Did Mohammad exist?

[Mystic]

If you doubt Mohammad exists, you would have to doubt people in his lineage, and some of these people were really famous for events shortly after the death of Mohammad.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm a direct descendant of Fionn mac Cumhaill. Doubt him and you doubt me. /sigh

[Rayaan]

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I know this is hard for you, Rayaan, ( about as hard as it is for xtians to hear that their godboy never existed either ) but this is a story about power and the formation of empire. Muhammad, which is a title as well as a name, does not appear for 60 years after the beginnings of the conquest of the Arab empire. The peoples who were attacked never heard of the koran or islam or mohammed. They do record who was conquering them, calling them saracens or such.

The Byzantines and Persians bled each other white in battles in the late 6th century. The Arab tribes moved into the vacuum. There are coins minted by early Arab rulers which bear a cross. Spencer also spends a lot of time going through the hadiths and showing the political nature of those. They were used to inflate or deflate other power blocs.

Like xtianity in the 4th century the religion was a creation of powerful rulers who decided they needed a common religion to hold together a disparate empire.

The book is here.

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7281809/R...i__epub%29

You'll need epub or mobi to read it although I understand that Caliber works as well.

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As for a lack of documents from Muhammad’s lifetime, again, I don’t see how disproves the existence of a man who lived over 1,400 years ago and belonged to a remote primitive tribe amongst the desert nomads of the Arabian Peninsula. And I doubt that those people would have left behind documents about Muhammad because the majority of them were probably illiterate. Even if such documents did exist, it would be pretty exceptional for them to have survived all this time. You run into a similar problem with artifacts because most of them would have been lost over the course of time.

I haven't read Spencer's book yet, but I'll try to read it some time later. As far as I've been reading about his arguments and research on this particular subject, what he basically does is try to show that there is complete "absence of proof" when it comes to the historicity of Muhammad, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't exist. Likewise, what evidence do we have that Moses, Noah, Aaron, or Joshua existed? We don’t have any, but it would be logically wrong to conclude from this that they didn't exist.

We know that Muhammad existed because of the documented wars of succession for his growing empire fought shortly after his death. The result was the Shia-Sunni conflict that continues today. The Sunni branch believes that the first four caliphs - Muhammad’s successors - rightfully took his place as the leaders of Muslims. They recognize the heirs of the four caliphs as legitimate religious leaders and that a religious leader should be elected through a vote among the Islamic community’s people. They believe that Muhammad’s followers chose Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s close friend and advisor, as his successor. Shiites, in contrast, believe that only the heirs of the fourth caliph, Ali ibn Abu Talib, are the legitimate successors of Muhammad. Ali was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad.

Lastly, your statement that Muhammad's name does not appear for "60 years" after the beginnings of the conquest of the Arab empire is not true because, from the listings of many of the dated texts, it is clear that the name of Prophet Muhammad appears very early even in the non-Muslim texts. The time period between the death of Muhammad (June, 632 CE) and the earliest mention of him (4th February, 634 CE) in the writings of Thomas the Presbyter (writing c. 640 CE / 19 AH) is slightly over a year and half. There are more such early documents which you can see at the link below:

Dated Texts Mentioning Prophet Muḥammad from 1-100 AH / 622-719 CE

Rayaan, I've always wondered... Isn't it in your best interest to defend what is being said about Jesus by us so that you can defend Mohammad's beliefs? I think it logically makes sense that if Jesus wasn't who Mohammad said (because of non-existence etc) then Mohammad stops being reliable/divinely inspired.

No, it is not in my interest at all to defend what you guys say about Jesus because I believe that he existed as well and that he was one of the many prophets of God. The only difference in the Islamic view of Jesus is that we believe that certain widely-held Christian beliefs such as the Trinity aspects of Jesus and the crucifixion of Jesus, for example, are associated not with the original words of scripture but with later alterations that crept in with the additions of human copyists and editors. When this happened, we believe that God sent another book (and a final one), i.e. the Quran, as as an updated version of the previous scriptures that were tampered with.

Even for the sake of argument, if [Jesus] didn't exist, then how did [Christianity] become a world religion and then dominate many parts of the world without a leader guiding its people? Who did the [Christians] learn from? Who or what caused the spread of [Christianity] in such a short amount of time which can be directly linked to [Christs] time and shortly after his death?

Fixed that for you.

Yes, but that is one of the reasons I believe that Jesus existed also.
There are more things that I said about Muhammad's existence in that same post as well as in this post.

[The Grand Nudger]

Which, for me, would be troubling. If my reliance on arguments about a person such as Muhammed led me to concede that Jesus also existed...(and by the same reasoning aren't you now compelled to believe in a whole host of other characters from other mythologies?) it would be a canary in the mines moment.

[Minimalist]

Even for the sake of argument, if [Jesus] didn't exist, then how did [Christianity] become a world religion and then dominate many parts of the world without a leader guiding its people? Who did the [Christians] learn from? Who or what caused the spread of [Christianity] in such a short amount of time which can be directly linked to [Christs] time and shortly after his death?

Fixed that for you.

It's amazing what pointing a sword at people can do.

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Again, Rayaan, you'll have to take that up with Spencer and his stable of sources which he lists.

Sad to say the discussion of the hadiths being nothing more than political posturing by various groups is one of the more compelling arguments that Spencer makes.

Try to keep this in context. Xtians claim lots of silly shit about jesus, too.

None of that happened either....no matter how desperately they want to believe that it did.

[Bahraini]

Fine,then migrate to Australia or perhaps Canada . Since 9/11 a great many Americans have found people 'of Middle Eastern appearance' as welcome as a pig in a mosque.

I don't doubt that, that's why I'm choosing to stay here & hope that someday we get the same benefits.

What's scariest about this question is the fact that if it's being asked about Jesus, it comes with Discovery Channel specials around Easter time. When it's asked about Muhammad, it comes with death threats.

I remember a few years ago, when a Danish reporter drew a funny cartoon about Mohammed, the ME went insane, radicals (& there's no shortage of that in the ME) were demanding his head, while the not so radicals started boycotting Danish products until they found that they couldn't live without Danish cheese or ice cream, now they pretend that it never happened.

why would boycotting Danish products help? its not like he's the CEO of Lurpak or something, sometimes the stupidity of Muslims in this age astounds me.

It's 40 years since I lived in Malysia,there, but yes that did also happen there. Today Malaysia will still occasionally put high profile Muslim apostates in prison.


Context: When I was last KL, in 2000, the religious police arrested some bloke for WORKING in a place in which alcohol was served. The judge threw the case out of court,and tore strips off the religious police.

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March 2008: Woman jailed for worshiping teapot.

sometimes those stories make me forget that we live in the 21st century.

Here.

http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7281809/R...i__epub%29


You will need the epub or mobi reader. I understand that Calibre will work also.

Don't get killed for reading it, my friend. Maybe download it through a proxy server like hidemyass.com


I just finished it. It's amazing stuff.

thanks, I already have Hotspot Shield & Tor to access anti-government websites, anti-Islam websites, & porn, since all of those are blocked anyway.

[The Grand Nudger]

Wait, porn is being blocked? I propose that we send troops immediately to aid those suffering under this oppressive and tyrannical regime.

[Minimalist]

It's good to be prepared!

[Bahraini]

Islam may have spread through war and savagery (to a certain extent), but that was never required nor encouraged unless it was provoked by the other side. The important thing to know is that Muslims are strictly prohibited to start a war and/or fight against non-Muslims except for the purpose of self-defense. An Islamic state is not allowed to fight non-Muslims who are not hostile to Islam, who do not oppress Muslims, or try to convert Muslims by force from their religion, or expel them from their lands, or wage war against them, or prepare for attacks against them, as the Quran says, "Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them" (4:90).

& when cartoons & books provoke Muslims, its safe to say that they'd wage war on anybody that doesn't kiss Mohammad's ass.

In fact, according to what I know, the Prophet Muhammad granted the citizens of an Islamic state the freedom to practice their own religion as long as they sign a pact of non-aggression and pay taxes as demanded by the state. During that time, there were many examples of Christians, Jews, and other religious communities flourishing under Islamic rule without being forced to live as Muslims. You can find more information about this in a book entitled "The Jews of Islam," by Bernard Lewis.

until Mohammad chooses to kick them out, like he did the Jews. Even when they peacefully lived together, they had to pay Muslims just because they were not Muslims, that's ridiculous.

Yes, but that doesn't show anything negative about him. Why? Because the fact that Muhammad had multiple wives does not mean that he was sexually hyperactive nor anything like that. On the contrary, that has nothing to do with it because most of the wives that he had were widows whom he married during times of war to protect them. The latter life of the Prophet consisted of years of wars for the emerging Muslim nation, when Muslims had to fight in self-defense to protect their lives and their religion. Consequently, hundreds of his companions were killed, leaving behind widows and orphans without anyone left to care for them. So, that's why Muhammad set an example for the surviving companions by remarrying the widows in order to support them.

I agree with the concept, not the argument, nobody should dictate how many wives (or husbands) a person can have as long as all parties agree. With that being said, your argument is ridiculous, so if I want to be a good person, I should go to Gaza & marry hot widows to "protect" them. Lets face it, he took advantage of grieving widows, he probably had a widow fetish.

lets not forget that he married a nine year old, I'll concede that it was the norm at the time & he's not an exclusive in that club, but he was supposed to be a prophet & should know better than that.

If you doubt Mohammad exists, you would have to doubt people in his lineage, and some of these people were really famous for events shortly after the death of Mohammad.

I do doubt their existence, & if they ever existed, they could be the ones that created him.

As for a lack of documents from Muhammad’s lifetime, again, I don’t see how disproves the existence of a man who lived over 1,400 years ago and belonged to a remote primitive tribe amongst the desert nomads of the Arabian Peninsula. And I doubt that those people would have left behind documents about Muhammad because the majority of them were probably illiterate. Even if such documents did exist, it would be pretty exceptional for them to have survived all this time. You run into a similar problem with artifacts because most of them would have been lost over the course of time.

The Arabian Peninsula was also a haven for poets, & none of them made any reference for 60 years after his death. & please watch the video and/or read the book to counter his arguments, why did Mohammad hold a cross? why were there so many documents & none of them mention Mohammad?

& your argument of those documents being lost doesn't hold any water, there were a lot of documents, none of them mention Mohammad, then he suddenly appears 50 years later when its convenient.

Wait, porn is being blocked? I propose that we send troops immediately to aid those suffering under this oppressive and tyrannical regime.

bring MOAR porn, we're suffering here, cell phones & bluetooth were the central hub for porn at some point, now its BBM.

[FallentoReason]

No, it is not in my interest at all to defend what you guys say about Jesus because I believe that he existed as well and that he was one of the many prophets of God. The only difference in the Islamic view of Jesus is that we believe that certain widely-held Christian beliefs such as the Trinity aspects of Jesus and the crucifixion of Jesus, for example, are associated not with the original words of scripture but with later alterations that crept in with the additions of human copyists and editors. When this happened, we believe that God sent another book (and a final one), i.e. the Quran, as as an updated version of the previous scriptures that were tampered with.

Maybe I didn't word it properly, but basically if Jesus didn't exist then the above stops being true...