So, who really created the 9th century and the 10th century hadith? Now Muslims will say that they were al created by well we know who they were created by Bkari Muslimi Maja and all from the 9th century right and one from the 10th century. No that is what they tell us. No they're all lying. Abu Daw is from the 11th century that's 400 years after Muhammad. Anessai is from the 12th century. That's 500 years. Ab Maja is from the 13th century. That's 600 years. Jami Abdmidi is from the 14th century. That's 700 years. Same with Sahi Muslim. The second most authoritative comes from the 14th century. And Sahib Bukhari, the most authoritative one, the one that gives us nine volume comes from the 14th and 15th century. That's 700 to 800 years after Muhammad. Folks, not one of these hadith were compiled in the 9th and 10th century. Their final Extant manuscripts were not created wh were not created until the 11th to the 15th century, which is 4 to 800 years later. Thus, not one of them ever heard a word of Muhammad said. This is the first time you're hearing it.
Let's put it on a timeline. So, that's what they say. They were all written there by those men in the 9th and 10th century. No, they weren't. They start to appear by Dowed in the 11th century, Nasai in the 12th century, Maja in the 13th century, same 14th century for Alid Midi. Same with Sahim Muslim, and the most important Alkari is not till the 14th and 15th century. Goodbye. Don't need those guys anymore. Which means that everything we have about what Muhammad said comes from 400 to 800 years too late. How can you defend him? Now we come and now we've been told that the and were written by this guy here Alabi and then there are many that come after Zamakshari and Bawi and the others but he is the first to write down everything that Islam needs. In fact, they everybody loves Alabari because he tells you everything about how you're to walk, talk, eat, drink, sleep, and he tells you all kinds of messed up stuff and he contradicts himself here and there and gives you the chance to himself here and there and gives you the chance to choose what you want. That's why everybody loves Alabari. He was living in the 10th century. So, we're told, "No, we have nothing from him in the 10th century at all. Not a thing." So, where do we get Alabari's material from? It was edited by a man named Michael Jean Deja, the professor of Arabic at Leiden University in Holland between 1879 and 1901 and is known as the Leiden edition.
He went to two manuscripts written in the 13th century which still exist today in Istanbul. These Arabic manuscripts, these were all written 600 years later, but he didn't put them together and compile them for the whole world to use until the last century. A Dutch scholar. So even Alab's Tah and Tasid are not 10th century originals but are much later 13th century compilations which were merely attributed back to Alabi 300 years earlier yet they are still 600 years too late. What's more it took a Dutch scholar from Europe to compile them 1200 years later. Why didn't the Muslims do this? !Because the Muslims never bare never wasted time doing this. They had no idea what Alabadi said until the last century. Isn't that amazing? And yet Muslims and Raymond says this is more historically attributable than any other piece of man, any other person. So l'm going to put everything on one screen. You ready? Let's put them all together on one screen. Really get you confused. So let's start with the Sahab and the Tabu. And that's when they say they're put up there. That's when they believe that they actually were written. No, we now know that they were written here. Well, no, let's put them away because that's actually the 11th century. and the 12th century and the 13th century and the 13th and the 13th and the 13th again. So goodbye to those guys. The Sahab and Matabu never wrote a thing. So we now know what about the hadith? Well, they were telling us that the six hadith were written there. No, they weren't. They were actually written uh in the 11th and the 12th uh the 14th and the 15th century. So goodbye to those guys. We don't need them anymore because none of the hadith were written that early. And then we're told that the sitta was written by those two guys uh Hisham and Waiti in the 9th century. No, according to our German scholar looking at his manuscripts, they all start to appear in the 11th and the 13th and the 14th century. Uh uh and then up into the 15th and the 16th century written by this guy here put together and compiled by this German scholar. So goodbye to Akiti and to Ibnisham. And then we're told that the taps and the tah were written in the 11th s by alabari. No, they were not. They actually came from six manuscripts. I'm sorry, two manuscripts of the Istanbul, but put together by this Dutch scholar. So, goodbye to Alabari. Which means when you look at this, notice Muslims claim that everything happened two to 300 years after Muhammad, right? No, it didn't. What we now know is that everything happened not 200 to 300, but 400 to 900 years after Muhammad. We put a big X in the area that they claim is. So, we've been told that the stories surrounding Muhammad's life were written by those who saw and heard him, thus by eyewitnesses or by others within a few generations. Yet, we see above that everything we know about Muhammad was originally written 400 to 900 years after he presumed lived, yet not canonized into written text until 12 to 70 years later, suggesting it is all a fraud. Let me put them all up there. That's what you can give to Muslims. Get that piece. Take that picture. Get this PowerPoint. Get that picture and then just give it to your Muslim friends. They've got to come up with an answer to that. Looking at this timeline above, how can Raymond Ibraham suggest that the history of Muhammad is one of the best supported in history? How can he say that when those who wrote it did so a full 400 to 900 years after he presumably lived? And what's more, what will he do with the fact that much of it was not canonized into written form until 1200 to 1270 years later? Is this the best in history? Are you listening to this, Abdul? You're kind of losing your smile, aren't you? It's getting harder and harder, isn't it? I love that. He's got a great smile.
Now, as a comparison, folks, be careful. We as Christians have done the same thing. We're just as guilty. You know we are you know the Gnostic gospels 52 found in the Nagamati go library in Egypt written in Coptic purporting to tell stories of Jesus's childhood yet were all written in the 4th century and redacted back to the first century but for instance the gospel of Thomas that's one Muslims love that one and the gospel of Judas written around the second century but attributed by their authors to have been written by the disciples of Jesus Christ's time look at the gospel of Barnabas the favorite of Muslims the favorite gospel by the Muslims was written in 1634 AD but was attributed to the companion of Paul in the first century. They were all written in order to give credibility and authority for those who wrote them. So this practice of redaction and attribution is common in every religion including Christianity. But here's the difference. Here's the difference. Listen to this. Abdul and Raymond Ibrahim if you're watching. The difference is that while the later Muslim traditions are all considered authoritative, as you see on that graph that I put up there, the later Christian traditions are all considered fraudulent. That's why we don't read the gospel of Thomas. That's why we don't read the Gospel of Judas. That's why we throw out the Gospel of Barnabas. Why? Because they are all written too late. So, we throw out that which is written too late. And the Muslims do just the opposite. They hold on and take the latest material and throw out that which gone earlier. Do you see the problem? So, we aren't doing the same thing. We do just the opposite of what the Muslims do. So, what does all this mean? I'm not saying in suggesting that there never was someone called Ibin Isam or Alwiki or AI Bkhari or Sahib Muslim or even Alabi. l'm not saying that. Please don't get that from me today. I'm not saying that because someone certainly had to have created those names somewhere. These men could very well have lived and they could very well have lived in the 9th and 10th century where they were attributed. Thomas and Judas and Barnabas did actually live. They were actual people. They were real men who were historical characters in the early church and well respected and that was why the later compilers attributed their works to them. But they did not write the gospel of Judas or the gospel of Thomas or the gospel of Barnabas. That's all I'm saying. In the same token, neither did Alwaki or Ibam or Albuari or Muslim or Ali write what is purported to have been written by them because we have nothing from those men. Similarly, that is why I believe later Muslims attributed the stories back to these earlier men. Consequently, what Muslims today contend these historical writers wrote, they have no support for historically. They have no evidence whatsoever since they have little to nothing of what they wrote outside of the muata, which is not even a member of the Islamic tradition. So, it should not even be in this discussion. All that Muslims can now be certain of is what the later Abbasids and even the early Ottomans believe happened in the seventh and 8th century since everything that had been written earlier had been destroyed and then replaced with completely new stories to fit a new agenda. Conclusion: When compared to Christianity, which has manuscript evidence within the first century, Islam is much less historically supported, contrary to what Raymond contends. Yet it shouldn't be considering how recent it is supposedly was created and all of it written on vellum on animal skin. They should have the best material. But they don't. That's just supposition one. I've already got an hour and a half. I have half an hour to go to the next. Don't worry, they get much shorter. That's the hard stuff. That's the heavy stuff. That's the new material.
Here's a second supposition. Muhammad has more historical support than Jesus. Do you believe that? This is what he says. I find it amazing that whereas Christians rightfully cite Josephus and Plenny and Tacitus as early proof of Christ's existence, in other words, the first and second century, the non-Muslim references to Muhammad, which objectively speaking are even more compelling since they were written much closer to their subject's lifetime in the 9th and 10th century are dismissed as irrelevant by those who would make him a figment of our imagination. He therefore claims that since Muhammad is far more historically supported than Jesus Christ, by denying his historicity, we are not only being inconsistent but possibly dishonest. Abdul, he called me dishonest. You don't call me that. Of course, you're standing right there. You can't. So, is Raymon correct? Is the historical support for Muhammad greater than that for Jesus Christ?
Here's my response. Both Raymond and I agree that there are many very early 7th century mostly non-Muslim and even Christian references to the word Muhammad. That's why I had to go through that with you Kirk at the very beginning. Notice l didn't say Muhammad the first only two years after he died. Whereas the first non-Christian references to Jesus do not appear until 60 years after he died. I'm willing to say that. But that's not Muhammad. That's Muhammad. Raymond gives only four examples. Actually, there's 15 he could give. He only gave four. So I'm just going to deal with those four because of lack of time. He goes to the doctrine in Yakobi from 634 citing a dialogue in 634 where justice describes what his brother Abraham writes to him regarding a deceiving prophet who had appeared amidst the Sarasids and Abraham recalling a conversation with a Jewish scribe who called the prophet a deceiver
who comes with the swords and chariot. Isn't it getting confusing? Nonetheless, you have to read it so you understand what we're talking about. That's number one. Number two, he goes to the Thomas the Presbyterian 634 citing a battle between the Romans and the followers of Mahmud. Notice it's with a T, not with a L D. And number three, a Syriak fly leaf fragment uh fragment from 636 which mentions Muhammad by name. He says and this is what it says. Many villages were ravaged by the killing of Mahmud. Mahmud, not Muhammad. And the Coptic bishop John of Niku, he puts it at 641, but actually it's written in 690s, refers to him as the detestable doctrine of the beast. that is Makm. Note, not one of these references uses the name Muhammad. They all use Muhammad or Makm. Let's go through each one. The doctrine in Yakobia, a Greek Christian pmical tax track written in Carthage. Now, here's my problems. It mentions the Sarashan prophet. It never mentions the name Mhmed or Muhammad anywhere. And it says that the Christ who was to come. Hold on a minute. Is Muhammad the Christ
who is yet to come? No. That confronts chapter 33:40. And that he assumes that Muhammad is alive in 634. But according to their traditions, he died in 632. He had the keys of paradise which confronts the Islamic traditions. This prophet fits a Judeo-Christian monotheistic background. This Christ, this Christos in Greek, this Mashiach in Hebrew who was to come, not Muhammad. He has the keys to paradise. That comes from Matthew 16:1-19 referring to Peter's papal authority in the Catholic Church. And this Mads or this Sarasan prophet who doesn't have the name Muhammmed spoke Aramaic.. I don't recall Muhammad ever speaking Aramaic. So coming and going, there is no reference to the name Muhammad in this track. No reference to the prophet being a Muslim or belonging to the religion of Islam, nor any reference to the city of Mecca, nor of his book, the Qur'an. He could be anybody. In fact, he sounds more like an Arab Christian brigant employing the status of a prophet to gain for himself more credibility and
authority. There's just nothing Islamic about this sarassid prophet. What about the Thomas of prespiter later revised in the 8th century and refers to a battle between the Romans and the Ta of Mahmmed. Notice Makm is the Palavi spelling which means he has to come from Iraq if he's Palavi. That's how they spelled it up there. And that he would have come from our present day Iraq which is 1200 miles to the north. He is a Thay. That's the Mm of the Tay dominated by the Lakmud region. You can see on the map where the Lakmids are. They're way up in Mesopotamia in Tajkasan in the 7th century. Note on the map where the red circle is is where the TA were located. Way too far to the north to be the Muhammad of the hij of central Arabia. He fights in Gaza. Yet none of Muhammad's battles were in Gaza, nor anywhere near that far north. As before, he could be any Muhammmed or any praised one. Someone who is referred to as the praised one on honorific title for the leader of the Thai way up in northern Iraq. And then you have the Syriak fly leaf which refers to this battle in Yarmmuk in 636. Notice where Yarmmuk is. is in what is today southern Syria. The Arabs of the Mahmed who have a battle with the Gaba in Yarmmok. My problems is the battle is well documented. But note that it says the Arabs. So who were the seventh century Arabs? Look at the map up there and you will see where that that red rectangle is. They lived in today's Jordan and Syria, not in the Hij. So way too far to the north to be the Muhammad of Islam. The Arabs defeated the Byzantines at that battle. But according to the standard Islamic narrative, Muhammad died in 632. What was he doing in 636 in
a battle? Could this be yet another of 7th century northern Makm, thus someone who is simply referring as an honorific praised one? And then he goes to the Coptic bishop,
the Coptic bishop Niku and he writes this embrace the religion of the Muslims, the enemy of God, and they accepted it the detestable doctrines of the beast that is Muhammad. Now, didn't I just get done telling you about 10 minutes ago that there is no one called Muslims in the 7th century? But look at the date 690. What's he calling people Muslims and calling Muhammad with the vowels in place? What does that tell you? There were no vows in the 7th century. The earliest manuscript of this is quoted in 6002 from an Ethiopic translation from the Arabic which was from an earlier Greek translation, none of which exists today, suggesting once again that this is a later redaction back to the 7th century. So there was no reason why to use that because it's way too late. This comes from the 17th century. It's a fraud. Now what about Christian's historical record? Let's use the crucifixion. Probably the most important event in the history of mankind. What does Islam do? What does this book do with the crucifixion? Well, in one verse. it shuts down the crucifixion. Has another man die in
Jesus's place. puts him on the cross instead of Jesus saying that there was no crucifixion. And in one verse, it just shuts down everything we know about Jesus Christ. That's what the Quran does. Is that historical? No. Why do we go back to the evidence from the first and second century? Why don't we go back to Thalus and Flega, these two Greek Samaritan historian and Roman writer who were debating this event in 52 AD. That's 20 years after Christ's death. And in the debate, they mentioned that when Christ died, the earth shook and the sun went dark. Don't you think you'd rather trust them than the Qur'an that was written in the seventh and 8th century? I'd go to the first century, wouldn't you? What about Lucy in the Greek satire that refers to the death of Jesus Christ? Or Mara Barerapen, who has a letter to the pagan in 73 AD. Or what about the Jewish historian Josephus who in between 83 and 90 AD not only talks about the death of Jesus, but he mentions also the brother of Jesus, James' death. And he mentions that the Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Woo, I love that. And then what are we going to do with Tacitus? A Roman historian who hated Christians, had nothing good to say about Christianity. Yet he talked about the death of Jesus. Hetthat happens during the time of Pontius Pilate under the rule of Tiberius. That's why we know Israel in 33 AD because of Tacitus. So l've given you Greek, Roman, and Jewish historians from the first and second century who all agree that it was Jesus who was on the cross. Yet even with just this example, we can see that Christianity has a far better record than Islam historically because of the outside hostile historical evidence.
Now what about the textual record we have? Remember I said earlier that we have the and the of Jesus and we have it in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and also the writings of Paul. You remember I said that?
Let's do a comparative. Now I'm going to step on all your toes. You're not going to like what I'm going to do next because you're not going to like the dates I did put there. I'm going to put the most liberal dates I can find. But I'm doing that for a purpose. Let's see when they were written down and let's see how earlier they are. So when you talk about Jesus, we talk about the that would be the histories of the early church written by Luke in the book of Acts written between 52 and 62 AD. That's within 20 to 30 years of Christ's death. Paul's letters to the different churches that's the taps of Jesus. That was written between 48 and 65 AD. And within 15 to to 34 years you have the first sitta and the first hadith written by Mark in 70 AD, 37 years of Christ's death then you have the next two of Matthew and Luke written in 80 AD that's 47 years after Christ's death and finally you have the last sitta and the last hadith written by John in 90 AD, that's 57 years after Christ's death, within 60 years you have the entire New Testament, within 60 years notice that all of these writers, all of these New Testament writers lived in the same place Jesus lived lived and they either knew him personally or they
got the material from others who saw what he did and heard what he said. So comparing Christianity versus Islam when was the earliest biography saying for the both faiths. When we look at Christianity everything is comes together within 60 years of Christ death written by those who either saw or heard what he did and heard what he said or those who got it from the the eyewitnesses. Whereas when you look at Islam, everything we know about Muhammad, what he said and he did comes from 400 to 900 years later. Which would you guess is more authoritative? Are you listening to this, Abdul? Are you starting to get the idea? You've got a problem here, don't you? Yeah. No answer. Just put your thumb up. You're starting to come around. As a comparative comparison, if we had to depend on sources for Jesus comparable to what the Muslims are dependent on for Muhammad, Jesus would not begin to appear until the third to fifth century. How would we defend him with statistics like these? How can Raymond suggest that Muhammad is more much more historically supported than Jesus?
Supposition number three, if Muhammad did not exist, how do we understand the Sunni Shiite divide? This is what he says. If Muhammad didn't exist, then no descendants existed either. So how can we understand the Sunni Shiite divide? Why would there be a huge contention involving the blood descendants of a man who had never existed? Now to begin with the first we even hear about Ali as Muhammad's choice is with Sahib Bukhari volume 5. While the other counter argument which goes against that exactly contradicts it is also found in Sahib Bukhari volume 5 book number 64 proving that his companions didn't even know what side they were on. Remember the canonical version of Sahibu Bahari does not appear until the 14th to 15th century. So this is probably a much later story redacted back. But most importantly this is a political dispute between Persians and Arabs not theological. So it could have been created at any time by either the Abbasids or the Ottomans in the 14th and 15th century and then redacted back first to Alahadi and then to the person of Muhammad himself in order to give authority to whichever position Persian or Arab you needed for that time in for your place. This is not surprising as movements both political and religious often split and the Sunnis Shiite divide could easily have arisen for the same reason as the earlier Abbasid revolt which at its very roots was due to disquite over the earlier Umayad dynasty. And here is another response. I'm not going to read through this. You can read through it when your own time when you get the PowerPoint by Dr. Pat Andrews. He just shows you if you have that problem, what are you going to do with the the King Arthur and Camelot legend? Did Camelot really exist? Were there a round table? Was there a stone with a sword in it that little King Arthur had to pull out? Well, Disney made that one up and it still be made up even today. Legends are exactly that. They get concocted. They get recreated. They get embellished. They get deleted and created century after century depending on what your needs are. And that's exactly what we're finding with the Sunni Shiite divide. What about his reference to there are no incontrovertible proofs of Muhammad's non-existent. Boy, that's a mouthful. My response, I don't have to prove a thing here. The statement makes no sense to begin with. How can someone prove someone who did not exist? It is the person who claims that someone did exist who bears the burden of proof, not me. Okay, I turn that right back. Although, you're not supposed to agree with that. Don't say yes. Say, "Oo, that's something I hadn't thought about." Raymond admits in his video that he hasn't even looked at our evidence. Why in the world is he confronting me if he's not even looked at my videos? That shows you right away that the fact that he hasn't even looked at our argument suggests that he is either naive or simply arrogant or is being typically Arabic with his one-upmanship style. I think it's the latter. The theories we have, Raymond believes, are only out there, the reason I'm doing this, he says, is because those of us who perpetuate them use simply out of a dislike for Islam. Folks, he is correct. I do dislike Islam, but I absolutely love Muslims. Do you see the distinction I'm making? Yes, I want nothing to do with Islam, but I love Muslims. They are my favorite people. Why in the world have l spent 45
years working with them if I didn't love them? However, isn't Ibrahim just as guilty of disliking Islam, which would
invalidate his later arguments for Muhammad's existence based on the tradition. Be careful, that argument goes both ways. Are you seeing this, Abdul? Don't throw that at me. I'II throw it right back in your face.
Supposition number five. Since the traditions of Muhammad are so embarrassing, why in the world even
write them? I love this one. This is what David Wood took me on about two years ago. We had a debate on this very subject and he said, "Jay, how can you have this guy? He is so embarrassing. Look at all the things he did wrong. Look at all the weaknesses he had. He was deceitful. He killed his enemies. He married a seven-year-old girl and consummated when she was nine and he was 53. That's just terrible. How can Look at this guy. He was demonp possessed. He tried to commit suicide. He was he goodness sakes he started wearing female clothes like he was a transvestite. How can you invent somebody like that? Jay, here's the problem. The difficult is this. Raymond and David Wood, they are embarrassed by Muhammad because they are comparing him to Jesus. Therefore, they're looking at Muhammad through the grid of Christian Christian cultural views. They're looking at Muhammad and they want him to be Jesus.
But he will never be Jesus. No one can be compared to Jesus. Of course, for us, he's absolutely embarrassing. But Muslims don't do that. They don't look at Muhammad through the big grid of Jesus at all. Therefore, they love his verility. They love his violence and his denigration of others. In fact, Muslims whenever I bring this up, they tell me this. Compared to Jesus, Muhammad is much greater. Jesus, he never married. He had no family. He never ruled. He never went to war. He never stood up against his oppressors. He never owned anything. He was a wimp. That's what they tell me.
I want to follow Muhammad. He went to war. He had a wife. He had children. He controlled the whole country. He is his model that we use all over the Muslim world today. And he was a man. Unlike Jesus, was a woman. For a Muslim, they love Muhammad because of that. We hate him because he's not like Jesus. Be careful, folks. The more you show these things to Muslims, the more l agree with you. Absolutely. Why don't you come on home? He's a much better man than Jesus. What kind of model is Jesus? Didn't do anything that I want to do. What's more, if you're looking at his depression or his attempted suicide, his demon possession or his crossdressing, even his homosexual tendencies, which Ibrahim
Raymond loves to talk about, David Wood, they love to go on this. These are typical crisis of every prophet Every prophet goes through these crises, but they overcome every one of them. They didn't, remember he didn't remain depressed. He didn't continue to wear dresses. He didn't commit suicide otherwise he wouldn't have lived. Every prophet goes to them and then they conquer them. And by conquering them, they prove and they show to us what we can do. Proving that they were true prophets. The same happened to Muhammad, a true prophet because he surmounted these problems in their eyes. So be careful about using that argument, folks. Every time l use that argument,
Muslims want to invite me to tea. Say, "Yes, thank you. Why don't you come back to Muhammad? What a guy. Ura, he's my man."
Supposition number six, Mecca is not an argument against Muhammad. Oh boy, I love this one. Though Raymond did not watch any of our videos on Mecca, his response suggests that we are simply arguing from silence and an absence of evidence does not prove the evidence of absence. He says that in his video, I could believe that he was actually quoting Dr. uh Dr. I forgot his name, J Madawi from the last century. At some point in the future. references for Mecca will exist. My response if there was no Mecca then it doesn't matter what Muhammad or Muhammmed you find. If he does not come from Mecca but then he is not the Muhammad of Islam. So is it absolutely does matter that Mecca existed. In 1995 we had almost no
evidence. Back there when I debated Dr. Madawi but today we have all the evidence. We have coins, we have
inscriptions, we have buildings, we have manuscripts. So it is now the Muslims who are arguing from science. Whoops, I finished that one there. his example of Troy that he uses a non-secary since we have ample references for ancient history for the existence of Troy. We just did not know where it was situated until now. Conversely, we have no
references from ancient history for even the existence of any place called Mecca in Arabia. Now, I'm going to go through this very quickly because you've seen this before. Remember that stool (with three legs) that I showed you at the very beginning? If you shut down Mecca, you shut down the other two (Muhammad and Qur'an). The other two are absolutely dependent on Mecca. What Muslims say about Mecca, they say that it is the oldest city in history it's where Adam and Eve went to. You can't get a city that's older than Adam and Eve because in order to have a
city, you have to have people. It is where Abraham destroyed the idols in Surah chapter 21. It's was the center of trade, north, south, east, and west. So somewhere somewhere sometimes someone should have heard about it. When you look at the Quran, you will see that it refers to the first sanctuary of mankind. But it doesn't call it Mecca. Isn't that interesting? It calls the mul haram. The mas harab would be the forbidden place of bowing. Now Muslim believe that is the Kaa'ba today. In chapter 6 and act chapter 42 it says it is the where Adam and Eve were, there in chapter 7 is where Abraham lived, in chapter 21 and where Muhammad was born until 622 and where the Qibla was directed towards in chapter 2. Now all of the above imply he lived there from the very beginning. But here, problem is there's only one reference to the word Mecca in the entire Qur'an.
Chapter 48:4, that's it. If it is such an important city, why is it only referred to it once? What's more, when you look at the tradition, suddenly they proliferate with all kinds of references to Mecca?
Because they're written in the 14th and 15th century, much, much, much later. But notice that they talk about this place with streams and fields and trees and grass and fruit and clay and lom and grapes and grain and pomegranates and olive trees. Folks, that sounds like a very fertile place, doesn't it? Take a look at Mecca. Does it look like it has that kind of fertility? Its soil is so depleted that it's been depleted for thousands of years. You can't get that kind of vegetation in a place like Mecca. In the Qur'an, Mecca is referred to as the place of the prophet. But in the 11th to 15th century traditions, the Mecca they portray suggests an author lived much much further north where there was lot of fertility. Here are my conclusions. We begin with Mecca because its foundation for both Muhammad and the Qur'an. So without it, they both fall because it does not matter which Muhammad or which Qur'an you find. If they are not from Mecca, they are not the Muhammad or the Qur'an of Islam. Since Mecca is the earliest and most important city in the history of mankind, it has to be the center of the world and therefore certainly the best
known. Therefore, references suggest that Mecca had lush vegetation such as fruit, trees, grass, grains, streams, which make no sense when you look at the pictures. Just take a look at the pictures. Historically, it's never had
any fertility. Ironically, though, it's claimed to be the greatest city in the history. It is only referred to once
signifying that the authors either did not consider it important or it came into existence much much later. Even the Arabic if you look at the Arabic and if you people you can read the Arabic here you notice the Arabic here has the alfsur and the marba and the definite article right that's all through the Arabic that is not the Arabic they would have spoken in Mecca the Arabic they spoke in Meccabed is Arabic from Yemen from way down south there is no there is no alsur and there is no definite article in the seaic Arabic so even the Arabic in the Qur'an does not come from Mecca, so where does this Arabic come from? It comes from Napatian in Aramaic, which is from Jordan. That's 800 miles to the north. Can you see a problem, folks? They've got the wrong Arabic. Geographically speaking, when you look at the Qur'an, just look at all the references. 65 references. 23 times it mentions that Muhammad goes up and visits these people way up here in 24 times visits the people in Tumb. He's way down here in Mecca, right? Supposedly, how can he go way up to Tumb and back down in one day? Seven times he visits these people in Midian. Folks, that's 600 miles to the north. How does he go up 600 miles and come back in one day? Unless you have helicopters or airplanes, which I don't think they had in the seventh century. Can you see? Obviously, whoever wrote the Qur'an was writing from way further north where these places existed. It also mentions that these people there's nowhere that they called them Muslims. They call them Ishmaelites or Hagarines or Mahajjaruns or Mahares or Sarasids. Those are the five words they give to themselves. All these people living that far north. And they say that there are 70 to 300 prophets who were buried in Mecca. And when they were buried there, they were buried in a kneeling position so they could keep praying. Which means if you go to Mecca today, you should be able to find them. And they are. They're going to Mecca. And they're building 62 skyscrapers all the way around the Kaa'ba. When you build skyscrapers, you have to dig deep to get deep foundations. Ask any of the archaeologists. We did so a number of years ago. We asked the archaeologists what have they found. When they dig these foundations, they haven't found a thing. Not one of these bodies exist. And notice what they're doing. They're now cementing up all around the Kaa'ba. Why do you think they're cementing it up? To shut down the evidence. Dr. Patricia Crone wanted to find out if there's any reference to the city of Mecca in any of the ancient civilizations. She went to the Assyrians. She went to the Romans. She went to the Persians. She went to the Himirites. She went to the Nubians. She went to the Nabotans. She went to everybody that was surrounding all those round red circles, the red circles and the rectangles. Every one of those traditions and she read all of their documents. Could not find one
reference to Mecca in any of their documents. So she said, "Well, what about the lesser known town towns starting with Aiden down here and then you have Sana and then you have Naj and then you have Tif and then you have Yatre and then you have Kaibar and you have Tabuk and then you have Gaza in the north. Those are all the oasis along the western plateau and she found reference after reference to all of them all the way back to 300 BC. Reference after reference they were well known not one reference to Mecca which is supposed to be the greatest city in the history of mankind, the oldest city in the history of mankind. the center of the world. Not one reference in any of those civilizations. The trade routes, she went and looked at the trade routes and she went and she
could read their documents. She could read their languages. And from the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, all the way up until the 8th century, she could not find any reference to Mecca on any of the trade routes. Any of the documents yet neither of the land routes. She went to the land routes, the Red Sea trade routes. She found the Red Sea trade routes which was going up and down the Red Sea were all on the African side and not on the Arab side. And they all went up to these five cities along coastal cities along the African coast. Not one along the Arab coast. l'II tell you why in just a minute. The first reference she could find in any documentation to the city of Mecca was not till 741 in
the apocalypse of Suno Aribeca Bzantia written in 741. And
that's a 100 years after Muhammad died. But Tommy, the great geographer***, wrote his book on Arabia in the second century. And he put all the different cities that belong to Arabia. And he wrote them all out there. And he put where the rivers were. And he put where the mountains were. Not once did he mention Mecca in the second century. And the reason why is very simple, folks. It has to do with one word. Anybody know what that word is? Say it again. Water. It's as simple as that. Look at any map of Arabia. Look at any geographical map. Look at any topographical map and look and see what you notice. Every one of those maps shows that Mecca is in the middle of a desert. Where there's desert, there's no water. No water, no food; no food, no people; no people, no towns; no towns, no cities; no cities, no history. No history, no civilization. Do you see a problem, folks? You need water. In order to have any civilization, you need water. So Muslims come back to me. Ah yeah, but what about the Zamzam well? Oh, I love the Zamzam well****. The Zamzam well right there next to the Kaa'ba 30t away. There it is. See a picture of the Zamzam well. It's 30 ft across and 50 ft deep. And this is inexhaustible water that the Lord has given that Allah has given to the Muslim so that they can drink from this well. If you go to any Muslim bookshop here in central or Southern California, you will see Zam water there. Leaders and leaders and leaders of it. Four million people go to the Hajj. Two million go to the Hajj. Two million people are already there. Four million people in Mecca drink the Zamzam water. How can they that many people? How can almost two billion people drink water from the Zamzam well and it's only 30 ft across and 50 ft deep. Muslims say this is the miracle of Allah. Inexhaustible water. So l decided to do some research on this. I went back and looked and I just Googled it. You can Google it. And what happened in 1953? They capped the well and they put it underground. And then they had, you had pipes going into the well and then pipes coming out of the well. Just follow the pipes, folks. Those pipes go up to a mountain about two or three miles away. And there is these enormous holding tanks, the world's largest tanks for where all this water comes from that goes and fills the well and comes back out again. So where does the water come for those tanks? Just follow the pipes. And they go down, down, down, down to Jedha. And they go down to these desalination plants. 27 desalination plants which take the salt water, put it into fresh water, send it up to those tanks, put it down into the well, put some perfume into it and some sweetening and then they sell it to the whole world. And boy, the Saudi Arabian government is making all the profit in the world. But it has nothing to do with Allah. Who built those solation plants? Those solid desolation plants. Bectal Corporation, Kansas City, United States. Give ourselves a hand, folks. Everything the Muslims are dependent on, comes from us because of Mecca's water. I won't go into this, but I will go into this. What's fascinating, Dan Gibson, a good friend of mine, decided to find where all the qiblas were facing. And he saw that none of the qiblas were facing Mecca. Not until 750. All the qiblas were facing Petra and Jerusalem, the
antecedants to all the to the five major things that they do in Mecca. Take a look. When they circumulate seven times going counterclockwise around this Kaa'ba, which means cube, it's the same word in Hebrew. That's where the holy of holy was in Jerusalem. They're just following what the Jews did seven times. Why do they go seven times counterclockwise? Because of Jericho. And then they go from the safan madwa running back and forth seven times looking for water. Why do they go from safa? It's just two rocks just a 100 feet away from the Kaa'ba. They're only 20 ft high. These are not mountains that Hagar is looking for water in. That's nothing more than a faximile. So where's the original Marwa and the original Safa? Marwa is Mount Moriah. Marwa is the Arabic for Mount Moriah. Safa is Mount Scopus on the other side of the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem. It all comes from Jerusalem. They're just copying the Jews. Bring it home. Certainly, someone somewhere at some time should have known about this city. Yet, no one anywhere nor at any time has, proving that it never existed at the time of Muhammad, nor during early Islam. So, if Mecca did not exist, then what Muhammad is Raymond referring to? His Muhammad had to have been born and grew up there and spent the first 52 years there. He's going to have a hard time. Are you listening to this, Abdul? Help him out, would you? Supposition 7. No one can prove or disprove the historical data. Since nothing historical can be proven or disproven, those who love Muhammad will continue to believe his existence regardless of what we contend. Jesus Christ supposedly did not exist either for the last 200 years. Yet, billions of people still believe he did. No one will investigate the historical claims about Muhammad just as no Christians did against Jesus Christ existed. So it is not worthy of our time. He says my response suggesting that nothing historical can be proven or not is not academic. His earlier example of Troy suggests that historical claims can be proven as have been done and he was the one that gave that as an
example. Raymond is correct. The common person on the street will not investigate Muhammad's existence as is not healthy. They wouldn't live very long. This is primary for the academics who are the future leaders of Islam. And who can sway many more Muslims against Islam than either you or me?
Supposition eight. It all comes down to a matter of faith. Why would anyone listen to a white American Christian speak about the existence of their beloved prophet when they have faith that he existed? Muslims will either laugh or mock anyone trying to say that Muhammad did not exist because it comes across to them as ludicrous and even arrogant. My response, true. Most of those who support this material are fellow middle-class educated westerners like myself. But it is beginning to take traction all over Africa, Asia, and even Americas. I've been in seven countries since January introducing this material mostly in Africa. They love this in Africa. They want this in Africa because
this is the only material they can use because they cannot confront Muhammad in Africa. Not about all the proclivities. They will be killed. But they can confront this. I'II tell you, l'll tell you in just a minute. Claims against Muhammad's existence are merely an academic or subjective exercise. You simply dislike Muhammad, he says. Therefore, your viewpoint is totally inconsequential and thus the weakest argument. No one will investigate the historical claims about Muhammad just as no Christians did against Jesus Christ existed. So, it is not worthy of our time. My response, the terms academic or subjective do not negate the evidence which we have and have nothing to do with the historical proof of Muhammad's existence. What's more, Raymond's claims against Muhammad's morality and relevancy are equally academic and subjective and therefore equally inconsequential. So, l'I just throw it right back on his lap. And the number 10 the best polemic he says is to prove how irrelevant Muhammad is for today. It is a tried and proven methodology. Everyone uses it. You will get many more converts. My response, l used it for 30 years, folks. This is called the internal critique because everyone used it. That's the only thing we had. Cindy was the only polemic that existed but I had hardly any success. I hard I got very few comments using that method. just got a lot of anger and death threats because when you start talking about Muhammad's violence and about his sexual proclivities, Muslims aren't going to like you too much for mocking that. I felt dirty using these arguments. It causes more anger resulting in creating walls and censorship by Muslims and Westerners. People in Muslim dominated countries just cannot use those arguments. When l go to Africa, they say we can't use what Raymond's Ibraham's doing. We can't use what David Wood's saying. You can use that in the west because you have the freedoms to do so. But we can't use that. They much prefer this argument. Why? There are three forms of polemics. I'm going to end with this. When you go on the offense, you
can either do the internal polemics. That's what Raymond Ibraham is using. That's his favorite. Looking at the Qur'an, unpacking the verses and just confronting them. Or looking at Muhammad, looking at what he said, what he did, and confronting what he said and did. That's the internal polemics. Or you can use cultural polemics looking at what Islam is doing around the world, looking how irrelevant they are. I prefer external polemics that the one he thinks is the least favorite, is my favorite. Why? Because when you look at Muhammad and you look at Mecca and you look at the Qur'an, you have to house them in history. This form of polemics confronts the very foundations of Islam without confronting the people or their revelation or their prophet and lowers the anger, I'm finding. Why is this critique so popular? First of all, notice everything's up on the screen.
You didn't have to look at me once. Everything's up there. It's visual. We didn't get into the coins or the
rocks or the buildings or the maps. We didn't get into that night. We didn't have time to do that. We just looked at the timelines. Most of that, most you
didn't have to learn a word of Arabic. Now, we did have our Arabic experts down here and they helped us with MMA, but nothing. I didn't teach any Arabic to you tonight. Did you notice that you don't have to learn Arabic? It is foundational to everything Muslims believe. It features one book by one man in one place. Yet, without any of these three, Islam falls to pieces. Folks, we have the evidence. So, it's the Muslims who now have to argue from science, not us. It is historically neutral and therefore not Islamophobic or hate speech. Thus, everyone can use it. But I would rather we use this as Christians. Why? For one very good, well, not two reasons. Because we are the only ones that have gone through this process with Jesus Christ. We are the only ones that had to prove that he existed. We are the only ones that had to prove who Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were. We are the only ones that have used historical criticism. And we've come out the other end. We have succeeded in proving Jesus historically, unlike what Raymond Ibrahim's saying. We absolutely have proved his historicity. Therefore, we understand redacted criticism, source criticism, form criticism, textual criticism. Notice I was using all three tonight. We understand that better than anybody else because we've done it with our own Lord Jesus Christ. And we are therefore the most public and able to do so. But why? Because we are the only ones that have a response to these questions we're giving Muslims. We are the only ones that are looking at this book, finding it wanting, and bring him home to this book. We are the only ones that are looking back at the God behind this book (Qur'an), Allah, and bring him back to a much greater God, Yahweh ( Bible). Yes, we are the only ones that can go to this book( Qur'an and look at Muhammad, shut him down, but provide the alternative, Jesus Christ. Yes, we need to bring them home. Amen. Now, I'm going to end with this. This morning, I had to speak at two other churches, both Calvary Chapel churches. And one of them l decided to do something I'd not been done before. I decided to have a discussion between Jesus and Muhammad. So, l put Muhammad over here and I was Jesus. I turn out to be sacrilegious and I said, "Muhammad, I want to talk to you about some things. First of all, I'm a little upset with what you have done. First of all, who and how can you claim to be a prophet? You're not in the prophetic line. You didn't do anything to prove you're a prophet. All prophets either have to do a miracle or a prophecy. You didn't do either. That which you wrote down here (Qur'an) completely confronts what I've written down from all the other prophets. How can you completely confront everything that's in my book (Bible) and then of course you have no idea who l am. You don't even know my name. I'm not Allah. Allah is not a name. It's a title. It means the god. What's my name? Why is you don't even know my
name? And look what you did to me. You took me off the cross and put another man in my
place. How dare you do that? And I started getting indignant, really angry.
And I said, by the way, Muhammad said, where are you? You've disappeared. "
That's right. You never existed.
What a waste of time.
Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, we want to thank you for not only who you are, but the fact you did exist. We want to thank you that you did come to earth 2,000 years ago and that you told us you were going to do so from the very beginning, right there with Adam and Eve. And all the way through history, you have pointed to who you were and what you were going to do. We knew your name. We were expecting we knew that you were going to be called the son of God. We knew that you were going to be called the Messiah. We knew that you were going to be called the son of man. And we knew that you had a name, Yahsua. What a name. And when you came, some of us saw you. Some of us believed you, many did not. But Lord, we believe you. We know you existed. We know you came to earth. And you had to come to earth because l'm damned if you didn't.
Thank God you did exist. And thank God Muhammad didn't exist. Because what Muhammad has done to you, what Muhammad has done to your scriptures, what Muhammad done to your story, what Muhammad has done to everything that we hold to be dear. l'm so glad he never existed. And I don't want to waste time anymore on that man who never existed. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
[Applause]
NOTES:
*** Geographers followed the scientific method while compiling their works. There were three main sources of information, namely, ¹the relevant available literature, ²personal observations made during their own travel and ³the information gathered from reliable persons about the lands for which the other two methods were not enough. They were passionate for travelling which is evident from the fact that they believed in collecting information themselves.
****The Zamzam Well is a well located within the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is located 20 m east of the Kaaba, the holiest place in Islam. In Islamic narrations, the well is a miraculously generated source of water, which opened up thousands of years ago when Ismaʿil, the son of Ibrahim, was left with his mother Hajar in the desert. It is said to have dried up or been buried while the tribe Jurhum lived in the area. The well is claimed to have been rediscovered and excavated in the 6th century by Abd al-Muttalib, grandfather of the prophet Muhammad.
Location: Masjid al-Haram, Mecca.
Area: about 30 m (98.43 ft) deep and 1.08 to 2.66 m (3.54 to 8.73 ft) in diameter.
Restored: traditional Islamic narratives date the well's (re-)establishment to the 6th century.
Restored: by ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib according to traditional Islamic narratives.
( Details here )
*****Qibla
Direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays during salat.
The qibla is the direction towards the Kaaba in the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, which is used by Muslims in various religious contexts, particularly the direction of prayer for the salat. In Islam, the Kaaba is believed to be a sacred site built by prophets Abraham and Ishmael, and that its use as the qibla was ordained by God in several verses of the Quran revealed to Muhammad in the second Hijri year. Prior to this revelation, Muhammad and his followers in Medina faced Jerusalem (read here in the Bible New Testament, John 4:²⁰ ) for prayers. Most mosques contain a mihrab that indicates the direction of the qibla. The qibla is also the direction for entering the ihram; the direction to which animals are turned during dhabihah; the recommended direction to make du'a; the direction to avoid when relieving oneself or spitting; and the direction to which the deceased are aligned when buried. The qibla may be observed facing the Kaaba accurately or facing in the general direction.
( Read here in the Bible:
◄ John 4 ►
Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
¹When Jesus realized that the Pharisees were aware He was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John ²(although it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples), ³He left Judea and returned to Galilee.
⁴Now He had to pass through Samaria. ⁵So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
⁹“You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
¹¹“Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water? ¹²Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”
¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”
¹⁵The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
¹⁶Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
¹⁷“I have no husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband. ¹⁸In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”
¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet. ²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”
²¹“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “the time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. ²⁴God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
²⁶Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.”
The Disciples Return and Marvel
²⁷Just then His disciples returned and were surprised that He was speaking with a woman. But no one asked Him, “What do You want from her?” or “Why are You talking with her?”
²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went back into the town, and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” ³⁰So they left the town and made their way toward Jesus.
³¹Meanwhile the disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
³²But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
³³So the disciples asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?”
³⁴Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are riped for harvest.
³⁶Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For in this case the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the hard work, and now you have taken up their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.
⁴¹And many more believed because of His message. ⁴²They said to the woman, “We now believe not only because of your words; we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Savior of the world.”
Jesus Heals the Official’s Son
(Also in Matthew 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10)
⁴³After two days, Jesus left for Galilee. ⁴⁴Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown. ⁴⁵Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well.
⁴⁶So once again He came to Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. ⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.
⁴⁸Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.”
⁴⁹“Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.”
⁵⁰“Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.”
The man took Jesus at His word and departed. ⁵¹And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.
⁵²So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”
⁵³Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed.
⁵⁴This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee.
*****
Why ‘Muhammad Never Existed’ Is the Weakest Polemic Against Islam: Part 1
04/28/2025 by Raymond Ibrahim.
Breaking news: Muhammad never existed — and once Muslims come to grips with this, as they’re obviously destined to, Islam will die out! It’s just a matter of time now.
If you’re not aware, there are people who are actually making this argument in some form right now. So I’d like to address it because it is by far one of the weakest arguments against Islam, and is destined to continue having zero impact on the Muslim world.
Claims against the historicity of Muhammad began well over a century ago.
Origin Stories
I, personally, was first introduced to skeptical views of Islam’s origins in the 1990s, when I read Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (1977) by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook. While they did not outright discount Muhammad’s existence, they cast many doubts on Islam’s traditional narrative.
Since then, an array of authors and activists have picked up and amplified this theme, leading to the grand conclusion that Muhammad never existed, but was rather fabricated to give the Arab empire that conquered much of North Africa and the Middle East in the seventh century a hagiographical founding story.
The person spearheading the argument against Muhammad’s existence is Dr. Jay Smith (at least, according to the emails I’ve been receiving lately). They often go like this: “We like what you’ve been saying about Islamic history, but you need to stop talking about Muhammad as if he really existed. Please see the works of Dr. Jay Smith.”
From my first brush with it as a student in the 1990s, I’ve never been much interested in this “Muhammad never existed” argument (we’ll get into why later), but I’ve decided to address it for two important and related reasons: First, to shed light on why it is so weak and, if anything, serves only as a distraction; and, second, to shed light on the subtle inner workings of history — essentially, why humans believe what they believe about the past. This is fascinating and possibly instructive.
Let me start by laying out my personal beliefs concerning Muhammad — whether he existed or not.
The Bloody ‘Prophet’
I believe the bare-bone facts of his biography: Sometime in the early seventh century, a man claiming to be a prophet arose in Arabia, and became dominant through warfare.
Why do I believe this? Because we have several remarkably early references to his existence, all written by non-Muslims.
The most important of these, the Doctrina Jacobi, documents a dialogue that took place on July 13, 634 — just two years after Muhammad’s death.
Justus, one of the participants in this dialogue, says that his brother, Abraham, “wrote to me saying that a deceiving prophet appeared amidst the Saracens.” Justus then says that Abraham, who was living near Arabia, referred the matter to an old Jewish scribe:
“What do you tell me, lord and teacher, concerning the prophet who has appeared among the Saracens?” Abraham asks the elderly gentleman. “And the scribe told me, with much groaning, ‘He is deceiving. For do prophets come with swords and chariot? Verily, these events of today are works of confusion.”
Afterward, Abraham decided to investigate the matter personally:
“So I, Abraham, inquired and heard from those who had met him that there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men’s blood. He says also that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible.”
Note the bare-bone facts here confirm exactly what we know about Muhammad: a man, claiming to be a prophet, and promising paradise to his followers, had arisen in Arabia — though many people doubted he was sent by God, seeing how his modus operandi consisted of violence and bloodshed. And these observations were made a mere two years following Muhammad’s death in 632.
I don’t know about you, but this is amazingly early testimony. But wait, there’s more!
Reliable Sources
Muhammad is first mentioned by name in a Syriac fragment, also written around 634; only scattered phrases are intelligible: “many villages [in Homs] were ravaged by the killing [of the followers] of Muhammad and many people were slain and [taken] prisoner from Galilee to Beth,” and “some ten thousand” other Christians were slaughtered in “the vicinity of Damascus.”
Writing around 640, Thomas the Presbyter, a Syriac Christian, also confirms that “there was a battle [probably Ajnadayn] between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled. … Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there … The Arabs ravaged the whole region”; they even “climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in the monasteries of Qedar and Bnata.”
The Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, who was likely alive during the Muslim conquest of Egypt (641), refers to Islam as “the detestable doctrine of the beast, that is, Muhammad.”
Again, these are all very early and definitive references to Muhammad, dating from between two and eight years after his death. That is amazingly early by the standards of history. I’m not sure — but would be very curious to learn — how the naysayers who claim Muhammad never existed get past such ironclad references.
By way of comparison, keep in mind that we don’t have anything written as early as between two and eight years of Christ’s lifetime, yet historians agree that he existed. The earliest non-Christian references to Christ were written many decades following his crucifixion: Josephus (60 years), Pliny the Younger (79 years), and Tacitus (83 years).
Again, I find it amazing that whereas Christians rightfully cite Josephus, Pliny, and Tacitus as early proof of Christ’s existence, the non-Muslim references to Muhammad — which, objectively speaking, are even more compelling, since they were written much closer to their subject’s lifetime — are dismissed as irrelevant by those who would make him a figment of our imagination.
Internal Strife
There’s another very important reason I believe a Muhammad existed: How else does one understand the Sunni/Shia divide?
Think about it: If Muhammad is a fabrication meant to give credibility and a hagiographical veneer to the Arab conquerors of the Middle East and North Africa (namely, the Umayyads), how does one understand the Sunni/Shia conflict, which revolves entirely around not just the existence of a prophet named Muhammad, but his very DNA?
Following Muhammad’s death in 632, two contending Muslim groups emerged: Sunnis, who believe that any qualified candidate is eligible to becoming Muhammad’s successor (or caliph); and Shias, who believe that only blood descendants of Muhammad could be his successors, particularly through his daughter Fatima and his first cousin Ali (namely Muhammad’s grandsons Hassan and Hussein and their progeny). Since the year 680, Sunnis and Shia have been killing each other over this point.
Now if there was no Muhammad, then there was no Fatima; and if there was no Fatima, there was no Hassan and no Hussein. So who are the Shias (the minority Muslim faction), and what is their gripe? What event gave rise to them? Did the Umayyad conspirators who concocted Muhammad also compel their own descendants to start butchering each other — and if so, to what end?
For all these reasons, as far as I’m concerned, the bare bone facts of Muhammad’s biography are amply proven by the standards of history, not to mention common sense.
However, I do not necessarily believe the many details contained in the vast corpus of Islam’s scriptures about the doings and teachings of its prophet. I have no idea whether they are true or false, and can only judge their plausibility on an individual basis.
Unflattering Accounts
That said, it’s worth mentioning that the hadith actually do help verify the existence of Muhammad, though indirectly.
For those who do not know, the hadith are vast collections of what Muhammad reportedly said or did, as passed down orally. Because they were finally written down 120 to 250 years after Muhammad’s death, the people now raising questions about his existence dismiss them as being too late and therefore obvious forgeries.
Ironically, much of what the hadith do contain is very unflattering to Muhammad. If they are meant to help fabricate a heroic-like and noble prophet to validate the Arab empire, shouldn’t they only contain information designed to put Muhammad in the best of lights? Instead, they contain many oddities (to put it mildly) that have for centuries challenged Muslims’ faith. Many of them, till this very day, cite them as cause for their apostasy from Islam.
For example, there’s one “canonical” hadith (meaning its authenticity has been determined by the ulema) in which here Muhammad recommends that women “breastfeed” strange men as a way of making them “family” members; that means the women no longer need cover themselves around them. The sira also records Muhammad ordering the brutal assassination of old men and women for simply mocking him, and “marrying” the wives of men he had killed.
Such accounts have a ring of truth to them. Accurate accounts of historical figures will at least occasionally show some of their warts, and what we know about Muhammad from the earliest sources — a propensity for war, vengeance, and sexual licentiousness — further confirm the unflattering accounts contained in the sira and hadith.
(Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi, just told the whole world that the Hadith cannot be proven reliable based on historical precedent and the whole Islamic world is going crazy! Islam’s Greatest Scholar Just Admitted Mohamed Isn’t Real! Click here and watch YouTube here)
Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi
Religious Biography:
Yasir Qadhi is an American preacher, theologian, and Sunni imam. Since 2001, he has served as Dean of Academic Affairs at the Al-Maghrib Institute, an international Islamic educational institution with a center in Houston, Texas. He also taught in the Religious Studies department at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. He is currently the resident scholar of the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas. Qadhi has written books and lectured widely on Islam and contemporary Muslim issues. A 2011 The New York Times Magazine essay by Andea Elliott described Qadhi as "one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam." Writing in 2017, journalist Graeme Wood called him "one of the two most prominent Muslim scholars in the United States today." He has also consistently been listed in The 500 Most Influential Muslims, most recently in 2022. He has nevertheless been criticised for his views on women and for defending high-profile Al-Qaeda supporters, and the Taliban.
Religion: Islam
Denomination: Sunni
Nationality: American
Born: January 30, 1975, Houston, Texas, USA.
******Patricia Crone
Danish Orientalist and historian (1945–2015)
Patricia Crone was a Danish historian specialising in early Islamic history. Crone was a member of the revisionist school of Islamic studies and questioned the historicity of the Islamic traditions about the beginnings of Islam.
Age at death : 70 years
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