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[Order a copy of Robert Spencer’s forthcoming book, Muhammad: A Critical Biography, by clicking here.]
In his sermon, which should have, but almost certainly didn’t, raise eyebrows among Canadian law enforcement and intelligence officials, Abyat said: “I attest that Muhammad is Allah’s servant and His prophet who awakened the desire for Jihad and incited the believers, who made Jihad for the sake of Allah the pinnacle of Islam, and the one who said that Paradise is underneath the shades of the swords.”
This was a statement of faith, but it was also a claim that was rooted in history. Without any doubt, Abyat believes that Muhammad was a real man who walked this earth and made statements that can be known today among his multitudes of followers. As the man whom Allah chose to deliver his eternal message to mankind and whom he designated as the “excellent example” for the believers (Qur’an 33:21), Muhammad’s words carry special weight for Muslims. In fact, Muhammad’s words are why jihadis take up the sword.
Abyat himself went on to explain this: “His shari’a [law] elevated the status of the mujahideen [warriors of jihad] and he said that Jihad for the sake of Allah raises a man a hundred levels in Paradise and the distance between levels is like the distance between heaven and earth.”
All this raises the question once again: what if Muhammad really said none of this? What if the stories Islamic tradition tells us about what he said and did are more myth and legend than sober historical fact? Then Hamas and other jihadis all over the world are killing and dying for a fiction. It would be the cruelest of cruel jokes on the jihadis, but if this idea became widely known in the Islamic world, the result could be transformational.
I explored this question several years ago in a book entitled “Did Muhammad Exist?“, which, you might be surprised to learn, was controversial. In it, I demonstrated that the earliest available biographical data about Muhammad dates from two centuries after the traditional date of his death. There are a few mentions of “Muhammad” here and there before then, but none of them match what we know, or think we know, about the prophet of Islam.
Islamic apologists attempt to explain away the long gap between Muhammad’s life and the appearance of written records about that life by asserting that this material was preserved as oral tradition in a time when memories were long and writing materials were scarce. That’s plausible, but if the early Muslims were carrying around elaborately detailed accounts of Muhammad’s words and deeds in their minds for two centuries, they were remarkably reticent about doing so.
The first six decades of the seventh-century Arab conquest contain no mention anywhere of the existence of the religion of Islam, or of the Qur’an, or of Muhammad as the prophet of Islam. The Arab conquerors had extensive contact with the people they conquered, many of whom wrote about these conquests. Yet Islam, the Qur’an, and Muhammad just don’t seem to come up.
Another problem is that the Islamic traditions themselves are full of contradictions on even the most basic points. In a new book, “Muhammad: A Critical Biography,” I examine those stories in detail and show all the contradictions and inconsistencies within what academics still present as sober, meticulously recorded history. Most Islamic traditions say that Muhammad was always the name of the prophet; others, however, assert that he was originally named Qutham and that his name was changed to Muhammad later. Most Islamic traditions state that the angel Gabriel appeared to Qutham/Muhammad and delivered the Qur’anic revelations to him; some, however, maintain that initially an angel named Saraphel visited the new prophet, and was only later replaced by Gabriel.
Those who defend the historical value of the early Islamic material may dismiss these as erroneous traditions and point to the preponderance of support for the mainstream versions, but this doesn’t answer the question of why such traditions began circulating in the first place. If Muhammad had always been known as Muhammad and the angel who appeared to him always as Gabriel, why would anyone make up stories renaming the central characters Qutham and Saraphel?
These variant traditions, however, also could indicate that Muhammad as we know him is a composite figure whose story is made up of many earlier traditions. It could be that stories of Qutham and Saraphel were incorporated into the Muhammad myth, as were traditions that were originally about others as the figure of the prophet of Islam was being constructed.
That’s just two of the many strange and anomalous aspects of Islamic tradition regarding Muhammad. The fact that I am bringing them to light in “Muhammad: A Critical Biography” may be why a Pakistani Muslim leader just offered a $10 billion bounty for my head and that of Dutch parliamentarian and freedom fighter Geert Wilders.
Whether or not jihadis get my head and strike it rich, however, the problems of this most problematic of prophets will remain. We can all hope, for the sake of the peace of the world, that one day Adnan Abyat and others like him will realize that the whole enterprise of jihad was a bizarre waste of time and turn to more positive activities.
Thank you for your work 🙏
FROM THE VIDEO:
“So Mohammad awakened the desire for Jihad”
So it Mohammad and not Allah who who enacted this terrible thing on the non-Muslims. Is that correct?
FROM THE VIDEO:
“Oh Allah count them, kill them one by one and do not leave a single one of them.”
Has there ever been an account of Allah killing anyone, especially in modern times in Canada or anywhere else? This is just a speech meant to excite emotional response that results in someone’s death.
I don’t suppose the Canadian authorities were alerted to this HATE CRIME.
Where are you Justin? It seems your Muslim friends want all you Canadians dead. “Every last one”
If it’s okay for them to call for jihad, is it okay for us to call for a crusade?
As a character in an old Popeye cartoon says, “Salami, salami, baloney!”
The mosks and imams are the root cause of all terrorism.
Its time to send these fanatics back to where they came from and ban them from returning the Gate must be closed the wall built and No More Bridges
Catapult all jihadists (and aspiring jihadists) across the Rio Grande.
Build another wall in Mexico with their rotting corpses.
Exellent points, Mr. Spencer.
One really has to wonder about the cognative dissonance of the left, in the West in General. England, Germany, France, Canada and the United States all seem to be rushing to import as many Moose limbs as possible. And without any regard to the consequences. Apparently they totally fail to consider those consequences for the future.
Perhaps they are so assured of their grand philosophy and certitude of their own self declared superiority that they somehow feel that future Moose limbs will just happily fall in line and submit to “Elite” authority? One has to wonder, especially with regards to feminists.
Clearly the Religion of pea’s is not going to let modern feminism march on. Such adherants will love living under a Moose limb society.
The salient question becomes; is it possible for fundamentalist Muslims to integrate and peacefully coexist among western secular democracies? Absolutely not! Because to do so would require any true Muslim to commit Apostasy and renounce the sacred canon of holy Koranic edicts, the eternal and irreversible truth.
you keep your head but as reminde , cbefore 94 yars the arabs “perfomed” the pogrom-massacre in Hebron. at that time israel didnt exist yet.
in oct. 7 2023 Hamas did the same on a large scale becoz israel exists and the word lew can be written in the platform of hamas.
conclusion the islamojihad basic idea is to kill the “others” jews, hindu, christians, etc.
“DEATH TO HAMAS”.
God Bless Israel.
Wait. President Bush told us it was a “peaceful religion.” If you ignore the incredible amount of evidence to the contrary, it is.
Why did American soldiers need to go to the shores of Tripoli?
If Mohammed is a composite figure, then there would be room to remove some of the more problematic aspects of his legacy. One of the problems with any attempt at reforming Islam is that, because he is presented as the last prophet, we seem to have a closed theological system, whereas both Judaism and Christianity allow for the possibility of an ongoing prophetic tradition. However, a composite last prophet is one whose utterances could have a cut off point just where they stop being tolerant, and start to acquire a narked edge over the refusal of target populations to reject their own faiths in favour of the new kid on the block (in effect, Islamic abrogation in reverse, since normally later utterances are given priority if there is any contradiction). Similarly, one of the problems with moderate Islam is the impossibility of establishing criteria by which Mohammed can be said to be a moderate – unless all the immoderate stuff belongs to a third party. All of this could be very positive – provided that it is not adopted by a literalist as a form of taqiyya that will camouflage a jihad to end all jihads.
There is always some stupid effing Imam calling for Jihad but, ironically, you never see one picking up an AK to join his followers.
I wonder why. Could it be cowardice?
They are from the Sinwar School of Leadership Training, the founder of which sends others out to embrace martyrdom, but then demands a guarantee of personal safety as part of the ceasefire negotiations.
Why is the showing of his image prohibited? Could he be just another False Prophit and servant of Satan?!