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

Acknowledgments
I could not have written this book at all without the extraordinarily generous and kind assistance of Ibn
Warraq, an indefatigable and innovative scholar whose collections on the Qur'an and the historical
Muhammad are essential reading for anyone who has more than a passing interest in the origins of Islam.
His recommendations for reading and research have given this book any merit it may have—and in this
case, the hoary cliché of author's acknowledgments that “what is good in the book is all his, and its errors
and failures are all mine” couldn't be truer.
Indeed, were it not for a memorable conversation that Ibn Warraq and I once had in The Hague, during
which he elucidated for me in a particularly compelling way the weakness of Islam's historical
foundations, and a subsequent dinner conversation on the same subject with Hans Jansen (to whom also
much thanks for his keen eye in spotting errors and other problems in this manuscript), I would never even
have thought to write this book. Nor would this book have been possible without the assistance of Daniel
Pipes and the Middle East Forum Educational Fund, to whom I remain grateful.
I am indebted to my colleague, partner, and friend Pamela Geller for her aid in sharpening the focus and
structure of this book. Her eye for conceptual imprecision, stylistic infelicities, and logical consistency
has immensely improved this presentation.
Thanks also to my friend Roland Shirk for his invaluable help in finding a home for this manuscript,
and for his many helpful suggestions on matters of content and presentation.
I am deeply grateful to Jed Donahue as well. He has been a superb editor, deeply attentive to large and
small questions raised by the manuscript, and full of extraordinary guidance on how to smooth it out
stylistically, tie up loose ends, answer questions left unanswered, and strengthen the book's argument in
innumerable ways.
There are, as always, many others who have offered advice, support, and searching questions as I have
wrestled with the facts and concepts I have tried to outline here. Most would, given the volatile nature of
the subject matter, prefer not to be named, but my gratitude to them is not for that any dimmer.