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[Order Robert Spencer’s new book,
The book “The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History” puts him at number one, above Jesus Christ, Buddha, Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus, Johannes Gutenberg, Albert Einstein, and everyone else you can think of. To this day, multitudes of people the world over strive to follow his example. Many take his words and deeds as a guide for every detail of day-to-day life, no matter how trivial. Some among his followers commit unspeakably violent and savage acts in his name, and think that by doing so they are serving God. But did Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, ever really exist at all? And if he did, what did he really say and do?
These may strike many people as absurd questions. As far back as 1851, the French historian Ernest Renan made his oft-quoted assertion that Islam “was born in the full light of history.” Nearly two centuries later, most historians still take that view for granted, albeit without examining in any depth the issues involved.
The novelist Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding and ultimately was critically injured for the crime of mocking Muhammad, much more recently confidently stated his agreement with Renan, saying that “for the life of Muhammad, we know everything more or less. We know where he lived, what his economic situation was, who he fell in love with.”
Rushdie’s statement would have been more accurate if he had said that there are Islamic sources that claim to give us all this information about Muhammad. Renan’s claim, likewise, would be closer to the truth had he said that “the earliest Islamic sources purport to show us Islam being born in the full light of history.” For an oft-overlooked fact is that light of history was not actually switched on until well over a century after Muhammad lived. There was a tremendous proliferation of material about his life in the ninth century, but that was fully two centuries after the traditionally accepted date of his death, 632 AD.
Whether for fear of incurring a death fatwa and a life-threatening attack like Rushdie or the opprobrium of their peers for being “Islamophobic,” however, Western academics have been hesitant to examine the historicity of Muhammad or the reliability of the Islamic accounts of Islam’s origins. This is despite the fact that, as “Muhammad: A Critical Biography” shows in detail, there is no agreement in the earliest Islamic sources about the most fundamental details of this towering figure’s life. There are conflicting accounts of key details of his life, including the circumstances and contents of the first revelation he claimed to have received from Allah; the year of his birth; the length of his prophetic career; the name of the angel who supposedly appeared to him; and even his own name.
This is the sort of work that academics in Western universities should have been doing instead of spending all their time on Critical Race Theory and recruitment for Antifa. If they had bothered to look at the actual sources and dared to report what they saw, they would have seen and would be teaching that the Islamic traditions about Muhammad are actually full of contradictions, inconsistencies, and incoherence.
Competing stories about Muhammad appear to have been invented by competing factions in order to shore up their own positions on controverted issues, which is why Islamic tradition shows Muhammad saying so many contradictory things. Ultimately, contrary to the complacency of establishment historians, the Muhammad of Islam is more legend than history, more fable than fact.
This is not just an academic exercise. The real-world implications couldn’t be more immense. The question of who Muhammad really was, if he was anyone at all, and what he really said and did, has enormous implications for Muslims and non-Muslims worldwide. If he did not say and do what he is depicted as saying and doing in the Islamic literature, the entire jihad against the U.S. and the West is based on false pretenses. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and the rest are trying to destroy Israel based on what they think are divine commands, but which actually have no foundation. Millions of women put up with oppression in fidelity to a god who isn’t there.
This question has never been explored in depth. Until now.
Robert Spencer–
Have been listening to a reading of Empire of God. Terrific!
Thanks Robert!!! It may be possible to make some progress on this fascinating topic.
One tangent is projection: who back then understood projection, and that they were projecting themselves?
And of course borrowing from existing literature from various sources.
Was the Prophet Muhammad just another False Prophet of Satan?!
I don’t much care if he existed or not. But I sure wish he would go away.
Somewhere, sometime, someone famous, I don’t recall who, said something like, “the good that men do is often interred with their bones, while the evil lives on long after them”.
It would seem that in the case of Mohammad, he has managed to, in some way, reverse this. That doesn’t account for him never existing, but possibly there were multiple Mo’s. That, in itself would indicate he didn’t exist. But still, the evil lives on.
Try Caesars’ funeral eulogy by Mark Antony.
W. Shakespeare
Thanks World!!! The evil does live on in some cases. That’s also a weird doctrine of Shamanism.
Matthew 16:
15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
There is no other than the Lord Jesus Christ. All of history revolves around him and his glory to come. His death on the cross paid for all sins for those who believe. There is no other. No other human has come close to being as influential in any way that is even remotely comparable to that of Jesus
Yes – the authors of the book claiming that Mohammed is more important will in due course learn their mistake. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
Talk about uncovering a shroud of darkness!
With the violent response of his followers to ANY criticism of Mohammad, how do you go about revealing evidence that his existence might well be an elaborate deception?
WWIII?
If I were the Devil- I would have invented Mohammed as my only begotten son.
Satan always imitates God.
For Islam, the story is similar to Christianity. A Prophet rises out of the ashes.
We should all be grateful that he wasn’t physically resurrected as Jesus was.
Mohammed needs his mortal followers to defend him and his words. That’s how powerful the pedophile is.
And they have to kill any of their own who try to leave – that’s how attractive Islam is.
It’s ear-elephant whether or not he existed… it only matters that people believe he did…
The thing that makes me think that he probably did exist, even though a lot of the material about him may be apocryphal, is that he couldn’t do miracles. Considering what he was competing with in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, you’d expect a hagiographer to come up with a few – or at least a line about signs and wonders being only for idolaters. And I don’t see a male Arab 9th century writer coming up with anything like his young wife Aisha’s comment that “Your God always lets you do what you want”.
A religion in which you can blow up an ice cream parlor full of children knowing that this act will send you directly to The Great Islamic Whorehouse in the Sky. And if your wife is obedient and Islamic she will earn
the honor of being your footstool on which to rest your feet when you are worn out from effing houris and ‘young boys beautiful as pearls’.
The historicity of Muhammad is an interesting question, but, for practical purposes, it doesn’t make any difference whether or not Muhammad existed. What is important is that billions of people believe Muhammad existed and that the Koran is Allah’s direct word because Muhammad said so.
Muhammad was the biggest con-artist in history. Period.
The father of lies created Islam in response to Christianity and Judaism. Allah is “the beast” in the Bible. Allah is Satan. The Koran is a rip off of the Bible. When some Jews nailed Jesus to a tree he thought it was a done deal. So a few centuries later he created Islam as his evil mirror and deadly opponent to the growing threat to his power. And like Beelzebub, is continuing plague on mankind..
If Muhammad existed, I could only imagine the “Welcome” he got on entry to the fiery deep! Satan: “Well done, good and faithful servant! For YOU, 504 virgins (7 x 72)”! On the other hand, could it be possible Islam was created by the Vatican as an excuse to occupy the Holy Land?
Islam is Arab-supremacy and imperialism.
Muslims are hell bent on world domination to force the 7th century Arabian desert culture on everybody.
Whether muhammad existed or not, islam is the ideology of the Arab thugs who’s way of life was to invade, subjugate, rape, enslave, steal and murder. All of which is reflected in koran.
The only way to justify all the criminality and to further subjugate people is to claim all of those acts are orders from god.
When muahmmad died, according to the story, he was a billionaire by today’s standards. He fooled thousands of people into doing all the looting and killing and brining him his “taxes.”
He was smart enough to fool his low IQ followers by promising them a loot after life instead of paying them.
Islam is the biggest hoax ever imposed on humanity. And the greatest threat to the survival of human civilization.