Did Muhammad actually exist?
- Thread starter Medicine*Woman
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Muhammad existed and was a man who got married and had children as well .
Muslims believe he was a prophet and a messenger . They also believe that Jesus and Moses were prophets and both were mentioned in the Muslim book Quoran . Jesus was a person and Christians think he is a God , son of God , king , King of the Kings .....etc . No one said Jesus did not eat food , did not drink water , did not see and hear , did not have two legs , two arms....etc . So JESUS was a PERSON according to a person definition and he EXISTED .
It is actually VERY difficult, at least in U.S. Hubbard was already known to the public from his Scifi books. Most likely Scientology just slid in under the radar and having well known (well off) members does not hurt at all. If they were poor slobs then it would be very difficult for it to even exist.
Also, there is a history of various religious offshoots that get dismantled by the government and frankly there is good reason for this.
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DiamondHearts
Registered Senior Member
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) did exist. He has a lineage, particular from Hazrat Ali and Fatima Zahrah (peace be upon them both). Anyone who is titled a Syed can trace his line to the Prophet. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) can be found as a world leader in the records of the Persians, Egyptians, Romans, and Indians.
No one has questioned the existence of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). There is no evidence as to his lack of existence, yet there is much evidence to the contrary.
Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) also existed, though it harder to prove as he has had no lineage, and this was a very long time ago.
SAM, a scholar once mentioned this point to me. It seems that the Brahman class may have some relation to Prophet Ibrahim (peace be to him) being from same root word (BRHM). This is all very interesting for me.
No one has questioned the existence of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). There is no evidence as to his lack of existence, yet there is much evidence to the contrary.
Prophet Jesus (peace be upon him) also existed, though it harder to prove as he has had no lineage, and this was a very long time ago.
SAM, a scholar once mentioned this point to me. It seems that the Brahman class may have some relation to Prophet Ibrahim (peace be to him) being from same root word (BRHM). This is all very interesting for me.
Yeah, the supposed guy who supposedly saw the moon split in to two peaces right? :bugeye:
Please, I was still waiting on the contemporary evidence of Mohammad presented in published reputable peer reviewed archaeological journals. You post a peace about a myth of a man who saw the moon split in half (which never happened by the way).
Michael
I doubt you'll ever see something like this, so don't hold your breath. There seems to be vehement dislike of anything religious by anthropologists. For better or for worse the two rarely agree.
Mohammad only united a couple of small tribes in the desert after conquering a couple other small tribes. If the kudos were to go to someone if would be the Gernals who conquered the very weak Persian and Byzantine empires. Or perhaps the clever people who wrote the Qur'an. (funny enough no one knows who those people were, who wrote what nor when it was written - funny isn't it? The more you look more the more you realize it's just like Bible and the rest of the lot - heavy on the myth and light on the facts).
I said Archaeologists, and anyway that is not true, there are professional peer reviewed journals that publish good manuscripts on the evidence for just about every religious beleif there is or was in existence.
Could you point me to this journal? I would be interested in reading.
In the west the two are nearly synonymous. The fundamental difference is one simply goes out and does the work, while another pieces it together. But you could know more about this than I do, so I probably shouldn't have responded.
I'm really shocked at the lack of peer reviewed data on this board. SAM linked a site with a couple crumpled letters (I have NEVER seen letters of such importance stored like this - it's just pathetic if they are real).
I'm asking for some REAL info here people, not a WIKI link. For Christ sakes I'd have figured this would be a pinch. Is Mohammad to go the way of Jesus AND Mosses? I don't think so. The only two Prophets of antiquity that seem plausible are Mohammad and Buddha.
Once about three years ago I looked up the history of Mohammad in the history section of the university library. I didn't have time to read the entire book but in short it was almost exactly what I posted earlier:
Did a historical Muhammad exist?
Muhammad is widely believed to have been born in 570 C.E. in Mecca.
The earliest accounts we have of him date to 750 C.E. with the book Life by Ibn Ishaq, more than one hundred years after Muhammad's death. Although this is the first and most basic source for information about the life of Muhammad for all Muslims, it does not present a very flattering portrait of him. Even then, we don't have any original copies of Ibn Ishaq's work - we only have a later recension by Ibn Hisham (a recension is a critical revision of a text which incorporates plausible elements which can be found in varying sources). Because Hisham died in 834 C.E., that means that our earliest sources appear two hundred years after Muhammad died. Not even the evidence we have from the Sufyandi period, 661-684, makes any mention of Muhammad. Surviving papyri of that era say nothing, and the coins invoke only Allah, not his Prophet.
As late as the second century of the Muslim era, scholarly opinion on Muhammad's birth date differed by as much as 85 years, demonstrating that even at that point there was a great deal of variation in what people knew about Muhammad. The focus on Mecca is also questionable. Muslim tradition teaches that Mecca was an important crossroads for trade caravans, but the location of Mecca today is not a natural stopping place for the incense route from south Arabia to Syria. Contemporary non-Muslims sources also don't make any mention of such a city, which is very strange if Mecca was indeed important for commerce and religion.
By and large, it appears that the Muslim belief that we have accurate eyewitness reports for every aspect of Muhammad's life is not unlike similar beliefs among Christians regarding Jesus and Orthodox Jews regarding Moses. The motivation lies more in a need to believe than in a sound foundation based on confirmed historical evidence. Given that, the following description of Muhammad's life is based almost entirely upon the traditional beliefs of adherents and not upon historically confirmable fact.
I was talking with a Christian just yesterday that told me that there is more evidence for JESUS than ANY OTHER person who has ever lived! What evidence I asked? Well, the bible! Pffffff I suspect Muslims can do better than that???
IMO:
More than likely because Mohammad was considered such a joke it's most likely that he was real, as any made up Prophetic character wouldn't have been running around with a bonner in his hand - gaining fame for his all night prowess in bed pounding his umpteen women (every Muslim knows the stories about Mo and his magical penis - don't deny it either, I've asked Muslims from Lebanon to the USA to Iran and it's awyas the same "Yo my Dog was Da Bomb Man, Kicken dat Shit all Night Dog"). It's simply not considered something Holy people should be famous for.
Therefor, probably the BEST argument for Mohammad is his flawed nature. THAT said, he could be a composite character of several war generals with one contributing more than others. We are talking hundreds of years later, shit gets so made up the next thing you know the "moon split in half" and "A big boat was built that stored two of every animal". :bugeye:
M
I'm asking for some REAL info here people, not a WIKI link. For Christ sakes I'd have figured this would be a pinch. Is Mohammad to go the way of Jesus AND Mosses? I don't think so. The only two Prophets of antiquity that seem plausible are Mohammad and Buddha.
Once about three years ago I looked up the history of Mohammad in the history section of the university library. I didn't have time to read the entire book but in short it was almost exactly what I posted earlier:
Did a historical Muhammad exist?
Muhammad is widely believed to have been born in 570 C.E. in Mecca.
The earliest accounts we have of him date to 750 C.E. with the book Life by Ibn Ishaq, more than one hundred years after Muhammad's death. Although this is the first and most basic source for information about the life of Muhammad for all Muslims, it does not present a very flattering portrait of him. Even then, we don't have any original copies of Ibn Ishaq's work - we only have a later recension by Ibn Hisham (a recension is a critical revision of a text which incorporates plausible elements which can be found in varying sources). Because Hisham died in 834 C.E., that means that our earliest sources appear two hundred years after Muhammad died. Not even the evidence we have from the Sufyandi period, 661-684, makes any mention of Muhammad. Surviving papyri of that era say nothing, and the coins invoke only Allah, not his Prophet.
As late as the second century of the Muslim era, scholarly opinion on Muhammad's birth date differed by as much as 85 years, demonstrating that even at that point there was a great deal of variation in what people knew about Muhammad. The focus on Mecca is also questionable. Muslim tradition teaches that Mecca was an important crossroads for trade caravans, but the location of Mecca today is not a natural stopping place for the incense route from south Arabia to Syria. Contemporary non-Muslims sources also don't make any mention of such a city, which is very strange if Mecca was indeed important for commerce and religion.
By and large, it appears that the Muslim belief that we have accurate eyewitness reports for every aspect of Muhammad's life is not unlike similar beliefs among Christians regarding Jesus and Orthodox Jews regarding Moses. The motivation lies more in a need to believe than in a sound foundation based on confirmed historical evidence. Given that, the following description of Muhammad's life is based almost entirely upon the traditional beliefs of adherents and not upon historically confirmable fact.
I was talking with a Christian just yesterday that told me that there is more evidence for JESUS than ANY OTHER person who has ever lived! What evidence I asked? Well, the bible! Pffffff I suspect Muslims can do better than that???
IMO:
More than likely because Mohammad was considered such a joke it's most likely that he was real, as any made up Prophetic character wouldn't have been running around with a bonner in his hand - gaining fame for his all night prowess in bed pounding his umpteen women (every Muslim knows the stories about Mo and his magical penis - don't deny it either, I've asked Muslims from Lebanon to the USA to Iran and it's awyas the same "Yo my Dog was Da Bomb Man, Kicken dat Shit all Night Dog"). It's simply not considered something Holy people should be famous for.
Therefor, probably the BEST argument for Mohammad is his flawed nature. THAT said, he could be a composite character of several war generals with one contributing more than others. We are talking hundreds of years later, shit gets so made up the next thing you know the "moon split in half" and "A big boat was built that stored two of every animal". :bugeye:
M
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Also, lets not forget:
No one knows when the Qur'an was written. No one knows who wrote which parts. That's a simple FACT.
What we DO know is that early Muslims did not consider the Qur'an of enough importance to insure that an original copy survived. How do we know? - because it doesn't survive! Unlike say, the ancient Sumerian's, who thought that the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was of such importance it was etched in stone.
Egyptians built massive pyramids to their Pharaohs, Muslims couldn't take a brake from blundering long enough to get down off their horse and make a stone copy.
That says something, and you should keep that in mind when thinking about the "historical" Mohammad.
Michael
No one knows when the Qur'an was written. No one knows who wrote which parts. That's a simple FACT.
What we DO know is that early Muslims did not consider the Qur'an of enough importance to insure that an original copy survived. How do we know? - because it doesn't survive! Unlike say, the ancient Sumerian's, who thought that the Epic of Gilgamesh, which was of such importance it was etched in stone.
Egyptians built massive pyramids to their Pharaohs, Muslims couldn't take a brake from blundering long enough to get down off their horse and make a stone copy.
That says something, and you should keep that in mind when thinking about the "historical" Mohammad.
Michael
Thank you for the links.
You're unfortunately correct, there's no way to prove any of the great prophets existed.
I do believe evidence of Moses is significant, not even remotely scientific though. Epics of Gilgamesh according to Torah would have been written by Nimrod. Who was son of Noah. The majority of similar stories in civilizations can be traced back to Noah. However, all of this is self dependent.
Since there is a somewhat steady line of historical depictions all the way from Egypt. In which it discusses the Hyksaws, and their leader (which is verifiable). Also supposedly writings of Pharoahs wife in Egypt, I have never seen conclusive evidence on this.
- Again, with the rise of fundamentalists fanatics who synthesize evidence. It's even impossible to know if this is valid.
The final note I would like to make is volcano in the Mediterranean Sea that erupted in the assumed date of 1500 B.C. Which wiped out numerous cities, and who knows what more.
You've given a lot of opinion with no source references for any of it. Is this how research is cited in your field?
It's somewhat of a moot point whether or not these prophets existed. All we know is some medieval clowns began these cults long ago and they've evolved into the perpetual indoctrination machines enslaving mankind today.
No need to point fingers any more, let's just get on with trying to solve the problem of stopping the machine.
Here's a couple interesting book:
Hagarism:The Making of the Islamic World (1980) Crone P & Cook M
Whether or not you buy into the thesis 'Hagarism' the authors nevertheless spend some serious time referencing dates and citations so you can make up your own mind.
Some main points:
- No hard evidence for the existence of the Qur'an in any form before the last decade of the seventh century.
- The tradition which places the Qur'an in its historical context is not attested to from before the middle of the eighth century.
- Islamic sources date to no earlier than 100 to 150 years posthoc.
- Most written Islamic history comes into being after the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate.
Seeing Islam as Others Saw It (1998) Hoyland RG
This is a survey Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writings on early Islam and is worth reading just for the citations.
some main points.
- Up untli the 8th centurey, "Arab" invaders of Persia and Byzantine didn't think of themselves as "Arabs" NOR as "Muslims" but as "Al-Muhajirun".
- The name of "Muhhamad" doesn't even make an appearance until 691.
- The Quran does not make an appearance until the turn of the 8th century (and when it does it does so only as logia and pericopes - not the whole text). This suggests that the whole story about the 'Uthmanic recension of the Quran' is just that, a story.
- Muslims and non-Muslims alike seemed think that something took place around 622 but no one seemed know just what the hell that something was. But But isn't this the year of Muhammad's hijra? Hmmmm maybe in the stories..
Look, just like Jews and Mosses, Christians and Jesus; Muslims have their myths built on myths built on myths. The strongest evidence for Mohammad is the fact that when Muslims went telling people about their "Prophet" everyone thought he was an asinine joke. Think of it as running around today telling everyone your believe in Xenu and nuclear intergalactic DC-10 and Ron Hubbard .. THAT is how Mohammad was seen ONLY add to this, his followers reveled in the fact he was a letch. Most civilized people thought they were crazy.
Now, back to Qur'an
- No one knows when it was written.
- No one knows who wrote which parts.
- The Al-Muhajirun didn't think it important enough to make a clay copy (something pretty easily done). It just wasn't important enough to bother with, not for horsemen out making raids.
Thems the facts fokes,
Michael
You know as well as I that after the source is citied it is up to the reader to then go to that source and read it for themselves. It's not my job to read the book to you. What next, I should read the 1000 citation in that book and the 5000 citations for those books and the 100000 citations branching off those books.
Could you imagine? Please. The reason there is a citation is so that IF you have a question you can read it and look it up.
The post stands.
There is no contemporary evidence of Mohammad's existence unless you want to post something in a peer reviewed journal. This doesn't mean that Mohammad didn't exist, just that he may not of or may have been a composite character (as is often the case).
Could you imagine? Please. The reason there is a citation is so that IF you have a question you can read it and look it up.
The post stands.
There is no contemporary evidence of Mohammad's existence unless you want to post something in a peer reviewed journal. This doesn't mean that Mohammad didn't exist, just that he may not of or may have been a composite character (as is often the case).