Muslim Theologian: Prophet Muhammad probably never existed

[Mohammad]

Even if Mohammad was a made up character and the Koran was a peice of work compiled after many years, written by a myrad of people, it doesn't change much. The billions of Muslims across the globe would still be able to get spiritual guidance from it. It wouldn't matter to them if the man was a real man who lived or not. Same thing with Isa (Jesus) or any other major religous figure.

[hongi]

Completely wrong. Remember the Shahada. If Muhammad didn't exist, and the Koran was made up, Islam would collapse completely.

[Posner]

Even if Mohammad was a made up character and the Koran was a peice of work compiled after many years, written by a myrad of people, it doesn't change much. The billions of Muslims across the globe would still be able to get spiritual guidance from it. It wouldn't matter to them if the man was a real man who lived or not. Same thing with Isa (Jesus) or any other major religous figure.

Actually, it would be problem. Either people would want a religion that was created by an actual person and didn't lie about it's origin, or people might just wake up and drop the whole organized religion thing. If you think it wouldn't matter, you don't know much about Islam or any of the other Abrahamic religions.

[Sarevok]

Even if Mohammad was a made up character and the Koran was a peice of work compiled after many years, written by a myrad of people, it doesn't change much. The billions of Muslims across the globe would still be able to get spiritual guidance from it. It wouldn't matter to them if the man was a real man who lived or not. Same thing with Isa (Jesus) or any other major religous figure.

Don't say such things if you are a muslim. It is borderline heresy. Islam is built upon five pillars of faith. One of the most important of these is accepting Allah as the one true God and Mohammad (pbuh) as his prophet.

[Thanas]

Even if Mohammad was a made up character and the Koran was a peice of work compiled after many years, written by a myrad of people, it doesn't change much. The billions of Muslims across the globe would still be able to get spiritual guidance from it. It wouldn't matter to them if the man was a real man who lived or not. Same thing with Isa (Jesus) or any other major religous figure.

If Jesus had not existed, there would have been no christianity and any religious movement would not have had the same power as christianity has. Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

[Mohammad]

Completely wrong. Remember the Shahada. If Muhammad didn't exist, and the Koran was made up, Islam would collapse completely.

You are right, but in that case that would mean that the scholar would be a apostate and a kaffir or not a Muslim. The extent to what a Muslim believes and what they do with it varies in each Islamic country. In some shari'a law is held to be the highest law and strict penalties are adhered to. The act of stating that Mohammad (pbuh) would indeed be against the interpretation of Islam in many places. The reason this is not a danger to the life of the individual (the scholar in this case) is that some of the Ummah is not fundamentalist (adhering to the Koran) and has a looser interpretation of Islamic law. Even as an apostate he would be as safe as he is stated in the article to live in a western country and not a Muslim majority nation.

Don't say such things if you are a muslim. It is borderline heresy. Islam is built upon five pillars of faith. One of the most important of these is accepting Allah as the one true God and Mohammad (pbuh) as his prophet.

It might surprise you that not all of those in the Ummah are all very religious beyond a cultural sense. From what I know, there are a lot of people who would be bragging about going on al-jihad and making al-hajj to Makkah at great personal cost. Then those same people go and get high on hashish and drink and do stupid stuff. From what I can tell about this website there is a bit of irony in what you are telling me to do or not to do. If you think that there is no God and that there is no religion on the face of the Earth that is right, why are you pretending for my sake? Do you think that I worry when I never said that I believe that Mohammad never lived? Get a Muslim friend, one who is as much a whitebread guy in everything except religion. Then you'll get what I mean by how not all Muslims are fundamentalists. The problem with this website is that is perpetuates the idea that Islam is a religion of goatlovers and bearded men in sandboxes.

If Jesus had not existed, there would have been no christianity and any religious movement would not have had the same power as christianity has. Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

If that is how you are saying it, how can this be true? How can scholarly evidence point to or even make the allusion that Muhammad (pbuh) had never lived? In Arabic the word for a prophet is al-rasul with the signifigance being one who bears witness to somthing. If it is not true then in the future we will find out and have evidence to prove his existance.

[Formless]

The problem with this website is that is perpetuates the idea that Islam is a religion of goatlovers and bearded men in sandboxes.

Seems to me all this website perpetuates is the idea that such people are illogical idiots. The atheists have their say, and they have their arguments against religion, but I don't think anyone has yet made that generalization.

[Samuel]

The problem with this website is that is perpetuates the idea that Islam is a religion of goatlovers and bearded men in sandboxes.

Seems to me all this website perpetuates is the idea that such people are illogical idiots. The atheists have their say, and they have their arguments against religion, but I don't think anyone has yet made that generalization.

Actually any informed atheists knows that the largest Muslim country in the world is Indonesia... which isn't Arab.

I just think they are nuts. And their fundamentalists scare the shit out of me. Well, Christian ones do that too... difference is the power each group has.

[Formless]

I would say that it is the way that they use the power that they have, and the kind of power that they are willing to flex to get their agenda's done. The Islamic fundamentlists often use violence and terror while the Christian Fundamentalists use propaganda and influence to get governments and populations to wage their wars for them. Doing things themselves, or using proxies, which do you think is more visable? And which one do you think is more dangerous?

Of course there are sane muslims. There are sane christians (I speak for myself, if no one else). No group is going to be homologous. But some groups are going to be louder, more obnoxious, and more visable then others, and therefor seem over-represented. Doesn't make anything you can say about them any less true.

[Samuel]

I would say that it is the way that they use the power that they have, and the kind of power that they are willing to flex to get their agenda's done. The Islamic fundamentlists often use violence and terror while the Christian Fundamentalists use propaganda and influence to get governments and populations to wage their wars for them. Doing things themselves, or using proxies, which do you think is more visable? And which one do you think is more dangerous?

Of course there are sane muslims. There are sane christians (I speak for myself, if no one else). No group is going to be homologous. But some groups are going to be louder, more obnoxious, and more visable then others, and therefor seem over-represented. Doesn't make anything you can say about them any less true.

That is because if they tried that shit in the US or Europe they would get the government flatening them with tanks and troops. We don't take kindly to treason or nutjobs.

The states Muslims are in tend to have significantly less stable governments which is why they can get away with the things they do- when Christians are in similar position (Nigeria) they do similar stuff:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/de ... heobserver

That and we have more "moderate" Christians who don't realize exactly how nuts their faith is and when they see someone living it reject it as not true Christianity because it isn't what they are used to.

[Formless]

Now, that is not exactly true. There are some kinds of fundi's in America and the likes that get violent anyway. The thing is, it is a smaller scale, and they actively try to work around the authorities, such as using plausible deniability and simple crimes of opportunity, and at least until the last few decades there was a lot more they could get away with. The moderation of most Christians in our countries is due to general social progress, and due to the fact that many "Christians" are not really very active, and mostly hang onto the name as a way of getting cultural acceptance. Lip service, in other words. Especially in Europe.

[hongi]

Don't say such things if you are a muslim. It is borderline heresy. Islam is built upon five pillars of faith. One of the most important of these is accepting Allah as the one true God and Mohammad (pbuh) as his prophet.

It might surprise you that not all of those in the Ummah are all very religious beyond a cultural sense. From what I know, there are a lot of people who would be bragging about going on al-jihad and making al-hajj to Makkah at great personal cost. Then those same people go and get high on hashish and drink and do stupid stuff. From what I can tell about this website there is a bit of irony in what you are telling me to do or not to do. If you think that there is no God and that there is no religion on the face of the Earth that is right, why are you pretending for my sake? Do you think that I worry when I never said that I believe that Mohammad never lived? Get a Muslim friend, one who is as much a whitebread guy in everything except religion. Then you'll get what I mean by how not all Muslims are fundamentalists. The problem with this website is that is perpetuates the idea that Islam is a religion of goatlovers and bearded men in sandboxes.

Considering Sarevok is from Bangladesh, a heavily Muslim nation, I find it laughable that you're telling him to 'get a Muslim friend'. Get out of here and off your high horse, you'll find that many people here are well informed.

[Thanas]

If that is how you are saying it, how can this be true? How can scholarly evidence point to or even make the allusion that Muhammad (pbuh) had never lived? In Arabic the word for a prophet is al-rasul with the signifigance being one who bears witness to somthing. If it is not true then in the future we will find out and have evidence to prove his existance.

I obviously was talking about those whose existence has already been corrobated through other source. You are making quite the leap of logic here.

[Patrick Degan]

If Jesus had not existed, there would have been no christianity and any religious movement would not have had the same power as christianity has. Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

Christianity got firmly ensconsed as a major religion because the emperor Constantine legalised it and from that point on it had state protection. Without that, Christianity would have gotten no farther than any cult of the time and would have disappeared in another century or so.

But let's say that there was no Jesus, that the whole thing was made up. How? It's CE 310 or thereabouts and Constantine, who needs something to give him a propaganda edge in his war to claim the Roman world as his own, picks up on the tales from the Jews of a wandering prophet named Joshua who spoke of an eventual redemption of the world through faith in a single, all-powerful god; one much more powerful and meaningful than Jove or Janus or any of the deified emperors, and makes that prophecy his standard for redeeming the Roman Empire if they will follow him. And the new god has the best sales-pitch anybody's ever heard of: "Believe in Me, and you will live Forever". Way simpler than remembering how and who to propitiate on which day for which blessing you want, or which official cult not to piss off to avoid some nasty treatment, and it makes Constantine look good since he's acting in the name of this god and not his own glory. And it's something people will want to believe in. A few forged "prophecies" and "testaments", along with some clever editing of a couple of histories here and there to back up a new state-fostered cult based at the new imperial capitol, and voila, you've got the beginnings of a going concern which is going to survive the Empire by a good millenia-and-a-half and still be running strong today. Appeal to Tradition, Appeal to Authority, and Appeal to Belief, are all that's necessary to keep a couple billion people in the present time still remaining in the Faith and refusing to hear any argument that this Jesus person was simply a figment of some Byzantine's fertile imagination.

[hongi]

Christianity got firmly ensconsed as a major religion because the emperor Constantine legalised it and from that point on it had state protection. Without that, Christianity would have gotten no farther than any cult of the time and would have disappeared in another century or so.

I'll disagree with you. Christianity was fairly well entrenched. It survived numerous persecutions, state sponsored or otherwise and always rebounded. It had a broad geographical range, from the East to North Africa. If there's no significant pressure on the religion to dissipate, it probably won't. So I think Christianity would remain past the century (although I'm just speculating).

[Thanas]

If Jesus had not existed, there would have been no christianity and any religious movement would not have had the same power as christianity has. Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

Christianity got firmly ensconsed as a major religion because the emperor Constantine legalised it and from that point on it had state protection. Without that, Christianity would have gotten no farther than any cult of the time and would have disappeared in another century or so.

Christianity was already a major religion at that time, but Constantine opened the door to the upper class. That was the breakthrough it needed to become a state religion. Christianity obviously wouldn't have disappeared, but it wouldn't have bevome quite as powerful.

But let's say that there was no Jesus, that the whole thing was made up. How? It's CE 310 or thereabouts and Constantine, who needs something to give him a propaganda edge in his war to claim the Roman world as his own, picks up on the tales from the Jews of a wandering prophet named Joshua who spoke of an eventual redemption of the world through faith in a single, all-powerful god; one much more powerful and meaningful than Jove or Janus or any of the deified emperors, and makes that prophecy his standard for redeeming the Roman Empire if they will follow him. And the new god has the best sales-pitch anybody's ever heard of: "Believe in Me, and you will live Forever".

Well, no. That sales pitch had considerable difficulties with the romans. Especially, because it did not promise returns immediately and because it was spoken by a god who was killed by a mere mortal and suffered the most dishonorable punishment ever.

Note that when Julian wrote his brilliant critique of christianity, this was exactly the angle he worked on and this argument was so strong that up until the seventh century church writers regularly had to publish rebuttals to it.

Way simpler than remembering how and who to propitiate on which day for which blessing you want, or which official cult not to piss off to avoid some nasty treatment, and it makes Constantine look good since he's acting in the name of this god and not his own glory. And it's something people will want to believe in. A few forged "prophecies" and "testaments", along with some clever editing of a couple of histories here and there to back up a new state-fostered cult based at the new imperial capitol, and voila, you've got the beginnings of a going concern which is going to survive the Empire by a good millenia-and-a-half and still be running strong today. Appeal to Tradition, Appeal to Authority, and Appeal to Belief, are all that's necessary to keep a couple billion people in the present time still remaining in the Faith and refusing to hear any argument that this Jesus person was simply a figment of some Byzantine's fertile imagination.

Eh, no. You seriously misrepresent Constantine's religious beliefs. If there had been no christianity (and note that Constantine did not use christianity as religious propaganda in the civil war, despite what fables and popular legends claim), Constantine would have remained a believer of Sol Invictus and would have strengthened that cult. In fact, picking christianity as the state religion (which it only became 100 years later under Theodosius II) would have been stupid, for it would have alienated the aristocracy and the troops.

He would have no need to make up another religion, because Mithras and Sol Invictus (or the hennotheistic cults) already fulfilled that need. In fact, Constantine did not chose to support christianity exclusively, he bolstered Sol invictus quite considerably as well. In fact, note that he never was a christian in the sense of Eusebius etc, in fact his funeral arrangements have him taking the place of the saviour and him being the source of godly authority, not Jesus or somebody else.

Constantine was not the person who managed to make the roman empire christian, it took almost a century of state funding to do so. And even then there were significant numbers of followers of pagans up to the eigth century. And this happened with a huge theology already in place. No made up religion would have achieved the same. In fact, emperors inventing new religions was exremely frowned upon.

[Darth Wong]

Even if Mohammad was a made up character and the Koran was a peice of work compiled after many years, written by a myrad of people, it doesn't change much. The billions of Muslims across the globe would still be able to get spiritual guidance from it. It wouldn't matter to them if the man was a real man who lived or not. Same thing with Isa (Jesus) or any other major religous figure.

If Jesus had not existed, there would have been no christianity and any religious movement would not have had the same power as christianity has.

Jesus is an idea more than he is a man. If there was a real Jesus but his characteristics were drastically different than they were portrayed by the religious writings that were used to spread Christianity, then the Jesus of Christianity basically did not exist.

Let's put it this way: there might have been a grubby lunatic named Jesus who died in Jerusalem a couple of thousand years ago. But if there was, he was not really the Jesus of Christianity. The Jesus of Christianity was a divine man who was characterized by making specific speeches and demonstrating specific magical powers. If no one actually made those speeches or exhibited those powers, then he didn't exist.

Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

So which real person was Zeus based on?

[Thanas]

Even if Mohammad was a made up character and the Koran was a peice of work compiled after many years, written by a myrad of people, it doesn't change much. The billions of Muslims across the globe would still be able to get spiritual guidance from it. It wouldn't matter to them if the man was a real man who lived or not. Same thing with Isa (Jesus) or any other major religous figure.

If Jesus had not existed, there would have been no christianity and any religious movement would not have had the same power as christianity has.

Jesus is an idea more than he is a man. If there was a real Jesus but his characteristics were drastically different than they were portrayed by the religious writings that were used to spread Christianity, then the Jesus of Christianity basically did not exist.

Let's put it this way: there might have been a grubby lunatic named Jesus who died in Jerusalem a couple of thousand years ago. But if there was, he was not really the Jesus of Christianity. The Jesus of Christianity was a divine man who was characterized by making specific speeches and demonstrating specific magical powers. If no one actually made those speeches or exhibited those powers, then he didn't exist.

Eh....yes? I never claimed that historical evidence would confirm the existence of "miracle Jesus". The only thing I did claim is that it supports three things:
-there was someone called Jesus
- he was executed in the time of Pilatus
- his followers claimed he was a miracle worker (which btw Tacitus does not believe to be possible, because what what true god can be slain by a mere mortal?).

Certainly, the miracle worker of christianity is different or at least his "miracle works" have been shown to be coincidences (raising the dead was according to the people I spoke to a case of someone being in a deep coma and coming out of it, walking on water was a case of the mediterranean being partly frozen etc...) which people ignorant of science then claimed to be miracle works.

Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

So which real person was Zeus based on?

Well, the argument can be made that if you remove Homer (or the multiple persons we today believe to be Homer), the greek pantheon would not exist or be radically different.

[Darth Wong]

Eh....yes? I never claimed that historical evidence would confirm the existence of "miracle Jesus". The only thing I did claim is that it supports three things:
-there was someone called Jesus
- he was executed in the time of Pilatus
- his followers claimed he was a miracle worker (which btw Tacitus does not believe to be possible, because what what true god can be slain by a mere mortal?).

And what I'm saying is that Jesus never existed as a real person to any more than a handful of people. He existed solely as a story. If the story is mostly false, then the Jesus of Christianity never existed at all.

Certainly, the miracle worker of christianity is different or at least his "miracle works" have been shown to be coincidences (raising the dead was according to the people I spoke to a case of someone being in a deep coma and coming out of it, walking on water was a case of the mediterranean being partly frozen etc...) which people ignorant of science then claimed to be miracle works.

All we have are unreliable hearsay claims of these miracles, much as we have only unreliable hearsay claims of any details of Jesus' life. If the only resemblance between a real person and the person described in the stories is his name, then I can go to Mexico right now and find you a whole shitload of Jesuses.

Frankly, I am astonished someone would even make such an argument. Religion is based upon persons of faith. Remove one of them and the whole thing collapses.

So which real person was Zeus based on?

Well, the argument can be made that if you remove Homer (or the multiple persons we today believe to be Homer), the greek pantheon would not exist or be radically different.

You're backpedaling. If the source of the religion can be a storyteller rather than a real figure of divinity, then there is no reason why we can't conclude that Christianity was invented by storytellers rather than being inspired by the life of a real person.

There are people today who invent completely fictional accounts of their own lives, either out of delusion or some desire for profit. Why couldn't people back then have invented a biography out of thin air by cobbling together other mythologies and then slapping them onto some insignificant crackpot?

[Thanas]

And what I'm saying is that Jesus never existed as a real person to any more than a handful of people. He existed solely as a story. If the story is mostly false, then the Jesus of Christianity never existed at all.

Yes. There are no ancient sources who corrobate anything more than "There was a person called Jesus and he was executed by Pilatus". The many stories people constructed around that tiny bit of information is not supported by any ancient source I know of. However, that does not mean that there wasn't a real "prophet" called Jesus whose followers then embellished his tale in order to spread their religion.

All we have are unreliable hearsay claims of these miracles, much as we have only unreliable hearsay claims of any details of Jesus' life. If the only resemblance between a real person and the person described in the stories is his name, then I can go to Mexico right now and find you a whole shitload of Jesuses.

One minor nitpick - we also do get the time of his execution confirmed by Tactitus. It certainly is impossible to look up graves and say "That was Jesus" based on the ancient sources. However, the same is true for most of the Roman emperors.

Well, the argument can be made that if you remove Homer (or the multiple persons we today believe to be Homer), the greek pantheon would not exist or be radically different.

You're backpedaling. If the source of the religion can be a storyteller rather than a real figure of divinity, then there is no reason why we can't conclude that Christianity was invented by storytellers rather than being inspired by the life of a real person.

How is a storyteller who collects the stories about gods and spreads them not a person of faith? Because that is all the apostles were doing and I doubt you would find any christian today who denies that they were persons of faith. Note that I never said "figure of divinity" anywhere in my posts and I do not believe "persons of faith" does describe only divine persons. All it means AFAIK is that someone believes in the supernatural ideas and stories he spreads. I certainly do not believe Mohammed to be truly divine anymore than I believe Jesus to have been a divine figure. And Homer would certainly qualify as a person of faith IMO, since he did indeed spread around the word about the deeds of the gods.

Allow me to clarify: A persons of faith IMO is any prophet, storyteller, copyist or propagandist who believes in the supernatural occurences about whom he teaches, writes or otherwise informs the public of.

There are people today who invent completely fictional accounts of their own lives, either out of delusion or some desire for profit. Why couldn't people back then have invented a biography out of thin air by cobbling together other mythologies and then slapping them onto some insignificant crackpot?

Yes. In fact, I do believe that this happened in this instance (and I can back it up, for example the story of the birth of Jesus was entirely copied from the mithraic cult which had been around for centuries at that point). You seem to be under the impression that just because Tacitus confirms that there once was a Jesus who was executed, I automatically must believe that he was a divine figure or that any of the stories are true. Which I do not - I believe what reliable sources back up.