robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

“We know indeed that they say, ‘It is a man that teaches him.’ The tongue of him they wickedly point to is
notably foreign, while this is Arabic, pure and clear” (16:103). 9 This mysterious foreigner has often been
identified as one of Muhammad's early companions, Salman the Persian. The Arabic word translated as
“foreign” in this Qur'an verse is ajami, which means “Persian” or “Iranian,” or is more generalized as
“foreigner.” Ibn Ishaq identifies the foreigner of Qur'an 16:103 as “Jabr the Christian, slave of the B. al-
Hadrami” and teacher of Muhammad. 10
Another ajami identified in Islamic tradition is Abu Fukayha Yasar. The Qur'anic scholar Muqatil ibn
Sulayman (d. 767) says Yasar was “a Jew, not an Arab,” who spoke Greek.” 11 The modern-day Islamic
scholar Claude Gilliot observes that it is more likely he spoke Aramaic, of which Syriac is a dialect. 12
Muqatil also recounts accusations from Muhammad's opponent an-Nasr ibn al-Harith that mention both
Jabr and Yasar: “This Qur'an is naught but lies that Muhammad himself has forged…. Those who help him
are Addas, a slave of Huwaytib b. Abd al-Uzza, Yasar, a servant of Amr b. al-Hadrami, and Jabr who
was a Jew, and then became a Muslim…. This Qur'an is only a tale of the Ancients, like the tales of
Rustam and Isfandiyar. These three [were] teaching Muhammad at dawn and in the evening.” 13
This accusation recalls the criticism to which the Qur'an heatedly responds: “The unbelievers say,
‘This is naught but a calumny he has forged, and other folk have helped him to it.’ So they have committed
wrong and falsehood. They say, ‘Fairy-tales of the ancients that he has had written down, so that they are
recited to him at the dawn and in the evening’” (25:4–5).
The Hadith offer yet another candidate for the man who was “notably foreign”: Waraqa bin Naufal, the
uncle of Muhammad's first wife, Khadija. Islamic tradition holds that after Muhammad's confusing and
terrifying first encounter with the angel Gabriel, it was Waraqa who told Muhammad that he had been
called to be a prophet. According to one hadith, Waraqa, like Abu Fukayha Yasar, was a Jew. The hadith
says that “during the [pre-Islamic] Period of Ignorance [Waraqa] became a Christian and used to write the
writing with Hebrew letters. He would write from the Gospel in Hebrew as much as Allah wished him to
write.” 14
Even Khadija herself, according to the Persian Muslim Bal‘ami (d. 974), “had read the ancient writings
and knew the history of the prophets, and also the name of Gabriel.” 15
Why would the Qur'an acknowledge critics who accused the book of having non-Arabic origins? And
why would hadiths tell us of various people of foreign tongue instructing Muhammad? If the Qur'an arose
long after Muhammad is supposed to have lived, as appears to have been the case, then the editors of the
Qur'an would have been working with non-Arabic material and rendering it into Arabic. In that case, they
would have needed to explain the non-Arabic elements in the Qur'an.
Those non-Arabic elements are certainly present.
Non-Arabic Sources
The Qur'an's dependence on non-Arabic Jewish and Christian sources for much of its theological and