Revisionist Theories of Islamic Origins

The Arabian Desert from where the Arab armies emerged.

When one studies the origins of Islam, one has to ask the proper questions. Over the last 40 years, many scholars have done revisionist history regarding the early years of Islam.

According to the orthodox Islamic narrative, Muhammad dies in 632 AD. It took about another year to bring all of Arabia under the fold of Islam, then the Islamic armies went to war with the weakened Persian and Byzantine Empires. In a few short years, the Islamic Empire completely overthrew the Persian Empire and took much land from the Byzantine Empire such as Syria, the Holy Land, and all of North Africa. This was all done by inspiration of a new religion, prophet and holy book.

Revisionist theories on the origins of Islam have reached the popular level. Tom Holland and Robert Spencer are good examples. Fred Donner and Dan Gibson have some interesting theories as well.

One thing that is interesting when studying Islam is the lack of early sources. The Quran is an early source, but anyone who reads the Quran will notice that it doesn’t give geographical locations or context. To understand the Quran, one must look through Islamic tradition such as Tafsir, Hadith, and Sira. The Sira refers to biographies of Muhammad. The hadith are narrations about his life and teachings and Tafsir is the work of Quranic commentaries. All of these sources come very late. The hadith and Tafsir come in the 9th century and the first Sira written by Ibn Ishaq comes in the second half of the 8th Century. Muhammad died in 632 AD so this poses a problem.

Why were no documents(or very few) written in the first hundred years? Islam didn’t start as a marginal movement like Christianity did where you had a few people in the Holy Land that spread the message to individuals living in cities of the Roman Empire. Islam started as an Empire. They had organized armies so they could do whatever they wished. Within a decade after Muhammad’s death, the Arabs had captured Damascus, Jerusalem, Alexandria and other cities.

With these important cities in their possession, the Muslims could do as they pleased. They would have had the capacity to produce large amounts of documents. They could have paid scribes to record Hadith and Sira. They could have learned to read and write from the inhabitants of the cities and make their own documents. If they didn’t want to do this, they could have simply enslaved local scribes and forced them to do their bidding. None of this happened.

Because this didn’t happen, the only option the revisionists have is trying to squeeze little historical facts out of the Quran and looking at archeology. I have looked into many revisionist theories regarding these origins. Some give some interesting conclusions that the orthodox narratives cannot explain but while some problems are solved, more are thrown out.

I once emailed Robert Spencer about his theory of Muhammad not existing. I mentioned that if he was invented between 690 and 700 AD, how was the Arab government able to implement this fabrication over an Empire that spanned thousands of miles with people who never knew about this man. He gave some cheap answer that they retroactively inserted him into history. I can’t remember all the details but I certainly wasn’t satisfied by the answer.

While Spencer brought up some good points about archeological facts that contradict the orthodox Islamic narrative, his theory is very implausible. While I agree that the orthodox narrative has problems, I don’t subscribe to any revisionist conclusions. I might accept a point made by them here or there but their conclusions carry a lot of baggage. Remember, if you want to overthrow the orthodox narrative, the burden is on you to explain all the facts.

At the same time, there is one question that I cannot answer. Where are all the early Islamic documents? This was an organized Empire with access to scribes. There is no excuse. Where are they?

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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4 thoughts on “Revisionist Theories of Islamic Origins

  1. Hi Allan,

    I first became aware of Robert Spencer’s denial of the existence of Muhammad last month via a comment posted by another Catholic blogger (Nick), in the combox of THIS THREAD.

    I ended up purchasing Spencer’s book, Did Muhammad Exist?; and to be brutally honest, was not impressed.

    A good deal of Spencer’s book is based on the on the essays found in The Quest for the Historical Muhammad, edited by Ibn Warraq, and published by the infamous atheistic company, Prometheus Books. [Prometheus Books has also published over a dozen books that are extremely critical of the Judeo-Christian faiths, which include: The Jesus of the Early Christians, by G. A. Wells; The Christ – A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence ,by John E. Remsberg; and The Final Superstition – A Critical Evaluation of the Judeo-Christian, by Joseph E. Daleidan.]

    My thoughts on Spencer’s assessments pretty much parallel the following you wrote:

    == While Spencer brought up some good points about archeological facts that contradict the orthodox Islamic narrative, his theory is very implausible. While I agree that the orthodox narrative has problems, I don’t subscribe to any revisionist conclusions. I might accept a point made by them here or there but their conclusions carry a lot of baggage. Remember, if you want to overthrow the orthodox narrative, the burden is on you to explain all the facts.==

    As for the following:

    == At the same time, there is one question that I cannot answer. Where are all the early Islamic documents? This was an organized Empire with access to scribes. There is no excuse. Where are they?==
    I would recommend the essay I linked to in THIS POST.

    Grace and peace,

    David

  2. While Spencer may take a difficult to defend stance (as any superlative stance tends to be), it seems to me beyond doubt that the traditional Islamic narrative simply cannot hold.

    If Uthman compiled the Quran and sent a copy to every province before his death in the 650s, then why does heavy revision work appear in the oldest Quranic manuscripts (Sanaa, Paris etc) in the decades after that? Would the scribes not have a perfect Quran to copy from?

    And again, if every province had a copy of the Quran – which would include Sura 2:144’s changing of the Qibla to Mecca in Saudi Arabia – then why do the first hundred years of mosques and Islamic buildings point to Petra instead (Dan Gibson’s research)? Why do they still point to places other than the desert Mecca for another hundred years following?

    PS. Although Gibson avoids relying on Google Maps for his latest book Early Islamic Qiblas (due to criticism), it’s quite eye-opening to try it yourself…

    Find a building like Qasr Al-Mshatta or the Dome of the Rock or the al-Aqsa Mosque, change to Satellite view to see the building’s orientation, then compare the directions to Mecca, Petra or Jerusalem.

  3. Questions I have;
    Could the Sira be an account of multiple Muhammad’s (praised one’s)? Early leaders of nascent islam.
    Could Birmingham Quran be a Ghassanid document since it pre dates Muhammad?
    Is the Quran the work of multiple authors? editors? considering its plagiarism of material from Jews, Christians, Sabaeans, Zoroastrians and Arian sources.

    • Hello Drew,

      The Sira, I don’t think so.

      Regarding the Birmingham Quran, I don’t know. We don’t have enough evidence to show one way or the other.

      Multiple authors? I don’t think it is. There is a pretty coherent literary style of the Quran and it even comes out when translated. Plagiarism of multiple materials doesn’t imply multiple authors.

      God Bless,

      Allan