It wasn't Mohammed who founded Islam.

[pocaracas]

Rumor... maybe...
Did you see the list on my second post? That gives you all the info you need.

Yes, but those are very general statements about liars. None of that answers the specific questions that I asked before which are:

1. The problem with that is, how could that person make a supernatural claim about some dead guy without first convincing people that he has divine and/or psychic abilities? How else can he claim to know such things that no one else knows?

2. If he is so trustworthy that no one would even question him, what prevented him from claiming himself to be a prophet?

Can I start with 2, first?
Liars claim things about other people. Typically, liars refrain from attributing anything to themselves... it's one of the rules.

1. If Mo was the legendary leader people hailed him to be (in those two notes about him predating Sebeos), then such tales of divine inspiration could easily surface. Like I said before, these tales may have been just people jesting, or suggesting... but others may have picked it up as truth and passed it on... that's why I called it a rumor.

You really want an honest answer?
Yes, it does seem to refer to a god. But let's look at what comes before that expression, shall we?...
"as if by God's command", which is the main lead to assigning god to that "command from on high".
It's almost "as if" this was not a certain thing.... "as if" the story was not entirely believed... "as if" the story was made up after Mehmet's death and spread until it arrived at Sebeos' place, still in its infancy... "as if" the people telling the story weren't sure.

If Sebeos was a Christian, then would he acknowledge Muhammad as an actual Prophet? Of course not. That's why the "as if" makes sense in that regards.

A lot of people perceived Muhammad as preaching under God's command, but maybe Sebeos didn't accept his Prophethood, therefore the "as if by God's command."

And the "command from on high" must be referring to that same "as if" command above - i.e. God's command.

Or maybe the tale came to him with the requirement of a few grains of salt... maybe the tale came to him from some hearsay merchant, some hearsay fugitive. Fugitive? from where? these fugitives would be fleeing Mehmet's arabs? Then they were the enemy... odd.

Anyway... Hearsay, rumor... human nature.
Why do you keep dismissing these as unlikely players in the tale?

The man was so believable to all arabs, but lowly christians couldn't believe him?...
Double standard... -.-'

Wrong. He was almost equally disbelieved by Arabs.

For years he was mocked, insulted, challenged, pushed out of Mecca, his companions were beaten, abused, and even killed, he was spit on, he was beaten so severely that there was blood dripping from his face, the Quraish rejoiced at the fact that all of his sons died so early, they boycotted his followers, and so on and so forth, and yet he was praying for guidance and forgiveness for the same people who were hurting him. He was seen as an enemy even by his own tribe after he started the mission of preaching Islam.

Damn.... it's almost the same tale as Jesus' disciples, huh?
Are you sure that's not a play repeating a previously successful theme?

About Sebeos, "He maintains that the account of Arab conquests derives from the fugitives who had been eyewitnesses thereof."

So what?

Just because it's a second hand account somehow implies that all of that started off as a rumor?

No, it doesn't imply that.
But that is one option of how things came to be.