the lines my conjecture would be that the various Arab leaders realized they needed a unifying belief system but it had to appeal to a wide audience and it had to be powerful (totalitarian) enough to capture and hold the rebellious and factious tribes and none of the religions in existence measured up in an Arab environment.
It turned out that not even Islam was up to the task because it split into factions itself but this religion was armed with God that ordered disbelievers to be killed and has been doing just that ever since.
Mojdehsays
Capitol police APOLOGIZE to National Guardsmen and say they will allow them back in the building after troops were ‘forced to sleep in a parking lot without internet, a single bathroom and one power outlet a day after the inauguration’
Pictures show Guardsmen sleeping on the floor of the packed parking lot
‘Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed’, one soldier said Thursday
It is not known why the troops were moved from Capitol buildings
The pictures sparked a fierce reaction online and Senator Tammy Duckworth tweeted to say ‘Capitol Police have apologized to the Guardsmen’
‘They will be allowed back into the complex tonight,’ she added
The National Guard Bureau said Thursday that of the nearly 26,000 Guard troops deployed to D.C. for the inaugural, just 10,600 remain on duty
This shame of Biden?
Mojdehsays
Thousands of National Guardsmen were on Thursday forced to sleep outside and in a parking lot after being told to leave the Capitol they had protected just 24 hours earlier.
Up to 5,000 troops were kept without internet, with just a single power outlet, and with one bathroom with two stalls, Politico reported.
One unnamed soldier said the move had left troops ‘feeling incredibly betrayed’.
He said: ‘Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed.’
Another told CNN: ‘After everything went seamlessly, we were deemed useless and banished to a corner of a parking garage.’ One guardsman told Task & Purpose: ‘Leaving our families for the last two weeks to come down here. It’s certainly important and historic, but the day after inauguration you kick us literally to the curb?
‘Come on, man.’
Pictures show troops sleeping on the floor of the packed parking lot Thursday where temperatures hit the low 40s.
The images sparked fierce reaction from politicians on both sides of the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans demanding answers as to why they were told to leave the Capitol complex. Some offered their offices to the troops.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the soldiers ‘deserve to be treated with respect’; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the move was ‘outrageous’.
A Guard spokesperson said ‘increased foot traffic’ due to Congress being in session had resulted Capitol police ‘asking troops to move their rest area’.
THIS IS SHAME OF USA AND JOE LADEN I MEANT JOE BIDEN.
Boycott Turkeysays
I don’t know if he existed or not but i read apparently muhammed if he existed or not sent threatening letters to the Byzantium emperors and other leaders inviting them to Islam appently those letters where copies of the original letters but how could muhammed had written those letters if he didn’t exist also he was illiterate it’s so confusing but those letters are copies from the original letters that Muhammad supposed to have written my thought is where there any original letters that muhammed had written to the Byzantium emperors ?
Ecosse1314says
Most if not all are spurious. In fact in Roman Persian and Ethiopian writings of the time Mecca is never mentioned. Its very first mention is in the 8th or 9th century
This is all pretty iffy. For instance, Heraclius, Emperor of the Romans, is supposed to have replied to Muhammed saying, “If I were with him, I would wash his feet”, and that the Christian Ethiopian Negus replied, “Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah. Peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah! And mercy and blessing from Allah beside Whom there is no god”.
This last especially is not just respectful, but is reverential in the same exact phrasing used in Islam. Supposedly he also enthusiastically denied that Jesus is the Son of God.
This is pretty obviously just more Taqiyya–and not very sophisticated Taqiyya, eitbher.
Listen Tamar Youna of Israel and see if Vaccines are safe or not… Graveimage .
gravenimagesays
Tamar Yonah is a radio personality, originally from here in California. She is not a doctor. She has indeed questioned whether vaccines are safe, as well as whether Israel has the legal right to compel parents to have their children vaccinated. These are certainly reasonable topics.
She has not, to my knowledge, claimed as you have that people all keel over and die immediately on receiving vaccines, though.
mortimer says
The real Mohammed was a Perso-Lakhmid Arab leader dubbed Ilyas Ibn Abi Qabisha (the father of sacrificial sheep) by his contemporaries.
He fell out of favor with the Persian emperor and fled to Arabia where his followers counter-attacked the Persians and defeated them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1WUyoy8rvE
Jayell says
Extremely illuminating, and I must listen to this a few times more. Tying up all these loose ends just confirms what most people have long suspected, that islam is no more nor less than a cynically-contrived and fanciful pseudo-religious fabrication to sanitise its roots in grubby Dark Age Middle Eastern politics, and to validate a thoroughly spurious ‘Prophet’ status for a barbaric despot in order to cloak his true nature and justify his transparently imperialist political ambitions. It certainly explains the manifest moral bankruptcy of a ‘religion’ that has no genuine religious basis, and its striking similarity with more modern manifestations of this kind of ‘tribal’ political movement (e.g., German National Socialism).
The other striking thing is the uncanny similarity of some of the revelations presented here with medieval legends where a ‘King’ is ’empowered by God’ through some sort of ‘divine revelation’ (instructions carved on a mysterious black stone, or possession of a ‘Holy Grail’, or a mysterious ‘Lady in a lake’ handing over a ‘magical sword’ that confers pseudo-divine status, etc. etc.). In the West, we rightly wrote this sort of thing off as curious mythology long ago. Alarmingly, we’re now apparently supposed to respect it again as an acceptable template for humanity in the 21st. century!!
mortimer says
The word ‘muhammad’ is actually an HONORIFIC EPITHET similar to the AUGUSTUS / SEBASTOS epithet used by the Byzantine Romans as applied to the Roman caesars. It is an honorific epithet fit for a leader or a king, such as ‘his honor’.
‘Muhammad’ (praised one) = Sebastos / ‘August’ = venerable in a religious sense or political sense, revered or right-honorable, etc.
juleonly says
I don’t think it matters if he existed or if Jesus existed because there is the following, the values taught to generations. Jesus is love & forgiveness for human beings. Islam is conquer for Supremacy.
I used to be very naive. Actually, I had never heard of Islam 1970’s. I traveled to Europe and went to Morocco. My friend and I thought there must be a big Catholic nunery close by.I knew nothing. Later when my curiosity was provoked enough to get to the bottom of these Mid East problems, I read the Qur’an (translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali) I had no bias. My first thought was that this was a Warlord Manual for Conquest and complete control of members to do the dirty work & to feel like the dirty work, even though it seemed wrong, it was what Allah commands. Its clever & very tight like a straightjacket. I looked into more and knew my first impression was correct. I found out why, in Morocco 1970s, the ‘nuns’ in black were not harrassed but my friend and I were until we knew we had leave.
I don’t see a way out unless Islam says the Qur’an was not correctly translated by the ones who wrote it down 100 years later. Its as useless to try to prove existence or not same as those who say Jesus as a man never was. I think only admitting there was bad translation with too many cultural things of time put in can make any difference
mortimer says
It is important to MUSLIMS to acknowledge that ‘Mohammed’ was a fiction based on the real leader of the Arab rebel … a real and more modest figure called Iyas ibn Qabisha al-Tayy who was the leader of the Tayyaye Tribe and who led them against the Persians and Romans.
If Islam is a manmade collection of legends, then it is NOT a revealed religion.
mortimer says
Key quote about the sudden appearance of the Koran in the 8th century:
“Ali al-Samhudi records: Malik said, “Reading from the Mushaf (Quran text) at the Mosque was not done by people in the past. It was al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf who first instituted it.”
-From: ‘Ali al-Samhudi, Wafa al-Wafa bi-akhbar dar al-Mustafa’, ed. Muhammad Muhyi I-Din Abd al-Hamid (Cairo, 1955; repr. Beyrouth: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 1984), Vol. 2:667. (quoted in Alfred-Louis de Prémare, “ Abd al-Malik b. Marwan and the Process of the Qur’an’s Composition,” in Ohlig and Puin, The Hidden Origins of Islam, 205).
Note:
Early Mohammedan writings ‘Kitab’ (literal meaning = ‘scripture’) became an Arabic ‘Lectionary’ (note similarity of Aramaic: qeryana=lectionary).
Prior to Governor Hajjaj’s decree, the Koran was not read or heard by ordinary people at all. By Hajjaj’s order, the Quran was to be read out loud in public throughout the Ummayad empire, so it was named ‘The Lectionary’ … Al-Qur’an … i.e. ‘The Reading’ or ‘The Lectionary’.
Mojdeh says
Mohamed existed for a short time , Followers of Abu Abakr Umar Usman killed him . I called it a British COUP then installed the puppet Mohamed and we can clearly seen chapter 1-10 very good. After that is a crap and he was psycho i mean Imposter the one. With full due respect to you sir Robert Spencer and your ideal is also very possible. Some one wrote bunch of Surah together then made a story that Mohamed did it.
Is Allah the Name of God?
Allah is the name of the only God in Islam. Allah is a pre-Islamic name coming from the compound Arabic word Al-ilah which means the God, which is derived from al (the) ilah (deity).
The Arabic name for “God” is the word “Al-ilah.” It is a generic title for whatever god was considered the highest god. Different Arab tribes used “Allah” to refer to its personal high god. “Allah” was being worshiped at the Kaa’ba in Mecca by Arabs prior to the time of Mohamed. It was formerly the name of the chief god among the numerous idols (360) in the Kaaba in Mecca before Mohamed made them into monotheists. Historians have shown that the moon god called “Hubal” was the god to whom Arabs prayed at the Kaa’ba and they used the name “Allah” when they prayed.
Today a Muslim is one who submits to the God Allah.
Please watch Israelnewstalkradio on youtubeyou will be great host for Tamar in INTR.
https://www.israelnewstalkradio.com #1 show in Israel
gravenimage says
Mojdeh wrote:
Mohamed existed for a short time , Followers of Abu Abakr Umar Usman killed him . I called it a British COUP then installed the puppet Mohamed and we can clearly seen chapter 1-10 very good. After that is a crap and he was psycho i mean Imposter the one. With full due respect to you sir Robert Spencer and your ideal is also very possible. Some one wrote bunch of Surah together then made a story that Mohamed did it.
…………………………
Mojdeh, I know you have claimed many times that the “Prophet” Mohamed was great guy replaced by someone who looked and sounded *exactly* like him, to the extent that not a single one of his followers–or adversaries–ever noticed. This seems rather implausible, and you have never once provided a single proof of this claim.
Then, Islam does not claim that Mohamed wrote the Qur’an–he was supposed to have recited it, but not have authored it.
And it is outlandish enough that you claim that Britain created the Mullocracy in Iran–and assert that it has nothing to do with Islam.
But surely you realize that Britain didn’t even exist as a political entity in the time of the “Prophet”–the claim that they invented Islam makes no sense whatsoever. In fact, in the seventh century much of Britain was still pagan.
william carr says
In fact Christianity arrived in Britain at the end of the 6th century, by the time the Vikings started attacking, there were established monasteries in the North of the country.
gravenimage says
This is true, William. But even in the 630s, when Muhammed is supposed to have died, much of the British isles were still pagan.
mortimer says
No, Bill, Christianity came with the Romans and was well planted in Britain long before the Romans left.
– Dorothy Watts suggested that Christianity was perhaps introduced to Britain in the latter part of the second century.
– Circa 200, the Carthaginian theologian Tertullian included Britain in a list of places reached by Christianity in his work, Adversus Judaeos.
– The Roman theologian Origen also wrote that Christianity had reached Britain.
– Henig suggested that by the end of the fourth century, “a large proportion of British society, however materially impoverished,” was Christian.
gravenimage says
Video: Robert Spencer on the question of whether or not Muhammad actually existed
…………………
Always an important question to be able to ask. Pious Muslims do not want this kind of investigation into Islam.
mortimer says
Muslims now realize that the historical critique of Islam is devastating, and contributes substantially to the growing numbers leaving Islam. Young Muslims are also questing for the historical Mohammed and they cannot find evidence to support the Mohammed in the Sira or hadiths.
The hadiths were collected by the Persian Bukhari, rather than by an Arab, and they were collected far too late to be considered reliable.
The hadiths and the Sira are increasingly seen as fairy tales and legends similar to the legend of King Arthur or the legend of Robin Hood.
gravenimage says
Quite likely, Mortimer.
Rod says
As I understand it mortimer, Islam is by far the most rapidly growing religion on earth, while Christianity is slowly fading away.
But perhaps Mr Spencer can find you some alternative figures if you prefer his version of reality.
James Lincoln says
Rod,
You are correct, islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.
Does it concern you?
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-fastest-growing-religions-in-the-world.html
gravenimage says
Christianity is the largest religion in the world, with about 2.4 billion adherents. Islam has about 1.8 billion. The implication that these are “alternative figures” is quite false–these are mainstream, widely accepted figures.
As for Islam growing, it certainly engages in a great deal of forced conversion. Is “Rod” OK with that? Certainly, he has never said anything critical about it.
“Pakistan: Each year, 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls are forcibly converted to Islam”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/12/pakistan-each-year-1000-hindu-and-christian-girls-are-forcibly-converted-to-islam
These grim stories are very common.
That no one is allowed to leave Islam save under threat of death is clearly a factor, as well.
gravenimage says
Important question, James. Here are some recent converts to Islam:
“Muslim US Army soldier arrested over jihad plot to bomb US troops and commit jihad massacre at 9/11 Memorial”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/01/muslim-us-army-soldier-arrested-over-jihad-plot-to-bomb-us-troops-and-commit-jihad-massacre-at-9-11-memorial
“Florida man converts to Islam, produces ISIS propaganda videos, says ‘I always strive to please Allah’”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/12/florida-man-converts-to-islam-produces-isis-propaganda-videos-says-i-always-strive-to-please-allah
“UK: Man converts to Islam, seeks advice on ‘how best to conduct jihad,’ downloads info on making a suicide vest”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/09/uk-man-converts-to-islam-seeks-advice-on-how-best-to-conduct-jihad-downloads-info-on-making-a-suicide-vest
Does “Rod” have a problem with the actions of these pious Muslim converts? Not so he says. Can he tell us why it is a good thing that Islam is the fastest growing religion? Don’t hold your breath…
Rod says
Does it concern me?
James, it concerns me when people believe nonsense which rational people should be able to see is beyond belief.
What concerns me more is when people hate each other because they think their nonsense is better than some other nonsense.
Ever wondered how many billions of people have died, and how many more have suffered because of religion? Isn’t god great?
gravenimage says
Actually, “Rod” has never rejected the violence of Islam.
mortimer says
The growth in Islam’s population doesn’t translate into practicing Muslims. 25% of the youth are estimated by the mullahs themselves to be apostates. I consider it more accurately to be over one-third of the Muslim youth who have left Islam. In Iran, about 60% have left Islam.
I believe Islam is only treading water and not increasing.
We cannot prove it because ex-Muslims fear to reveal their true thoughts. Few are attending the mosques.
mortimer says
‘Rod’ the Fraud makes a low blow against Robert Spencer, who is in fact a METICULOUS historian. He never imposes his own SPECULATIONS, but reads and interprets the LATEST research into foundational Islam.
If Robert Spencer speculates, he CLEARLY tells us when it is speculation and not an established fact.
The early Muslims burned most all of the original texts, so we must play ‘connect-the-dots’ in order to get any biography of early Islam.
‘Rod’ GRATUITOUSLY insults Robert Spencer … a very careful historian.
You can’t prove Mohammed existed merely by insulting people, ‘Rod’. That just tells us that YOU HAVE NO ARGUMENT for the existence of Mohammed.
It now seems Mohammed was IYAS IBN QABISHA.
Infidel says
They’ll ignore it even if it’s discovered otherwise: they’ll go by the Abbasid rules as laid out by the ‘scholars’ at Baghdad and Buqhara in the 9th century, even if it’s proven that the Rashidun and the Umayyad caliphates were different
Peter Clemerson says
@mortimer
Key quote about the sudden appearance of the Koran in the 8th century:
“Ali al-Samhudi records: Malik said, “Reading from the Mushaf (Quran text) at the Mosque was not done by people in the past. It was al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf who first instituted it.”
A lot depends on what is meant by “sudden appearance.” If its appearance at Mosques for the first time is meant, then fine as al-Hajjaj b. Yusuf was born in 661CE and would not have instituted the readings until very late in the seventh century or the early years of the 8th. If by sudden appearance is meant the generation of the Quranic text, then there is contrary evidence.
I refer readers to https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/radio.html
This site provides a wealth of carbon dating evidence in support of the existence of early copies of the Q circulating within 30 years or so of the standard date given for Mohamed’s death, namely 632 CE. Granted these documents are not evidence of M’s existence but do strongly suggest that:
1. the claim that the Qur’an was being written for the first time in the late 7th century CE (during the later years of the Umayyad caliphate) or later is unsupportable.
2 there was a body of religious belief being developed and written down by someone during the middle decades of the 7th century, rather than decades later.
Re the main burden to Robert’s talk, critics of the Muslim tradition, as first appearing in Ibn Hisham and the Ahadith, have to take into account the dates of these earliest copies of the Qur’an. Given that the name Mohamed is present only 4 times in the entire Quran and, to my knowledge, these early Qur’an texts exist as folios (pages) rather than in complete form, they can not evidence the existence of Mohamed himself. And as Robert states, they also do not evidence the existence of the four first caliphs. Nevertheless, somebody was writing the Qur’ans in the middle decades of the 7th century and not the later ones of the reigns of Mu’awiya and the later Umayyad caliphs. If the argument of silence is to be used to question or even deny the existence of these early caliphs, whose reigns cover the middle decades of the 7th century, and their associated scribes, who were the authorizers and authors of these early Qur’ans? To use a now famous phrase, to question or deny these people’s existence is to create “a hole in the narrative”.
Help
BTW, I am not a believer.
mortimer says
‘Unsupportable’? So … where, pray, is the text of the 7th-century Koran?
Abd al Malik said he ‘collected’ the Koran and al-Hajjaj said he could write the Koran as well as Mohammed. Abd al-Malik created a revolution.
The supposed Koran of Uthman was never found. Did it even exist?
– “I was one of the guards of Hajjaj b. Yusuf. Al-Hajjaj wrote the Mushaf. Then he sent them to the military capitals (al-amsar). He sent one to Medina. The members of Uthman’s family disapproved of that. They were told: ‘get out the Mushaf of Uthman b. Affan, so that we may read it!’ They answered: ‘It was destroyed on the day when Uthman was killed.'”
– “Malik also said: ‘Uthman’s Mushaf has disappeared [taghayyaba]. And we have found no information about it among the authoritative writers[al-ashyakh].”
-“Ibn Wahb reported back to us, and said, ‘I interrogated Malik concerning the Uthman’s mushaf, and he said to me ‘it has disappeared.”
mortimer says
Addendum: Why do they say that HAJJAJ wrote the MUSHAF (i.e. the text of the Koran)?
Why should we not take that literally? Namely: ‘Hajjaj wrote the Koran’?
gravenimage says
Some fragments of the Qur’an may even predate Muhammed.
mortimer says
If the Koran predates the 7th century, then the Koran is fraudulent.
Carbon dating only tells when the animal died, but doesn’t tell us when the ink was applied.
Paleography will eventually reveal where and when the text was written, because handwriting style changes every 25 years on average.
gregbeetham says
It looks like Yasir Qadhi’s ‘holes in the narrative’ are much larger than he suspected. When you do a deep enough dive Muhammad evaporates as well, right alongside the preservation of the Koran fable.
It is revealing that the writers of the Hadiths didn’t live in the area where Muhammad was supposed to have existed; they originate from much further north in a region between Jordan-Syria and Afghanistan and apparently none from Mecca which was where Muhammad was supposed to have existed and branched out from but there is no physical evidence that he was there at the time the fables claim he was.
Robert’s new book should prove interesting; I wonder if he has consulted with the Jay Smith & Mel forensic team? They’ve been working with coins and rock inscriptions of the period when Muhammad was supposed to exist.
mortimer says
Remix The Standard Narrative … has holes! Do a DEEP DIVE! This should not be said! It should not be brought up in public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LknbK8fkAkM
Peter Clemerson says
“Unsupportable’? So … where, pray, is the text of the 7th-century Koran?”
In the San’a1 palimpsest as the lower text and in Codex Ms. Qāf 47, as two examples.
Let me reproduce a quote from the web site I pointed you to.
“It is highly probable therefore, that the Ṣanʿāʾ I manuscript was produced no more than 15 years after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad.” The source of this quote is given as B. Sadeghi & U. Bergmann, “The Codex Of A Companion Of The Prophet And The Qurʾān Of The Prophet”, Arabica, 2010, op. cit., p. 353
Several folios from this palimpsest have been carbon dated by different authorities (read the entire web site) and the dates congregate around the middle of the 7th century. Likewise other manuscripts.
So why has Jay Smith made video after video denying the existence of anything from the 7th century. He can search the internet as well as I can.
If you think I am wrong to pay so much attention to these carbon-dated texts please tell me why. I am happy to go wherever the evidence leads me.
Cheers
Peter Clemerson says
The reply above was intended as a reply to
mortimer says
Jan 21, 2021 at 12:06 am
Sorry – finger trouble apparently
Peter Clemerson says
I have just looked up my copy of Robert’s first edition of Did Muhammed exist? and on page 192 he wrote “Recall that the Qur’an makes no appearance in the surviving documents and artifacts of Muslims until around six decades after the Arab conquest began.”
On the web site https://www.islamic-awareness.org/quran/text/mss/radio.html there appear photographs of several folios (pages) of early Qur’ans which have been carbon-dated to the middle decades of the 7th century with high probability. For example, the dating of some folios of the Codex San’a 1 was published in 2010 by B. Sadeghi & U. Bergmann, in their article “The Codex Of A Companion Of The Prophet And The Qurʾān Of The Prophet”, in the journal Arabica, Volume 57, pp. 348-354. The authors write “Radiocarbon analyses of folios combinedly(sic) date the codex to 606–649 CE with 95.4% probability.” 649CE is only 17 years after Muhammed reputed death. On the same web site, there are several other photos of folios from separate early Quran’s which have also been carbon-dated to these early decades. It seems that there are now known to be several “surviving documents and artifacts of Muslims” dating from two or three decades after the Arab conquest began rather than the six that Robert originally suggested. However, Robert’s book was published in 2012 and therefore probably written during the preceding years. It is therefore understandable that it makes no reference to the Codex San’a 1. The other folios illustrated on the islamic-awareness web site had their carbon-dates of origin published a few years after Robert’s book had been published. No surprise therefore that they do not get a mention.
Strictly speaking the existence of these carbon-dated folios of Qur’anic texts does not prove that Muhammed existed at the claimed times, but it does clearly indicate that SOMEONE was writing at least SOME of Qur’an much earlier than six decades after Mohammed’s reputed death. Any book that casts doubt over M’s existence, and the associated accounts of the collection and writing of the Qur’an, now has to account for the existence of these folios and their dates of composition. Reconciling these early dates with the later dates of the other Islamic artifacts strikes me as a bit tricky. Given that the new book’s publication date is the middle of this year, I assume that he has already accomplished this. I will soon be ordering my copy of his book.
gregbeetham says
A problem with dating parchment is that you can date the material the text was written on but you can’t reliably date the ink (so I’ve been informed) so there is no guarantee that the age of the parchment is the same age as the text there could be an unknown age difference, the parchment could have originated many years before the actual text was added.
Parchment was very expensive and only used for very good reasons, they often used the same parchment over again by cleaning the previous script off like they did with the Sanaa manuscript and the script underneath is a different version of the Koran, with quite a lot of differences.
Peter Clemerson says
Everything in your first paragraph is well known so while it is true that the existence of a collection of parchments dated to the middle decades of the 7th century does not constitute totally solid evidence that they were written upon then, the existence of several of them does strongly suggest it. This is the problem facing Robert and anyone else doubting M’s existence. Let me concede; we are not talking certainties, only probabilities. The evidence documented in Robert’s first book on the M’s existence is all about probabilities.
The probability of the mid-7th century existence of someone collecting/writing the Q is increased when considering your second paragraph. Precisely because these materials were scarce and expensive, they were more likely to be used as soon as manufactured. As others have stated, it is extremely unlikely that these materials would be manufactured and then left unused for decades. This argument strengthens the likelihood that the several texts featured in the islamic-awareness web site were all written very shortly after the manufacture of the materials. BTW, this web site constitutes an education in itself and I urge you to read it fully.
Your last comment about different versions of the Q on the lower and upper writings is true but relevant to a different debate: the existence of multiple versions of the Q, once it was being written down. The debate of interest and of relevance to Robert’s video is the date of the writing of the lower text, the one that was, by the standards of that time, erased.
Let me say again. I am not a believer and have no personal interest in establishing M’s existence or non-existence. Until I read Robert’s updated book and see how he deals with this issue, I will tend to believe that in the middle decades of the 7th century, somebody was generating text somewhat like what we see today and someone was writing it down. We may have to accept that copies were not being circulated widely, that is, outside the Arabian peninsula, until the late 7th or early 8th centuries but, given the laborious nature of such copying, is this difficult to believe?
The web site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanaa_manuscript makes it clear that there are many other fragments of the manuscript that have not yet been dated. In due course more might be. Such new evidence may produce surprises, but I doubt it. More of the same is the most likely outcome.
gregbeetham says
Yes I agree that we are dealing with probabilities much of the time concerning the whereabouts of Muhammad and the origin of the Koran.
The situation is complicated by a lack of trustworthy evidence given the penchant in the region was/is to get rid of any old conflicting evidence (stories fables etc.) and replace it with a new politically correct version and more than likely neither were historically accurate anyway.
Mel demonstrated this by showing a photo of a rock inscription that conflicted with the Muhammad-Koran-Mecca narrative which was later destroyed. The operating principal of the region isn’t to fix the fucked up narrative, the solution is simply to get rid of any historical evidence that conflicts with it.
I’m not sure anyone knows when the construction of the new religion began but much of it was probably transmitted by recitation but it seems likely that the wellspring was the area between Damascus and Baghdad and possibly Mesopotamia which had been influenced by the Abrahamic religions, there was no input from anyone in Mecca during the formative years I think, the insertion of the Muhammad-Mecca theme probably came later.
The Hadiths apparently all originate from the same geological area, Damascus-Baghdad and even as far away as Afghanistan but none from Mecca, yet according to the Koran and the Hadiths the Muhammad story concerns Mecca and Medina so you have story tellers living in one geological area writing stuff about Muhammad who operated in isolation in a remote geological area and the two bubbles were separated by large distances of space and time.
Possibly much of the Muhammad narrative is about Ilysa ibn Qabisah in reality and they just re-located him posthumously and gave him the Muhammad title in the story but we’ll probably never find out for sure because the Abbasids destroyed or re-adjusted much of the narrative originating from the previous Umayyad sultanate.
So far the trustworthy evidence seems to be the Byzantine correspondence-records and the coins of the period and the rock inscriptions, anything written by the story tellers of the Koran and the Hadiths would be viewed with great caution.
European pagan says
Did Muhammad exist?
Years before I told a muslim that we can not be sure that his prophet really existed. He was very angry.
gravenimage says
No surprise there. Muslims become enraged when anyone questions Islam.
Frank says
DME was written before Nicolai Sinai’s ‘When did the consonantal skeleton of the Quran reach closure?’ in 2014, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, so I hope Robert Spencer will consider his arguments in the revised edition. Another issue is that various revisionists’ alternative explanations are conradictory: eg Lulling & Luxenberg’s linguistic approaches are not the same (& see even Gerald Hawting’s objections to Lulling as circular argumentation). There’s an excellent article by the late Harald Motski summarising the revisionist arguments plus Volker Popp’s work at Inarah and Marcus Gros’ article in the Routledge Companion to Early Islam which also contains standard views.
I am writing an answer to the DME thesis. Robert Spencer is an excellent synthesist and summarises the revisionist case very clearly. So it’s not going to take me the over 2 years I spent on ‘What is Islamophobia’ (published on Amazon) which is a detailed refutation of the construct of ‘Islamophobia.’ I anticipate it will take me 3 months at most. It will have a title something like ‘Did Muhammed Exist? A counterblast to the Revisionists,’ so I look forward to further debate.
Rod says
Did Mohammed exist? A topic for historical research, perhaps, and who better that that eminent historian Robert Spencer to pronounce on it?
Real historians usually, in fact invariably, examine records from the past in painstaking detail, seeking out all available sources, weighing evidence, evaluating reliability, before reaching a considered conclusion.
As we saw only days ago, Spencer reached his conclusions about the levels of rightwing violence in the USA, by
a) presenting his own opinion as fact, clearly at odds with recent experience, and
b) ridiculing alternative views from other sources, no matter how reliable or credible they were.
It seems to me that Spence could perhaps be described as an ‘anti-historian’. Or would the most appropriate term be fantasist? Or propagandist?
Ecosse1314 says
Rod the poor man’s Jean Plaidy. Won’t even have the guts to say which country he enhances.
Tell me Rod what evidence is there for Mecca existing at the time of Mo. Any written contemporary evidence of Mo his tribe or even his town. Prey tell us Richard Head.
gravenimage says
Note that “Rod” is unable to refute a single point that Spencer brings up re Muhammed’s historicity. Note also that Spencer does not actually make pronouncements on the subject–he just notes what the historical record has to say. But “Rod” would much prefer this not be allowed.
Rod says
Refute Spencer’s points? I haven’t read them. Detailed analysis of events over a thousand years ago? Seriously? By Robert Spencer? Why bother.
gravenimage says
“Rod” has not read Robert Spencer’s points–and in fact refuses to do so–yet presents himself as being in a position to declare Spencer an “anti-historian”.
More proof that Muslim apologists reject reason.
Rod says
Pinocchio, you don’t really need to read every one of Spencer’s words to form a view. It’s rather like listening to a Trump speech. You can easily see that they’re aimed at gullible simpletons.
But perhaps Spencer’s account of what Mohammed had for breakfast (based on his own original research) would have been amusing.
very old white guy says
mohammed did exist and he wrote nothing and he was a violent war lord who would gladly ki11 anyone who got in his way.
gravenimage says
This is certainy how he is portrayed in the texts of Islam. A *very* nasty figure.
David Longfellow says
Mohammed did exist and filled a niche much like mosquitoes and ticks do.
Mojdeh says
Mohamed may be existed he did not know that he was messenger of God. Now he messed up world after 1400 years, We need vaccines to bring populations down for Islam only, Iran Army Quods army and IRGC then Iran will be freed.
gravenimage says
Mojdeh, vaccines have helped people survive diseases like smallpox and polio. Your idea that vaccines are intended to kill people is mistaken.
tim gallagher says
I suspect that Muhammad never existed. It fits in with the lying and disgusting nature of islam if the central figure didn’t exist but was cynically made up by some scumbags later on. The main issue with islam, whether Muhammad existed or not, is the evil, appalling version of what god is like (if any god does actually exist) that islam has come up with. This evil version of god, allah, calling for the murder of non-Muslims, saying that marrying and having sex with 9 year old girls because allah told Muhammad it was OK, and all the other crap that is sanctioned in Islam, leads to all the evil and all the bloodshed that islam has brought to this world. Whether Muhammad existed or not, the idea that such a murderous, low life bandit and paedophile degenerate would be god’s chosen one, his prophet, is beyond belief. Whether there is a God or not, the Christian version of what God is like is the complete opposite of this creature, allah, and a million times more peaceful and pleasant than islam’s disgusting version of what god is like. Islam is just some backward, extraordinarily primitive throwback that should have gone the way of the dodo ages ago. That it should still be around in the 21st century is a terrible thing.
gravenimage says
Spot on, Tim. Fine post.
tim gallagher says
Thanks, gravenimage. I think Islam, and I guess also that evil, primitive African voodoo type religion, which I recall is supposed to have murdered a young African guy that they brought to England, so they could kill him in some disgusting human sacrifice type ritual, seem like the two left overs from mankind’s primitive past. Maybe there are others I don’t know about. The two things that strike me about islam, as a person from a reasonably civilised western society, are the evil concept of god, allah, a violent, vicious character if ever there was one, and also what an evil, repulsive creature, Muhammad, this Muslim idea of the the ideal man, god’s chosen one, is. Imagine thinking that Muhammad, this bandit, mass murderer, paedophile, etc, is someone god would choose. Very evil people would see a creature like Muhammad as some type of ideal person.The Aztec religion is gone, the old violent Germanic and Viking gods are gone, but Islam remains and even seems to be thriving. It’s very alarming and sickening. As I said up above, Islam should be as long gone as the dodo. If Muhammad, in fact, didn’t even exist, I think it would fit right in with all the lies and garbage that make up Islam.
gravenimage says
Agreed, Tim. That voodoo murder was horrifying–the victim was a child, as well.
And Islam is the only major religion that preaches violence today
Boycott Turkey says
Muhammed exist in hell and Charlie Hebdo
Kepha says
The business of the “oldest written text” being far later than the story is a straw man. Our earliest copy of Aristotle’s _Politics_ is a 12th century A.D. Latin copy from Spain, which appears to have been made from an Arabic edition (wich measn, probably, a Syriac version somewhere in the genealogy). There are a few slightly later Greek texts which were probably of East Roman provenance. Yet, the context of what Aristotle wrote “fits” a fourth century B.C. environment. Most other works of Classical Greek and Latin literature also lack any written evidence from close to their dates of composition. The best-attested Greek or Latin texts are the New Testament writings, for which we have a mass of manuscript material from the early 2d century (Rylands Papyri) to medieval times.
As for the higher criticism, a lot of it was trying to shoehorn the composition and earliest transmission of the Scriptures into a Hegelian framework. Hence, F.C. Baur proposed a Jewish Christianity of the Jerusalem Apostles and Gentile Christianity of Paul, then, in the 2d century, a tidy Hegelian synthesis of found in Luke-Acts. Then along came Harnack to pop that one, and William Ramsay’s noting that the narrative of Acts “fits” the times in which it was supposed to have occurred. I remain a pre-modern Christian who thinks that 95% of the higher criticism is the speculation of rankled 19th century German scholars who were so mad at the Jews for being emancipated by Napoleon’s army that they had to destroy the Jews’ most honored cultural monument.
I am no fan of Muhammad and the Qur’an. Eveyrone here knows that. Yet I remain convinced that Muhammad ibn Abdallah was a real person. You don’t have the kind of smoke left by early Islam without a real fire somewhere.
The questions about the Qur’an being lifted from the Torah–It stirkes me that much of the “biblical” lore in the Qur’an is actually form the Midrash more than from the Old Testament, and from a rich trove of heretical and semi-orthodox “expansions” rather than the New Testament. Mr. Spencer is ocrrect that his material is not from the actual Bible. However, it is scarcely evidence that Muhammad did not exist rather than evience didn’t know what he was hearing.
gravenimage says
This is true, Kepha. But the fact there is *no* written evidence of the existence of Muhammed for about a hundred and fifty years after his supposed death surely gives one pause, and can rightly be researched.
Incidentally, for myself, I think that Muhammed likely was either a real person or at least an amalgam of several real people, if only because his evil is so bizarrely specific. (Of course I realize this is not historical proof).
gregbeetham says
There are problems establishing Muhammad as a real person, he is a very slippery character; there is no physical evidence that he existed at the time and place depicted in the Hadiths or the Koran, as Jay Smith and Mel outlined in their recent video Mel and his helpers looked at 30 thousand rock inscriptions of the same time period as Muhammad and there is no mention of him. There are the coins of the same time period and there is no mention of him on any of those either and this backs up Robert Spencer’s research..
There is a strong possibility that the victorious Abbasids replaced much of the storytelling originating under the Umayyads with their own stories and fables and they used the real life Ilysa ibn Qabisah as the foundation for their ‘Muhammad’ story and they re-located him to Mecca like they did with the pagan black stone idol they stole from Petra; perhaps one of the items had a physical existence and one didn’t but why spoil a good story with the facts.
Arabs had a ‘thing’ about creating pagan stone deities apparently but the black stone in the Kaaba at Petra (destroyed) was a special stone it seems and wherever it was located all eyes would follow.
The Koran itself is a concoction of various belief systems prevalent at the time and in the area where Ilysa ibn Qabisah lived (according to those who know) and could have been under construction for quite a long time prior to the eventual chosen best version (many conflicting fables were junked) but still had modifications done for some time after the inclusion of Muhammad.
If I was to read between the lines my conjecture would be that the various Arab leaders realized they needed a unifying belief system but it had to appeal to a wide audience and it had to be powerful (totalitarian) enough to capture and hold the rebellious and factious tribes and none of the religions in existence measured up in an Arab environment.
It turned out that not even Islam was up to the task because it split into factions itself but this religion was armed with God that ordered disbelievers to be killed and has been doing just that ever since.
Mojdeh says
Capitol police APOLOGIZE to National Guardsmen and say they will allow them back in the building after troops were ‘forced to sleep in a parking lot without internet, a single bathroom and one power outlet a day after the inauguration’
Pictures show Guardsmen sleeping on the floor of the packed parking lot
‘Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed’, one soldier said Thursday
It is not known why the troops were moved from Capitol buildings
The pictures sparked a fierce reaction online and Senator Tammy Duckworth tweeted to say ‘Capitol Police have apologized to the Guardsmen’
‘They will be allowed back into the complex tonight,’ she added
The National Guard Bureau said Thursday that of the nearly 26,000 Guard troops deployed to D.C. for the inaugural, just 10,600 remain on duty
This shame of Biden?
Mojdeh says
Thousands of National Guardsmen were on Thursday forced to sleep outside and in a parking lot after being told to leave the Capitol they had protected just 24 hours earlier.
Up to 5,000 troops were kept without internet, with just a single power outlet, and with one bathroom with two stalls, Politico reported.
One unnamed soldier said the move had left troops ‘feeling incredibly betrayed’.
He said: ‘Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed.’
Another told CNN: ‘After everything went seamlessly, we were deemed useless and banished to a corner of a parking garage.’ One guardsman told Task & Purpose: ‘Leaving our families for the last two weeks to come down here. It’s certainly important and historic, but the day after inauguration you kick us literally to the curb?
‘Come on, man.’
Pictures show troops sleeping on the floor of the packed parking lot Thursday where temperatures hit the low 40s.
The images sparked fierce reaction from politicians on both sides of the aisle, with Democrats and Republicans demanding answers as to why they were told to leave the Capitol complex. Some offered their offices to the troops.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said the soldiers ‘deserve to be treated with respect’; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the move was ‘outrageous’.
A Guard spokesperson said ‘increased foot traffic’ due to Congress being in session had resulted Capitol police ‘asking troops to move their rest area’.
THIS IS SHAME OF USA AND JOE LADEN I MEANT JOE BIDEN.
Boycott Turkey says
I don’t know if he existed or not but i read apparently muhammed if he existed or not sent threatening letters to the Byzantium emperors and other leaders inviting them to Islam appently those letters where copies of the original letters but how could muhammed had written those letters if he didn’t exist also he was illiterate it’s so confusing but those letters are copies from the original letters that Muhammad supposed to have written my thought is where there any original letters that muhammed had written to the Byzantium emperors ?
Ecosse1314 says
Most if not all are spurious. In fact in Roman Persian and Ethiopian writings of the time Mecca is never mentioned. Its very first mention is in the 8th or 9th century
Boycott Turkey says
There is also a letter in the museum of Oman said to be written from the faulse prophet muhammed https://www.omanobserver.om/islam-in-oman-a-precious-letter-that-is-pride-of-the-nation/
gravenimage says
This is all pretty iffy. For instance, Heraclius, Emperor of the Romans, is supposed to have replied to Muhammed saying, “If I were with him, I would wash his feet”, and that the Christian Ethiopian Negus replied, “Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah. Peace be upon you, O Messenger of Allah! And mercy and blessing from Allah beside Whom there is no god”.
This last especially is not just respectful, but is reverential in the same exact phrasing used in Islam. Supposedly he also enthusiastically denied that Jesus is the Son of God.
This is pretty obviously just more Taqiyya–and not very sophisticated Taqiyya, eitbher.
Mojdeh says
https://israelnewstalkradio.com/are-the-un-vaccinated-healthier-the-tamar-yonah-show-audio-%f0%9f%8e%a7/
Listen Tamar Youna of Israel and see if Vaccines are safe or not… Graveimage .
gravenimage says
Tamar Yonah is a radio personality, originally from here in California. She is not a doctor. She has indeed questioned whether vaccines are safe, as well as whether Israel has the legal right to compel parents to have their children vaccinated. These are certainly reasonable topics.
She has not, to my knowledge, claimed as you have that people all keel over and die immediately on receiving vaccines, though.
Boycott Turkey says
These are apparently belongings of the so called prophet letters footprint hair a sword he used for killing http://www.islamcontent.tk/p/belongings-of-prophet-muhammad-pbuh-and.html
gravenimage says
I’d take these claims with an economy-size tub of salt…
Boycott Turkey says
Gravenimage the foot print in the link reminds me of Bigfoot conspiracy theories lol I think I prefer Bigfoot existed rather then muhammed