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THE HAGARENE MESSENGER: ‘MUHAMMAD’

 by Mudarras Kadhir Gaznavi

WHEN WAS HE BORN, AND WHERE?

We are all aware of the unreliability and the extreme bias of the Arabic literary sources. Therefore we should expand our search. Lawrence Conrad was able to fix the Messengers birth as 552 A.D. according to an inscription. At this point I must point out that even the Arab/Islam historians cannot agree on the year of the Messenger's birth. Most of them say that it was the ‘Year of the Elephant,’ which is 570 A.D. There are others who claim that he was born fifteen years earlier; or he was born days, months, and years after the ‘Year of the Elephant.’ In some extreme cases, historians claim that the Messenger was born even thirty years or seventy years later than the ‘Year of the Elephant’ (600 A.D. or 640 A.D.). There is no agreement also on the month or day or the hour of his birth.

The official ideology gives the date of birth as 570 A.D., but if we decide to go along with the find by Lawrence Conrad, which is 552 A.D., the early part of the Messenger’s life falls into the ‘period of earthquakes’ in the second half of the 500s A.D.. The quake in 540 A.D. is known to have totally destroyed Beirut, and caused extensive destruction in Palestine and the neighbouring regions. Another quake in 551 A.D. is reported to have been the deadliest. It leveled more of Petra and the towns and cities in Negeb/Negev, which is to the north of the valley of Hicr.

Let us go along with Lawrence Conrad’s find, which is 552 A.D. Another quake at a later date in this series of tremors (around 580s or 590s A.D.) might have occurred shortly after the Hicra, and the Messenger and his followers might have preferred to present it as a divine(!) act of punishment as a result of his rejection by the people in his home town.

• According to my scenario the Hicra was from the Messenger’s hometown in the land of Midian to Medina. The Messenger must have had with him his family and followers in this ‘break,’ ‘separation’ (Hicra). The Messenger must have begun delivering messages based on the supposed faith of Av’ram/Bahram the Mandai (Mandaean-Sabian faith), mixed with doctrines from the Samaritan Torah, with announcements related to the coming of the messiah, and some concepts borrowed from Christianity and Zoroastrianism. He and his closest relatives had to leave their hometown because of the negative reception given to him (as it is written in Kuran), and a short time after their departure the earthquake must have struck, devastatig the area. This incident must have been interpreted intentionally by him and his followers as a ‘divine intervention to punish the unbelievers.’

Only this scenario will remove the ambiguity of Kuran 8:33.

WHO WAS HE?

I’d rather think of the Messenger as a person who had his origins not in the deserts of Arabia but in the north-western section of the Peninsula. He was most probably an Ish'maelite-Nabataean living in the general region, which was once called Midian. The Messenger must have lived the earlier part of his life in his hometown probably somewhere in the valley of Hicr in the northwest Arabia, and the remainder in Medina. If he had ever ‘stepped on the soil of Makka,’ it must have been to take possession of the Ka’ba almost at the end of his life, that’s all, and even that reported event may be an invention.

As far as the Makkans were concerned the Messenger was an outsider. In one of those stories about his life in Makka, we read about the negative reception he was given in the early days of his preaching. This very important (and particularly meaningful) story appears in Kuran 43:31.

• Kuran 43:31 is emphasized as an indication of the reception given to the Messenger, at least by a group of people, if not the whole of the community: “They said: ‘Shouldn’t this Kuran have been given to a great man from within these two cities?’” Those asking this question are believed to be the Makkans, and the two cities are thought to be Makka and Taif. Speculation by those who emphasize this verse is that the Messenger was not considered to be a great man.

I would like to add another dimension now. If that criticism was made actually by the Makkans (which I believe is the case) we should set our thoughts free and search for some other explanations as well. The traditional version maintains that the Makkans would have preferred a great, noble, wealthy, influential person as a messenger from amongst the citizens of Makka and/or Taif. But in my opinion what the Makkans meant was the codebook should have been given to someone ‘not only great, noble, wealthy, and influential, but also - maybe more so - who was a citizen of those cities’. This dimension makes the Messenger an outsider, a foreigner.

According to the Islamic literature the Messenger had acquired wealth after his marriage to the tradewoman Hadija/Hadica at the age of 25. The literature also presents him as a person who was involved in camel trading caravans until his marriage to Hadija/Hadica, who was a descendant of Abd-al Uzza. Abd-al Uzza is a Nabateaen name. Therefore it would not be wrong to say that Hadica had her roots in the Nabataean community. A useful point to remember is that the Nabataeans were very good at camel trading. They had caravans on the roads of the Arabian Peninsula. Hadija was a trade-woman involved in camel trade.

In my opinion Hadija (if ever there was one) was not a Makkan, but a Nabataean. She might have lived in the hometown of the Messenger, in the land of Midian. Hadija’s story (presenting her as a Makkan) looks like one of those inventions by the desert Arabs to transform the Hagarene teaching into Islam, despite its origins in the northwest Arabia.

The question in Kuran 43:31, “..Shouldn’t this Kuran have been given to a great man from within these two cities?” has a dimension of ‘wealth’ only behind the word ‘great,’ and the nobility and magnificence was missing.  This verse is emphasized as an indication of the reception given to the Messenger, at least by a group of people, if not the whole of the community. Leone Caetani looked into the lineage of the Messenger and wrote:

• “Muhammad was a young man born to a foreign (not Makkan) family. He came to Makka and mixed with the local crowd. Due to an old Arab tradition of protection-guardianship he reached the level where he was considered a Kureyshi.”

Therefore the Messenger was not a Makkan, but a stranger. He was also not born in the tribe of Kureysh, but accepted later on. Leone Caetani also writes that 'Muhammad' had never laid claim to nobility, and all the names, which imparted the dimension of nobility were later inventions. I believe that these dimensions were written into the literature by the desert Arabs when they were restructuring the the Hagarene teaching (Sabian faith) of the Messenger. This observation by Caetani shows that the eternal rule of inventing a myth out of a narrated reality has also been at work here. We should not forget also the fact that the writers of Kuran had had the Messenger describe his tribe, Kureysh, as the ‘chosen of god,’ which undoubtedly was a later insertion again by the desert Arabs.

• “The Book is intended for the ‘ümm-ül-kura’ (mother of villages=Makka) and the vicinity, and Muhammad is charged with cautioning Makka and its vicinity.”

I believe that the truth was different and this dimension was inserted in a later period by the desert Arabs.

The Messenger has also accused of 'listening' to the legends of the ancients. The Jews and Christians of that era reportedly told the Messenger that the supreme being he presented  belonged to them originally. The same circles accused him of transforming their supreme being into Allah by attributing additional characteristics taken from other gods. There is nothing wrong with this attitude, because every single would-be leader stepping on the stage of established belief systems have been criticized and mostly accused of apostasy and / or atheism, and almost all of them have faced an 'appropriate punishment' in the end. The first monotheist in history Akh-en-Aten was accused of atheism by the establishment after his removal from power.

MESSENGER’S LINEAGE

Hashim, the great grandfather of the Messenger reportedly met a girl named Salma at Medina and married her. Salma was the daughter of Amr, a Khazrajite of the Beni Naccar. Tribes of Khazraj and Avs had reportedly migrated to Medina from Arabia Felix. Tribes of Khazraj and Avs have been worshipping the Nabataean deities Lat and Menat, but they adopted Judaism in Medina.

• Therefore Salma was of Jewish faith. We know that the Mosaic law prohibits Jews marrying with members of other faiths. Therefore we can safely say that Hashim was also of Mosaic faith. Otherwise this marriage would have been impossible. It is revealing, is it not?

• The name of the man – Hashim - may give us a further clue: Arab ideology tells us that Hashim means the ‘destroyer of evil.’ Hashim is the Arabicised form of ‘ha-Shem’ (the name), which is the Hebrew word Jews use for their god YHVH, who is also the destroyer of evil. In this context Hashimî/Hashemite means ‘follower of ha-shem’, ‘..of ha-Shem.’ The situation has become much more revealing, has it not?

• The Messenger's mother Amina binti Wahb was from the Jewish tribe of Beni Zuhre.

• Amongst the forefathers of the Messenger we have persons with names like Abd Shams (‘servant of the Sun’), Abd Menaf (‘servant of Menaf’), Abd-al Uzza (‘servant of Uzza’). These names indicate Sabianism (Shams) and idolatry (Menaf and Uzza). Together with Hashim/Hashem, which is clearly a Jewish name, we can once more say that the Messenger’s lineage included Sabians, idolaters and Jews.

• Messenger’s wife Hadija/Hadica was a descendant of Abd-al Uzza as I mentioned earlier. Hadica was also from an idolater (Nabataean) background.
   

The Messenger reportedly had never traced his forefathers higher than Adnan. He declared that who went further back would be guilty of fabrication and falsehood. What should we understand from this report? Here is what I think:
 

• Those persons who established the Messenger's genealogy must have decided that the ‘forefathers’ up to Adnan would be ‘acceptable’ (which means ‘native’ of the Arabian Peninsula), but earlier ones are not, because his genealogy beyond Adnan has been borrowed from the Jews. Therefore they were not indigenous to Arabia. That is why the desert Arabs had to write this fragment of Messenger taking the initiative and condemning the possible ‘rumors’ beforehand? Therefore it was not the Messenger but the desert Arabs who were troubled by this connection to the Jews.

MESSENGER AND THE ISLAMIC TRADITION: SIRA, SUNNA, AND HADITH

• Islamic ideology has no documents left from the time of the Messenger.

• Hadith (the Messengers statements), which have been put together 200 years after his death. Hadith is the extremely unreliable information passed by the word of mouth from generation to generation.

• Sunna (sayings of and custom established by the Messenger), which is also based on the word of mouth, and constitutes the juridical legislation of Islam.

• Sira (‘Siyer’, ‘Siyer-i Kebîr’=Life story of the Messenger): The earliest record on the Messenger’s life was written by Ibn Ishak in 750 A.D. But the original of that work is lost and only a later recension by Ibn Hisham (died 834 A.D.) is available. This biography must have been put together by Ibn Hisham in the 9th century A.D. We don’t know anything about this man called Ibn Hisham, who claimed that what he had in his book was genuine, because the information was allegedly instituted by the companions of the Messenger and the eyewitnesses alive then, and passed down from generation to generation.

Now let me repeat what we have:

• The Messenger dies in 632 A.D. (or 634 according to early Greek sources), but the earliest written material on his life is the sira of Ibn Ishak dated 750 A.D., which is written ~120 years after his death. We only know parts of Ibn Ishak’s work (because it was lost) in the form of quotations by Ibn Hisham dated 834 A.D., written 200 years after the death of the Messenger, He was already hearsay in those days.

What I have written shows that the objective transmission of information is impossible.  Therefore what we have today cannot be the factual story, because firstly it is a report of a narrative, which also is a narration of another report etc, therefore there are no firsthand witnesses, secondly the story we have today is a fiction, a ‘decorated’ fairy tale. But this practice is not particular to Islam. If you read the codebooks of Judaism and Paulinism (Christianity) you will get my point.

• All the earlier belief systems have also been founded, formed, decorated, and become complete by the interpretations, and the myths and legends of the generations. Myths and legends are almost always transmitted by the word of mouth. Therefore Islam is not different from the others.

• The central characters of the belief systems (messengers) are persons who have been made into mythical and legendary figures.

• The act of enveloping the actual person (messenger) and turning him into the character we know today is usually done after his death or after his leaving the scene like in the case of Yshua.

• This process for the central person is necessary if the belief system is to establish itself, win over followers, and secure a future.

The organization founded by the theoreticians of the belief system grows over the following foundations:

• The true ‘reality’ should be covered up, and subjective ‘truths’ based on the requirements should be invented and   presented.

Therefore;

•  One should begin with what one has today and try to unearth the truth, if ever there was one.

The possible sources we could employ to establish the historicity of the Messenger are the codebook and the hadiths. The non-Muslim scholars and researchers generally are of the opinion that Kuran is the teaching of the Messenger. But they do not consider this as an acceptance of the historical actuality of the codebook. There are also some others, who do not think so. But it must be pointed out that the codebook of Islam has no concrete historical information on the Messenger’s call to duty by the supreme being. The information in Kuran, which is related to the different phases of the Messenger’s vague experiences are in the form of suppositions. Even when it provides historical information, Kuran does not present a framework that would lead to the correct understanding of a text. This codebook, which does not have an historical frame of reference is not in a position to enlighten us on the historicity of the Messenger. Hadiths may be considered as the appropriate material that would introduce some sort of actuality, but regrettably they could not:

When the connection with the facts is severed and the truth is lost in history, stories, tales, and hearsay take over, and that leads to the disappearance of reality behind the mist of fairy tales. There is nothing strange in this process. It is the compulsory practice for religions. A period of 120-125 years is more than enough for myths and legends to come into being. That is why the reports and texts on the Messenger have a limited value. A period of 125 years is sufficient for the people to call on their imaginations to fill in the gaps in the stories (due to forgetfulness or omission of details etc.).

• How many of you do believe that the narratives about the events 125 years ago are faithful to the reality.

• How many of you remember correctly what happened 125 years ago, despite the facilities of the information era?

Whenever imagination enters the stage we all know what happens, whether the stage is the belief systems or history or a simple line of events. Too many things must have been invented in relation to the Messenger’s birth and early life, and his life as a messenger. What we have about him are not corroborated by independent sources (except the Medina Constitution). But there is nothing wrong with that.  The same applies to the ‘characters’ called Zarathustra, Moses, Jesus, and Mani in their assumed roles. These ‘characters’ are the sum of borrowed material from other mythological ‘heroes’. They have been fashioned in line with the needs of their followers.

HADITH, TRADITIONS, STORIES, AND TEXTS ARE LATER CREATIONS

Islam's predecessor is the Hagarene teaching (Mandaean-Sabian faith) of the Messenger. The Orientalists say that Islam has taken its classical identity particularly in the 9th century, ~200 years after the death of the Messenger. In other words, Islam has evolved into its present character not in he lifetime of the Messenger but over a period of 200-300 years (Humphreys). Kuran calls the city of Makka the ‘umm-ul Kura’=‘mother of villages’. But Hecaz/Hijaz (where Makka and Taif are situated) was hardly known in the civilized world, and could never have been a ‘centre’ of something. Islam calls the period before its time as ‘cahiliyye’ - the period of ignorance. This description alone is sufficient to tell us how backward the region was. There was no urban culture in Arabia before Islam, nor could the Peninsula brag about a sophisticated infrastructure needed to create, let alone maintain, the scenario painted by the later traditions for the early period of Islam (Rippin).

• How do you think a belief system of immense sophistication, of intricate laws and traditions like Islam was created in a backward and ignorant nomadic culture in only 22 years, and became a successful imperialist ideology?

The primary sources of Islam (the material that are supposedly the closest or have direct access to the event) that we possess are 150-300 years after the events which they describe, and therefore are quite distant from those events (Y. Nevo; J. Wansbrough; P. Crone). Which means that they are secondary sources, because they rely on other material, the majority of which no longer exists.

There are no documents or accounts from the Hagarene movement’s 150 years between the first Hagarene/Saracen conquests of the early 7th century A.D. and the Sira-Maghazi narratives of the earliest Islamic literature towards the late 8th century A.D. (J. Wansbrough). Plain reasoning tells us that there should have been something written on the traditions in that period, but we have nothing (Y. Nevo; P. Crone). Some Muslims disagree and maintain that there is evidence of earlier traditions, and propose especially the Kitab-ül Muvatta (‘Book of the Subjugated in War’) by Malik Ibn Anas, who had established the Malikî sect (712-795 A.D.). But Norman Calder (Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence) objects to such an early date and expresses doubt whether the works we have can be attributed to the authors listed. He argues that most of the texts we have from these supposedly early authors are “school texts, transmitted and developed over several generations, and achieving the form in which we know them considerably later than the putative ‘authors’ to whom they are usually ascribed. Following the current assumption that ‘Shafi'i's law’ (which demanded that all hadith be traced to the Messenger) did not come into effect until after 820 A.D., he concluded that because the Mudawwana (Collection of Works) does not speak of prophetic authority whereas the Muwatta does. So the Muwatta must be the later document. According to Norman Calder Muwatta could not be earlier than 795 A.D., but later than the Mudavvana, which was written in 854 A.D. He goes so far as placing Muwatta not in the 8th century Arabia, but in 11th century Cordoba, Spain. Therefore this is the bottom line: We have almost no evidence of any traditions from the early days of the Hagarene movement.

Now we must ask the crucial question and search for the right answer:

• From where the compilers of the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. could have obtained their material?

According to R. Stephen Humphreys the evidence for documentation prior to 750 A.D. consists almost entirely of rather dubious citations in later compilations. Meanwhile Joseph Schacht asserts that we have no reliable proof that the traditions speak truly of the life of the Messenger, or even of the Kuran.

The Messenger’s biography (Sira, Siyer-i Nebî) could not be accepted as complete, detailed, and based on the objective truth. Because what is presented or claimed as the ‘truth and nothing but the truth’ about the Messenger's life is again a reported narration which is based on another narration which is based on hearsay etc. The earliest record on his life was written by Ibn Ishak in 750 A.D. But the original of that work is lost and only a later recension by Ibn Hisham (died 834 A.D.) is available. Now let me repeat what we have:

• The Messenger dies in 632 (or 634 A.D. according to early Greek sources), but the earliest written material on his life is the Sira of Ibn Ishak dated 750 A.D., which is written 120 years after his death. We only know parts of Ibn Ishak’s work (because it was lost) in the form of quotations by Ibn Hisham dated 834 A.D., written 200 years after the death of the Messenger, which makes clear that he was already a hearsay in those days.

The first book is written 6, and the second one was written 10 generations after the death of the Messenger. In other words, the original material was transmitted six or ten times. Therefore that material most probably have been altered as many times. One should expect a change of emphasis in and added ‘color’ to the original material as necessitated by the subjective requirements.

The only testimony to the existence of the Messenger is the Medina document (Medina Constitution), and the rest of his life and acts are behind a curtain of mythology. We are told that the earlier surviving material on the Messenger’s life story in non-Muslim sources contradict the standard biography. These are the literary sources in Armenian, Greek or Syriac, and the material remains such as papyri, inscriptions, and coins.

The hadith books we have today are dated to a period of 125 years after the Messengers reign. The six supposedly ‘authoritative’ collections of hadith belong to Buharî, Müslim, İbn Maca, Abu Daud, Al Tirmizi and Al Nisaî. These persons lived 200-300 years after the Messenger.

Scholars have attempted to distinguish which hadith contained the real information from those containing the legendary and theological material or political embellishment. J. Wellhausen insists that the 8th century version (Ibn Ishak) was accurate and the later versions were deliberate fiction designed to alter the 8th century story. L. Caetani and Cammens suggest that most Sira were invented to construct an ‘ideal’ past and to justify the contemporary exaggerated exegesis of Kuran. The problem with Kuran-hadith relationship is the fact that tradition almost always interprets Kuran, which in itself is the essence of tradition. Those who search for the truth must be able to break this vicious circle.

Debate about the credibility of hadith compilations is widespread not only in the outside circles but also within Islam. Bulk of the texts on early Islam are believed to have been compiled between 850-950 A.D. Consequently the following generations of Muslims have used these compilations as a foundation. Now we have some crucial points to raise:

• If they had already had the traditions they needed, why did they go on inventing more?

• Could they have felt that the traditions they had inherited were not relevant anymore or did not satisfy their needs or harmful to their aspirations?

• Did they realise, even in those days, that those traditions, hadiths were inventions?

• If the hadiths originating from the formative years of Islam had come down to the generations living in the 9th and 10th centuries A.D., why did they feel the need to invent more?

• What had happened to the earlier tradition?

• They may have been lost?

• They may have been done away with, because they did not suit the needs of the desert Arabs?

• There may have been no tradition at all?

The last point seems to be the most relevant one. According to the impartial researchers the compilations of hadiths were created around 800 A.D., and they don’t derive from the documents that were written in the 7th century A.D. and they most certainly don’t originate from the Messenger and/or his companions.

There is no doubt that the early 9th century ‘Schools of law’ and their initiators have authenticated their personal doctrines by claiming their source was the companions of the Messenger, and the Messenger himself.

The hadith also do not derive from the documents that were written in the 7th century A.D., which means also that hadith do not derive from some kind of an Hagarene scriptural text in those days.

All the ‘ehl-i Sunna’ Schools of law that follow the Sunna of the Arab prophet (Hanefite, Hanbelite, Malikite and Shafiite) and the ‘ehl-i Shia’ (which follow the sharia of Ali) are personal ideologies. They are actual deviations from the basic law (if there ever was one), because all of them are the products of differing interpretations, tailored to the specific needs of the sects. Here I must make some observations:

• If a clear cut, definite, unquestionable, all-enveloping and final text, which did not necessitate interpretation had existed, these four different renditions would have been impossible.

• How could a mümîn (faithful of Islam) dare interpret the divine message (if it had existed in its final form) to create an understanding of his own, and build on it to introduce a new doctrine?

No one is allowed to interpret the word of god. In that context all the exegetical work must be considered as ‘equating with the supreme creator’,  which as the Muslims very well know, is a capital offence to be paid for by dear life.

• Can you imagine a single person, or a closely knit group around that person, or a confirmed believer at a later date, becoming the source of a different doctrinal system when there is already a basic teaching in the form of Kuran, which leaves no place for interpretative work? I CAN NOT.

This could have been possible if;

• Even those source-persons were not clear in their minds about the fundamental doctrines and the ‘book’. So they must have interpreted and enveloped whatever there was with their own views, thus forming their own doctrines separately;

• The basic doctrines themselves were either in an oral form, or in a written form but as separate books which were full of ambiguous narrations that made private rendition possible;

• Those source-persons had introduced their own teachings disregarding the existing word of god (Kuran) and the custom of the Messenger himself.

• There was no central and fundamental set of doctrines at all.

Which one is true? Are you brave enough to answer openly?

Al-Shafi’i (died 820 A.D.) had stipulated that all traditions of law must be traced back to the Messenger in order to preserve their credibility. This must be the first time that such an idea is expressed, and it must have been the starting point for those Schools of law to produce their traditions supposedly invoking the authority of the Messenger. The exceptionally creative efforts by the Schools of Law in the 9th and 10th centuries A.D., to gain legitimacy and supremacy have undermined the authenticity of the hadiths.

Some scholars assert that the literary records, although presenting themselves as contemporary with the events they describe, actually belonged to a period well after such events, which suggest that they have been written according to the later points of view in order to fit the purposes and agendas of that later time.  The Shi’ites maintain that their list includes 2000 valid hadiths, 1750 of which were derived from Ali, the son-in-law of the Messenger. They had to invent these, because they were trying to become the dominant sect in an environment where the political competition was at its extreme. If they had invented all those hadiths for particular political purposes, you may feel free to have a guess on what the others had done for their own particular aspirations.  

Now let us try to imagine the environment of those days:

• There is a codebook, which is the ‘inimitable final word of god’, but the members of the different groups in the belief system are busy inventing thousands of pieces of tradition 200 years after the death of the Messenger.

If the motive was not political, what was the intention behind that mass of hadiths?

• Was the codebook ambiguous, difficult to comprehend, and in need of interpretation?

• Was the language of the codebook intricate and needed explanation by the learned persons, who naturally preferred to introduce their personal exegesis?

• Have there been different versions of the codebook, which consequently led to different interpretations?

There might have been a different environment than the presented picture.

• There was not a coded, accepted and final codebook.

• The book in its initial collected form was controversial.

• There was not a codebook and the scriptures in use were open to interpretation.

• There were a number of collections, which were composed of different sections brought together in varying sequences based on personal choice.

• There were different codebooks with different contents, leading to different interpretations of the message.

• Persons who claimed authority had introduced personal interpretations and approaches.

But we know that Kuran has been compiled on at least three earlier occasions, therefore supposedly there was a kind of codebook ‘between two covers.’ Accordingly there shouldn’t have been different versions. We were told that all the earlier versions of the codebook were burnt after the Uthmanic recension. Moreover Haccac, who was instrumental in the creation of the final text, reportedly had all the other copies burnt, and declared his version legal.  In that case is it possible to say that what we have been told were just stories?

Could the following scenario, proposed by some scholars, be an explanation?

• All the compilations have been characterized by the inclusion of something in support of the conflicting legal and doctrinal persuasions, which shows that the local schools of law have formed different traditions as they wished. While doing that they relied on local customs and the opinions of the local scholars. As time passed the scholars became aware of the diversity created by the existence of the different traditions based on particular needs, and tried to unify the Muslim law. They found the solution in appealing to the prophetic tradition, which would have had the ‘decisive’ authority over the assumptions by the scholars. The outcome of this practice has been the proliferation of traditions attributed to the Messenger from around 820 A.D. onwards.

Hadiths are not a reliable collection against which the text of Kuran could be checked. The earliest hadith was written down about 150 years after the death of the Messenger. Worse than this, in many instances hadiths appear to be merely expanded exegetical literature of the very Kuranic verses they purport to explain (which shows that the tradition common in Judaism is taken over by Islam). The Muslim sources offer a number of diverse and irreconcilable hadiths even on the Messenger’s first prophetic call, which is the single most important event in the history of Islam. For example;

• According to one hadith, the Messenger’s call began with the Kuranic revelation of sura 96 on mount Hira.

• According to another, the Messenger had gone through a strange experience on his way down from his retreat on mount Hira, and it was not sura 96, but sura 74, that was first revealed to him while he was in a state of fear.

The hadiths are full of contradictions, inconsistencies, incoherence etc. A critical examination of the hadiths on the Messenger’s call will demonstrate that Muslim sources seem to reflect the complex ways in which they understood the event; and adapted their religious and theological interpretation of the Kuranic references to the various modes of the Messenger’s religious experiences. Many of the later traditions, Sira and the Hadith (the earliest Muslim literature that we possess) on the Messenger’s life are made up almost entirely of narrative of a narrative of a hearsay etc. Most scholars agree that the stories belonging to the period before the Messenger’s call are inventions.

In his important critique of the hadith Ignaz Goldziher argues that many hadiths that were accepted even by the most rigorous collectors were 8th and 9th century forgeries with fictitious isnads (referrals). According to him these hadiths had arisen out of the quarrels between the Umayyads and their opponents - both sides freely inventing hadiths to support their respective positions. The manufacture of hadiths speeded up under the Abbasids who were vying with the followers of Ali for primacy.

Muslims have acknowledged a vast number of forgeries (almost 90 percent of hadiths were discarded), but even so the collectors were not as rigorous as could be hoped, and even in the 10th century over 200 forgeries are said to have been identified by Buhari.

I believe that another reason behind the war of hadiths was the rivalry between the northern Arabs who have produced the Messenger from their midst and the desert Arabs who were trying to transform the Hagarene teaching into Islam.

The studies about isnads - referrals - are reported to have shown a predisposition towards growing in authority backwards until they arrive at the Messenger, Joseph Schacht claims that the first considerable body of legal traditions from the Messenger had originated towards the middle of the 8th century A.D. in opposition to the slightly earlier traditions from the companions of the Messenger and other authorities. Here is what Schacht said about isnads: “The beginning of their generalized usage have started after the Abbasid revolution, and then they were formulated carelessly. The better an isnad looks, the more likely it is to be false. It is claimed that no existing hadith can reliably be ascribed to Muhammad. Most of the classical corpus was widely disseminated after Shafiî, and most of the legal tradition was formulated in the 9th century.” Schacht’s methodology includes looking at legal decisions - if they didn’t refer to a crucial tradition it is because the tradition did not exist. If a tradition had existed, a reference to it - in the form of a legal argument - would have been imperative in a legal discussion.         

Here are Schacht’s arguments:

• Traditions were created in response to the 9th century conditions and then edited back several centuries.

• Every legal tradition from the Messenger must be taken as unauthentic, and as the fictitious expression of a legal doctrine formulated at a later date.

• There were ‘counter traditions’ formulated to rebut a contrary doctrine or practice.

• Doctrines in this polemical atmosphere were frequently projected back to higher authorities: “Traditions from successors (to the prophet) became traditions from the companions (of the prophet), and traditions from companions became traditions from the prophet.”

• Details from the life of the Messenger have been invented to support the legal doctrines.

• Islam cannot be traced accurately back before the 8th century A.D.

A great majority of the traditions supposedly originating from the Messenger are shown to be documents not of the time frame they claim to belong, but of the successive stages of development of doctrines during the first centuries of Islam. Traditions from the companions and other authorities are also believed to have undergone the same process of growth, and they should be considered under the same light as traditions originating from the Messenger. Some scholars claim that even the remarks and statements supposedly made by the Messenger were invented by the later generations to resolve the legal arguments and conflicts they experienced. It is only natural that the Muslims have accused these claims as fabrications.

Traditions exhibit a further problem of proliferation (Andrew Rippin), a problem which began appearing in the 8th century A.D., in other words, 200-300 years after the events to which they refer. According to Michael Cook these traditions suddenly started to proliferate by thousands. For example, did the father of the Messenger, Abdullah, die very early and left his son an orphan as the compilers of mid to late 8th century (Ibn Ishak) have agreed? The truth about his death was not and is not known. Reports-narrations about the past epochs, persons and events get more detail, informative substance, and certainty as one gets farther from the narrated event. In short, as time passed, details became exact. But plain reasoning dictates the contrary. Vakidî (Ebu Abdullah Muhammad bin Omar; d. 823 A.D.) writing in the 9th century (50 years later than the first compilers) gives us not only the date of Abdullah’s (Messenger’s father) passing, but also how he had died, where he had died, what was his age and the exact place of his burial. According to Michael Cook this growing information is the proof that “a fair amount of what Vakidî knew was not knowledge.”  Vakidî is always prepared to give precise vital information where İbn Ishak (d. 768 A.D.), who predates him, was unable to furnish, like precise dates, places, and names. In short, whatever one wished to know appeared in the Vakidî narration. Therefore Patricia Crone is of the opinion that the value of what Vakidî has reported “is doubtful in the extreme. And if spurious information accumulated at this rate in the two generations between Ibn Ishak and Vakidî, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that even more must have accumulated in the three generations between the Prophet and İbn Ishak.”

• “It was the storytellers who created the (Muslim) tradition. The sound historical tradition to which they are supposed to have added their fables simply did not exist. It is because the storytellers played such a crucial role in the formation of the tradition that there is so little historicity to it. As storyteller followed upon storyteller, the recollection of the past was reduced to a common stock of stories, themes, and motifs that could be combined and recombined in a profusion of apparently factual accounts. Each combination and recombination would generate new details, and as spurious information accumulated, genuine information would be lost. In the absence of an alternative tradition, early scholars were forced to rely on the tales of storytellers, as did Ibn Ishak,  Waqidî (Vakidî), and other historians. It is because they relied on the same repertoire of tales that they all said such similar things” (Patricia Crone).

What I have written until now demonstrates that the Islamic ideology and myths and  legends have gone through a process of development in the past.

When we return to our era we read the findings of important studies done by various researchers. John Wansbrough is one of them. In his books titled Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation and The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History he showed that Kuran and hadith grew out of sectarian controversies over a long period, perhaps as long as two centuries, and then projected back on to an invented Arabian point of origin, to the time of the Messenger.

Here is J. Wansbrough

• “..The entire corpus of early Islamic documentation must be viewed as a ‘salvation history.’ What Kuran is trying to evidence, what tafsir, sira, and theological writings are trying to explicate is, how the sequence of worldly events was directed by god to be centred on the time of the Messenger. All the components of the Islamic salvation history are meant to witness the same point of faith, namely, an understanding of history that sees god’s role in directing the affairs of humankind.”

Salvation history does not attempt to describe what really has happened, but it is an attempt to describe the relationship between god and men and vice versa.  The ‘salvation’ here does not have the Christian implications like ‘saving of an individual soul from damnation,’ but could be understood as a ‘sacred’ history. J. Wansbrough argues that we do not know what had ‘really happened.’ Literary analysis can only tell us about the disputes of later generations. The whole point of Islamic ‘salvation’ history is to adapt the Judeo-Christian religious themes for the formulation of an Arabian religious identity. The Kuran itself demands to be put in a Judeo-Christian context, like the line of prophets, sequence of scriptures, and common narratives.

But J. A. Thompson claims that J. Wansbrough’s ‘salvation history’ has never happened, and it is a literary creation with its own context.  What this means is that it was written with a particular agenda. Thus the events it describes actually belong to a period well after such events, which suggest that it was written according to a later interpretation as necessitated by the times. The ‘true history’ of what had really taken place has become lost within the later interpretation and is virtually, if not completely, inextricable from it (Patricia Crone; Andrew Rippin).

J. Wansbrough writes that the Islamic law has developed after contact with the rabbinic Judaism outside the Hecaz/Hicaz. The Messenger is portrayed as a Mosaic-type messenger, but the religion was Arabicised - an Arabic messenger, an Arabic holy language, an Arabic scripture. I believe that was the work of the desert Arabs who tried to sever the connection of the belief system with the northern Arabs (Midianites-Nabataeans). Simultaneous with the formation of this Arabic religion we see the beginning of interest in the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, further suggestive of a rise in Arab nationalism.

According to J. Wansbrough turning to the influence of the pre-Islamic poetry had two objectives:

• Giving historical authority and prestige to the newly produced religious texts; establishing a link between their religious texts and a preceding age with the aim of creating an impression of uniqueness by concealing the fact that their sacred texts with its supporting traditions were created in the 9th century A.D.

• Creating a distinctive Arab identity, which will separate the ideology from Judaism and Christianity.

I believe, this Arab nationalistic ideology had nothing to do with the Arabs of the north, but it was the result of the incessant attempts by the desert Arabs. J. Wansbrough believes that what happened really in the period when the Arabs declared a new ideology could not be known. My position is that we have a chance to solve this puzzle, only if we look into this formative period from the angle of the original orientation of the Hagarene teaching and its transformation into Islam by the desert Arabs

• The Hagarene teaching was the 'unadulterated religion of Ibrahim' (Abraham, Bahram the Mandaî). It was the religion of the Mandaeans-Sabians. The Hagarene teaching, which is the foundation of Islam has come into being outside of Hicaz, and it had no nationalistic dimension.

• The Hagarene teaching had its sight on Palestine and Bakka (See pages on the HAGARENE TEACHING-ISLAM in this site).

• The original teaching was Sabian faith, but it has acquired a mixed content of doctrines derived from the Sabianism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity.

• Islam, which was born as the ideology and weapon of Arab nationalism, was the creation of the desert Arabs.

• The imaginary interpretation of the religious texts also had a single objective: To create the impression that Islam had its roots in Hicaz.

THE MESSENGER IS SAID TO HAVE HAD AN UNUSUAL DISPOSITION

None of the central figures of the previous faiths (Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Siddharta Gautama, Zarathustra, and Mani included) have properly recorded or narrated childhoods; nor do they appear, as the portrayed characters, anywhere but in the codebooks of the belief systems or in the related literature, because most probably they are either the invented ‘personalities’ or the legendary figures interwoven with the characteristics  borrowed from other mythical figures. In short, all of them are invented characters as we know them today and they are supplied with a specially designed packaging.  At first sight the Messenger’s life story may seem to be the best documented, but don’t be so sure about it.

It is claimed that the Messenger had visions of sorts when he was still a child; that he’d had attacks of sorts in his maturity; that his Christian adversaries have described these as epileptic attacks. So what?  Here are some crucial points to think about:

• Was he really different?

• Who knows the truth? No body!

• He might as well have had a different constitution from the average persons around him.

• Many many mystics who behaved like him have been branded with belittling labels, haven’t they?

• Why should the Messenger be considered distinct from the other psychologically and physiologically different persons of his time?

• Don’t we come across characters in our daily lives, who are not very different from the mystics of those days or from the Messenger?

• Other communities have also visualized different and privileged roles for ‘unusual’ persons like the Messenger, haven’t they?

• Don’t we think in the same way today about the persons who are unusually sensitive and who have an extraordinary ability of perception?

• There were persons in the pre-Islamic Arabia, who were ‘different’ from the majority of the populace, weren’t there?

• Wasn’t there a widespread belief that the Arab poets, and the persons who were described as kahins were receiving inspiration from an unseen, secret spirit or being?

• Therefore there is nothing wrong with the case of the Messenger.

Kahin and the Jewish word kohen come from the same root. The priests in the Ugaritic texts were also called kohen. We also know that there have been Canaanite messengers or nabîs (nabî is also the Arabic word for messenger) losing consciousness in a state of ecstasy.

THE MESSENGER IS A NADHIR, HE WARNS AND ADMONISHES

 If one goes by the style of Kuran, the duty of the Arab Messenger seems to have been to warn only; in other words he is considered to be a nadhir (one who warns and admonishes) in Makka. His duty was visualized by the authors of the relevant sections as to remind, by references to past events, the Kureyshis of what would happen if they did not heed the orders of god. The Messenger's rejection by the people of his ‘native town’ (Makka according to the official ideology) in his early years, and the attitude of the Jews towards his teaching is presented as something which had had a profound effect on the Messenger, or rather on the authors of Kuran and on the later editors of the codebook.  Because the underlying story of Kuran is all about;

• The conflict between the Messenger and the people of his ‘native town’ who ignored/rejected him;

• The conflict between the Messenger and the Jews who questioned and rejected him;

• The Jews who had adulterated the word of god;

• The Christians who have accepted a human being as god, thus committing apostasy;

• The conflict between the Messenger and the other Arab circles who were in conflict with him and his teachings;

• The conflict between various Islamic schools of thought (in the form of subtle remarks included in Kuran);

• God’s dealings with the communities in the not so clear periods and places of the past epochs etc.

In the light of the picture given to us the Messenger (or the later editors of the codebook) were acting with the aim of winning over new followers from other faiths and establishing the sovereignty of the supreme being, by references to the communities and events summarized above.

• All of the Kureyshis believed tacitly in al Lah, the supreme being of the region in pre-Islamic times, who was the creator of the sky and earth;

• The majority of the Kureyshis knew that  (like their god al Lah) this god was the ‘one’ worshipped by the Jews and the Christians.

Therefore introducing a new belief system on the existing foundation by using the traditional elements and values was very easy. Al Lah’s existence was not questioned. From this angle, the unbelievers mentioned in Kuran, should not be understood as atheists, but as the persons who knew that they owed everything to god, but still were ungrateful to him. This shows that Kuran was not in a position to teach Kureysh anything new. This codebook was just the reminder of the things already known. The frequent questions in the codebook like  “Have you not seen?”, “Have you not considered?”, “Have you not known?” and “Have you not thought?”  show this side of Kuran effectively. Kuran has no information related to the future.

 THE MESSENGER HAS NO SUPERNATURAL CONSTITUTION. HE IS JUST AN 'AGENT'

The belief that the codebook is a divine message and the Messenger is the ‘vehicle’, ‘carrier’, and ‘transmitter’ of that divine message is one of the fundamental doctrines of the teaching. That is the reason why the Messenger has no supernatural constitution. The Messenger is visualized only as a ‘channel’, delivering the message he has received from the only true supreme being.  

According to some scholars in shaping the Hagarene teaching the Messenger used the scriptures of the Mandaeans-Sabians called 'Kuryan' and expanded it by the material borrowed from Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Christianity, and mixed them with the pagan traditions of the pre-Islamic Arabs (like the reverence towards the black meteorite in the Ka’ba). There is nothing wrong here, because all the other belief systems also had acted similarly. These scholars also claim that the Messenger  (and/or the later authors of Kuran) had written their views as texts and these texts have been transformed into a codebook afterwards. Again, there is nothing wrong here, because the same method was employed in the writing of the codebooks of the previous ‘celestial’ belief systems. Different authors have written the chapters of the Old Testament over a period of hundreds of years (800-900 to be precise). The New Testament, which actually is a collection of views in the form of letters, is also the product of  human beings.

In the messages of Islam (which is the transformed version of the Hagarene teaching) we see a mixture of the formal aspect of the Mosaic belief system and the demanding approach of the Paulinism (Christianity). The Messenger appears like trying to remind the Jews and Christians that they have deviated from god’s covenant, but they still have the covenant with Ibrahim (Av’ram) and Ismail in force. That is one of the reasons why he had gone back to the religion of Ibrahim (Bahram the Mandaî). This idea of a covenant between god on the one hand and Ibrahim and Ish'mael/Ismail on the other is found in Islam only, and does not exist in Judaism or Christianity. Therefore this is the impression we get:

• Messages of the Messenger as a whole do not add up to a new religion as such, but seemingly aim at abolishing Judaism and Christianity for a return to the faith of their patriarch Av’ram (Bahram the Mandaî). The Messenger calls Jews and Christians to their ‘senses’, telling them that their beliefs do not count, hence each should give up their ideology and join him, as the representative of the sole and unadulterated ideology of Av’ram - the Sabian faith.

The Messenger and/or the ideologues of the Hagarene teaching must have believed that the method to restore the true religion of Av’ram-Abraham-Ibrahim (the Sabian faith) and establish a unity between the two previous branches of his ‘family’ (Jews and Christians) was simply a return to the ‘house of god’= Beth El. ‘Stone of Ibrahim’ is there. The supposed descendants of Ish’mael, who are the ‘true’ believers (Hagarenes) have called the location of this house ‘Bakka.’ The Messenger, as the leader of the Ish’maelite-Jewish coalition, has decreed that the perfect form of loyalty to the ‘covenant with god’ is the ‘hiccet-ul beyt’=pilgrimage to the ‘house.’  But this 'house' is not in Makka, but the 'first house of god' in Bakka (Kuran 3:96). According to him this act would result in an unlimited blessing and it was the path to god.

IS 'MUHAMMAD' A NAME?

In the Thomas the Presbyter’s Chronicle the following is written on the Arab conquests after 636 A.D.: “On the front fly-leaf of a sixth-century Syriac manuscript containing the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Mark are scribbled a few lines about the Arab conquest, now very faint. The following entries are the most readable: In January (the people of) Hims took the word for their lives and many villages were ravaged by the killing of the Arabs of ‘Muhmd’ (Muhammad?) and many people were slain and (taken) prisoner from Galilee as far as Beth."

In the above quote the place called Hims is Emese, which is the town of Homs in Syria. We understand that the Hagarenes had carried out murder on a mass scale from Galilee to Beth (which is their usual practice).

Here is another quote from the same book: “In the year 945, indiction 7, on Friday 7 February (634) at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and tayyaye d-Mhmt [Arabs of Mhmt (Muhammad?)] in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician bryrdn, whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region." (Thomas the Presbyter, Chronicle).

In addition to these possible references to the name of the Messenger there is another source in the Islamic literature which may be taken as an indication to his name. In this hadith supposedly from the first days of the Islamic ideology, and again supposedly originating from the Messenger himself, we get a glimpse of his psychology in that environment:

• “Kureysh slighted me in the past and avoided me. Kureysh called me ‘müzemmem’ (‘condemned’), but I am 'muhammad' (‘praised’).”

There have been some researchers who claimed that ‘Muhammad’ is not the name of the Messenger, or not even a name, but an appellation. We have Ahmad/Ahmed given as his name in the mevlûd (the nativity poem about the Messenger). Ahmad/Ahmed also has the meaning of ‘praised.’

A number of researchers including Leone Caetani have doubts about ‘Muhammad’ as the real name of the Messenger. But there are others who claim that his name is given as ‘Muhammad’ in genuine documents, the authenticity of which is established. One of these documents, called the Constitution of Medina is cited as the proof of his existence. But it doesn’t necessarily mean that the signature there is his name, because in that region usage of appellations by and for the leaders was a common practice. Therefore the authors and editors of the codebook, who had done the creative writing may have preferred to refer to him not by name, but by an appellation. Moreover, the following points should never be forgotten:

• The persons who were respected, who made great achievements, who became leaders in those ages were addressed not by their names but by appellations. That is why ‘Muhammad’s usage as an attribute, like ‘the anointed’ or ‘messiah’ is  much more likely.

• In the hadith quoted above the Messenger supposedly says that Kureysh had slighted by calling him ‘müzemmem’ (the ‘condemned’) but he was Muhammad (the ‘praised,’ the ‘beloved’). When these two words are presented and juxtaposed in a single sentence, and when one of the words (‘müzemmem’) is a label, the other one (‘muhammad’) must also be a label.

Here, the Messenger does not say that his name is ‘Muhammad,’ but he uses that word as a label. It is like the title  ‘messiah’=‘the anointed one.’ Therefore;

• I believe that ‘Muhammad’ is not his name but a label, an appellation.

• Secondly there must be a reason why the Kureysh slighted him, calling him ‘müzemmem.’

Kureysh would have called the Messenger ‘condemned’ only;

• If he was a foreigner, who had been accepted into the tribe as a result of an initiative by an eminent person, who is said to have been one of the Messenger’s relatives;

• If the Messenger was preaching something contrary to their beliefs.

I believe that both circumstances were true. The Messenger was not a Kureyshi. He was a stranger. Also he has revealed a teaching contrary to the established convictions of the Kureysh.

THE MESSENGER IS NON-EXISTENT IN THE WRITTEN MATERIAL OF THE FIRST YEARS OF THE TEACHING

The Messenger is presented as the absolute example that all Muslims should follow. If that’s so, then what is the reason behind the absence of the same emphasis in the earlier Arabic inscriptions, which are supposedly closer to the time he lived? But what is more peculiar is the absence of his name in the earlier texts. For instance, coming across the name of the Messenger is said to be impossible before Abd al Malik’s inscription in the Dome of the Rock in Yerushalim. The scholars are puzzled by the lack of reference to the name of such an important person for Islam in the first years. They maintain that;

• Until caliph Abd al Malik had an inscription placed on the Dome of the Rock in 691 A.D. there were no references to the name of the Messenger. This shows that the ‘Muhammadan’ formula has been established in the time of Marwan the second, after 684 A.D. This formula is said to have become an official declaration overnight and was used in all the official documents and inscriptions.

Much more important than the appearance of that formula is the ‘confession of faith',  which states that ‘Allah is the only god and Muhammad is his messenger.’ This formula has reportedly appeared for the first time with the Dome of the Rock inscription, which was put there upon orders by caliph Abd al Malik in 691 A.D.  Could this inscription have been added even at a much later date, when the inner and outer ambulatories were rebuilt by El Zahir Lil’zaz in 1022 A.D.? (Alistair Duncan).

Hagarenes let the Jews, their allies, build a place of worship on the temple mount (where the Dome of the Rock is situated) when the Ish'maelite-Jewish alliance captured Yerushalim. In the light of this fact it would be right to think the ‘Muhammadan formula’ as a later addition. Understanding the importance of what I have said here is vital, because sixty years after the death of the Messenger the official Arab religious confession still did not include the Messenger in its established formula. Yehuda Nevo found that “In all the Arab religious institutions during the Sufyani period [661-684 A.D.] there is  a complete absence of any reference to the Messenger.” What a revelation!

In fact both the supposed name ‘Muhammad’ and the Muhammadan formula, ‘Muhammad-un rasul Allah’, were reportedly occurred first on an Arab-Sassanian coin struck in Damascus in 690 A.D. This formula does not appear in any inscription dated before the year 691 A.D. This is said to be true whether the inscription is religious or mainly commemorative including a religious emphasis, according to Yehuda Nevo. The example of such an inscription is at the dam near the town of Ta’if, built by the caliph Mu’awiya in the 660s A.D. (Yehuda Nevo)

• The ‘Muhammadan’ formula (‘Allah is the only god and Muhammad is his messenger’) only began to be used in the popular rock inscriptions of the central Negev sometime during the reign of Caliph Hisham (724-743 A.D.), about 30 years after its introduction by Abd al Malik. 

• But even these formulae were not ‘muslim’ though they are ‘Muhammadan’.

• The Arab religious texts dating from the first 150 years of the Arab rule (7th to 8th century A.D.) exhibited a monotheistic creed belonging to a certain body of sectarian literature with developed Judeo-Christian conceptions in a particular literary style. It contained no features specific to any known monotheistic religion.

• This creed “is demonstrably not Islam, but a creed from which Islam could have developed.”

• The Muslim texts only began to appear at the beginning of the 9th century (around 822 A.D.).

• These texts coincide with the first written Kurans, as well as the first written traditional Muslim accounts.

• The Muhammadan texts were not accepted promptly by the public even after they became official. For years after their appearance in state declarations, people continued to include non-Muhammadan legends in personal inscriptions, as well as routine chancery writings.

• Therefore it seems that the Messenger was elevated to the position of a universal messenger of the supreme creator not in his lifetime, but during the later Marwanid period (after 684 A.D.).

• The first Arabic papyrus, an Egyptian entaqion (a receipt for the paid taxes) written in both Greek and Arabic and dated to 642 A.D., is headed by the ‘Basmala’ (‘Bismillah-al Rahman-ur Rahîm’), yet it is neither Christian nor Muslim in character (The Muslim formula ‘with the name of god’/‘Bismillah’ is identical with the ‘beshem’ in the Samaritan scripture, therefore this ‘basmala’ could have been the ‘beshem’ of the Samaritans).

We are all aware of the unreliability and the extreme bias of the Arabic literary sources. The recent studies about the Arabic written sources show that these are the “self-indulgent, unreliable pieces of narration created by the faithful.”  They are branded as a form of ‘salvation history’ (sacred history) full of fictitious detail. In other words they are invented texts by persons in accordance with their particular needs.

• According to an inscription Lawrence Conrad was able to fix the Messengers birth not as 570 but as 552 A.D.

• Patricia Crone concludes that the Messenger's career took place not in Makka but hundreds of kilometers to the North.

• Yehuda Nevo and Judith Koren find that the classical Arabic language was developed not in today’s Saudi Arabia but in the Levant, and that it reached Arabia only through the colonizing efforts of one of the early caliphs.

I do not agree fully with these observations. There are crucial details, which change the stories totally. If these observations are not fabrications as claimed by Muslims,  then Islamic ideology is faced with shocking conclusions:

• The Arab tribesmen of the conquests in the 7th century A.D. were not Muslims, (Judith Koren-Yehuda Nevo). They could have been pagans. I believe these Arab tribesmen were not pagans but Sabians. Here I must bring to your attention the fact that Sabianism (‘hanifiyyun’-‘hunefa’ of Arabs) was considered paganism in the eyes of the Jews and Christians.

• John Wansbrough suggests that Kuran is a not “a product of the Messenger or even of Arabia,” but “a collection of earlier Judeo-Christian liturgical materials stitched together to meet the needs of a later age.”

• Most broadly, Ibn-al Rawandi stated that “there was no Islam as we know it” until two or three hundred years after the traditional version has it (more like 830 A.D. than 630 A.D.).  Ibn-al Rawandi claims that Islam was developed not in the distant deserts of Arabia but through the interaction of Arab conquerors and their more civilized subject peoples.

• Dominican Fr. Thery (AKA Hanna Zakarias) who has furthered the study initiated by Fr. H. Lammens, wrote in his book (Islam under Evaluation) that “Kuran did not originate in Arabia at all and its author was a scholar from elsewhere who created the Arab religious language.”

These early believers (‘Muslims’ or ‘proto-Muslims’=müminun) were a band formed by the Messenger. They were called the Ish'maelite-Hagarene ‘Muhammadans’, Jews, idolaters and pagans gathered around the Sabian, Mosaic, and some Christian and Zoroastrian principles, and the Noahide Covenant.

The Messenger had to give weight to the Sabian and Mosaic doctrines because of his self-proclaimed connection to Av’ram through Ish’mael, and his self-identification with the predominantly Mosaic environment, which should be considered only natural; but he also kept bits and pieces from the Nabataean idolatry. This mixture was unavoidable to a certain extent, because of his tribal lineage, which included Jews, Sabians, polytheists and Nabataeans.

HAS THERE EVER BEEN A MESSENGER LIKE THE ONE PORTRAYED IN THE LITERATURE

Is it possible that the Messenger like the one presented to us in the Islamic literature, has never existed?  Fr. H. Lammens has claimed that once the Sira (Siyer-i Nebî=the Messengers biography) is got rid of there is not a single, definite source testifying to the existence of the Messenger. So while describing the Messenger Dilip Hiro had nothing but the following parameters:  “He grew up to be a sturdy man of average height, with a curved nose, large eyes, sensuous mouth and thick, slightly curly hair. He was a quiet man, serious, reflective, given to speaking briefly and pointedly.”

Patricia Crone and Michael Cook go even further and doubt even the existence of the Arab Messenger. I would like to modify this statement and add “as we know him through the scriptures.”

Scholars conclude that we can only be sure that the Messenger did live in the 620s and 630s A.D.; that he was a brave warrior who led his followers to many victories, and that the names of some people and battles have been preserved.

Narrations beyond this are a matter for the faithful to believe or not.  It is your choice.

Whether or not he is the ‘person’ portrayed in the Islamic literature, there is someone who had put his signature to the Medina Constitution. This ‘person’ has formed a group (‘umma’) under his leadership. There were Jews in this group. The allies, Hagarenes and Jews, with the Messenger in command, have initiated ‘military’ operations towards North. The references in non-Islamic sources are related to this period. 

• Presumably, the ‘person’ who had put his signature to the Medina Constitution was the Messenger. But we cannot say anything concrete on the personality of this Messenger or whether he was the ‘person’ presented to us today.

Here I would like to draw your attention to the similarities in the stories of the central characters of the belief systems. It has been an established fact that the central characters of the belief systems in the pre-Islamic ages were built and embellished by borrowing certain characteristics of other mythical and legendary persons. Similarities were established also between the biographies and the life stories of various persons. When viewed from this angle important similarities are thought to exist between the the Messenger and Yshua (probably because the authors in later periods have found these similarities useful).

• The New Testament states that Yshua (Jesus) had twelve disciples. The persons who had developed the Islamic mythology must have thought that every messenger should have 12 disciples. Hence the Hagarene Messenger is visualized as having twelve followers like Yshua. He has reportedly acquired seven followers in addition to his five original believers.

• Four differing Gospels supposedly written by the four followers of Yshua were written after he had left the scene. Likewise four leading personalities have appeared after the death of the Arab Messenger, and they have established their sects, their schools of law.

Strange, is it not?

THE MESSENGER WAS NOT ALONE, THERE WAS ANOTHER MONOTHEIST MESSENGER

A person named Maslama / Müseylime appears in the Islamic literature. He was reportedly ‘speaking’ on behalf of his god, whom he has called Rahman (‘merciful’). The inscriptions tell us that rahman is a name the southern Arabs has taken from Aramaic and Hebrew. Later on they changed it  into rahmanan and began calling the god of the Jews and Christians by that name. Maslama is said to have been called by his god’s name - ‘Rahman’. We know that the Messenger has always been accused of getting his wisdom from a ‘Rahman of Yamama’. Maslama has reportedly declared his prophethood and started preaching even before the Messenger. We are told that he has proposed to act jointly with the Messenger, but was turned down. In fact judging by the events that followed he must have been rejected right away. The stories about Maslama show that there was at least another Arab prophet also preaching similar things to what the Messenger was communicating.

• The importance of this story is that there was another monotheist Arab prophet who had begun preaching before the Messenger and carried on teaching together with the Messenger.

THE MESSENGER WAS A SABIAN?

The faithful of Makka were the believers of the pre-Islamic era according to the Islamic literature. In other words they were the hanifs (hunefa, hanifiyyun). The Messenger is reported to have borrowed many things from the hanifs. The influence of the Arab ‘monotheists’ (hunefa) on the Messenger is related in a very reliable manner in Kitab-ı Siret-i Resulillah (The Life of the Messenger of Allah ­– correct translation should be; Kitab-ı Siret-i Resul-il-lah ‘The Life of the Messenger-of-Lah’) which is a book written by Ibn Hisham based on traditions reported by Ibn Ishak. Names of six hanifs are given in this book. They are Ebu Amir (He is from Medina), Ummeya (He is from Taif), Varaka (He is a Makkan, adopted Christianity later), Ubeydullah (He is a Makkan, he chose Islam, went to Abyssinia and adopted Christianity), Uthman (He is a Makkan) and Zayd (He is a Makkan, he was banned from entering Makka, and lived on mount Hira where the Messenger is said to have meditated). The labels islam and muslim are claimed to have been borrowed from the hunefa circles.

Here, I would like quote from a story where we are told that “One day Umar Ibn al-Khattab has decided to storm the house where ‘Muslims’ were in meeting. As he was approaching the house he met a moderate member of his clan who was also a member of his own family. When this person asked where he was going Umar replied: “I am going to kill Muhammad the Sabiîn (Sabian) who has sown discord in Kureysh (Kureysh was a Jewish tribe), who makes fun of our ideas, and who insults our religion and god.” By the description ‘sabiîn’ Umar must have meant the faithful of the Sabian belief system, because in those days the word ‘sabian’ was understood as “the believer of a monotheistic sect established in Babylon” by the Arabs of the desert. Some people have proposed this term sabiîn should be understood as ‘monotheist’. But we know that there have been two other monotheistic belief systems, in the form of Judaism and Christianity, with clear labels. Umar could not have meant anything else but branding the Messenger as a faithful of the sabian creed.

Which leaves us no choice but to believe that  the Messenger must have been a monotheist of the Sabian creed, who had begun preaching Sabian doctrines in his native land before going to Medina. He must have chosen the Sabianism from a bunch of convictions of his forefathers. He must have done this in a predominantly Jewish community, where there might have been Christians, pagans, and Nabataean idolaters. He must have been looked upon as a danger to the society and made to leave or decided to leave on his own accord.

I believe that the story about Messenger's early life in Makka is a later addition, which was invented to introduce a desert Arab dimension, with the aim of presenting Islam as a belief system of the desert Arabs, without any connection to anything of northern Arabian origin. This short story about Umar’s rage, which brands the Messenger as ‘sabian’ may be trying to tell us that;

• The Makkans were polytheists before the advent of Islam;

• The Messenger was a ‘monotheist’ (who chose to go back to the original teaching of Av’ram-Ibrahim-Bahram the Mandaî.);

• The Makkans had put up a stiff opposition (but a Makkan monotheist Messenger had conquered the polytheist Makkans in the end, according to the official ideology);

• In the end the teaching of the Messenger had managed to captivate the Makkans and converted them to the Hagarene teaching (But they transformed it into nationalist Arab ideology called Islam).

Islamic literature used the term ‘sabiî’ to describe the Messenger’s time in Makka. But he had never been to Makka. The original stories were relocated to Makka by the desert Arabs. Islamic scholars try to explain 'sabiî' simply as “one who has changed his religion”, which means that the Messenger was of another faith and become a Muslim later on. How right they are! The Messenger was of Sabian faith, but as a consequence of the intervention by the desert Arabs who transformed the original faith of the Messenger after his death, he was made a muslim. It happened to Moses who had nothing to do with Judaism of today, and to Yshua, who was a Jew preaching from the Old Testament, but after the intervention of Paul he was transformed into ‘Christ’, the central character of Christianity.

Those Muslim scholars who lived during the early ‘Islamic’=Hagarene period and knew the Messenger, connect the term Sabiî with the prophet and his teaching.  These early writers maintain that the Messenger’s teaching is connected with the beliefs of the monotheistic Sabians living in Irak.

The term Sabian pre-dates the Messenger. Eusebius refers to the works of Hegesippus who named the sects that once existed among the Jewish community: “Furthermore, there were various opinions on the subject of circumcision among the children of Israel, maintained by the opponents of the tribe of Judah and of Christ, such as the Essenes, the Galileans, the Hemerobaptists, the Masbothaei, the Samaritans, the Sadducees, the Pharisees.” These sects appear also in the Apostolic Constitutions, in a list of Jewish heresies: “For even the Jewish nation had wicked heresies: …Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Basmotheans, the Hemerobaptists, the Ebionites, the Essenes.” 

The literature created by the Arab scholars on the subject of Sabians could easily be considered as ancient (Look at their years of death, you’ll see!).  But there is a problem. While the Arab scholars closest to the time of the Messenger were writing about the ‘real’ Sabians, the Mughtasilah-Hemerobaptists-Mandaeans, the Arab scholars writing in or after the 9th century A.D. have all referred incorrectly to the Harranians as the Sabians. Because the Harranians (Harran is near Urfa, in south-east Turkey) have hurriedly adopted Sabianism, only in the name of course. As Hamzah al-Isfahani (died 961 A.D.) wrote: “Today their (Harranians) descendants live in the city of Harran and Ruha (modern Urfa). They gave up the name ‘Chaldaean’ since the time of the caliph al-Mamun and adopted the name sabiun.” They wanted to protect themselves against the onslaught of Islam because they were practicing pagan rituals including human offering. In the end they were successful in furthering this façade of ‘Sabians of Kuran’. But some Arab writers in this later group have referred also to the Sabians of Irak as the ‘real’ Sabians who were monotheists with a codebook and messengers.

Following are the relevant quotes from muslim scholars:

• Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd (died 798 A.D.). “The polytheists used to say of the prophet and his companions ‘these are the Sabians’ comparing them to them, because the Sabians who live in Cazirat-al-Mawsil (land of Mosul - presently  Irak) say ‘there is no god but god’”… “The prophet and his companions are referred to as "these are the Sabians" comparing Muhammad to the Sabians.”… “Sabians say that their religion is unique. They live near Mosul  and believe in only one god. They have no prophet, no scriptures, and no cult yet their main belief is ‘there is no god but god’. They did not believe in Prophet Muhammad, yet the polytheists were known to say of the Prophet and his companions “these are the Sabians” comparing them to them.”

• Abd’ul al-Zanad (died 747 A.D.): “Sabians are from Kutha in Irak, they believe in prophets, fast 30 days in a year, and pray 5 times daily towards Yemen.” (What a coincidence with Islam! Fast 30 days, pray five times daily, but Yemen does not fit!).

• Abd’ullah ibn ul-Abbas (~ 650 A.D.): “Sabians is a sect of Christianity.”

• Ata ibn Abi Raba (died 732 A.D.): “(Putting an end to all allegations) Sabians live in “Sawad” and are not identical with the Magians, Christians, or Jews.” 

• Ebu Hanife [(died 767 A.D. - Founder of the Hanefite School)]: “Sabians read zabur and are between Judaism and Christianity.” 

• Hasan al-Basri (died 728 A.D.) wrote: “They read the Zebur and pray in the direction of the kıbla…Sabian faith looks like the Magians (Zoroastrians) who worshipped angels.” 

• Ibn Abi Nuceyh (died 749 A.D.), Suddi (died 745 A.D.): “The Sabians were between Judaism and Magianism (Zoroastrianism).”

• Ibn Curayi (died 767 A.D.) and Ata ibn Abi Rabah (died 732 A.D.): “On the connection between the Sabians who lived in Sawad (in Irak) and Muhammad, reportedly the polytheists of Makka were heard to say of Muhammad "he has become a Sabian.” 

• Ibn Jurayi again: “ He (Muhammad) is a Sabian.”

• Katada ibn Di’ama (died 736 A.D.): “Sabians worship angels, read Zebur, have five ritual prayers. They pray to the Sun.” 

• Khalil ibn Ahmed (died 786-787 A.D.): “The Sabians believe they belong to the prophet Noah, they read zabur, and their religion looks like Christianity. They worship the angels.”

• Malik ibn Enes (died 795 A.D.): “The Sabians are between Judaism and Christianity and they have no scriptures.”

• Mucahid ibn Cerir (died 722 A.D.): “The Sabians have no distinctive religion and is somewhere between Judaism and Magianism.”

• Rabi’a ibn Ubbad (Messenger’s contemporary): “I was a pagan when I saw the prophet. He was saying to the people, ‘if you want to save yourselves, accept that there is no god but Allah’. At this moment I noticed a man behind him saying ‘he is a sabi’î.’ When I asked someone who he was he told me he was his uncle ‘Abu Lahab.”

• Vehb ibn Munebbih (died 728-732 A.D.): “Sabians believe "there is no god but god" but  they do not have a canonical law.” (They had a book called Kuryan/Kiryan=The ‘lessons of faith’).

• Ziyad ibn Abihi [(died 672 A.D.) - Governor of Irak, during reign of the first Umayyad caliph Muawiya]: “The Sabians believed in prophets and prayed five times daily.”

This is a short piece on the Hagarene Messenger. You may find much more on him in the following pages on THE HAGARENE TEACHING-ISLAM.

 Islam