Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Malachi151 · 03-30-2006, 02:12 AM

I went to a talk about Islam last night by Ibn Warraq, an ex-Muslim scholar of Islam. One of the things that he discussed was the historical development of Islam and I asked the question if Muhammad even existed, since the history of the religion actually makes more sense if he didn't and he said tat that is one of the questions that scholars are now considering and the case that he did not exist is very strong.

Basically, Muhammad supposedly died around 632 AD, but the first mention of Muhammad is supposedly not until over 100 years after he died, but we don't even have record of that, the first actual record that we have is 100 years after that in a writing that says he learned about Muhammad from a writing that was 100 years old (basically).

So, the first written account of Muhammad is at least 200 years after the supposed death of Muhammad.

Other than that there is no evidence whatsoever that this Muhammad person ever existed.

In addition to that, the story of Muhammad parallels the story of Moses, as though it was patterned on Moses.

In addition to that, the Koran is written in such a way that is does not at all appear to be the work of one person or even based on one person, and the historical construction of the Koran even states that it was assembled from many different texts that were collected from across the land.

So, the best scholarly explanation for the development of the Koran is that it was put together from a combination of different laws and texts that were written by different people over a period of hundreds of years. It was a consolidation of law that took place around 900 AD, that was then given a legendary origin in order to give it moral authority, and elements of it were even added to after that, and there are all kinds of forgeries and stories that have been made up to justify various parts of the text which seem to make no sense at all and seem very out of context.

This all comes on the growing evidence that neither Moses nor Jesus actually existed either.

I'm absolutely certain that Moses is just a mythical hero figure and that there was no Moses, and I'm 90% certain that there was no Jesus at all, and even the "Jesus" of th Bible, in Biblical form, is certainly a mythical figure. Whether the myth is based on some real person seems doubtful, but if so, still 95% of the story of "Jesus" is myth, making the Jesus figure effectively a myth regardless.

So, here we have the three most influential mind viruses on the planet (well Judaism is influential only indirectly since is has few followers), and they are all based completely on people that didn't even exist.

What a sad commentary on mankind, killing each other over complete fairy tales.....

jim_w · 03-30-2006, 02:21 AM

Quote:

I'm absolutely certain that Moses is just a mythical hero figure and that there was no Moses, and I'm 90% certain that there was no Jesus at all, and even the "Jesus" of th Bible, in Biblical form, is certainly a mythical figure. Whether the myth is based on some real person seems doubtful, but if so, still 95% of the story of "Jesus" is myth, making the Jesus figure effectively a myth regardless.

So, here we have the three most influential mind viruses on the planet (well Judaism is influential only indirectly since is has few followers), and they are all based completely on people that didn't even exist.

Well, that settled my hash. Where do I collect my Atheist hat? ;-P

Chris Weimer · 03-30-2006, 02:32 AM

Do you have any resources, preferably scholarly, on the non-existance of Muhammed?

Malachi151 · 03-30-2006, 03:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Weimer

Do you have any resources, preferably scholarly, on the non-existance of Muhammed?

No, I just began learing about this specifically last night, but based on what I know about religions in general this makes complete sense.

I studied Islam in the tradtional sense in college and at the time I thought that the whole Muhammad story sounded fishy.

You can start here though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

Quote:

Most biographical sources of Muhammad were written by Muslims (which gives them a bias towards hagiography) and were recorded in writing centuries after his death. There are only a few, fragmentary references in non-Muslim historical records from the 7th century, and even fewer inscriptions or archaeological remains from that time.

The dates often given for Muhammad's life are 570-632 CE. The earliest biography known is the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq who was born about 717 and died in 767. He thus wrote his biography well over 100 years after Mohammed died. He would not have been able to speak to any eyewitnesses, only to those who had heard their accounts, or accounts of their accounts. Furthermore, we possess Ibn Ishaq's work only in fragments quoted by later Islamic historians Ibn Hisham (???-834) and al-Tabari (838-923).

Other sources for biographies of Muhammad are: the military chronicles of Waqidi (745-822), the biographies of Ibn Sa'd (783-845), a student of Waqidi, later histories, Quranic commentaries, and the collections of oral traditions known as hadith. These texts were recorded more than a century, and often several centuries, after the death of Muhammad. There are some passages in the Qur'an that are believed to shed some light on Muhammad's biography, however, they require a great deal of interpretation to be useful.

Some skeptical scholars (Wansbrough, Cook, Crone, and others) have raised doubts about the reliability of the Islamic sources, especially the hadith collections. They believe that many hadith, and other traditions, were manufactured, or doctored, to support one or another of the many political or doctrinal factions that had developed within Islam in its first century or later. The life of Muhammad was believed to be the exemplar for all Muslims; hence the importance of showing that Muhammad said or did something proving that a particular faction was right. If the sceptics are right, and much of the early material cannot really be trusted, then all we really know is what is contained in the summary above.

I suspect that a google search will turn up more.

OldYgg · 03-30-2006, 06:09 AM

The Moslems make this too easy.

I believe many Moslems that are kings or whatever 'royalty' claim direct lineage with Muhammad. The proof that he didn't exist - or at least isn't the person all these people think he was that fathered all this royalty is a simple genetic test to see how far back their common ancestor is.

Unfortunately for the, they can't prove, even if their genetic histories combine at an appropriate time - that in fact they combined in to Muhammad, but if their genetic histories do not combine in that time period - then we know for certain they do not share a common ancestor when Muhammad allegedy lived.

Now, if these folks would actually permit a little blood sample, we could settle this issue.

Old Ygg / Alex

Neutral · 03-30-2006, 08:47 AM

Regarding Moses and Jesus I agree with you but you got it wrong regarding Muhamed.

Muslims call the biography of Muhamed “ sira” and from the religious and historical point of view this “ sira “ as what Ibn Ishaq wrote is not a credible and reliable source for Muslims themselves and they treat it as it is equal to the bible for Christians which means that it is a mix of unverified stories told by unknown persons.

To give you an example, there is a very famous story regarding the migration of Muhamed from Mecca to Madina and during this journey the Meccans were chasing him so he hide in a cave with one of his companions and as a miracle a spider started building its net at the entrance of the cave and a dove built a nest and started laying eggs so when the Meccans came searching for him they thought that it is impossible for Muhamed to hide inside this particular cave because if he did , he had to destroy the spider net and the dove nest and they left. This particular story is mentioned in almost all “sira” books but if you ask any Muslim scholar he will tell you that this story is without evidence and unverifiable so as a Muslim you don’t have to believe in it.

Now I think you will wonder if the “sira” is unreliable source how you can prove that Muhamed really existed? Simply it is the “Hadith and Quran”

Hadith is the sayings and doings of Muhamed and this what Muslims consider a reliable source.

You may wonder again what is the difference between the “sira” and “ Hadith”? both are about the life of muhamed!!!

If you check any “sira” book you will find it similar to any biography book today, story after story without caring to tell the source of information but if you check any “Hadith book” you will find before each “Hadith” the names of persons from where the author got this particular “Hadith” which they call “Isnad” or chain of men.

Muslims developed a unique way in verifying “ Hadith” which doesn’t exist in Christianity and they called it “ Mostalah Al Hadith” AKA “ Hadith terminology”
And after each Hadith you will find an estimate of reliability of this particular Hadith ranging from “ Motawater”,correct, good,singular, weak and fake.

Definition of Motawater;
What a group of people got from another group of people in a way that it is impossible for this large number of people to conspirate to lie.

Examples of Motawater
Quran and only handful of Hadith
Regarding Quran, if Muhamed told 100 people about the Quran and those 100 people told 1000 people about it and so on and by the end you got the same exact message from hundreds of thousands of people in a very identical way, this is what Muslim scholars called Motawater and they accept this message as truth beyond reasonable doubt.

Definition of correct Hadith
What a just and fair person with good memory told another just and fair person with good memory from the beginning to the end of the “Isnad” chain of men without irregularities and hidden weakness.

Definition of just and fair person
Is a person well known in his community that he is a devout Muslim, never missed a prayer in the mosque, never charged with any kind of crime.

To apply those criteria in real life, they developed something called “Elm Al Rigal “ knowledge of men “ which is similar to FBI files today following those persons regarding personal information like date and place of birth, name of his teachers and their opinions about him, his travels, his family, simply every thing about him from the day of his birth to the day of his death and they disqualify people for funny reasons like being seen eating in the street which for them was something an honorable person wouldn't do and some went to the degree that they didn’t accept what kids’ teachers said cause they consider that after dealing with kids for a long time, their mental abilities became weak!

Good memory
You may be a just and fair person but your memory is not good and you are known in your community that you forget a lot so they didn’t take what you are saying unless it is supported by others with good memory.

And regarding memory you have to consider a very important point, many Muslims unlike Christians memorize Quran by heart literally word by word without any mistakes and it is not unusual to this day to find a 6 years old kid in a village in Egypt memorizes the whole Quran as for example Taha Hussein who finished memorizing it when he was 6 years old although he was blind and later became the minister of education in Egypt in the fifties.

Regarding irregularities and hidden weaknesses it is a big subject and I don’t have the knowledge or time to explain it to you.

Regarding other kinds of Hadith they have their own definitions and criteria but they are less restricted than the correct one.

I don’t know if you got lost in my explanation – I am a failure as a teacher anyway

– but I want to give you a sense of how Muslims cared to verify their sources and it may not sound perfect to you but considering the time it was better than nothing and a big deal of work to do and today we have thousands of verified sources that told us Muhamed did this or said that and regardless of what he said or did there is no doubt in my mind that Muhamed really existed.

In “sira” books, you will not find any “Isnad” but rather a bunch of unverified stories about Muhamed so Muslims don’t consider “Sira” as a part of their religion and they consider also the bible equal to the “sira” just unverified stories from unknown sources.

Malachi151 · 03-30-2006, 06:25 PM

The Hadiths are the most unreliable of all the writings. They have already been shown to have been forged throughout history by many different people.

River · 03-30-2006, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

The Hadiths are the most unreliable of all the writings. They have already been shown to have been forged throughout history by many different people.

Not all hadith collections.....

Its actually a blessing that Muslims preserved the isnad

Stumpjumper · 03-30-2006, 06:49 PM

Regarding Moses and Jesus I agree with you but you got it wrong regarding Muhamed.

:rolling:

It's always fun posting here....

There's bound to be a thread that it'll crack you up. Yeah, Moses and Jesus were definitely mythical (no citations of course) but Muhamed (we will spell his name however we damn please

) of course was non-existant...

MMM. kay...

maxxmann · 03-30-2006, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi151

No, I just began learing about this specifically last night, but based on what I know about religions in general this makes complete sense.

I studied Islam in the tradtional sense in college and at the time I thought that the whole Muhammad story sounded fishy.

You can start here though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

I suspect that a google search will turn up more.

So if I understand you correctly, you went to hear this scholar, who told you that Muhammad never existed or at least the evidence is strong in favor of that. Now I am not arguing either way on that issue, but it seems that you are doing what many atheists claim christians do: blindly following an authority figure and repeating what they have learned. I am sure you are more learned than that(which you mention previous understanding of religions in general), but it just goes to show that this "blindly following" is certainly alive and well in both camps. Here is something you heard last night and you are already claiming that he doesn't exist, without further study first. Also, wikipedia, may be a great place to start, but please don't stay there too long.

03-30-2006, 02:12 AM	#1
Malachi151 Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 8,674	Moses, Jesus, Muhmmad: None of them existed I went to a talk about Islam last night by Ibn Warraq, an ex-Muslim scholar of Islam. One of the things that he discussed was the historical development of Islam and I asked the question if Muhammad even existed, since the history of the religion actually makes more sense if he didn't and he said tat that is one of the questions that scholars are now considering and the case that he did not exist is very strong. Basically, Muhammad supposedly died around 632 AD, but the first mention of Muhammad is supposedly not until over 100 years after he died, but we don't even have record of that, the first actual record that we have is 100 years after that in a writing that says he learned about Muhammad from a writing that was 100 years old (basically). So, the first written account of Muhammad is at least 200 years after the supposed death of Muhammad. Other than that there is no evidence whatsoever that this Muhammad person ever existed. In addition to that, the story of Muhammad parallels the story of Moses, as though it was patterned on Moses. In addition to that, the Koran is written in such a way that is does not at all appear to be the work of one person or even based on one person, and the historical construction of the Koran even states that it was assembled from many different texts that were collected from across the land. So, the best scholarly explanation for the development of the Koran is that it was put together from a combination of different laws and texts that were written by different people over a period of hundreds of years. It was a consolidation of law that took place around 900 AD, that was then given a legendary origin in order to give it moral authority, and elements of it were even added to after that, and there are all kinds of forgeries and stories that have been made up to justify various parts of the text which seem to make no sense at all and seem very out of context. This all comes on the growing evidence that neither Moses nor Jesus actually existed either. I'm absolutely certain that Moses is just a mythical hero figure and that there was no Moses, and I'm 90% certain that there was no Jesus at all, and even the "Jesus" of th Bible, in Biblical form, is certainly a mythical figure. Whether the myth is based on some real person seems doubtful, but if so, still 95% of the story of "Jesus" is myth, making the Jesus figure effectively a myth regardless. So, here we have the three most influential mind viruses on the planet (well Judaism is influential only indirectly since is has few followers), and they are all based completely on people that didn't even exist. What a sad commentary on mankind, killing each other over complete fairy tales.....

03-30-2006, 06:09 AM	#5
OldYgg Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: New Jersey Posts: 1,107	Proof That Muhammad didn't exist The Moslems make this too easy. I believe many Moslems that are kings or whatever 'royalty' claim direct lineage with Muhammad. The proof that he didn't exist - or at least isn't the person all these people think he was that fathered all this royalty is a simple genetic test to see how far back their common ancestor is. Unfortunately for the, they can't prove, even if their genetic histories combine at an appropriate time - that in fact they combined in to Muhammad, but if their genetic histories do not combine in that time period - then we know for certain they do not share a common ancestor when Muhammad allegedy lived. Now, if these folks would actually permit a little blood sample, we could settle this issue. Old Ygg / Alex

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

03-30-2006, 02:32 AM	#3
Chris Weimer Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: none Posts: 9,879	Do you have any resources, preferably scholarly, on the non-existance of Muhammed?

03-30-2006, 08:47 AM	#6
Neutral Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Egypt Posts: 1,002	Regarding Moses and Jesus I agree with you but you got it wrong regarding Muhamed. Muslims call the biography of Muhamed “ sira” and from the religious and historical point of view this “ sira “ as what Ibn Ishaq wrote is not a credible and reliable source for Muslims themselves and they treat it as it is equal to the bible for Christians which means that it is a mix of unverified stories told by unknown persons. To give you an example, there is a very famous story regarding the migration of Muhamed from Mecca to Madina and during this journey the Meccans were chasing him so he hide in a cave with one of his companions and as a miracle a spider started building its net at the entrance of the cave and a dove built a nest and started laying eggs so when the Meccans came searching for him they thought that it is impossible for Muhamed to hide inside this particular cave because if he did , he had to destroy the spider net and the dove nest and they left. This particular story is mentioned in almost all “sira” books but if you ask any Muslim scholar he will tell you that this story is without evidence and unverifiable so as a Muslim you don’t have to believe in it. Now I think you will wonder if the “sira” is unreliable source how you can prove that Muhamed really existed? Simply it is the “Hadith and Quran” Hadith is the sayings and doings of Muhamed and this what Muslims consider a reliable source. You may wonder again what is the difference between the “sira” and “ Hadith”? both are about the life of muhamed!!! If you check any “sira” book you will find it similar to any biography book today, story after story without caring to tell the source of information but if you check any “Hadith book” you will find before each “Hadith” the names of persons from where the author got this particular “Hadith” which they call “Isnad” or chain of men. Muslims developed a unique way in verifying “ Hadith” which doesn’t exist in Christianity and they called it “ Mostalah Al Hadith” AKA “ Hadith terminology” And after each Hadith you will find an estimate of reliability of this particular Hadith ranging from “ Motawater”,correct, good,singular, weak and fake. Definition of Motawater; What a group of people got from another group of people in a way that it is impossible for this large number of people to conspirate to lie. Examples of Motawater Quran and only handful of Hadith Regarding Quran, if Muhamed told 100 people about the Quran and those 100 people told 1000 people about it and so on and by the end you got the same exact message from hundreds of thousands of people in a very identical way, this is what Muslim scholars called Motawater and they accept this message as truth beyond reasonable doubt. Definition of correct Hadith What a just and fair person with good memory told another just and fair person with good memory from the beginning to the end of the “Isnad” chain of men without irregularities and hidden weakness. Definition of just and fair person Is a person well known in his community that he is a devout Muslim, never missed a prayer in the mosque, never charged with any kind of crime. To apply those criteria in real life, they developed something called “Elm Al Rigal “ knowledge of men “ which is similar to FBI files today following those persons regarding personal information like date and place of birth, name of his teachers and their opinions about him, his travels, his family, simply every thing about him from the day of his birth to the day of his death and they disqualify people for funny reasons like being seen eating in the street which for them was something an honorable person wouldn't do and some went to the degree that they didn’t accept what kids’ teachers said cause they consider that after dealing with kids for a long time, their mental abilities became weak! Good memory You may be a just and fair person but your memory is not good and you are known in your community that you forget a lot so they didn’t take what you are saying unless it is supported by others with good memory. And regarding memory you have to consider a very important point, many Muslims unlike Christians memorize Quran by heart literally word by word without any mistakes and it is not unusual to this day to find a 6 years old kid in a village in Egypt memorizes the whole Quran as for example Taha Hussein who finished memorizing it when he was 6 years old although he was blind and later became the minister of education in Egypt in the fifties. Regarding irregularities and hidden weaknesses it is a big subject and I don’t have the knowledge or time to explain it to you. Regarding other kinds of Hadith they have their own definitions and criteria but they are less restricted than the correct one. I don’t know if you got lost in my explanation – I am a failure as a teacher anyway – but I want to give you a sense of how Muslims cared to verify their sources and it may not sound perfect to you but considering the time it was better than nothing and a big deal of work to do and today we have thousands of verified sources that told us Muhamed did this or said that and regardless of what he said or did there is no doubt in my mind that Muhamed really existed. In “sira” books, you will not find any “Isnad” but rather a bunch of unverified stories about Muhamed so Muslims don’t consider “Sira” as a part of their religion and they consider also the bible equal to the “sira” just unverified stories from unknown sources.

03-30-2006, 06:25 PM	#7
Malachi151 Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Colorado Posts: 8,674	The Hadiths are the most unreliable of all the writings. They have already been shown to have been forged throughout history by many different people.

03-30-2006, 06:49 PM	#9
Stumpjumper Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: The general vicinity of Philadelphia Posts: 4,734	Regarding Moses and Jesus I agree with you but you got it wrong regarding Muhamed. :rolling: It's always fun posting here.... There's bound to be a thread that it'll crack you up. Yeah, Moses and Jesus were definitely mythical (no citations of course) but Muhamed (we will spell his name however we damn please ) of course was non-existant... MMM. kay...

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.