Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam’s Obscure Origins

Robert Spencer

Apr 2014 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Are jihadists dying for a fiction? Everything you thought you knew about Islam is about to change.


Did Muhammad exist?

It is a question that few have thought—or dared—to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived and led in seventh-century Arabia.

But this widely accepted story begins to crumble on close examination, as Robert Spencer shows in his eye-opening new book.

In his blockbuster bestseller The Truth about Muhammad, Spencer revealed the shocking contents of the earliest Islamic biographical material about the prophet of Islam. Now, in Did Muhammad Exist?, he uncovers that material’s surprisingly shaky historical foundations. Spencer meticulously examines historical records, archaeological findings, and pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what we can know about Muhammad, the Qur’an, and the early days of Islam. The evidence he presents challenges the most fundamental assumptions about Islam’s origins.

Did Muhammad Exist? reveals:

•How the earliest biographical material about Muhammad dates from at least 125 years after his reported death
•How six decades passed before the Arabian conquerors—or the people they conquered—even mentioned Muhammad, the Qur’an, or Islam
•The startling evidence that the Qur’an was constructed from existing materials—including pre-Islamic Christian texts
•How even Muslim scholars acknowledge that countless reports of Muhammad’s deeds were fabricated
•Why a famous mosque inscription may refer not to Muhammad but, astonishingly, to Jesus
•How the oldest records referring to a man named Muhammad bear little resemblance to the now-standard Islamic account of the life of the prophet
•The many indications that Arabian leaders fashioned Islam for political reasons

Far from an anti-Islamic polemic, Did Muhammad Exist? is a sober but unflinching look at the origins of one of the world’s major religions. While Judaism and Christianity have been subjected to searching historical criticism for more than two centuries, Islam has never received the same treatment on any significant scale.

The real story of Muhammad and early Islam has long remained in the shadows. Robert Spencer brings it into the light at long last.
 

Ratings and reviews

A waste of time and money. The author expresses his own cancerous ideas with an obvious attempt to perpetuate hate crime. This is the definition of hate speech which lacks any credibility. No solid evidence is provided and his own interpretation of text taken out of context is childish and without basis. He ignores the facts, vomits blatant fabrications and has no grounding in the Arabic language to even comment on the true history. Robert is clearly uneducated in this field of study and a racist

Well argued. I think muhammad existed as the most evil man in history, as described by all the early Islamic records, but certain things Robert sincerely sees as meaning he didn't exist actually show islamic history reveals lies about when he died and that none of the first califs really thought he was a prophet. If he did exist, he's the father of hate crimes lasting 1400 years.

Honestly maybe from Western point of view it might be satisfying.. but most of the argument he presented were about his understanding which looses it's sense in translation ... u can't comprehend it when u don't know anything about language history ... to an Arabic speaker this guy is just bulls hitting but then again I don't blame ppl ... ignorance prevails everywhere....well update: seriously dude after all that propaganda n books now ull say ... DID Mohammed PBUH existed ??? Sir true ... end of the days

About the author

Robert Spencer is the author of several critically acclaimed books about Islam, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth about Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is a columnist for FrontPage Magazine and the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Spencer holds a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history for more than three decades.