Historical Attestation of Muhammad: Difference between revisions

 

The traditional narrative of Muhammad's life identifies him as the author, or original reciter, of the Qur'an. If this is true then the Qur'an would be a document contemporary to his life and could serve as a valuable source of information about the prophet. Unfortunately, however, the Qur'an offers very few details about the author nor much information about the lives of the people in early 7th century Arabia.

One fundamental problem with accurately dating the contents of the Qur'an is that the verses, even by traditional Muslim accounts, were not collected and put together into a single book during the lifetime of Muhammad. They were put together at least a decade after his death through a process of gathering and recording verses that had been etched upon scraps of papyrus, bone, and wood along with interviewing members of the early community who had committed parts of the Qur'an to memory.

If this narrative of the Qur'anic collection is true then we are left wondering how accurate was the collection of the book and is the current version of the [[Corruption of the Qur'an|Qur'an corrupted]]? It is possible that parts of the originally recited Qur'an were not included in the book or, worse, entire passages were included that came from an author other than Muhammad. There were countless [[Legends|legends]] and stories circulating at this time in the Middle East and any number of them could have been erroneously added to the Qur'an. Based on this information, we have to question whether the handful of verses we find in the Qur'an about Muhammad's life are actually authentic.  They may well have been fabrications that later found their way into the book we have today.

While there are no early Arab texts about the life of the prophet of Islam, we do have copies of non-Muslim (mainly Christian) writings that reference the Arab conquest of the Middle East. These include eye witness testimony to the events that take place in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of the 7th century. While the authors provide limited details on the Arabs that conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, they do provide some interesting insights into how the conquered people of those areas viewed their new rulers. In particular, a few references to a "Muhammad" can be found which dates to the first few decades of the Arab conquests.

One of the earliest references to the Arab conquests of the Middle East comes from a Christian named Jacob who wrote an anti-Jewish tract around 634 to try and convince Jews to convert to Christianity. In his tract, Jacob includes a section from his cousin Justus who writes about how he heard of the killing of a member of the imperial guard, or candidatus, in a letter from his brother Abraham in Caesarea. He mentions that the Saracens (a name used for Arabs at this time) are attacking people in the land and they are lead by a prophet: