Non-Islamic view of Muhammad's historicity

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Among the non-Islamic view of Muhamad's historicity are views that doubt the more general account presented by the Islamic sources.

1 Overview
2 Sources for the historical Muhammad
3 Doubts about sources among Muslim and non-Muslim scholars
4 Historical view
5 References
6 See also

[edit] Overview

While some non-Muslims (for example Gandhi) do not raise Muhamad's historicity as an issue, others argue that the historical views of Muhammad may be different from the traditional Islamic viewpoints as scientific disciplines such as historical methods, archeology, etc. are used to reconstruct a biography of the life and times of Muhammed himself. Due to few independent sources, limited archeology and non-Muslims not having access to certain sites in Makkah and Madina, there has been little work on the historical Muhammed compared, for example, to the historical Jesus.

[edit] Sources for the historical Muhammad

The main sources for biographies of Muhammad are found in Islamic documents such as the Qur'an, the Sira biographies and the Hadith collections. While the Qur'an is not a biography of Muhammad, it does provide information about his life. The earliest surviving biographies are the Life of the Apostle of God, by Ibn Ishaq (d. 768), edited by Ibn Hisham (d. 833); and al-Waqidi's (d. 822) biography of Muhammad. Ibn Ishaq wrote his biography some 120 to 130 years after Muhammad's death. The third source, the hadith collections, like the Qur'an, are not a biography per se. In both the Sunni and Shi'a belief, they are the accounts of the verbal and physical traditions of Muhammad.

[edit] Doubts about sources among Muslim and non-Muslim scholars

Many scholars (among them Wansbrough, Cook, Crone, and others) have raised doubts about the reliability of these sources, especially the hadith collections. They argue that by the time the oral traditions were being collected, the Muslim community had grown and also fractured into rival sects and different schools of thought and each sect and school had its own, sometimes conflicting, traditions of what Muhammad and his companions had done and said. Early Muslim scholars therefore developed methods of hadith study to sort hadith into reliable or weak traditions. Traditionalists rely on their efforts while the skeptics feel that the question must be revisited.

Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike agree that there are some inauthentic traditions concerning the life of Muhammad in the hadith collections. Thus most of these traditions are acknowledged by Muslim clerical authorities to be weak. There are quite a few which are considered reliable and are agreed upon by all Muslim scholars. A very small minority called the "Qur'an Alone Muslims" consider all hadith as unreliable.

Besides the Islamic documents, there is almost no other information on Muhammad, especially about the Meccan period of his life. What we do know about him is mainly from the Qur'an and the commentaries on the Qur'an. Modern historians are obliged to handle this information cautiously. The prophet is not mentioned in known historical documents of neighbouring people. The word 'Muhammad' occurs only four times in the Qur'an. The oldest biography of Muhammad had been written by Ibn Ishaq and is dated around 750, over a century after the death of the prophet, hence it cannot be regarded as a very reliable and objective document. Most biographies of Muhammad appear to be meant to add context to Qur'anic verses.<ref> Hans Jansen, De historische Muhammad. De Mekkaanse verhalen(The historical Muhammad, The Meccan stories), 2005, ISBN 90-295-6282-X. Reviews in the Dutch newspapers NRC, RD and Trouw </ref> <ref> Karl-Heinz Ohling & Gerd-R. Puinrl-Heinz Ohlig, Die dunklen Anfänge, 2005, ISBN 3-89930-128-5. Twelve scientist from different countries are expressing there doubts in different languages about the traditional story about the genesis of Islam. Review in Dutch newspaper in Trouw, 3rd March 2006. </ref> </br>

[edit] Historical view

A translator of one of the works of Ibn Ishaq puts the historical view on Muhammad into words: </br>

At face value we do know much about Muhammad, more than any other person from Antiquity. The oldest Muslims already discussed whether certain narrated stories have truly happened or not. Many Muslims believe that the great number of traditions broadly draw the big picture of the Prophet. However, western scholars consider these sources not reliable any more. Newer orientalists don't believe that the factual story of the life of the Prophet can be reconstructed. We can say with certainty that he existed. (..) </br> Various facts and considerations have undermined the historicity of the sources. Hardly any source text is dated with certainty in the first century of Islam. Of many texts there are different versions that contain contradictory data. Non-Islamic source material, that sometimes can be dated very early gives another picture. <ref> Wim Raven, Introduction on a translation of Islamic texts into Dutch by Ibn Ishaq, Het leven van Muhammad (The life of Muhammad), ISBN 90-5460-056-X. </br> More information about the comparison between research on the historicity of Muahmmed and Jesus and the problems researchers encounter, see for example F. E. Peters, The Quest of the Historical Muhammad, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3. (Aug., 1991), pp. 291-315, with many notes. </ref>

The attempts to distinguish between the historical elements from the unhistorical elements has not been very successful and hasn't provided more reliable information about the person of Muhammad and which role he played in Islam. Harald Motzski therefore states:

At present, the study of Muhammad, the founder of the Muslim community, is obviously caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, it is not possible to write a historical biography of the Prophet without being accused of using the sources uncritically, while on the other hand, when using the sources critically, it is simply not possible to write such a biography <ref> Quote from S. A. Nigosian, Islam: Its History, Teaching, and Practices, p. 6. ISBN 0-253-21627-3. Partially accessible via books.google.com </ref>

Another article on this subject [1] also ends with the conclusion that maybe we have to wait on further research on the early sources and the discussion about them.