Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Robert Spencer is the author of several critically acclaimed books about Islam, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth about Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). He is a columnist for FrontPage Magazine and the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Spencer holds a master's degree in religious studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and has been studying Islamic theology, law, and history in depth for more than three decades."Concerted detective work of a scholarly nature. [Spencer's] book is no polemic. It is a serious quest for facts." -<i>Washington Times</i><br /><br />"Spencer's careful, detailed, well-reasoned survey and analysis of the historical evidence offer strong evidence that Muhammad and Islam itself were post facto creations of Arab conquerors. . . . [A] brave book." -<i>FrontPage Magazine</i><br /><br />"For too long, the topic of Islamic historiography has been confined to highly specialized academia. . . . An accessible primer on the subject as we have here is most welcome." -<i>American Spectator</i><br /><br />"Impeccably researched . . . Thanks to this book, skepticism regarding what we can know about Muhammad must now and forever be taken seriously." -Ibn Warraq, editor of <i>What the Koran Really Says</i><br /><br />"This will send shockwaves through Islamic communities." -<i>The Blaze</i><br /><br />"A well-written, sober, and clear account." -<i>National Review Online</i><br /><br />"A super detective service for the West . . . Spencer leaves few rocks unturned in his search for the truth about Islam and Muhammad." -<i>Capitalism Magazine</i>
It is a question that few have thought - or dared - to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived and led in seventh-century Arabia.
But this widely accepted story begins to crumble on close examination, as Robert Spencer shows in his eye-opening new book.
In his blockbuster best-seller The Truth about Muhammad, Spencer revealed the shocking contents of the earliest Islamic biographical material about the prophet of Islam. Now, in Did Muhammad Exist?, he uncovers that material's surprisingly shaky historical foundations. Spencer meticulously examines historical records, archaeological findings, and pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what we can know about Muhammad, the Qur'an, and the early days of Islam. The evidence he presents challenges the most fundamental assumptions about Islam's origins.
Did Muhammad Exist? reveals:
- How the earliest biographical material about Muhammad dates from at least 125 years after his reported death
- How six decades passed before the Arabian conquerors - or the people they conquered - even mentioned Muhammad, the Qur'an, or Islam
- The startling evidence that the Qur'an was constructed from existing materials - including pre-Islamic Christian texts
- How even Muslim scholars acknowledge that countless reports of Muhammad's deeds were fabricated
- Why a famous mosque inscription may refer not to Muhammad but, astonishingly, to Jesus
- How the oldest records referring to a man named Muhammad bear little resemblance to the now-standard Islamic account of the life of the prophet
- The many indications that Arabian leaders fashioned Islam for political reasons
Far from an anti-Islamic polemic, Did Muhammad Exist? is a sober but unflinching look at the origins of one of the world's major religions. While Judaism and Christianity have been subjected to searching historical criticism for more than two centuries, Islam has never received the same treatment on any significant scale.
The real story of Muhammad and early Islam has long remained in the shadows. Robert Spencer brings it into the light at long last.