mark9950

Was there a real prophet muhammad or was he just a myth like people claim jesus was?

Is there any non biased historical evidence that can prove that this prophet existed?

Consequent Infidel

maybe yes mabe not, for the fact that the was history was recorded in the first 200 years of islam's appearance are HIGHLY questionable...

River

questioned only by you.

livius drusus

This is not a personal matter, River. Many people question the historical claims of Islam.

River

Like whom, We have 100,000 X more detail about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) than any other individual. We even have items that he personally used in museums in Saudia Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, Kashmir and Kandahar .

http://www.altmuslim.com/world_comme...=P627_0_22_0_C

livius drusus

Like the people linked to on the Secular Web's Islam page, just for starters. The Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society actually enshrines questioning the historical claims of Islam as one of its 5 basic principles.

Oh you have more than that. I remember the hair from the beard of the prophet held by golden tweezers in the Hasoda at Topkapi. Of course, I lived in Rome at the time, so a few relics were nothing to write home about. The tiling, otoh, was absolutely breathtaking.

lpetrich

I had even started a thread on revisionist views of the origins of Islam, but while the search function is disabled, it will be difficult for me to find.

Here's a summary:

The Koran is older than Mohammed, and much of it was originally written in Aramaic, a.k.a. Syriac. However, along the way, it was translated -- and sometimes mistranslated -- into Arabic, and a few things got gained in translation. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Hymns of Paradise, mentioned white raisins as one of the joys of that place, and these got mistranslated as houris -- something that will doubtless disappoint many Muslim males.

Islam was originally a movement called Hagarism or the Magaritai, and it was adopted as the official religion of the Arabs who conquered the Middle East in the 600's. There could well have been a historical Mohammed -- but he likely lived in the Fertile Crescent rather than near Mecca.

As these Arabs strived to give their new religion an Arabic identity, they decided to associate themselves with a distant and obscure city with a shrine: Mecca. They imagined Mohammed having lived and worked in Mecca and Medina, they changed the prayer direction from Jerusalem to Mecca, and they gave Islamic interpretations to such pre-Islamic features as the Black Stone of the Kaaba in that town.

And the storytellers who invented the details of Mohammed's life also invented many of the Hadiths, many of which cannot be traced back to anywhere near Mohammed's time.

lpetrich

Ah, the Cloak of Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Which would be fun to show to Shroud of Turin groupies.

Also, River will have a fun time arguing with Xtian apologists about whether Jesus Christ or Mohammed is better-documented.

livius drusus

Here you go, Loren. Origins of Islam: A Revisionist Account.

River

Waines in his book, "An Introduction To Islam", states:

"The Crone-Cook theory has been almost universally rejected. the evidence offered by the authors is far too tentative and conjectural (and possibily contradictory) to conclude that Arab-Jewish were as intimate as they would wish them to have been." [pp. 273-274]


I do not mind the Syriac-Aramaic reading of the Qur'an. i.e the "white raisins' explanation actually further enhances the position of Muslims. I certainly use it when questioned about the ridiculous goals of these fake martyrs. I do not think an Aramaic-Syriac reading should be any problem for believers.

And G-d anticipated your psuedo and indefensible " multiple hands theory".

[ Noble Quran 25:4] Those who disbelieved said, "This is a fabrication that he produced, with the help of some other people." They have uttered a blasphemy and a falsehood.

[Noble Quran 25:5] They also said, "Tales from the past that he wrote down; they were dictated to him day and night."


As if your arguments have any weight? The Quran is without a Doubt the Uncreated Word of G-d -River