Here is a review of the first edition of Did Muhammad Exist?. The new revised and expanded version contains a a great deal that is new, including:
- The man whom modern-day historians say received reports from “his aunt Aisha” about Muhammad’s life: why he is not a reliable source for anything Muhammad said or did, or even for his existence itself;
- “There is no god but Allah, and Qutham is his prophet”: the extraordinary Islamic traditions that record that Muhammad was originally known by another name;
- The strange and telling inconsistencies in the Islamic traditions about Muhammad’s first revelation;
- The Arabic of the Qur’an: not the Arabic of southern Arabia, where Islam is supposed to have originated;
- Which angel appeared to Muhammad to give him the Qur’an? The Islamic traditions naming one other than Gabriel;
- Much, much more.
Preorder the new revised and expanded version of Did Muhammad Exist? here.
“Robert Spencer Asks: Did Muhammad Exist?,” by Bruce Thornton, FrontPage, April 22, 2012:
One of the jihadists’ most potent psychological weapons is the double standard Muslims have imposed on the West. Temples and churches are destroyed and vandalized, Christians murdered and driven from the lands of Christianity’s birth, anti-Semitic lunacy propagated by high-ranking Muslim clerics, and Christian territory like northern Cyprus ethnically cleansed and occupied by Muslims. Yet the West ignores these depredations all the while it agonizes over trivial “insults” to Islam and Mohammed, and decries the thought-crime of “Islamophobia” whenever even factual statements are made about Islamic history and theology. This groveling behavior confirms the traditional Islamic chauvinism that sees Muslims as the “best of nations” destined by Allah to rule the world through violent jihad.
Even in the rarefied world of academic scholarship, this fear of offense has protected Islam from the sort of critical scrutiny every other world religion has undergone for centuries. Some modern scholars who do exercise their intellectual freedom and investigate these issues, like Christoph Luxenberg or Ibn Warraq, must work incognito to avoid the wrath of the adherents of the “Religion of Peace.” Now Robert Spencer, the fearless director of Jihad Watch and author of several books telling the truths about Islam obscured by a frightened academy and media, in his new book Did Muhammad Exist? challenges this conspiracy of fear and silence by surveying the scholarship and historical evidence for the life and deeds of Islam’s founder.
As Spencer traces the story of Muhammed through ancient sources and archaeology, the evidence for the Prophet’s life becomes more and more evanescent. The name Muhammad, for example, appears only 4 times in the Qur’an, as compared to the 136 mentions of Moses in the Qur’an. And those references to Muhammad say nothing specific about his life. The first biography of Muhammad, written by Ibn Ishaq 125 years after the Prophet’s death, is the primary source of biographical detail, yet it “comes down to us only in the quite lengthy fragments reproduced by an even later chronicler, Ibn Hisham, who wrote in the first quarter of the ninth century, and by other historians who reproduced and thereby preserved additional sections.”
Nor are ancient sources outside Islam any more forthcoming. An early document from around 635, by a Jewish writer converting to Christianity, merely mentions a generic “prophet” who comes “armed with a sword.” But in this document the “prophet” is still alive 3 years after Muhammad’s death. And this prophet was notable for proclaiming the imminent arrival of the Jewish messiah. “At the height of the Arabian conquests,” Spencer writes, “the non Muslim sources are as silent as the Muslim ones are about the prophet and holy book that were supposed to have inspired those conquests.” This uncertainty in the ancient sources is a consistent feature of Spencer’s succinct survey of them. Indeed, these sources call into question the notion that Islam itself was recognized as a new, coherent religion. In 651, when Muawiya called on the Byzantine emperor Constantine to reject Christianity, he evoked the “God of our father Abraham,” not Islam per se. One hundred years after the death of Muhammad, “the image of the prophet of Islam remained fuzzy.”
Non-literary sources from the late 7th century are equally vague. Dedicatory inscriptions on dams and bridges make no mention of Islam, the Qur’an, or Mohammad. Coins bear the words “in the name of Allah,” the generic word for God used by Christians and Jews, but say nothing about Muhammad as Allah’s prophet or anything about Islam. Particularly noteworthy is the absence of Islam’s foundational statement “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Later coins referring specifically to Muhammad depict him with a cross, contradicting the Qur’anic rejection of Christ’s crucifixion and later prohibitions against displaying crucifixes. Given that other evidence suggests that the word “muhammad” is an honorific meaning “praised one,” it is possible that these coins do not refer to the historical Muhammad at all.
Related to the issue of Muhammad’s historical reality is the date of the Qur’an, supposedly dictated to the Prophet by the angel Gabriel. Yet Spencer’s analysis of the inscriptions inside the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, with their mixture of Qur’anic and non-Qur’anic verses along with variants of canonical Qur’anic scripture, suggests rather that the Qur’an came into being later than 691 when the mosque was completed. Indeed, the inscriptions could be referring not to Muhammad but to a version of Jesus believed in by a heretical sect that denied his divinity. At any rate, the first historical inscription that offers evidence of Islamic theology dates to 696 when the caliph Abd al-Malik minted coins without a representation of the sovereign and with theshahada, the Islamic profession of faith, inscribed on them. At this same time we begin to see references by non-Muslims to Muslims. Before then, the conquerors were called Ishmaelites, Saracens, or Hagarians. This evidence, Spencer suggests, raises the provocative possibility that al-Malik “greatly expanded on the nascent Muhammad myth for his own political purposes.” Likewise the Hadith, the collections of Muhammad’s sayings and deeds that form “the basis for Islamic law and practice regarding both individual religious observance and the governance of the Islamic state.” They also elucidate obscure Qur’anic verses, providing “the prism through which the vast majority of Muslims understand the Qur’an.” Yet there is no evidence for the existence of these biographical details of the Hadith before their compilation. This suggests that those details were invented as political tools for use in the factional political conflicts of the Islamic world.
Spencer casts an equally keen critical eye over the early biographies of Mohammad to find the same problems with source authenticity and origins, and their conflicts with other Islamic traditions. These problems, along with the miraculous and folk elements of Ibn Ishaq’s biography, suggest that the latter arose long after the collection of the Qur’an. As Spencer concludes, “If Ibn Ishaq is not a historically trustworthy source, what is left of the life of Muhammad?” The history of Islam and Mohammad recalls the statement of the reporter in John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” particularly when the legend was so useful for conquest and the consolidation of power during factional rivalries among Muslim rulers and sects.
So too with the integrity of the Qur’an, the supposedly unchanging and uncreated words of Allah dictated to Mohammad, the perfect copy of the eternal book transmitted in its purity without alteration or addition. Yet apart from fragments, modern Qur’ans are based on manuscripts that date no farther back then the medieval period. The first mention of the Qur’an appears in 710, decades after it allegedly inspired Muslim conquests from Persia to North Africa. Nor is it true that the book has not changed: “Even Islamic tradition shows this contention to be highly questionable, with indications that some of the Qur’an was lost and other parts were added to or otherwise changed.” Such textual variants, revisions, lost passages, numerous influences from Jewish and Christian writings and doctrines, and the presence of words in the Syriac language (likely including the word “Qur’an” itself), along with the fact that about one-fifth of the book is simply incomprehensible––all call into question the idea of the Qur’an’s purity unchanged since it was divinely dictated to Mohammad.
Spencer’s careful, detailed, well-reasoned survey and analysis of the historical evidence offer strong evidence that Muhammad and Islam itself were post facto creations of Arab conquerors who needed a “political theology” delivered by a “warrior prophet” in order to unify the vast territories and diverse religious and ethnic groups now subjected to Muslim power, and to provide a potent basis for loyalty to their new overlords. As Spencer explains, “the empire came first and the theology came later.”
“The full truth of whether a prophet named Muhammad lived in seventh-century Arabia,” Spencer concludes, “and if he did, what sort of a man he was, may never be known. But it would be intellectually irresponsible not to ask the question or consider the implications of the provocative evidence that pioneering scholars have assembled.” The great service Spencer provides goes beyond popularizing the critical study of one of the world’s largest religions in order to advance our knowledge and establish historical reality. At a time when the threat of jihadist violence has silenced many people and intimidated them into voluntarily surrendering their right to free speech and the pursuit of truth, Spencer’s brave book also demonstrates the importance of those quintessential and powerful Western ideals.
Walter Sieruk says
It’s always good to remember the Abraham Lincoln had spoken the truth when he said that “History isn’t history unless it’s truth.”
Jim says
I seem to recall that in Christian scholarship there is the Jesus of history the historical Jesus, and the Jesus of faith, which is a discovery or invention of theologians. He is described in metaphysical terms and is not subject to empirical testing. So, the religion of Islam is impervious to historical research. Muhammed is whatever theology says he is. The historical Muhammed could be refuted or revised by historical research, but the theological Muhammed would not be shaken by that. He is a matter of faith. So, we cannot dissuade Jihadis and Islamists simply by presenting the latest historical research. They will probably stay committed to their faith.
gravenimage says
The idea that the only reason to research this issue is if it is apt to affect pious Muslims is mistaken. Every issue can be investigated–including those of faith. Islam demands that no one be allowed to ask questions. This *does not* mean that we have to comply.
Wellington says
I dunno’. Accurate history can place a great burden upon faith—as it should. Besides, the more doubt raised about Mohammed, the more doubt raised about Islam—and this is a good thing.
Ecosse1314 says
The more people who are aware of the obscure origins of Islam can only be a good thing.
william says
Jim
Is is much like a dictatorship eg. Nazi Germany or USSR. If one is born into Islam, one is branded like a calf and has no say in whether one would like to be Muslim or not. Raised surrounded by committed Muslims and never allowed to question the faith on pain of punishment,
or worse. Never exposed to alternative ideas in education. The real possibility of being ostracised by one’s friends and community (or worse). It is a very strong minded and courageous
Muslim who will leave the faith. Of course that also used to be true for Christians before the Enlightenment and still operates in the many religious cults we can observe in USA especially. Which ironically are protected by religious freedom laws!
gravenimage says
‘Did Muhammad Exist? challenges the conspiracy of fear by surveying the evidence for the life of Islam’s founder’
………………
Good stuff from Bruce Thornton.
DRLJR says
From research I have done when ever one see the Arabic word “allah”/”Allah” remember it is a contraction of the Arabic phrase “al ilah”, or in English “the god”. It is not a name but is/was used to referece the god Hubal who is associated with the moon and is chief god of a pantheon of around 360 gods and goddesses. This becomes obvious when one read the Qur’an. It is also important to keep in mind Islam is not a religion. It is a theocracy. One can worship Hubal and not be an Islam citizen.
Another interesting thing I have read is that the Arabic of the 700s did not have vowel marks, like Hebrew. They were added in the 1000/1100 time frame and by one report the Qur’ans in the original Arabic of the 700s were destroyed.
And by way of contrast look at the government the Jehovah created for Jews when they came out of Egypt. It is also a theocracy – a republic based theocracy.
gravenimage says
There are actually some pretty old surviving Qur’ans and fragments of Qur’ans.