Exposing Islam

📜 The Late Umayyad–Abbasid Myth-Making Machine: Inventing Muhammad and Islam

1. The Historical Silence (610–750 CE): The Myth’s Opportunity

Before 750 CE, no detailed biography of Muhammad exists. We only find vague mentions of a leader ("prophet" or "Mahmet") in texts like Doctrina Jacobi (c. 634–640 CE) and Sebeos (c. 660s), but none present:
- A sinless, final prophet
- A Qur’anic revelation
- A sacred Mecca or Kaaba
The Qur’an itself doesn’t specify the name of Muhammad’s mother, wife, tribe (Quraysh is only mentioned without context), date of birth, or place of burial.
This historical vacuum allowed for post-event reconstruction—ideal for a regime needing religious legitimacy.

2. Why Myth-Making? Political Needs of Empire

Umayyad Realpolitik (661–750 CE)

The Umayyads ruled a vast Arab empire but lacked a robust religious framework.
Coins featured crosses and non-Islamic phrases until Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705 CE) initiated an Islamizing program:
- Rebuilt the Dome of the Rock (691–692 CE) with inscriptions referring to “Muhammad” and denying Jesus’ divinity.
- Shifted Arabic from a tribal identity to a religio-political identity under Islam.
- Earliest coin explicitly saying “Muhammad is the messenger of God” dates to c. 692–696 CE—60 years after Muhammad’s death.

Abbasid Religious Engineering (Post-750 CE)

The Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads by claiming religious purity and descent from Muhammad’s uncle, Abbas.
To solidify power, they:
- Sponsored massive hadith collection campaigns (e.g. Bukhari, Muslim in the 9th century).
- Commissioned the first sira (biography) by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), written over a century after Muhammad’s death.
- Positioned Muhammad as the perfect lawgiver, prophet, and ideal human—unattested before.
- Invented detailed isnads (chains of transmission) to retroactively authenticate stories.
These efforts created a unified doctrine that didn’t exist earlier—turning diverse Arab customs into a divine system.

3. Forensic Signs of Myth-Making

a. Late Biographies and Contradictory Hadiths

Ibn Ishaq’s Sira (earliest source on Muhammad’s life) was compiled 120–130 years later. Ibn Hisham’s version (d. 833) is even later, selectively edited.
Hadiths were rejected by earlier legal schools (e.g., Kufans) for being fabricated.
Multiple contradictory hadiths on:
- Prayer times
- Number of wives
- Battles
- The poisoning story and Muhammad’s death

b. Lack of External Corroboration

No external source confirms Muhammad as a founder of a new religion during his life.
Mecca and the Kaaba are absent from all Roman, Persian, Jewish, or Christian texts until after Islam is established.

c. Islamization of Arab Memory

Pre-Islamic figures (e.g. Abraham, Ishmael) were retrofitted into the Islamic narrative.
The Quran mentions “the prophet” but often ambiguously; later authors named him “Muhammad” to unify identity.
The Abbasids wrote genealogies linking Muhammad to Abraham, enhancing Arab religious status.

4. The Qur’an as an Evolving Text

Early Qur’anic manuscripts (e.g. Sana'a palimpsest) show:
- Variants and corrections
- No vowels or diacritics (making interpretation fluid)
No definitive “book” codex is attested before the late 7th century.
Standardization under Abd al-Malik or al-Hajjaj (not Uthman) aligns more with state control than prophetic preservation.

5. Why the Abbasids Needed a Perfect Prophet

Their claim to power was theologically fragile: descent from Abbas wasn’t enough.
Elevating Muhammad to a sinless, Gabriel-guided prophet turned him into a divine seal of legitimacy.
They centralized power through:
- Sharia, built on hadiths
- Madrasas, spreading Abbasid-approved doctrine
- Suppression of sects (e.g., Mu’tazilites) that questioned hadith or prophethood

🧠 Logical Conclusion

The Islamic Muhammad (“A”)—the Gabriel-guided, sinless prophet delivering the Qur’an and founding Islam in Mecca—is not supported by contemporary records and emerges only through post-750 CE Abbasid narrative construction.

Conclusion: “A” is not historically verified but a political invention, shaped by late Umayyad symbolism and solidified through Abbasid myth-making.