It wasn't Mohammed who founded Islam.

[Minimalist]

Which is not germane to whether or not Mohamed was a historical person, or a later creation for the sake of consolidating political power.

Loon or not, there is scant evidence and apparently some counter evidence Mo-man existed at all.

The problem with investigating this line of inquiry is as Min said - to even question the existence of Mo-man is to invite the kind, gentle Islamists to cut off your head. Hence, it's not exactly well-researched.

IMO, the background of the author and the tone of the book is very important, because history requires a lot of judgement.

You are not going to get a book about jesus or mo being a fake from a site called Iblowjesusormoeverymorning.com. Those people have an agenda to continue putting out the same silly shit over and over.

When a holocaust denier cites Stormfront or David Duke as his source one is right to dismiss them. Spencer has not done that. He names his sources. I'm reminded of Rene Salm's "Myth of Nazareth." Jesus freaks went nuts because at one point in his life he was a piano teacher. So what? He was the first to admit that he was not an archaeologist but he did make the effort to comb through archaeological studies and report them in a popular book designed for laymen. This is what Ehrman did for historical criticism in Misquoting Jesus and Finkelstein did in The Bible Unearthed. Far too many scholars are content to write for each other. It is a problem because their work remains impenetrable for the layman.

BTW, the archaeology indicates that in the first centuries BC and AD there was a single family farm located on the site of what is now Nazareth. No city for the godboy to be from.

Again, perhaps not so coincidentally.

http://religionresearchinstitute.org/mec...eology.htm

THE HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF ARABIA SHOW THAT MECCA DID NOT EXIST BEFORE THE ADVENT OF CHRISTIANITY.

FWIW