Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins - Hardcover

Spencer, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 161017061X ISBN 13: 9781610170611

Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2012

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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 in depth for more than three decades.

Review

“[Spencer] has engaged in concerted detective work of a scholarly nature. His book is no polemic. It is a serious quest for facts. . . . Well-written and moves right along.” —Washington Times
“Careful, detailed, well-reasoned. . . . [A] brave book.” —FrontPage Magazine

“This will send shockwaves through Islamic communities.” —The Blaze

“In an impeccably researched book, Spencer shows that all our Arabic sources for the life of Muhammad are very late, tendentious, and unsupported by any archaeological or epigraphic evidence, while the non-Islamic sources are scant and ambiguous. Thanks to this book, skepticism regarding what we can know about Muhammad must now and forever be taken seriously.” —Ibn Warraq, editor of What the Koran Really Says

“A surprising and eye-opening new book . . . Quite a convincing job.” —PJ Media

“Robert Spencer has displayed brilliant scholarship and fierce courage in his previous books. In this one he perseveres and confronts with deep erudition the most topical problem of our century.” —Bat Ye’or, author of The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam

“A super detective service for the West . . . Spencer leaves few rocks unturned in his search for the truth about Islam and Muhammad.” —Capitalism Magazine

Edition details

• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 161017061X
• ISBN 13: 9781610170611
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 254