A friend brought this article over at the Wall street journal to my attention, it seems that a German Islamic scholar,Muhammad Sven Kalisch, has suggested that perhaps the prophet Muhammad never existed
Unfortunately the article doesn’t go into much detail about his thinking, but there is of course a forth coming book, what I find interesting so far and will I suspect prove even more interesting when the book comes out is peoples reactions to this idea. As the professor says questioning the existence of Jesus and the historical accuracy of religious books is a well established tradition except in the case of Islam. Again as the Professor notes and other religions prove the historical existence of any given spiritual leader really isn’t so important as their message. I somehow suspect though that some adherents of the religion of peace may not be quite so sanguine about Islam being subject tot he same debate and study as the other world religions. There haven’t been any death threats yet though so that’s progress.
I do find it amusing that one of the counter arguments put forward by another Scholar with a book to sell, Tilman Nagel, is that the prophet must exist as “it is quite astonishing to say that thousands and thousands of pages about him were all forged”. I can but assume that Mr Nagel is therefore equally happy about the existence of Santa Claws, the Tooth Fairy and monsters under your bed, all of which also have thousands and thousands of pages about them.
Anyway interesting times ahead for Mr Kalisch.
