Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins (34 page)

Allah says in the Qur'an: “As for those disbelieving infidels, I will punish them with a terrible agony in this world and the next. They have no one to help or save them” (3:56). Allah also exhorts Muslims to wage war against those infidels, apostates, and polytheists (2:191, 4:89, 9:5, 9:29). In the Qur'an Allah even commands the Islamic faithful to expand the domains of the believers by waging war against and subjugating those outside the fold (9:29), including those among the “People of the Book” who “disbelieve” (98:6)—in other words, the other monotheists who dare to reject the Qur'an's claims. These various teachings could, and did, coalesce easily in Islamic history: They put vengeance against Allah's enemies into the hands of the faithful.

Compare the perspective on display in such Qur'anic verses with the attitude encapsulated by the lapidary phrase “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19). However much Christians at various points in history may have departed from both the letter and the spirit of that directive, the sharp contrast between the two sets of teachings underscores an
important difference between the faiths. In one, believers are told, “love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). In the other, they are told, “Muhammad is the Messenger of God, and those who are with him are hard against the unbelievers, merciful one to another” (Qur'an 48:29).

The political, and indeed the martial and imperial, components are intrinsic to the Islamic faith, and they are evident from the earliest records. Did the political arise from the spiritual imperatives of the faith, or was it the other way around? The alternative scenario we have considered explains the uniquely political nature of Islam by suggesting that the empire came first and the theology came later. In this reconstruction, the spiritual propositions that Islam offers were elaborated in order to justify and perpetuate the political entity that generated them.

Did Muhammad Exist?

Did Muhammad exist? As a prophet of the Arabs who taught a vaguely defined monotheism, he may have existed. But beyond that, his life story is lost in the mists of legend, like those of Robin Hood and Macbeth. As the prophet of Islam, who received (or even claimed to receive) the perfect copy of the perfect eternal book from the supreme God, Muhammad almost certainly did not exist. There are too many gaps, too many silences, too many aspects of the historical record that simply do not accord, and cannot be made to accord, with the traditional account of the Arabian prophet teaching his Qur'an, energizing his followers to such an extent that they went out and conquered a good part of the world.

A careful investigation makes at least one thing clear: The details of Muhammad's life that have been handed down as canonical—that he unified Arabia by the force of arms, concluded alliances, married wives, legislated for his community, and did so much else—are a creation of political ferments dating from long after the time he is
supposed to have lived. Similarly, the records strongly indicate that the Qur'an did not exist until long after it was supposed to have been delivered to the prophet of Islam.

In light of this evidence, there is compelling reason to conclude that Muhammad the messenger of Allah came into existence only after the Arab Empire was firmly entrenched and casting about for a political theology to anchor and unify it. Muhammad and the Qur'an cemented the power of the Umayyad caliphate and then that of the Abbasid caliphate. That is the most persuasive explanation for why they were created at all. And once legends about Muhammad began to be elaborated, his story took on a life of its own: One legend begat another, as people hungered to know what their prophet said and did regarding issues that vexed them. Once Muhammad was summoned, he could not be sent away. One pious legend fabricated for political purposes would lead to another, and then another, to fill in holes and address anomalies in the first; then those new stories would lead in turn to still newer ones, until finally the faithful Muslims were able to fill wheelbarrows with volumes of hadiths, as is the case today.

As long as the oddities, inconsistencies, and lacunae exist in the traditional Islamic narratives and the records of early Islam, there will arise people with the courage to seek answers to the questions we have considered here. Up to now, however, those brave scholars have been relatively few in number. This is both unusual and unfortunate. It is unusual in that the world's other major religions have undergone thorough historical investigation; the “quest for the historical Jesus,” a parallel to inquiries into the historical Muhammad, has been a prominent field of scholarship for two centuries. It is unfortunate in that the lack of interest in examining Islam's origins, among Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike, robs everyone of access to the truth.

To be sure, many fervent believers in Islam resist such historical investigation. Even raising the question of whether Muhammad existed challenges the very premise of their belief system. No
Muslim authorities have encouraged such scholarship, and those who have pursued this line of inquiry often labor under threat of death. But scholarly examinations of the origins of Christianity and Judaism have gone forward even as some Christians and Jews, including high religious authorities, condemned these historical inquiries as attempts to undermine their faith. Of course, other authorities have actually approved and even welcomed the inquiries. Islam, however, has remained largely exempt from such scrutiny.

For some fourteen hundred years, Islam has profoundly shaped the history and culture not only of the Near East but also of the entire world. At one point, the Islamic Empire stretched as far west as Spain and as far east as India, as far south as Sudan and as far north as the Caucasus. Over the centuries Islamic forces have repeatedly clashed with Western powers, whether it was in the initial wave of conquests that created the Islamic Empire, the clashes with the Crusaders of the Byzantine Empire over Christian holy lands, or the Ottoman Empire's fierce efforts to control the Mediterranean in the sixteenth century. More recently, of course, the nature of the conflict has changed: No longer are traditional powers facing off on the battlefield; instead, Islamic jihadists are terrorizing unbelievers and seeking in various ways, including nonviolent subversion and the electoral process, to impose sharia law.

This long history of conflict demonstrates that there are pronounced differences between the Islamic tradition and the Judeo-Christian tradition of the West. And yet despite those differences, few have bothered to investigate how the Islamic tradition emerged and what those origins might tell us about the “clash of civilizations” that has been a defining feature of world history for well over a millennium.

Did Muhammad exist? The full truth of whether a prophet named Muhammad lived in seventh-century Arabia, and if he did, what sort of a man he was, may never be known. But it would be intellectually irresponsible not to ask the question or consider the implications of the provocative evidence that pioneering scholars have assembled.

Contrary to the common assumption, Islam and its supposed prophet did not emerge in the “full light of history.” Now, more than ever before, historical investigators have the opportunity—in fact, the responsibility—to usher Islam's origins out of the shadows and into the light. Were they not to discharge that responsibility fully or properly, we would all be the poorer.

Introduction: The Full Light of History?

1
Michael H. Hart,
The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History
(New York: Hart Publishing, 1978), 33.

2
W. Montgomery Watt,
Muhammad at Mecca
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1953);
Muhammad at Medina
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956).

3
For an illuminating discussion of the effect of higher criticism on the various Christian confessions, see Jaroslav Pelikan,
Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700)
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

4
Robert Spencer,
The Truth about Muhammad
(Washington, DC: Regnery, 2006), 9, 31.

5
Gustav Weil,
Geschichte der Chalifen
, vol. 2 (Mannheim, 1846–51), 290, trans. William Muir,
The Life of Mahomet
, one-volume edition (London, 1894), xli–xlii (quoted in Ibn Warraq, ed.,
The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
[Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000], 44).

6
Quoted in Ibn Warraq,
The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
, 16.

7
Muir,
The Life of Mahomet
, xli–xlii (quoted in Ibn Warraq,
The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
, 44).

8
The word
hadith's
Arabic plural is
ahadith
, and this is found in much English-language Muslim literature. But to avoid confusing English-speaking readers, I have used the English plural form “hadiths.”

9
Quoted in Raphel Patai,
Ignaz Goldziher and His Oriental Diary
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987), 28 (quoted in Martin Kramer, “Introduction,” in
The Jewish Discovery of Islam: Studies in Honor of Bernard Lewis
, ed. Martin Kramer [Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1999], 1–48, republished online at
http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/the-jewish-discovery-of-islam/#n38)
.

10
Quoted in Ibn Warraq,
The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
, 46.

11
Henri Lammens, “The Age of Muhammad and the Chronology of the Sira,” in Ibn Warraq,
The Quest for the Historical Muhammad
, 206.

12
Joseph Schacht,
The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), 4–5.

13
Patricia Crone and Michael Cook,
Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), vii.

14
Patricia Crone, “What Do We Actually Know About Muhammad?,”
Open Democracy
, August 31, 2006,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/faith-europe_islam/mohammed_3866.jsp
.

15
For an example of the nature of such responses, see Amaal Muhammad Al-Roubi,
A Response to Patricia Crone's Book (“Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam”)
,
www.sultan.org/books/Patricia_crone_english_reply.pdf
.

16
Ahmad Ali Al-Imam,
Variant Readings of the Qur'an: A Critical Study of Their Historical and Linguistic Origins
(Washington, DC: International Institute of Islamic Thought, 2006), 112.

17
Andrew Higgins, “Professor Hired for Outreach to Muslims Delivers a Jolt,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 15, 2008.

18
“Islam Scientist Kalisch No Longer Muslim,”
Politically Incorrect
, April 22, 2010,
http://www.pi-news.org/2010/04/islam-scientist-kalisch-no-longer-muslim/
.

19
Khaled Abou El Fadl, “On Revising Bigotry,”
Scholar of the House
, n.d.,
http://www.scholarofthehouse.org/onrebi.html
.

Chapter 1: The Man Who Wasn't There

1
Yehuda D. Nevo and Judith Koren,
Crossroads to Islam
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2003), 265.

2
Ibid., 265–66.

3
Quotations from the Qur'an are taken, except where noted, from A. J. Arberry,
The Koran Interpreted
(New York: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1955).

4
Doctrina Jacobi
vol. 16, 209 (quoted in Robert G. Hoyland,
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam
[Princeton: Darwin Press, 1997], 57).

5
Historian Robert G. Hoyland notes that the first editor of this text suggested that it had begun as a continuation of Eusebius's ecclesiastical history and was then updated a century after it was first written: “A mid-seventh century Jacobite author had written a continuation of Eusebius and…this had been revised almost a century later when the lists of synods and caliphs and so on were added” (Hoyland,
Seeing Islam
, 119).

6
Thomas the Presbyter,
Chronicle
, 147–48 (quoted in Hoyland,
Seeing Islam
, 120).

7
Nevo and Koren,
Crossroads to Islam
, 264.

8
John Moschus,
Pratum spirituale
, 100–102, Georgian translation, Gérard
Garitte, trans., “‘Histoires édificantes’ géorgiennes,”
Byzantion
36 (1966): 414–16 (quoted in Hoyland,
Seeing Islam
, 63).

9
Homily on the Child Saints of Babylon
, §36 (tr. de Vis, 99–100) (quoted in Hoyland,
Seeing Islam
, 121).