A viewer named Fareed Halteh asked this excellent question concerning a possible proof for Muhammad's existence in the 7th century. He notes, “Some of the Quranic stories do seem to be real events that happened with the real person called Muhammad during his lifetime. For example, when we look at Surat Kauthar (Surah 108), the shortest Surah of Quran we find Muhammad's God [Allah] directly attacking a man who told Muhammad that he does not have any male children. The other shocking Surah is Surat AL Massad (Surah 111) in which he directly attacks Abu Lahab his uncle condemning him to hell. These Surahs seem to relate to day to day events in the prophet's life. I do not contend that Muhammad might be a later redaction. Maybe there was a historical person with a cult following in Arabia and then Islam was built around this man".
So, for Fareed, since the Qur'an reveals specific stories about Muhammad, wouldn't their specific nature prove his existence?
To be fair, these two examples aren't really very specific. Surah 108 (which says nothing concerning Muhammad's male offspring) simply states that Muhammad condemned the man who hates him to hell, and Surah 111 repeats a similar condemnation for his uncle Laban and his wife; ideas which are replete all through the Qur'an. There's nothing unique or specific about them.
Much of the Qur’an is about Muhammad's life and times. What's more, all of the later stories surrounding Muhammad's life and sayings could be based on someone somewhere who actually did what he did, or said what he said.
Our interest, however, is for people to prove that these stories are true for the one man named Muhammad who lived in the 7th century, and not written from the pen of another man who lived soon after, or hundreds of years later, filtered and changed in the intervening years, and even centuries.
To date, all that anyone can offer are either what the Qur'an says about a prophet who is only named four times, a document which is from decades after he lived, or what the later 9th-10th c. compilers of his traditions believe he did or said, taken from a whole litany of stories which had grown up over the intervening 200-300 years.
Remember that from the late 7th century on, once he was designated by Abd al-Malik as the chosen prophet, the stories about him begin to be created and then proliferate, until they are chosen by those compilers in the late 9th-10th centuries and tabulated into the biography we have today. But what was their criteria for what they chose?
Fareed and other's view that the more specific the items within the story the more plausible they could be true. But isn't that exactly what storytellers (known as Qussas) do? One storyteller hears an account from another storyteller, and then repeats it, adding their own flavor, possibly even adding something that happened to them specifically. This then gets embellished by yet another Qussa, until after 200-300 years of recounting these stories from one telling to the other there are so many embellishments that the first kernel of the story could even be lost.
Dr Patricia Crone speaks about this problem with the ‘Qussas’ (storytellers) in her 1987 book entitled "Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam", where she says, “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 Ishaq, Waqidi, and other historians. It is because they relied on the same repertoire of tales that they all said such similar things”. (Crone 1987:225)
Dr Michael Cook speaks to the problem of proliferation within these accounts in his 1983 book entitled simply "Muhammad", where he refers to the father of Muhammad, named Abdallah. He mentions that Ibn Ishaq, writing in 765 AD tells us only that this man "Abdallah had died early enough to leave Muhammad an orphan; but as to the specific details of his death, “God knew best”" (Cook 1983:63). Yet, Waqidi, writing 50 yrs. later mentions, “when ‘Abdallah died, how he died, where he died, what his age was, and the exact place of his burial". According to Michael Cook, “this evolution in the course of half a century from uncertainty to a profusion of precise detail suggests that a fair amount of what Waqidi knew was not knowledge.” (Cook 1983:63-65)
The reason the Qur'an and the later traditions have such specific stories concerning Muhammad owes a great deal to the Qussas who related them down through the years, adding and deleting them to suit their needs.
© Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2020
(27,700) Music: "inspiring teaser", by Rafael Krux (from filmmusic-io - License CC BY)
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