Muhammad's story was created...and re-created 100s of years later! (Pt.3)

We now come to the most exciting part of this 3-part series on how we know what Muhammad said and did. But before we begin, we need to ask what criteria can we use to ascertain what he did and said? What would satisfy Muslims? In the last episode we found that the two most influential Western Muslim scholars gave us the criteria that they believed everyone would be satisfied with...the 9th and 10th century traditions, including the Sira of Ibn Hisham, and the Hadith of Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Why? Because those traditions, they believe, are still extant today, permitting us to read them for ourselves. They were aware that the 9th and 10th centuries were quite late, a good 200-300 years too late, but that is where belief (Iman) came in, and where Muslims just had to 'believe' that what they wrote was passed down correctly, word-for-word, and letter-for-letter concerning what the prophet said and did. What neither Dr Yasir Qadhi nor Dr Shabir Ally told us was that their own criteria was going to come back and BITE them, because no one possesses today anything written by any of those 9th-10th century traditional writers; not one page! Though they probably did exist in the time periods we are told, and though they could have easily written something down about what they thought Muhammad said and did, since we have nothing written down by them, all we can say is that what we do have is only ATTRIBUTED to them. So, what exactly to we have which is attributed to them, and when were those documents actually created? You need to watch this video as Jay goes through and documents the extant manuscripts for 4 genre of Islamic Traditions; including: 1) The SAHABA (the companions of Muhammad), and the TABIUN (the 2nd generation, who got their material from the companions) writings: The earliest extant manuscript, the 'Muwatta of Ibn Malik' was created in the 11th century; the writings of Sahifa Hamman B. Munabbih was created in the 12th century; the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal, the Musanaf of Abdul Razzaq, the Musnad of al-Tayalisi, and the writings of Abi Shaybah were all created in the 13th (thus, between 400 - 600 years too late)! 2) The HADITH (the sayings of Muhammad): Abu Dawud's was written in the 11th century, An-Nisai's in the 12th century, Ibn Majah in the 13th century, At-Tirmidhi and Sahih Muslim in the 14th century, and Sahih Bukhari was finalized between the 14th - 15th century (thus, between 400 - 900 years too late)! 3) The SIRA (the biography of Muhammad): The earliest Sira manuscript was written in 1063 AD, situated in Fez today. The second was written in 1278 AD, and housed in the British Library, London, England. The third was compiled in 1324 AD, situated in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, England. The fourth was written in 1331 AD and is sequestered in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland. The fifth was created 1420 AD, and is kept in the Bibliothique Nationale, Paris, France. And the sixth manuscript was written in 1589 AD and is housed in the SOAS Library, in London, England. Ironically, the biography we all use and read today was compiled by a German Arabic scholar named Heinrech Ferdinand Wustenfeld in 1860, taken from these 6 manuscripts which were all written between the 11th - 16th centuries, thus 400 - 900 years too late! 4) The TAFSIR & TARIKH (the Commentaries and the Histories): These were supposedly written down by al Tabari in the years before he died in 923 AD. Yet, we don't have anything written by him at all. The tafsir and the Tarikh which we read today, attributed to Al Tabari was actually written by a Dutch Scholar named Michael de Goeje who compiled them between 1879 AD - 1901 AD, taken from two manuscripts written in 1253 AD and 1244 AD, and housed in the Köprülü Library, Istanbul, Turkey. CONCLUSIONS: The ISLAM OF FAITH came from stories about Muhammad which Muslims tall us were written by those who saw and heard him, thus by eyewitnesses; or by others within a few generations. Yet, in reality the real ISLAM OF HISTORY was originally created 400 – 900 years after he presumably lived; but not canonized into a final texts until 1,200 – 1,270 years later. This suggests that what the original writers who possibly did live in the 9th and 10th centuries originally wrote down, was then accreted, deleted and corrupted in the 11th to the 16th centuries, mostly by later Abbasids, and then again by the Ottomans, so that what we have today has gone through a number of renditions, with each subsequent ruler changing and manipulating the stories of what Muhammad did and said to suit their political, cultural and social needs of their day. Thus, what we have today is not what the original writers wrote at all, but is what the much later Abbasid/Ottoman writers wanted us to know concerning who they thought their prophet did and said; the MUHAMMAD OF FAITH, but not the MUHAMMAD OF HISTORY! © Pfander Centre for Apologetics & Polemics - US, January 4, 2025 (127,210)