DID MUHAMMAD EXIST YOU DECIDE

Qur’an and distributed his new edition to the various Arab-controlled provinces--- again, something Uthman is
supposed to have done decades earlier.
Even some Islamic traditions maintain that certain common Islamic practices, such as the recitation of the
Qur’an during mosque prayers, date from orders of Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, not to the earlier period of Islamic history.
In the middle of the eighth century, the Abbasid dynastic supplanted the Umayyad line of Abd al-Malik. The
Abbasids charged the Umayyads with impiety on a large scale. In the Abbasid period, biographical material about
Mohammed began to proliferate. The first complete biography of the prophet of Islam finally appeared during this
era—at least 125 years after the traditional date of his death.
The biographical material that emerged situates Muhammad in an area of Arabia that never was the center
for trade and pilgrimage that the canonical Islamic account of Islam’s origin depend on it to be. (pp.205-206)
Given these huge problems for the history of Islam, how does Spencer explain the rise of Islam? He
proposes the need for a political theology that would reflect Arabic culture, Arabic
language, and Arabic religion. When warriors from Arabia encountered the conquered cultures they
observed that the Roman empire had a political theology for the purpose of binding the empire together. “The
earliest Arab rulers appear to have been adherents of Hagarism, a monotheistic religion centered around
Abraham and Ishmael.” (p.208) It was not as anti-Christian as Islam developed later since there were Arab coins
with crosses on them. This religious model reached its height in 691 and there began to emerge a defiantly Arabic
one.
By the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eight, “the Umayyads began to speak more
specifically about Islam, its prophet and eventually its book.” (The Umayyad dynasty ruled from 661 to 750.) The
Dome of the Rock’s inscription referring to the “praised one” no longer could refer to Jesus, but to Muhammad.
Even if Muhammad did not exist his name would be politically useful since the Arabs needed an Arab prophet
who would also have a scripture in Arabic. Since much of the Qur’an has been borrowed from Jewish and
Christian sources of some kind it was easy to plagiarize them and change them for their own uses.
The lack of historical documents seems to be blamed on the Umayyad party who were replaced by the
Abbasids in 750. The Umayyads were regarded as irreligious, failing to appreciate the history of Islam. With the
new Caliph, the Abbasids, there begins a massive attempt to fill in the gaps of ignorance about the past, about
Muhammad, and the manufacture of hadiths (traditions) began in earnest. Many of the hadiths blame the
Umayyads, and the Umayyads created their own hadiths blaming the Abbasids. There are 600,000 hadiths, all of
them forgeries by competing groups. Even the Shia have their own hadiths affirming the claim of Ali as successor
to Muhammad.
Essentially, Spencer maintains that the Arabian empire came first, the theology came later.
He concludes: “A careful investigation makes at least one thing clear: The details of Muhammad’s life that
have been handed down as canonical—that he unified Arabia by the force of arms, concluded alliances, married
wives, legislated for his community, and did so much else—are a creation of political ferment dating from long
after the time he is supposed to have lived. Similarly, the records strongly indicate that the Qur’an did not exist
until long after it was supposed to have been delivered to the prophet of Islam.”
“Did Muhammad exist?
As a prophet of the Arabs who taught a vaguely defined monotheism, his life story is lost in the mists of
legend, like those of Robin Hood and Macbeth. As the prophet of Islam, who received (or even claimed to receive)
the perfect copy of the perfect eternal book from the supreme God, Muhammad almost certainly did not exist.
There are too many gaps, too many silences, too many aspects of the historical record that simply do not accord,
and cannot be made to accord, with the traditional account of the Arabian prophet teaching his Qur’an, energizing
his followers to such an extent that they went out and conquered a good part of the world.” (pp.214-215).