Did Mohammed exist?
>>798455
Most likely
But he was no illiterate like Muslims like to think.
>>798455
Sure, there are non-Muslim eyewitness accounts of him.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_the_Presbyter
What do I have to do to live as hardcore of a life as him?
>>798515
Work in the real estate industry and get a small loan of a million dollars from your dad.
>>798515
not possible in todays world on the same scale
>>798515
I think it is called being a mass murdering, paedophile, war criminal rapist these days.
>>798540
>In January the people of Homs took the word for their lives and many villages were ravaged by the killing of the Arabs of Muhmd and many people were slain and taken prisoner from Galilee as far as Beth.
Yes, apparently his body is in some building in Mecca
>>798555
1. It doesn't mention him seeing or interacting with Mohammed, only hearsay that the "armies of Mohammed" had come his way
2. If we are to take the traditional academic historical scholarship as fact, than he was most likely referring to Muslims as followers of Mohammed and not an army being personally led by Mohammed himself, seeing as how the man died in Medina about a decade before the conquests started.
>>798515
take a look at joseph kony for a modern day example
>>798455
Yes.
>>798459
This as well.
>>798540
>he was literate or illiterate or whatever?
Because in the muslim mythos Mohammed was illiterate however was able to write down the Qur'an. If you don't want to read more regarding the subject, you may watch the movie "The Message" with Anthony Quinn. His life is well documented and his existence is not debatable.
>>798579
>Because in the muslim mythos Mohammed was illiterate however was able to write down the Qur'an
>what are scribes?
His scribes ended up becoming influential governors, scholars, and military leaders in the nascent Islamic empire btw
>>798576
>If we are to take the traditional academic historical scholarship as fact, than he was most likely referring to Muslims as followers of Mohammed and not an army being personally led by Mohammed himself, seeing as how the man died in Medina about a decade before the conquests started.
That's a contemporary source dated to within Muhammad's lifetime, dummie.
>>798585
Forget what I said, It's late and I'm tired.
>Because in the muslim mythos Mohammed was illiterate however was able to read the Qur'an when ordered by Gabriel
Now it is right.
>>798455
Yes, he was a very clever warlord that used religion as a tool to conquer land. His two successors tried to get some of his power using the religion he created and islam was born.
Get this book, OP
tl;dr - there are variety of Muslim and non-Muslim sources supporting his existence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Muhammad
>>798585
>>798607
Heard the illiterate thing was hyped up to make him more special, almost like a small miracle.
i mean he was a merchant, and the arab number count system is highly integrated to their written language so i don't know.
further there is only 1 line in the quran that mentions him as illiterate and that is "he isn't a man from the book" which can mean anything from him not being a Semite "islam is based on Christianity/jew" our not a christian/jew.
>>798732
Yeah, that's basically my thoughts on him being illiterate. You'd think as a merchant, even if he was mostly illiterate he would still know a little bit of writing.
>>798455
>Did Mohammed exist?
He is the most likely to have existed of all the prophets, but the first time he is ever mentioned is after his death.
Seems like before that nobody acknowledged or spoke about him in his qualities as a prophet and a spiritual leader, and we only learn of him once the succession conflicts begin.
Curious that the organized religion of Islam, reformed by jewish theologians once the arabs conquered what is today Israel, predates its own prophet in our sources.
Almost like he was made up, probably by repurposing a real person who had lived, by these theologians to make the Muslim religion more compatible with the jewish/christian one for the purpose of easier spread and further conquest.
>>798839
No, the reason why he wasn't mentioned earlier on is because early Islam went through a huge phase of disappointment and adaptation.
Islam initially wasn't separated from Christianity or Judaism, it just thought that the priests had perverted its original message (one god that should be worshipped and will judge everyone at the end times). Muhammed also believed that he and his followers lived in the end times and that the day of judgement was going to happen in his lifetime. His original goal was to conquer the holy land to wait for the day of judgement. When Muhammed died before the day of judgement, this was a huge disappointment, which caused muslims to change Muhammed's message drastically, pushing the end times further and further into the future
>>798855
This is terribly similar to other Abrahamic religions. "Postponing the Apocalypse", etc.
>>798455
Out of certainty of actually having existed I would give Mohammad 99% certainty of actually having existed, Jesus 75% certainty of actually having existed and Moses 0% certainty of actually having existed.
Of course that isn't really giving any certainty to much of the details of the lives of MoMo or Jezzer as claimed in "holy books".
>>798455
>existing
I bet you believe in entropy as well!
>>798455
Compared to Jesus, it's pretty harder to deny Mohammed. Jesus was a pleb, Mohammad was a political leader. Cunt sent letters to Kings of the middle east at the time.
>>798455
The Quran is just a metaphor
Muslim conquest didn't really happen
What religion would Muhammed have been prior to all his revelations? As I understand it, Arabia was mostly polytheistic at the time - but clearly Muhammed had some interaction with Abraham religions.
>>799343
Historians of the Middle East could always use more information on what the Arab peninsula was like before the rise Islam.
Anything would be valuable to understand both the circumstances of Muhammad himself, the pre-Islamic pagan religion(s), the societies and more.
>According to F.E. Peters, "one of the characteristics of Arab paganism as it has come down to us is the absence of a mythology, narratives that might serve to explain the origin or history of the gods."
Apparently Arabia had a mishmash of its own polytheistic paganism (followed by the non-Muslims in Muhammad's own family according to the Qur'an), Christianity, Judaism, Iranian religions.
The Qur'an itself references the names of the goddesses of Arab polytheism.
Of course, if you ask any Imam, he will tell you Muhammad was always a prophet of Islam and believed in nothing but Islam before Jibril (Gabriel) gave him the Qur'an.
>>798866
Yes and people fall for this meme even today and will probably keep doing so until christjewlamity stops being a thing.
I know your momammed exists
>>798572
Timestamp with body or it didn't happen
>>798530
A million dollars is a lot of money to accumulate at once, but not over a year or so. One million is pretty small when you consider the fact that he had turned it into 10 Billion before his dad died and divided 200 million amongst the family regardless of what Rubio, Clinton, Cruz and Bernie would have you to believe.
>>798515
Rape a 9 year old, kill a ton of people, smoke lots of hasheesh.
>>798732
The prophet (pbuh) was illiterate.
Arabic numbers were 200 years later and it's not hard to pick up stuff in Syria and send it south.
>Truck drivers have to do calculus
Same deal as Jesus:
Did they exist? Probably.
Is that profoundly important? Not really.
>>799670
>That is a small loan for someone like him
That's the joke
>>798866
It's a system that just werks. The zeal of the first few generations spread the core teachings rapidly, overturning or absorbing the older, stagnant religious institutions in place before a more sober generation realizes they need to consolidate their gains or risk losing what was just built.
>>799389
From what I've read, there wasn't much Arab paganism actually left in Arabia at the time, and that most references to it are actually just critiques of existing Arab Jews and Christians who had synthesized older pagan elements.
>>798455
The bigger question is what did Muhammad actually preach and act like?
