Breaking news: Muhammad never existed — and once Muslims come to grips with this, as they’re obviously destined to, Islam will die out! It’s just a matter of time now.
If you’re not aware, there are people who are actually making this argument in some form right now. So I’d like to address it because it is by far one of the weakest arguments against Islam, and is destined to continue having zero impact on the Muslim world.
Claims against the historicity of Muhammad began well over a century ago.
Origin Stories
I, personally, was first introduced to skeptical views of Islam’s origins in the 1990s, when I read Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (1977) by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook. While they did not outright discount Muhammad’s existence, they cast many doubts on Islam’s traditional narrative.
Since then, an array of authors and activists have picked up and amplified this theme, leading to the grand conclusion that Muhammad never existed, but was rather fabricated to give the Arab empire that conquered much of North Africa and the Middle East in the seventh century a hagiographical founding story.
The person spearheading the argument against Muhammad’s existence is Dr. Jay Smith (at least, according to the emails I’ve been receiving lately). They often go like this: “We like what you’ve been saying about Islamic history, but you need to stop talking about Muhammad as if he really existed. Please see the works of Dr. Jay Smith.”
From my first brush with it as a student in the 1990s, I’ve never been much interested in this “Muhammad never existed” argument (we’ll get into why later), but I’ve decided to address it for two important and related reasons: First, to shed light on why it is so weak and, if anything, serves only as a distraction; and, second, to shed light on the subtle inner workings of history — essentially, why humans believe what they believe about the past. This is fascinating and possibly instructive.
Let me start by laying out my personal beliefs concerning Muhammad — whether he existed or not.
The Bloody ‘Prophet’
I believe the bare-bone facts of his biography: Sometime in the early seventh century, a man claiming to be a prophet arose in Arabia, and became dominant through warfare.
Why do I believe this? Because we have several remarkably early references to his existence, all written by non-Muslims.
The most important of these, the Doctrina Jacobi, documents a dialogue that took place on July 13, 634 — just two years after Muhammad’s death.
Justus, one of the participants in this dialogue, says that his brother, Abraham, “wrote to me saying that a deceiving prophet appeared amidst the Saracens.” Justus then says that Abraham, who was living near Arabia, referred the matter to an old Jewish scribe:
“What do you tell me, lord and teacher, concerning the prophet who has appeared among the Saracens?” Abraham asks the elderly gentleman. “And the scribe told me, with much groaning, ‘He is deceiving. For do prophets come with swords and chariot? Verily, these events of today are works of confusion.”
Afterward, Abraham decided to investigate the matter personally:
“So I, Abraham, inquired and heard from those who had met him that there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men’s blood. He says also that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible.”
Note the bare-bone facts here confirm exactly what we know about Muhammad: a man, claiming to be a prophet, and promising paradise to his followers, had arisen in Arabia — though many people doubted he was sent by God, seeing how his modus operandi consisted of violence and bloodshed. And these observations were made a mere two years following Muhammad’s death in 632.
I don’t know about you, but this is amazingly early testimony. But wait, there’s more!
Reliable Sources
Muhammad is first mentioned by name in a Syriac fragment, also written around 634; only scattered phrases are intelligible: “many villages [in Homs] were ravaged by the killing [of the followers] of Muhammad and many people were slain and [taken] prisoner from Galilee to Beth,” and “some ten thousand” other Christians were slaughtered in “the vicinity of Damascus.”
Writing around 640, Thomas the Presbyter, a Syriac Christian, also confirms that “there was a battle [probably Ajnadayn] between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled. … Some 4,000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there … The Arabs ravaged the whole region”; they even “climbed the mountain of Mardin and killed many monks there in the monasteries of Qedar and Bnata.”
The Coptic bishop John of Nikiû, who was likely alive during the Muslim conquest of Egypt (641), refers to Islam as “the detestable doctrine of the beast, that is, Muhammad.”
Again, these are all very early and definitive references to Muhammad, dating from between two and eight years after his death. That is amazingly early by the standards of history. I’m not sure — but would be very curious to learn — how the naysayers who claim Muhammad never existed get past such ironclad references.
By way of comparison, keep in mind that we don’t have anything written as early as between two and eight years of Christ’s lifetime, yet historians agree that he existed. The earliest non-Christian references to Christ were written many decades following his crucifixion: Josephus (60 years), Pliny the Younger (79 years), and Tacitus (83 years).
Again, I find it amazing that whereas Christians rightfully cite Josephus, Pliny, and Tacitus as early proof of Christ’s existence, the non-Muslim references to Muhammad — which, objectively speaking, are even more compelling, since they were written much closer to their subject’s lifetime — are dismissed as irrelevant by those who would make him a figment of our imagination.
Internal Strife
There’s another very important reason I believe a Muhammad existed: How else does one understand the Sunni/Shia divide?
Think about it: If Muhammad is a fabrication meant to give credibility and a hagiographical veneer to the Arab conquerors of the Middle East and North Africa (namely, the Umayyads), how does one understand the Sunni/Shia conflict, which revolves entirely around not just the existence of a prophet named Muhammad, but his very DNA?
Following Muhammad’s death in 632, two contending Muslim groups emerged: Sunnis, who believe that any qualified candidate is eligible to becoming Muhammad’s successor (or caliph); and Shias, who believe that only blood descendants of Muhammad could be his successors, particularly through his daughter Fatima and his first cousin Ali (namely Muhammad’s grandsons Hassan and Hussein and their progeny). Since the year 680, Sunnis and Shia have been killing each other over this point.
Now if there was no Muhammad, then there was no Fatima; and if there was no Fatima, there was no Hassan and no Hussein. So who are the Shias (the minority Muslim faction), and what is their gripe? What event gave rise to them? Did the Umayyad conspirators who concocted Muhammad also compel their own descendants to start butchering each other — and if so, to what end?
For all these reasons, as far as I’m concerned, the bare bone facts of Muhammad’s biography are amply proven by the standards of history, not to mention common sense.
However, I do not necessarily believe the many details contained in the vast corpus of Islam’s scriptures about the doings and teachings of its prophet. I have no idea whether they are true or false, and can only judge their plausibility on an individual basis.
Unflattering Accounts
That said, it’s worth mentioning that the hadith actually do help verify the existence of Muhammad, though indirectly.
For those who do not know, the hadith are vast collections of what Muhammad reportedly said or did, as passed down orally. Because they were finally written down 120 to 250 years after Muhammad’s death, the people now raising questions about his existence dismiss them as being too late and therefore obvious forgeries.
Ironically, much of what the hadith do contain is very unflattering to Muhammad. If they are meant to help fabricate a heroic-like and noble prophet to validate the Arab empire, shouldn’t they only contain information designed to put Muhammad in the best of lights? Instead, they contain many oddities (to put it mildly) that have for centuries challenged Muslims’ faith. Many of them, till this very day, cite them as cause for their apostasy from Islam.
For example, there’s one “canonical” hadith (meaning its authenticity has been determined by the ulema) in which here Muhammad recommends that women “breastfeed” strange men as a way of making them “family” members; that means the women no longer need cover themselves around them. The sira also records Muhammad ordering the brutal assassination of old men and women for simply mocking him, and “marrying” the wives of men he had killed.
Such accounts have a ring of truth to them. Accurate accounts of historical figures will at least occasionally show some of their warts, and what we know about Muhammad from the earliest sources — a propensity for war, vengeance, and sexual licentiousness — further confirm the unflattering accounts contained in the sira and hadith.
Check back later for the conclusion of this two-part series, in which I evaluate the counterarguments against Muhammad’s existence.