Tammuz

I don't know if the claim that Muhammed isn't a name is true. I think it was an uncommon name in Muhammed's days. One of Muhammed's companions is said to have had the name Muhammed ibn Maslema (he carried out one of the assasinations). The "prophet" Muhammed's name was Muhammed ibn Abdallah.

It is true that the early part of the "official" Islamic history could be questioned. But to say that Muhammed never existed is taking it to far it seems. Not even Patricia Crone (co-author of Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World) seems not to doubt that Muhammed ibn Abdallah was a real historical figure. Don't forget that there are still Western historians defending the traditional early Islamic history (though they strip the supernatural elements), finding something like that the most probable course of events.

I think we should not underestimate the Jewish influence on Islam. In Arabia, there lived Jewish tribes, and there had even been Jewish kingdoms! One Jewish king, himself an Arab convert, used to attack other Arab tribes and convert them at the point of sword. It is probably no coincidence that both Islam and Christianity arose where Jewish missionarries were active.

Many of the traditions attributed to Muhammed are without doubt spurious. For example, in the Quran (regardless of exactly when the Quran was compiled (before 750 C.E), it is older than the Hadith collections) Muhammed tries to explain away why he doesn't preform any miracles, even though he is a prophet from Allah. In the Hadiths, we find many fantastic miracles and miraculous events attributed to Muhammed (some similar to the Biblical miracles). Clearly, legendarization had taken place.

Regarding the Quran, I think it is possible to reconstruct something similar to the Documentary hypothesis about it's origin. That the Quran was waived together from various sources, but with similar traditions, is obvious. There are various repetitions on the story of Adam and Iblis, Musa (Moses) and so on. However, there is only one story about Yusuf (Joseph). For instance, in the stories of Maryam (Mary), one one of them, there is only one angel to tell her about that she will bore a son even though she is a virgin. But in another repetition, there are more than one angel telling her. It is obvious that the main story is the same, from the same basic tradition (some preaching from Muhammed), but that the repetitions are different variants of it, perhaps preserved by different groups. To find out those sources (i.e like the Yahwist, Elohist etc are for Torah) and groups is a worthy task for any scholar on Islam.

Malachi151

But the issue here is that the sources are few and far between, so its it very easy to go to the origional sources. You don't have to try on these other people saying "well, we can't find much evidence, but we still think he existed anyway".

Go straight to the sources.

gurugeorge

It's a thinkable position that maybe none of the great religions actually started the way they've traditionally been believed to have started. There probably wasn't a Jesus, but there might not even have been a Muhammad, or even a Buddha. Robert M. Price has an interesting article exploring this question here.

Clivedurdle

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=142405

FatherMithras

The problem of saying "Muhammad doesn't exist, because the earliest source for him references another source, which we don't have evidence of" would mean we'd have to throw out Alexander the Great as well.

Alien Gurgey

Out of topic:

Ergh.. I just reread that.

I wish to apologize for my rudeness and what the hell it was I wrote there.
I swear it was supposed to be light-hearted.

Sorry

Malachi151

True, but that isn't the reason.

The reason is that #1 the earliest sources of information that we have on Muhammad have very, VERY few details. The later stories about Muhammad have no explanation of where their material came from, it has always been explained away as "oral tradition" or "divinely inspired". Both of these smak of "made it up". #2 The few non-Muslim accounts that seem to correspond to a vague notion of someone that could be called Muhammad completely contradict the main points of the Muslim accounts, i.e. that Muhammad led a large army, they he defeated people in battle, etc., and the dates of his life. There are no other records that support any Muhammad as described by Islam, YET we do have fairly good records of the goings on in the region, because the whole story is that Muhammad was fighting the Byzantine Empire, and we have records from the Byzantine Empire of this time, they say nothing about this. #3 The stories of Muhammad are clearly patterned on other Jewish and regional tribal myths. Islam is a blending of various "heretical" Christian sects who were more Jewish in nature than the Catholics, Jewish tradition, and the local pagan traditions. We can clearly identify parts of these mythologies in the story of Muhammad.

post tenebras lux

You do know, I hope, that Alexander the Great is in the Koran?

If you're suggesting that we should throw out the Alexander the Great of the Koran as being non-historical, then I agree with you.

Otherwise we are going to have to accept that - contrary to the consensus expert opinion - Alexander the Great:
was a good muslim (and didn't think he was a god)
was a heterosexual family man (rather than liking the boys)
lived to a ripe old age (rather than dying in his thirties)
travelled to both ends of the earth, where he found that the sun sets - and rises - from a muddy pool (rather than turning back once he had reached the Indus)
found some massive valley-spanning iron gates with the tribes of Gog and Magog trapped behind them (rather than beat up the Persians et al)
etc. (etc.)

premjan

I'm not sure it is definite that Dhul-Kifl was Alexander - it could have been one of his predecessor 'Greats' (e.g. Cyrus) or successors (e.g. Darius).

If it was Alexander you would expect to see endorsement of homosexuality in Islam wouldn't you?

post tenebras lux

Why premjan? Did Alexander's sexual practices feature in The Romance of Alexander, from which the muslims obtained at least some of the stories? :huh: