Have we found the Original Muhammad? Mel thinks so!

Because everything we know about Muhammad comes from the 9th-10th centuries, a good 200-300 years after the fact, Mel from ‘Sneaker’s Corner’ and Jay felt it appropriate to return to the 7th century, when he supposedly lived, to investigate whether they could actually find him, and compare him with what the later Islamic Traditions say about him. This is then what Mel came up with:

If a real Muhammad led an invasion against the Byzantines and Persians in the 7th century, and came from the Hijaz area of Arabia as the traditions tell us, then there must be something written about him during that century; yet, we cannot find a thing that early, nor that far south.

They came to a leader in that area named ‘Mahmet’, who agreed to help them, because of their ties back to Abraham, but this Mahmet was a leader and well respected, unlike the Traditional Muhammad, who was an orphan, not a leader with any clout, and certainly not a person who could read or write.

The ‘Fragments Of The Chart Of Jacob Of Edessa’ (692 AD), and the ‘Ad Annum 705’, as well as the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle (741-754), and the Zuqnin Chronicle (ca 775) all suggest this Mahmet was a king and had a lot of authority.

Thomas the Presbyter (writing in 640 approx) says this Muhammad was the leader of the Tayaye:

To understand who this was we need to go back to 618 and look for a rebel leader in that year.

The Saracens rebelled in 618, the seventh year of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, and appropriated for themselves Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. They incited all of the frontier cities of the empire and finally rebelled openly, shaking the yoke from their necks. (The Hispanic Chronicle of 754)

Other sources say a king among them was selected 4 years later in 622, appointed by the Arabs because he could unite the factions.

John bar Penkaye (690), mentions that The Lord gave them two leaders from the beginning of their kingdom and divided them into two sections, so we need to find 2 leaders who jointly lead together.

These could be Mu’awiya of Damascus (in the West) and Ali in Hira (to the East), but victory fell to the Westerners called Ummayyads. A man among them named Mu`awiya, took the reins of government of the two empires: Persian and Roman.

Further confirmation of two leaders comes from the Chronicle of Fredegar (7th century, earliest copy,715!)

So, we are looking for a Lakhmid king from 618, who became a rebel. Ideally, someone who was kicked out of a city (for example Hira) close to that year (from which to create the “Hijra out of Mecca” legend later on), and who later reconquered this city.

We know that Hira was conquered by the Saracens, under Muhammad’s General Khalid. Following the Battle of Hira, the city was captured by the Saracens under the command of Khalid ibn al-Walid in May 633.

Did Muhammad have in addition to the title “Muhammad” any nickname to help trace him?

Possibly, Al Bukhari refers to ‘Ibn-Abi-Kabsha’ (son of the father of the sheep) as the prophet Muhammad.

The Doctrina Jacobi (636 AD), refers to the Byzantine king Heraclius, who has a dream that someone who is circumcised would be the leader of the land, and then was told that not only Jews but Arabs also practice circumcision. The Arabs practiced circumcision because they followed the religion of Abraham (Abrahamism).

Mel believes Abrahamism was the religion which incorporated both Jews and Arabs in the line of Abraham, and the Umayyads took most of their theology and later made it into Islam.

The leader of the al-Tayaye is Ilyas ibn Qabisah al-Ta’I, which is his official name, while Muhammad was his nick name, or ‘nom de guerre’. Note how close Ibn-Abi-Kabsha’ (Al Bukhari’s reference to him in the 9th century), and Ilyas ibn Qabisah al-Ta’I (his name in the 7th century) are.

Note also how this contradicts the later Traditions of Muhammad. Thus, all of the later minutiae surrounding Muhammad’s biography is nothing more than made up nonsense. This 7th c. Muhammad was given 30 villages by Khusraw along the Euphrates, proving he was of a high status, and not poor as the traditions intimate.

Khusraw, the Sassanian king needed someone in the Lakhmid area, in Hira, to control the Lakhmids from raiding his territory, so he appointed Ilyas b. Qabisah as the first and last non-Lakhmid governor in Hira between 602-617, and then became a rebel and a leader for the Arabs in 622, once he was deposed, and led them against the Sassanids. Thus, the reason 622 was chosen later on to denote Muhammad’s ‘Hijra’ from Mecca to Medina, because the Arab identity began then.

So, it looks like the later traditions have the wrong Muhammad, and the real Muhammad lived much further north, was wealthy, and is credited with beginning the Arab rebellion against both the Sassanians and the Byzantines around 622 AD.

© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2020
(37,490) (Music: "small adventure", by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io - License CC BY)