[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

There's a claim by Robert Spencer that I haven't heard reliably countered.

It says the peoples being conquered by the Caliphs following the death of Mohammed don't start talking about a religion equating to Islam or a book called the Koran for hundreds of years.

I don't know if that's true because it still would have been observed by outsiders and anyway doesn't that undermine your evil muslum conquerors theory?

I didn't say I'm on board with the "Mohammed didn't exist" theory. I'm just saying the theory exists. I doubt it has wide acceptance. I'm not aware of it, if it does. It's more a "look at this research and tell me it doesn't suggest maybe Mohammed didn't exist" kind of thing.

Spencer did do the research though. I forget what the exact dates are. If you have a date for the first time the races conquered by the Caliphs first mention "Muslims" or their religion I'd like to see the link. If not then between what you'd like to believe and what Spencer's research told him, I'm going to have to pick him. I remember his claim as hundreds of years after Mohammed's death before people start talking about Muslims.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

Since Exodus didn't happen, guess those contemporaries were bullshitters.

Then all of Judaism is a lie, ist das richtig meine Herr?

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Similarly Arabs at the time of Mohammad were almost entirely illiterate.

In fact the better argument seems to say that included Mohammed.

And an interesting bit of trivia is Muslim illiteracy continued into relatively recent times. During the Ottoman empire for example...

$1:

According to historian Donald Quataert, general Muslim literacy rates were only 2 to 3 percent in the early nineteenth century, and perhaps 15 percent at its end. The vast majority of Muslim women remained illiterate well into the twentieth century. Prior to 1840, an average of only eleven books a year were published in the imperial capital of Istanbul.[2]

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Muslim_Statis ... Employment

Of course but that's true for the general populations if the world right up to the 1800s and early 1900s. Depending on when formal schooling came to your ancestors town, your family was probably illiterate until about 3 or 4 generations ago Except for aristocracy and certain skilled trades such as engineers.

Actually, and again, no.

If you check out the interactive map here:

http://ourworldindata.org/data/educatio ... /literacy/

Their claim is America is 89% literate in 1900.

In fact most of what I'll call the civilized nations are well above the Ottoman caliphate's 15%.

However it's interesting that the whole world is rated at 21%, so gee...I wonder which large population of people is dragging the world average down.

[BartSimpson]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

I didn't say I'm on board with the "Mohammed didn't exist" theory.

Neither am I. There is just an abundance of evidence that he was a real person.

Myself I see the evidence of his existence in the persistence of Islam as a charismatic and personality-driven faith. Islam today thirsts for a Caliph to fill the position of leadership that the faith calls for.

To my perception Islam simply feels like a faith that is driven by one person even though it has many schisms.

In short, I have no reason to doubt that Mohammed was a real person.

[andyt]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

andyt andyt:

Since Exodus didn't happen, guess those contemporaries were bullshitters.

Then all of Judaism is a lie, ist das richtig meine Herr?

No, some of the bible has been backed by archaeological evidence. Most tho is just metaphor and wish fulfillment, same as all the other religions. Starts with the whole idea of a guy in the sky, especially one who favors one group of people over another, or condemns people to everlasting torment for not believing the right stuff. Just people telling each other stories to feel better.

If you think the Torah is an historically accurate account, there's all sorts of bridges I would like to sell you.

[N_Fiddledog]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

I didn't say I'm on board with the "Mohammed didn't exist" theory.

Neither am I. There is just an abundance of evidence that he was a real person.

Myself I see the evidence of his existence in the persistence of Islam as a charismatic and personality-driven faith. Islam today thirsts for a Caliph to fill the position of leadership that the faith calls for.

To my perception Islam simply feels like a faith that is driven by one person even though it has many schisms.

In short, I have no reason to doubt that Mohammed was a real person.

Still...if you ever get the time you might find this one interesting.



Actually at the beginning Spencer describes the question "Did Muhammed Exist?" as more an intellectual exercise, but the research that comes out of that is worth knowing, I think.

[N_Fiddledog]

I was just watching this other one where they're debating the topic and Spencer gives a date of 690 when the conquered peoples start talking about their conquerors' religion.

I was way off. Google gives Muhammad's death as 632.

[BeaverFever]

Bart Simpson Bart Simpson:

Why would Jewish texts of any sort be written in hieroglyphics when the Hebrew and Aramaic lettering systems were much easier to use anyway.

Hebrew writing doesn't come along until the time of King David, which is much later than Exodus. Aramaic is even later. If they were living in Egypt as the story states it would make sense that egyptian was their written language.

$1:

I corrected an unfounded assumption for you. Just because we do not know of something is not evidence that it never existed or doesn't exist.

.

Sure. That logic is how we can claim Saddam had WMD and Jesus had a crime-fighting monkey named Bobo who mysteriously died of syphillis. Just because there's no evidence doesn't mean its not true.

$1:

All you need is for some farmer to dig up a clay jar full of scrolls and your assumption would be falsified. Better to just say that we only know of Jewish texts back to a certain period.

.

Also circumstantial evidence such as "babylonianisms" in the text support it being written by Babylonian Jews or altered by them (similar stories and reference to worshipping bulls for example). And it makes sense for most of the worlds religions: in a time when most people were illiterate herders and farmers, the emphasis was on oral tradition and established ritual. Writing came later. Also I could be wrong but I think even the Jews acknowledge that the written Torah started in Babylon because they have all these rules and rituals about how it can be written ( the scribe must say each word out loud as he writes it for example) that we're established in Babylon.

$1:

Not all Arabs were illiterate. The Arabs who built Mecca and Medina were accomplished engineers and they had vibrant cultures that were stomped out by Mohammed and his ignorant Bedouin goat herding supporters who joined Islam for the opportunity to rape, pillage, and enslave the other Arabs.

No Arabia was largely nomadic Bedouin tribes. No written language just oral tradition. All you despise of Islamic culture comes primarily from that earlier culture, especially treatment of women. Mecca and Medina were modest it was not until the Muslims/Arabs encountered the outside world that they became literate and began to study western arts and sciences in places like Egypt and the Levant.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

In fact the supposed miracle of Mohammad is that he memorized the Koran in a single night after it was supposedly recited to him by the angel Gabriel.

$1:

That is not a fact. It's a statement of faith.

which is why I said "supposed". Obviously I don't believe in angels and it's unlikely that the koran was memorized in one night...not that it would be a "miracle" either.

$1:

Again, this is corrected for the unfounded assumption. Maybe there are or were earlier copies of the Koran. All we can say is that this fragment in question is the oldest known part of the Koran for the moment.

.

Sure. But the Arabs didn't have written language of their own until after Muslim conquest began so it seems unlikely it would be much older.

[N_Fiddledog]

Concerning records of when the conquered people started to notice what a Muslim was, Spencer's exact words describing it are:

$1:

When you look at the historical record the main problem with the Koran is according to the canonical Islamic story, Muhammad received it between the year 610 and 632. And then it was memorized, in whole or in part, by various of his followers and collected together during the time of the Caliph Uthman in the 650s and the variance burned.

And so we can understand that between the 630s and 650s Muslims are supposed to have had the Koran in whole or part and there are many people who were [Haffis?] who had memorized the entire Koran, and then by the 650s the Koran was completely codified, and distributed to all the Muslim provinces.

But when we look at the actual records the people who the Arabs were conquering in the 630s, 640s and beyond, until the 690s, until the early 700s; they never mentioned that the people who were coming and conquering out of Arabia had a Holy book at all.

Neither did the conquerors. There is no mention of the Koran in the firtst 60 years or more after the Koran is supposed to have been written.

Now this is remarkable, because the Koran is supposed to have been the impetus for those very conquests. In other words, the words of the Koran, "Fight against the unbelievers. Strive hard against the unbelievers. Make the unbeliever submit and pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. This was supposed to be the energizing force behind these conquests and yet neither the conquerors nor the conquered people ever mention this book?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Que1xs81Wts

[N_Fiddledog]

Now as to the argument that goes "Well maybe Christ didn't exist either. And where's the evidence there, huh? Why don't they look at that?"

Spencer's reply is something like, 'They do. The question of Christ's existence is well covered in the scholarly literature. The mysteries are examined all the time.' He asks the question 'Did Mohammed exist?' to see what happens when that question receives the same sort of scholarly examination.

[BeaverFever]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

Concerning records of when the conquered people started to notice what a Muslim was, Spencer's exact words describing it are:

$1:

When you look at the historical record the main problem with the Koran is according to the canonical Islamic story, Muhammad received it between the year 610 and 632. And then it was memorized, in whole or in part, by various of his followers and collected together during the time of the Caliph Uthman in the 650s and the variance burned.

And so we can understand that between the 630s and 650s Muslims are supposed to have had the Koran in whole or part and there are many people who were [Haffis?] who had memorized the entire Koran, and then by the 650s the Koran was completely codified, and distributed to all the Muslim provinces.

But when we look at the actual records the people who the Arabs were conquering in the 630s, 640s and beyond, until the 690s, until the early 700s; they never mentioned that the people who were coming and conquering out of Arabia had a Holy book at all.

Neither did the conquerors. There is no mention of the Koran in the firtst 60 years or more after the Koran is supposed to have been written.

Now this is remarkable, because the Koran is supposed to have been the impetus for those very conquests. In other words, the words of the Koran, "Fight against the unbelievers. Strive hard against the unbelievers. Make the unbeliever submit and pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. This was supposed to be the energizing force behind these conquests and yet neither the conquerors nor the conquered people ever mention this book?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Que1xs81Wts

There was the religion before there was a holy book that's for sure. As to Jesus being more historically verifiable than mohammad I don't think so.

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

As to Jesus being more historically verifiable than mohammad I don't think so.

But again, neither I nor Spencer claimed he was. It has nothing to do with the actual subject. If the subject is "Did Muhammad exist?" using the existence of Jesus for an argument is a straw man.

[BeaverFever]

So if Mohammed didn't exist who was the leader of the Arab conquest and who founded Islam?

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

So if Mohammed didn't exist who was the leader of the Arab conquest and who founded Islam?

OK, I'm going to answer your question, but as I do I'm wondering how many times I'm going to have to tell you I'm not pushing this theory. I'm just telling you the theory exists. For myself I prefer to just accept Muhammad as existing.

Basically as I remember it, the theory goes something like the story of Muhammad is a series of conflicting fabrications grabbing hold of the narrative here and there by this or that group over time to buttress the positions of warring factions.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

xerxes xerxes:

The bible. Most of the gospels were only written a generation or two after the fact.

Right. Not even Wiki says any different.

But that's not "centuries" after the fact.

In the Old Testament it's only Genesis that was written centuries after the fact. Exodus and the rest were written by people approximately contemporary to the events they described.

Which is interesting because the "origin story" of Moses was lifted from an earlier religion/culture. Then we have to consider that neither Aramaic nor Hebrew became a written language until the 10th century BC and the pyramids started being built as far back as 2700BC. All but two of the most major pyramids were built at least 750 years before the written development of Aramaic or Hebrew. And we know that neither Piye or Taharqa was the Pharaoh in the Biblical account, the last two Pharaohs to commission pyramids.