It wasn't Mohammed who founded Islam.

[pocaracas]

I was hoping for something a bit more concrete... like which are unreliable and what do they claim that makes them unreliable, to you.
Remember that I'm mostly ignorant of Islam, so that would be a great opportunity to instruct me further.

They are unreliable when:
1. They contradict with a certain verse in the Quran.
2. If the hadiths have been classified as having a low grade of authenticity.

The authenticity of hadiths are strengthened by a sound chain of narration and by numerous, corroborating reports. The hadiths are an important part of preserving the teachings of Islam (in addition to the Quran).

Hadiths as a whole are accepted as true by mainstream Muslims, but not all of them are accepted as 100% true because there are varying degrees of authenticity depending on the number of narrators, the isnad, meaning, translation, logical consistency, and other aspects of the hadiths. Therefore, the early scholars of Islam developed a way of classifying the hadiths according to their level of authenticity. And there are a vast amount of literature and Islamic books on the scholarly science of hadith classification. Here are some links to get you started:

https://asimiqbal2nd.files.wordpress.com...hassan.pdf

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/...ences.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahih_al-Bu...thenticity

Awesome! Thanks!!

I haven't read the whole thing yet, namely, the PDF... but I sense trouble in the water at page 3:

Allah preserved the Qur'aan from being initially lost by the martyrdom of its memorizers, by guiding the Khulafaa Raashidoon and the other Companions to compile the ayat (verses) of the Qur'aan into one volume, since before they had been scattered in writing on various materials and in memory amongst many faithful hearts. Allah safeguarded it from corruption by its enemies: disbelievers, heretics and false prophets, by enabling millions of believers to commit it to memory with ease. He preserved its teachings by causing thousands of people of Knowledge to learn from its deep treasures and convey them to the masses, and by sending revivers of his Deen at the beginning of every century.
Similarly, Allah preserved the Sunnah by enabling the Companions and those after them (may Allah be pleased with them all) to memorize, write down and pass on the statements of the Messenger and descriptions of his Way, as well as to continue the blessings of practicing the Sunnah, as the Prophet said to his Companions, “You hear from me, and others will hear from you; and people will hear from them, who heard from you.” Sunan Abu Dawood (english trans.) vol.3, no.3651 and authenticated by al-Albaanee in Saheeh Sunan Abu Dawood no. 3107

-.-'
Really?
Right off the bat, the extraordinary claim that some allah made people have extraordinary memory so they could remember things from the far past without any contamination?
And, in spite of that, lots of similar sayings, but later deemed false, crept up...

And it seems the main vessel for authenticity is the header of the hadith which contains the chain of people who remembered the thing, am I right?
What kept people from attributing whatever they made up to some supposedly known person from the past? And how to discern who's truthful and who isn't?
Maybe that's further down in the text... gotta keep reading...

There is evidence of tribal societies in that area.
There is evidence that all the tribes became united under the rule of someone towards the end of the 1st millennium.
Something happened in there, more or less at that time. Call it what you will, I don't care much.
Starting with Abd-Al-Malik, there should be far more evidence of everything... isn't there?

You completely (and I believe intentionally) evaded the question which has nothing to do with evidence of tribal societies nor what Abd-Al-Malik did. Again, I'll re-phrase the same question, which is:

Do you believe that the oral traditions and posthumous writings - which refer to Muhammad - are at least somewhat reliable since now you believe that he did exist?

I'm sorry you feel I evaded the question.
No, I do not believe that. But something did happen in there.
So my lack of belief doesn't prevent me from accepting the possibility that some tribal leader attained, somehow (brilliant battle strategy, iron fist ruler, etc), a legendary status. And that leader may have been named Muhammad... I don't care, I'll give you that as possible.
What I don't give you as possible is the direct channel from a god to that guy who became legendary.
I'd sooner accept that someone attached that story to the legendary leader, in order to provide credence, weight, status, etc. And then someone took advantage of that idea and expanded it [cue to Abd Al Malik].

I always thought there was only one prophet, Mo. And that's the one I meant.
The first "he" is Abd-Al-Malik, the guy who spread the religion on the peninsula.

So then your final opinion is this:

Muhammad was the only one Prophet at that time (per the oral traditions, at least) and Abd-Al-Malik only spread the religion, meaning that the religion itself was already established (elsewhere), by Prophet Muhammad. He did that by, according to your own words:
"He had to convince a lot of people that what they believed, prior to his establishment, was wrong and this new prophet [Muhammad] was the one true prophet."

Agree or not?

If you do agree, then you're basically saying the same thing as the oral traditions regarding the historical origin of Islam. So, what's new that you're trying to tell me?

Almost agree.
I'm trying to tell you that the prophetic role was probably added to the person by someone in between the legendary leader and Abd-Al-Malik. And this guy (Abd-Al-Malik) saw that as perfect figurehead to establish control of the people on the large territory he now had dominion over.
It was perfect, because it took on cues from previous abrahamic religions, already well spread in the region; brought a new prophet, something the people had been claiming for a while, after that JC "I'll come back before a generation is past" fiasco; and it implemented a series of almost self-regulating laws on the populace.
The requirement for memorization of the rules must have come by due to the expense in copying a large book as the qur'an.... but that must have come after the madrassas were in place.