With Barry Nussbaum of the American Truth Project.
Order the new revised and expanded version of Did Muhammad Exist?here.
Comments
Niemollersays
If Islam were a standard historical event and not a religion with millions of Islamists heavily invested in keeping it propped up to protect their incomes, this correction would already be accepted as academic.
gravenimagesays
So true, Niemoller.
gravenimagesays
Robert Spencer Video: How We KNOW the Arab Conquerors of the 7th Century Were Not Muslims
………….
That it looks more and more as though Islam was ginned up to sacralize bloody conquests does not really surprise.
Terry Gainsays
Sacralize! Now that’s funny. They invented a prophet who was a caravan robber, mass murderer, slave-taker, sexual slave-taker, rapist and a paedophile in order to make their conquests sacred.
Kephasays
“… a prophet who was a caravan robber, mass murderer, slave-taker, sexual slave-taker, rapist and a paedophile in order to make their conquests sacred…”
This only proves that the early Islamic Arabs did not share the values of a bunch of idle, wealthy, 18th century European philosophes who were too dishonest to admit their debt to centuries of Christianity.
Demscisays
Terry asked a Most logical question, one that David Wood also asked and discussed, and Kepha gave a good answer. But I still wonder how Islam turned out as it has, with good and bad traits, but these last so reprehensible for us. And I wonder because now it seems that Islam did not start in 610 with the revelation of the archangel Gabriel, but that it developed out of Judaïst and Christian heretical sources. Why, Joe of RedJudaism now proposes the archangel was in reality the saintly priest Gabriel! He says things like part of the Quran was Syro Aramaic Christian hymns and was given to Umar, with possible honour name “Muhammad” by this priest! Amazing stuff!
gravenimagesays
Note that most “heretical” Jewish and Christian sects differed on points of doctrine–sometimes quite obscure ones.
The savagery of Islam appears to come from barbaric Bedouin tribal mores, *not* from Judaism or Christianity, no matter how fringe an interpretation.
gravenimagesays
Terry, this is how these thugs think. Decent people like you and I don’t consider this kind of savagery sacred–but we were never the target audience.
Terry Gainsays
Raymond Ibrahim in Sword and Scimitar describes the battle of Mu’ta in 629, in what is now Jordan, as a battle between Muslims led by Khalid bin al-Walid, who is described as a Jihadi Par Excellence, and Byzantine Christians.
With respect, I think Mr. Spencer is getting carried away. Surely the Byzantines knew who they were fighting. They were literate people. What did they say?
gravenimagesays
Terry, most of these accounts are later Islamic ones.
Moreover, Islamic sources cite 3000 Muslims facing down 100,000 to 200,000 Byzantine troops–despite the Byzantines having far fewer than 100,000 troops in their entire empire at the time. There are other discrepancies as well, even including who won the battle.
I actually have not been able to find any Byzantine sources for this battle at all, so how they regarded their foes–or if the battle ever took place to begin with–may not be documented beyond Islamic accounts..
The wars were real. The identity of the fighters is much different in later accounts from what it is in early accounts. Read the book. It’s all in there.
Terry Gainsays
Mr. Spencer
Thank you for responding. I admire you greatly. This will sound impertinent but is it is only meant to be pointed.
Do I get my money back for The Truth about Muhammad?
With respect, I think you are undermining yourself and your legacy.
Does anyone here know what the Byzantines wrote when Islam was spreading through Christianity like wildfire between 630 and 730 AD? Or is GI grimly right? Are all of the sources about this evil man Islamic?
gravenimagesays
Thank you, Mr. Spencer.
Kephasays
The cross on early Islamic coins and a qiblah oriented towards Jerusalem (or Petra?) in the earliest mosques are the most intriguing bits of evidence which Mr. Spencer has presented so far.
But, for Uncle Kepha, this suggests some other possibilities, which, I hope, scholars who are taking a critical view of early Islam might consider:
Muhammad ibn Abdallah did exist, was a successful warlord of early 7th century Arabia, and promulgated a religion which, he claimed, carried on the prophetic traditions of the Christians and Jews. However, his garbled borrowings from these traditions (more often from non-canonical Christian or Midrashic Jewish sources) did not take the form we know today until a generation or two after his death. Muslim hostility towards the cross may well have arisen after the [proto-?]Muslims conquered much of the Fertile Crescent, where orthodox traditions (and, perhaps, “semi-orthodox” non-Chalcedonian ones, too) about Jesus greater knowledge of the Bible and orthodox or semi-orthodox non-Chalcedonian traditions held sway. There may have been a concern on the part of the proto-Islamic elite that their rank-and-file might be assimilated to the more biblically-based Christianities of the conquered lands, since such confessions were held by people of a clearly higher civilization.
But, I would still urge much caution about early Islam. Before the Saracen conquests of previously Byzantine and Persian land, the Arabs make little mark on history. The ancient Akkadians had a term cognate to “Arab” which seems to mean simply a desert dweller. There were some Arab or proto-Arab tribes living under the Romans on the Syrian frontier, apparently distinct from the Aramaic-speaking majority of Roman Syria and its Upper Mesopotamian clients. We cannot expect the various Greek, Persian, Syro-Aramaean, Jewish, and Coptic writers of the time to know that much about their conquerors, especially when earliest Islam seemed somewhat loathe to proselytize people it expected to keep as a tax base. Consider the garbled impression that most Americans have of the whole of the non-Western world even now.
Demscisays
Kepha, about the Arabs, I consider that: edomites, Nabataeans, ghassanids, who lived a 1000 years or so near Petra, who at times were rich and very civilized and sophisticated and well connected if you will. And I consider the Lakhmids, in and near Iraq, a big state or province of the Sassanids. I also consider the conquest of IDUMEA and forced conversion of it by the Hasmoneans. So the Arabs were under influence of and inside Judaism and Christianity. Courtesy of Joe of RedJudaism.
Like I noted yesterday, these revelations do open up far more questions, such as
– What were the triggering events in Arabia that suddenly started the Arabs overrunning Syria, Egypt, Persia, Mahgreb, Sind and Spain?
– Did the Umayyads have anything called islam? Or was it only after the establishment of the Abbasids in Raqqa that islam – the way it’s recognized today – really started?
– If the real origins of islam were somewhere near Petra or in Syria, how did it go unnoticed by both the Byzantines and the Sassanids, who were at war for much of the time, and therefore couldn’t have overlooked this during their campaigns?
– If Mohammed didn’t exist, how about Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali? Did they exist, or were they also inventions in the hadiths?
– Also, if all these islamic texts – quran, hadiths, sira and tafseer were all being penned in Baghdad and Buqhara some 200 years later, then how does the shi’a breakaway from the mainline caliphate – illustrated by Imam Hussein at Karbala – how does that get explained? Why would the Abbasids invent a renegade sect?
All this would involve drilling into the real history of Arabia b/w 600 to 700AD
gravenimagesays
All interesting questions–all Haram questions, too.
All interesting questions-see the Inarah Institute’s work, unfortunately a lot of it is only published in German but Volker Popp, Karl Heinz Ohlig & Robert Kerr do write in English. Re the thesis the Arabian conquerors were not Muslim see James Wakeley’s ‘The two falls of Rome’ for an explanation as to how the majority of the conquering troops were probably Christian Arabs, Sassanid defectors and new Muslims from Yemen (then called Himyar).
Demscisays
Fine Questions Infidel, interesting answer to follow up by Francis.
Triggering events? The East Romans had under Justinian a terrible plaque in 536, from which they never recovered, the Arabs were less effected. I read.
But, moreover the devastating war between the East Romans and Sassanid empire in 602-628 wrecked both empires. Including financially and so they no longer paid the Ghassanid and Lakhmid Arabs who guarded their borders and these Arabs must have made common cause with the other, pagan, Arabs, and then also with oppressed Or dissatisfied or rebelling Jews and heretical Christians. Trigger; power vacuum. One of causes great dissatisfaction.
Infidelsays
Demsci
Interesting hypothesis, much of them
Keyssays
Good questions, Infidel.
I wonder how this all fits in with the so-called “Meccan” and “Medinan” verses.
Did Mohammad not behead 800 Jews in one day ? Was he not from the Quraysh tribe ? Was there really no marriage to Aisha consummated at 9 or 10 years old ?
Everything is up for questioning !
Terry Gainsays
Keys
Great questions. And of course there are hundreds of others. Robert Spencer appears to be saying that we can’t look to his books for the answers.
He appears to be saying that he was misled by Islamic sources into believing that Mohammed actually existed. Now he knows better. Was he right when he wrote his books and articles? Or is he right now?
I am conservative by nature. I am anti-trendoid and very reluctant to go down what might well be rabbit holes.
gravenimagesays
I think, that we have the right to question everything–and *surely* the tropes of Islam should not be off limits?
Infidelsays
I think RS has a right to revisit past assertions when new data comes his way. I wouldn’t question that
However, it does open up various cans of worms that I listed above. I do wish he’d address that as well
Terry Gainsays
GI
I believe that if someone is determined to shoot himself, he should aim for his feet rather than his head.
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Niemoller says
If Islam were a standard historical event and not a religion with millions of Islamists heavily invested in keeping it propped up to protect their incomes, this correction would already be accepted as academic.
gravenimage says
So true, Niemoller.
gravenimage says
Robert Spencer Video: How We KNOW the Arab Conquerors of the 7th Century Were Not Muslims
………….
That it looks more and more as though Islam was ginned up to sacralize bloody conquests does not really surprise.
Terry Gain says
Sacralize! Now that’s funny. They invented a prophet who was a caravan robber, mass murderer, slave-taker, sexual slave-taker, rapist and a paedophile in order to make their conquests sacred.
Kepha says
“… a prophet who was a caravan robber, mass murderer, slave-taker, sexual slave-taker, rapist and a paedophile in order to make their conquests sacred…”
This only proves that the early Islamic Arabs did not share the values of a bunch of idle, wealthy, 18th century European philosophes who were too dishonest to admit their debt to centuries of Christianity.
Demsci says
Terry asked a Most logical question, one that David Wood also asked and discussed, and Kepha gave a good answer. But I still wonder how Islam turned out as it has, with good and bad traits, but these last so reprehensible for us. And I wonder because now it seems that Islam did not start in 610 with the revelation of the archangel Gabriel, but that it developed out of Judaïst and Christian heretical sources. Why, Joe of RedJudaism now proposes the archangel was in reality the saintly priest Gabriel! He says things like part of the Quran was Syro Aramaic Christian hymns and was given to Umar, with possible honour name “Muhammad” by this priest! Amazing stuff!
gravenimage says
Note that most “heretical” Jewish and Christian sects differed on points of doctrine–sometimes quite obscure ones.
The savagery of Islam appears to come from barbaric Bedouin tribal mores, *not* from Judaism or Christianity, no matter how fringe an interpretation.
gravenimage says
Terry, this is how these thugs think. Decent people like you and I don’t consider this kind of savagery sacred–but we were never the target audience.
Terry Gain says
Raymond Ibrahim in Sword and Scimitar describes the battle of Mu’ta in 629, in what is now Jordan, as a battle between Muslims led by Khalid bin al-Walid, who is described as a Jihadi Par Excellence, and Byzantine Christians.
With respect, I think Mr. Spencer is getting carried away. Surely the Byzantines knew who they were fighting. They were literate people. What did they say?
gravenimage says
Terry, most of these accounts are later Islamic ones.
Moreover, Islamic sources cite 3000 Muslims facing down 100,000 to 200,000 Byzantine troops–despite the Byzantines having far fewer than 100,000 troops in their entire empire at the time. There are other discrepancies as well, even including who won the battle.
I actually have not been able to find any Byzantine sources for this battle at all, so how they regarded their foes–or if the battle ever took place to begin with–may not be documented beyond Islamic accounts..
Robert Spencer says
The wars were real. The identity of the fighters is much different in later accounts from what it is in early accounts. Read the book. It’s all in there.
Terry Gain says
Mr. Spencer
Thank you for responding. I admire you greatly. This will sound impertinent but is it is only meant to be pointed.
Do I get my money back for The Truth about Muhammad?
With respect, I think you are undermining yourself and your legacy.
Does anyone here know what the Byzantines wrote when Islam was spreading through Christianity like wildfire between 630 and 730 AD? Or is GI grimly right? Are all of the sources about this evil man Islamic?
gravenimage says
Thank you, Mr. Spencer.
Kepha says
The cross on early Islamic coins and a qiblah oriented towards Jerusalem (or Petra?) in the earliest mosques are the most intriguing bits of evidence which Mr. Spencer has presented so far.
But, for Uncle Kepha, this suggests some other possibilities, which, I hope, scholars who are taking a critical view of early Islam might consider:
Muhammad ibn Abdallah did exist, was a successful warlord of early 7th century Arabia, and promulgated a religion which, he claimed, carried on the prophetic traditions of the Christians and Jews. However, his garbled borrowings from these traditions (more often from non-canonical Christian or Midrashic Jewish sources) did not take the form we know today until a generation or two after his death. Muslim hostility towards the cross may well have arisen after the [proto-?]Muslims conquered much of the Fertile Crescent, where orthodox traditions (and, perhaps, “semi-orthodox” non-Chalcedonian ones, too) about Jesus greater knowledge of the Bible and orthodox or semi-orthodox non-Chalcedonian traditions held sway. There may have been a concern on the part of the proto-Islamic elite that their rank-and-file might be assimilated to the more biblically-based Christianities of the conquered lands, since such confessions were held by people of a clearly higher civilization.
But, I would still urge much caution about early Islam. Before the Saracen conquests of previously Byzantine and Persian land, the Arabs make little mark on history. The ancient Akkadians had a term cognate to “Arab” which seems to mean simply a desert dweller. There were some Arab or proto-Arab tribes living under the Romans on the Syrian frontier, apparently distinct from the Aramaic-speaking majority of Roman Syria and its Upper Mesopotamian clients. We cannot expect the various Greek, Persian, Syro-Aramaean, Jewish, and Coptic writers of the time to know that much about their conquerors, especially when earliest Islam seemed somewhat loathe to proselytize people it expected to keep as a tax base. Consider the garbled impression that most Americans have of the whole of the non-Western world even now.
Demsci says
Kepha, about the Arabs, I consider that: edomites, Nabataeans, ghassanids, who lived a 1000 years or so near Petra, who at times were rich and very civilized and sophisticated and well connected if you will. And I consider the Lakhmids, in and near Iraq, a big state or province of the Sassanids. I also consider the conquest of IDUMEA and forced conversion of it by the Hasmoneans. So the Arabs were under influence of and inside Judaism and Christianity. Courtesy of Joe of RedJudaism.
Infidel says
Just watched the whole interview on Rumble here
https://rumble.com/vk5dok-robert-spencer-did-muhammad-exist.html
Like I noted yesterday, these revelations do open up far more questions, such as
– What were the triggering events in Arabia that suddenly started the Arabs overrunning Syria, Egypt, Persia, Mahgreb, Sind and Spain?
– Did the Umayyads have anything called islam? Or was it only after the establishment of the Abbasids in Raqqa that islam – the way it’s recognized today – really started?
– If the real origins of islam were somewhere near Petra or in Syria, how did it go unnoticed by both the Byzantines and the Sassanids, who were at war for much of the time, and therefore couldn’t have overlooked this during their campaigns?
– If Mohammed didn’t exist, how about Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali? Did they exist, or were they also inventions in the hadiths?
– Also, if all these islamic texts – quran, hadiths, sira and tafseer were all being penned in Baghdad and Buqhara some 200 years later, then how does the shi’a breakaway from the mainline caliphate – illustrated by Imam Hussein at Karbala – how does that get explained? Why would the Abbasids invent a renegade sect?
All this would involve drilling into the real history of Arabia b/w 600 to 700AD
gravenimage says
All interesting questions–all Haram questions, too.
Francis says
All interesting questions-see the Inarah Institute’s work, unfortunately a lot of it is only published in German but Volker Popp, Karl Heinz Ohlig & Robert Kerr do write in English. Re the thesis the Arabian conquerors were not Muslim see James Wakeley’s ‘The two falls of Rome’ for an explanation as to how the majority of the conquering troops were probably Christian Arabs, Sassanid defectors and new Muslims from Yemen (then called Himyar).
Demsci says
Fine Questions Infidel, interesting answer to follow up by Francis.
Triggering events? The East Romans had under Justinian a terrible plaque in 536, from which they never recovered, the Arabs were less effected. I read.
But, moreover the devastating war between the East Romans and Sassanid empire in 602-628 wrecked both empires. Including financially and so they no longer paid the Ghassanid and Lakhmid Arabs who guarded their borders and these Arabs must have made common cause with the other, pagan, Arabs, and then also with oppressed Or dissatisfied or rebelling Jews and heretical Christians. Trigger; power vacuum. One of causes great dissatisfaction.
Infidel says
Demsci
Interesting hypothesis, much of them
Keys says
Good questions, Infidel.
I wonder how this all fits in with the so-called “Meccan” and “Medinan” verses.
Did Mohammad not behead 800 Jews in one day ? Was he not from the Quraysh tribe ? Was there really no marriage to Aisha consummated at 9 or 10 years old ?
Everything is up for questioning !
Terry Gain says
Keys
Great questions. And of course there are hundreds of others. Robert Spencer appears to be saying that we can’t look to his books for the answers.
He appears to be saying that he was misled by Islamic sources into believing that Mohammed actually existed. Now he knows better. Was he right when he wrote his books and articles? Or is he right now?
I am conservative by nature. I am anti-trendoid and very reluctant to go down what might well be rabbit holes.
gravenimage says
I think, that we have the right to question everything–and *surely* the tropes of Islam should not be off limits?
Infidel says
I think RS has a right to revisit past assertions when new data comes his way. I wouldn’t question that
However, it does open up various cans of worms that I listed above. I do wish he’d address that as well
Terry Gain says
GI
I believe that if someone is determined to shoot himself, he should aim for his feet rather than his head.