The question dared to be asked and answered in a new book by the indefatigable Robert Spencer: Did Muhammad Exist? And he does a great job of answering that question, very scientific, based on serious documentation. He has all the bases covered well, indeed, from what I have seen, which is mostly a video debate he and David Wood did with Anjem Choudary and Omar Bakri. In that debate, the Christians (Spencer-Wood) mopped the floor with the Muslims (Choudary-Bakri), the latter of whom surprisingly didn’t go ballistic at the very question of whether or not Mohammed existed. All they could do, however, other than present a few “facts” that Spencer easily swatted away, was to state over and over again that Mohammed existed because the Koran says so!
The argument here, of course, is that the Koran is the inerrant Word of God, infallibly dictated to the illiterate Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel while the “prophet” was in a cave. This Word of God was then passed along orally for years to decades, before being collected by later generations – with the result that much of it was lost. One would have thought that the omniscient and omnipotent Allah might have foreseen such a development and guaranteed that nothing would be lost by securing the transmission in writing in the first place. Or – better yet! – he could have simply made everyone instantly a perfect Muslim with the snap of his all-powerful fingers! Why rely on passing along, century after century, parts of a book probably recorded imperfectly?
In any case, at the review of Spencer’s book from The Blaze, a few Muslims are getting into it with numerous Christians, both factions defending their own cults against ridicule. The book itself is being pushed by a number of Christian and Jewish organizations with somewhat unrestrained glee.
Love how all these Christian and Jewish organizations are jumping all over this one, while steadfastly ignoring the even bigger elephant in the room!
As Robert Spencer succinctly put it concerning Mohammed: “Legendary elaboration of a mythical figure.”
Hello! That’s exactly how we can truthfully describe the “Jesus Christ” of the New Testament! And Jesus mythicists have done an equally great and scientific job analyzing the data concerning the Christian founder as Spencer has done here.
So, where’s all the media attention for that subject? (Despite Ehrman’s new book?)
*cue crickets*
Note also that on my forum we have been discussing for years whether or not Mohammed is a mythical figure.
