2) COINS: Don't lie! But what a DIFFERENT STORY they tell!

There has only ever been one narrative concerning how Islam began, the classical Islamic Traditional narrative, taught in all of our schools. Yet, the material for that narrative does not come from individuals who lived at the same time as Muhammad, nor even in the same century, but from compilations written down 200 to 300 years later. Because they are so late and thus not trustworthy, it is best for our purposes to go back to the century Muhammad lived, and find out what really happened. There is virtually nothing, however, written during that period. But there were people who were Arabs, who were living in the heartlands of the Arab people, and they all used coins in their commerce with one another. Coins, thus, are one of the best means we have today to give us a window into that period, because they are made out of metal (gold, silver and copper), so they don't deteriorate. They also are created by leaders who used them to announce who they were, when they come to power, and in the case of the Mideast, what religion they belonged to. One would therefore assume that the earliest 7th century coins, minted during the time of Muhammad, and the "4 rightly guided caliphs" (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali, so 624 - 661 AD) would be replete with references to them, or at least have religious references to Muhammad, Allah, the Qur'an, and perhaps Mecca...but they simply don't. In fact, the coins from that century tell us a completely different story. To begin with, in the West they are almost unanimously Christian Byzantine coins, replete with images of emperors, and crosses; which is not surprising since it was the Byzantines who controlled the area north of the Arab areas. Yet, these coins were not minted by the Byzantines, but by Arabs, who should have referenced something to do with Islam on their Obverse (front) and Reverse (back) sides. But they simply didn't for the first 40 years. Between 640 AD – 660 AD, some of the Arab Proxy states seem to use Christian symbols (crosses), while others seem to want no religious symbols at all, and so are quite neutral. When we get to the first supposedly "Muslim Caliphate", the Umayyads, initiated by the caliph Muawiya in 661 AD, we should find quintessential Islam coins; yet, instead, we find his coins are all either Christian in nature (from mints in the West, in Syria), or reflect Persian Zoroastrian culture (from mints in the East, in Iran), right up until his death in 680 AD. In the East we find silver coins during his reign with references to Allah, and even a 'bismillah'. Yet it isn't the Muslim Bismillah, but that used by all Arabic speakers in that century. It isn't until 692 AD, with the caliph abd al-Malik, that we finally see a true Islamic coin. Abd al-Malik introduces a gold coin with Muhammad's name on it, written within the 'Shahada', similar to the Shahada also introduced by Abd al-Malik on the 'Dome of the Rock' in Jerusalem, and on his Caliphal Protocols, all in the same year. And then in 696 AD, Abd al-Malik mints his newest and possibly most iconic coin, removing his image from the Obverse, and replacing it with Arab script which introduces Muhammad, attacks the trinity, and Jesus’ divinity, as well as his sonship in John 3:16, while simultaneously supporting Islam’s superiority over all other beliefs. These coins underscore the fact that Islam was created primarily as a rejection of Christianity. They also show that while Allah’s name is introduced early in the coins from 661 onwards (quite normal as it is the name for God in Arabic, borrowed from the Nabataeans), Muhammad's name is not found anywhere until 692 AD, a good 70 years too late, and we're not even sure whether it refers to Muhammad the prophet, or whether it was used as nothing more than the title: 'the beloved one'! What this suggests is that the story found on these 7th century coins completely confronts the later 9th – 10th century Islamic Traditions, which assume that not only Muhammad, but all of the first 4 caliphs were Muslim leaders who imposed their authority all the way from Tripoli in the West to Afghanistan in the East. These coins, importantly, say nothing of either Muhammad, nor these caliphs, nor of their city Mecca, nor of any Muslims, nor of any religion called Islam, and also nothing concerning any book called the Qur’an. They completely negate the Traditional Islamic narrative. This numismatic evidence, supported by the archaeological and documentary evidence, suggests that Islam really did not exist during Muhammad's life, nor for a good 60 years after he died, but was first introduced by Abd al-Malik in 692 AD. What's more, no longer are we arguing "from silence". It is the later Islamic Traditions which are now arguing "from silence". So, where now is their evidence? We have ours! Remember, coins never lie... © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2020 (40,270) (Music: "small adventure", by Rafael Krux, from filmmusic-io - License CC BY)