The Doctrina Jacobi a seventh century source written about 634-640 refers to a Muhammad that couldn’t possibly be the prophet of Islam.

Mostly because the Doctrina Jacobi is a polemical tract that is a factual mess, as to be fair we’d expect from a second or third hand anonymous source with intentionally misleading attribution during one of the most tumultuous periods in history. What is remarkable to me is the degree to which its portrayal of the Arab Armies and Islam are consistent with what we can establish. In particular the “(“The Saracen Prophet”) is false, for the prophets do not come armed with a sword.” (Leaving aside how this is a distinctly Christian viewpoint considering how while Jewish military messianism had waned after the horrifying failures of Jewish revolts, the Jews in general were much more prepared to accept the concept of a prophet armed with a sword, just not one so manifestly heretical as Muhammad and his successors). Moreover the explicitly religious terminology used in regards to the “Arab” (though by this point they would have incorporated various non-Arab forces but only to a marginal degree) forces undercuts your claim that 7th century Islam did not exist or that the early Arabic armies were not notably religious.

I chalk up the Doctrina Jacobi as a valuable source, but a primarily theological, polemic, and decidedly unofficial one. And one that like most such sources is not a primarily historical document and which screws things up, and not just about Mo and the early Muslims (I point o it the decidedly Christian bent of the complaint against “Muhummad”). It most likely conflated Muhummad or whoever inspired him with his successors, which is hardly an unknown problem even in official historiography (see: Thutmose and Hatshepsut, or for more recent issues the question of who authorized which charters during what Germans call the Great Interregnum of the Holy Roman Empire).

It’d be a bit like trying to sus out the geopolitics and ethnic composition of Northern Iberia using the Song of Roland as your main guide. You CAN do it to a surprising degree and even with the ability to compare it you can see echoes or bits of info continued on, but you are going to come away with some really odd conclusions (such as the Frankish force at Battle of Roncevaux Pass was destroyed by Muslims rather than by non-Abrahamic Basque Pagans).

There are coins in the British museum in London depicting a Christian ruler, with a cross on his crown and staff, inscribed Muhammad.

Which can very easily be explained by crude Arabic reuse of old Roman molds or edits to put Muhummad’s name there. Which again is ludicrously common for upstart regimes that lack a lot of technological or institutional savvy or the new resources to fine tune it. We see similar on the other side of the Roman world with Sub-Roman Britain and Scandinavia with coinage there. We also see similar patterns in much more recent history, such as Khyber Gunsmiths unthinkingly copying over Lee-Metfords and other Victorian rifles for generations, often down to “Regina Victoria” coupled with years after we know she died and the correct one was different.

But Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem from Jerusalem from 634-638, writes in great details about the conquering Arab armies. The called themselves many things; saracens, Ishmaelites, Hagarines, etc. But never Muslims.

That is assuming that he is accurately referencing all their endonyms, which is quite the issue. And in any case does not correlate distinctly with whether or not there was a religious underpinning. Indeed, the references of “Ishmaelites” and “Hagarines” (if they were NOT terms Sophronius put on them on his own volition) tie back to a decidedly Abrahamic world view, with the question being whether it was that of the Christian Greco-Roman or Rabbinatical Jewish view of Arabs as descendants of Ishmael, Arab views of themselves as such, or both.

It is also telling that Muslim religious dogma holds that they are descendant from Hagar by way of Ishmael and are the “true” heirs of Abraham.

Nor did they ever talk about having a prophet Muhammad

And yet as you pointed out the Doctrina Jacobi does, albeit in a very confused fashion that doesn’t gel all that well with Muslim sources (but which DOES gel with them on some key issues, like the whole “Armed Prophet” thing).

nor mention a holy text called the Quran.

Which isn’t that surprising because the Quran was most likely written down much later, especially given how even Muslim tradition explain the absence of a written Quran and other text (and in a very scandalous fashion), as well as how this is from a population that was overwhelmingly illiterate to the point where it would have made Galilee in the time of Jesus Christ look like a beacon of learning and literacy.

Odd, don’t you think, if these armies were conquering out of a zeal born of their new religion.

No, not really. What I find odd is the amount of double think involved in many of your explanations. You mention how Sophronius did not make mention of any Prophet Muhammad, just after talking about how the Doctrina Jacobi did (albeit in a highly confusing fashion that most likely merged Muhammad with Umar or one of his successors). You talk about the use of Christian iconography in coins entitled Muhammad but overlook the rich history of poor powers stealing other peoples’ coins or coin molds which could explain a fair bit of this. And assume that we should be surprised there is no written reference to a Quranic Book this early in spite of the Arabian Peninsula being overwhelmingly illiterate, ideological transmission and news being primarily oral, and the Muslim dogma itself having explanations (self serving and suspicion raising as they may be) for why humans failed to transcribe their “holy book” for so long.

As well as overlooking any possible ideological or religious baggage behind references to “Hagarines” or “Ishmaelites”.

Contrary to the impression I may give, I am not some kind of accredited historical expert on the Early Medieval Ages, and especially not on the early Arabic conquests. However I am significantly more knowledgeable and experienced than the layperson and can compare this period to a bunch of other situations, many in exactly this time, such as the British Dark Ages happening at almost exactly this time, where sloppy Coin Copies where Pagan rulers copied over molds originating with Roman or post-Roman Celtic British leaders were fairly common and literacy (while far more expansive than in Arabia a generation or two before the first Jihads) as a shadow of itself from the Roman Period (and was still the venue of an admittedly large minority even then).

And in particular you don’t seem to be asking yourself about possible other explanations other than the “Muhummad and Islam didn’t exist so they were invented or transformed later” theory.

Sophronius, like the later John of Damascus, thought their religion was some sort of Christian heresy. It may well have been.

Technically speaking it is a Christian or Jewish heresy, since Islam claims to be a fulfillment of both (while butchering much of their theology). But that doesn’t mean it isn’t its own distinctive mess.

I will also note that they would not be the only two Christian leaders or chroniclers to paste their own beliefs or identification onto confusing foreign believers. The Portuguese explorers that arrived in Calicut first mistook the local Hindus for a highly heterodox form of Christian, while the Chinese that came before with Zheng He’s treasure fleet mistook them for Buddhists. “Square peg round hole” fitting is not exactly alien in historical sources, even today (see the desperate Marxist attempts to identify Fascism as “Capitalism in Decay”).

Those coins I referred to earlier might have been minted by, and depicted, the first umayyid Caliph Mu’awiya. Yet if you go to his Wikipedia page you’ll see depictions of coins minted in his name (which I knew about) and there are no Christian symbols. True enough.

And we are trusting Wikipedia to be an accurate source for all of this, let alone for Dark Age Levantine Numismatic? Leaving aside how highly irregular and non-uniform Coining was for Late Antiquity in the Levant and Middle East?

But if Islam came before the conquest what is Mu’awiya’s image doing on the obverse of the coin?

Hell if I know but it was hardly unthinkable for Kingly authorities or divine deputies to be portrayed on coins, especially if these were crude copies of Persian coins or the like.

Explain the Zoroastrian symbols on the reverse.

Muslim appropriation of Zoroastrian iconography in keeping with the early attempts to claim Zoroastrians were “people of the book” to aid pacification and conversion. Unthinking repetition of a Persian mold that didn’t get rid of it. Edits to existing Persian coins with the icons that inserted the name of the supposedly first Ummayad Caliph without doing a clean fix. Some mixture of the above. There really are no shortage of explanations in this era for irregular coining, and failing to consider them would be a key weakness of any theory.

I mention Sophronius because he’s an outside, hostile source. Just like the Doctrina Jacobi.

With the accompanying caveats that would need to be attached to a hostile or outside source, such as limitations of familiarity. Though again what they do say is Al’s telling, as I pointed out.

The authenticity of that document is doubted because that Muhammad raided into Gaza two years after the Muhammad of the Islamic creation myth died in 632. This is only a problem if we treat the Islamic creation myth the same way Reuters, the AP, and the WaPo treat casualty figures from the ‘Gazan Health Ministry. ” As if the information 100 percent reliable and is coming from an unbiased source. Why?

This is a misreading of the issues with it. The Doctrina Jacobi is doubted for a host of reasons, starting with the fact that it was an anonymous, fly by night source that seems pretty clearly to be an unofficial, Heterodox Christian apologetic directed at Jews, hence mangling of bits of theology. It is viewed as something of a more reliable cousins of things like the Acts of Pilate, and the confusion of dating regarding Muhummad are actually among the less inconsistent-with-“mainstream”-history parts of it (especially since Muslim history portrays Muhummad’s final expeditions as trying to go after the Eastern Romans).

That said, the fact that it doesn’t refer to a “Prophet” and “Muhammad” with the “Saracens” so soon is remarkable in and of itself.

We know nothing about how Muhammad and his followers treated the Jews of Arabia because all we have are Islamic sources that weren’t written until 200 years or more after the mythical Muhammad died.

This is a weak argument if there ever was one. Even if we ignore all Muslim sources about their history – including bloodthirsty chants of Khaybar – we have quite a few sources discussing the Jewish presence through Arabia (especially along its Western Coasts) from about Petra near what is now the Negev to Yemen (the latter of which was periodically ruled by Jewish rulers, one of whom – the ill fated Dhu Nuwas – was stomped on by a joint Roman/Axumite crusade for his persecutions of Christians) in the 500s. Then we get a sharp decline of references to them in the 500s and especially 600s, and when the sources come back in the 600s and especially 700s… VIOLA, there are basically no Jews in Arabia except some in Yemen.

And an Arabic centered Empire that is increasingly using religious myth to justify its conquests, including genocidal hostility to Jews.

It does not take much guesswork to conclude what probably happened, not the least given Muslim theology and explanations on the matter. As well as what limited archaeological work has been allowed to be performed (another reason why using cases and situations that are like this is important given Muslim clampdowns on archaeology in their areas, especially “Quranic Archeology”).

Is there any archeological evidence, any evidence, outside the Islamic sources there were even Jews in Yathrib? No.

Quite the assumption. As for myself I will need to check, but we certainly have evidence for Jewish presence elsewhere in Arabia that wilted under the onslaught of Arab Muslims.

There are Jewish burial sites in the north of Saudi Arabia, but not in the Hijaz.

Even if this were true, it can easily be explained by the rise of violent iconoclasm in Arabian Muslim history, climaxing early with the Qarmatians and their infamous raids on Mecca and Medina, and more recently with the Wahhabis of various shades of “moderate” and “radical”, complete with debates about demolishing the site attributed as Muhummad’s tomb (again). It is quite easy to believe that Jewish burial sites in the Hejaz also suffered from this (as they confirmably have in Yemen).

And that is assuming that is true

If we look at the Islamic texts themselves the evidence is clear. None of the oldest quranic manuscripts date back to Uthman, the Caliph who supposedly compiled the Quran about 652. Two Turkish Muslim scholars who were allowed exclusive access to the Topkapi manuscript in Istanbul, and also access to the Samarkand in Tashkent, the Husseini in Cairo, and the Sana’a from Yemen confirmed this fact.

Which isn’t too surprising again because of the extreme illiteracy of the populace it was compiled from and the fact that even Muslim sources argue the written Quran (at least that of this world) was compiled after Muhummad’s death (at least while they doublethink themselves about how it is perfect and descended from heaven, or how they talk about the failed attempt to write down Muhummad’s “revelations” that drove its would be scribe to apostasy at how Muhummad acted).

It’s a similar problem with pre-Nicea Christian scripture, but vastly more extreme because we at least have a bunch of written sources for Jewish and early Christian scripture (some of which were heretical or heterodox).

And indeed one reason this could be discussed by Muslims so candidly is because it can be harmonized more easily with conventional Muslim dogma and historiography.

Given the fact that the Islamic “settler colonizers” remain in control of the “stolen lands” they “illegally occupied” (to use the left’s terms) if these texts that Uthman supposedly compiled and distributed to the provinces ever existed the Muslims could produce at least one.

Absolute horseshit that tells me you haven’t studied the problems of hunting down surviving sources – even thoroughly noncontroversial or popular ones (and early drafts of the Quran, Surah; and Hadiths absolutely would be controversial) in this era or even before or after. This is an era where each and every copy of each and every document would have to be written by hand and distributed from there, an issue that has obvious logistical problems both in distribution and preservation. We quite literally have Roman sources complaining about how hard it would be to find poetry or book copies if a given author or work fell out of fashion for as little as half a decade, and that again was in a much more literate world than the Late Antiquity Middle East. We have massive lists of written works we either know or have good reason to believe existed but which have been lost because transmission failed somewhere along the line, and even more where the game of telephone saw edits.

And again, this is without forgery, lies, or campaigns of book burning factoring in. And it is quite easy to see all of the above factoring in here, especially that last one if the early drafts of Muslim scripture or history proved inconvenient to the Powers that Be. If Sargon of Akkad could do it thousands of years before, Mu’awiya, Umar, and Mohammad certainly could. And Muslim scripture implies Mo did some of that to the supposed very first written records of his work by
Abd Allah ibn Sa’d.

They can’t because Islam didn’t exist in the seventh century.

This is one gigantic leap of logic, made without considering alternate explanations. And again, even your own sources point to identifications of the early Arab armies with some kind of political or religious identity, even if this was distinct from “Islam” as we know it (and that is a big If).

All of these Qurans were begun in the eighth century, and were heavily edited for decades.

Which doesn’t mean the Quranic source material or Islam “didn’t exist.” It probably took centuries for the Homeric Epic Cycle to be transcribed by anyone, for instance. That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist prior to that.

Ibn Ishaq supposedly wrote a biography of the prophet Muhammad, to distinguish between this Muhammad and the others, but we don’t have it.

Which again isn’t too surprising even if we don’t factor in the possibilities of political censorship or iconoclasm (both of which were insanely powerful in Muslim history), since we don’t have a lot of works, even from far more literate and politically open societies.

We only think we know it existed because the first biography we do have was written by ibn Hisham in 833 and he claims it existed. But ibn Hisham also tells us he only kept the parts he liked. So throw out ibn Ishaq; he did.

Fair and this certainly gives us plenty of reason to distrust Muslim sources unless they correlate with others.

The first biography of Muhammad was written 200 years after Muhammad died. The first Hadith collection, Sahih al Bukhari, was compiled in 870. 240 years after Muhammad supposedly died.

Which is on a historical terms – and especially a premodern, mostly illiterate society – that is a remarkably quick turnover, and one that is still less than many others. For reference, it took about 150-200 years for the first draft of the Sikh Holy Scripture to be put together, and another century for it to be considered complete as the Final Guru. But there’s much less suspicion because the Sikh Gurus emerged in a rather old, literate civilization and their lives and deeds were recorded at or close to their lifetimes (including by hostile sources such as Aurangzeb, the great Islamist Emperor of the Mughals). And of course the Sikhs were much more pluralistic and open and much less prone to censorship.

They were making this up as they were going along.

Even if that were true it does not mean they did not have a clear foundation they built off of, which many of your sources point to an early imperial, at least quasi-religious project by an armed prophet identified tentatively as Muhammad.

Again, go to Mu’awiya’s Wikipedia page and look at that Persian-style coin.

Again, learn basic fucking Numismatics and get back to me. You can start with the Romans and their coinage issues, or go back further if you want a fuller picture with things such as early Mesopotamian currency and the Athenian Owls. But in any case I would particularly suggest looking at Dark Age Britain and Scandinavia since they are rough contemporaries of this era but had far less religiously motivated censorship of scholarship on this era.

Especially since Muslim sources explicitly point to their leadership promising war booty to their fighters from Infidels and other enemies, including slaves and coins. And how damn common it is for up and coming regimes to crib from other, more settled ones

Normally I don’t use Wikipedia as a source but I have absolutely no reason to doubt the authenticity of those coins.

Ironic given how you won’t do even compare it to there.

Everything else on the page maybe but not the coins. No doubt he was issuing Byzantine-style coins for his new subjects in the former Roman-controlled regions. That obviously couldn’t go on forever. He and his successors needed one religion to tie the whole new empire together.

More like monetary currency for it.

Also again, coins have fungibility that often goes far beyond religion. Take a look at Viking Grave Goods laden with Muslim and Christian coins, or early Pagan Anglo-Saxon holds filled with Roman ones.

In any case, you sure as hell haven’t proven that Islam didn’t exist in the 7th century. Indeed, you have mostly underlined that you aren’t considering your sources carefully.

You have no explanation for inconsistencies in coin use in an era and region famous for inconsistent coinage beyond “must not have been Muslim!”

You latch on to the Doctrina Jacobi contradicting the usual dating of Muhummad without also observing its inconsistencies in other issues, or how telling it is that it identified Arabs fighting on behalf of an armed-with-sword prophet named Muhummad.

You apparently don’t understand how spectacularly difficult it is for pre-printing press civilizations to transmit writings or knowledge, even without censorship or deliberate destruction of sources (which we have reason to believe were present).

You have no explanation for why we see Jews confirmed to be in Arabia – especially Yemen and around Petra – in the 500s and very few in Yemen and basically none outside it by the early 700s.

You have no explanation for why the Arabs would where out of Arabic as a united empire in the 600s and 700s unlike anything they had been before beyond vague mentions of referencing the weaknesses of both Byzantine and Persian Empires (true enough but not much of a “push” explanation since similar periods of mutual devastation had come before without this kind of Arabic upsurge).

You do not know what you don’t know, and that means your arguments fall apart under close scrutiny. And also why in spite of my obvious moral as well as historical issues with Muhummad as portrayed in Muslim sources I have reason to broadly believe their outline. Perhaps Mo was younger than portrayed and maybe he did partake in actual invasions of the Roman Levant (it would be risky beyond belief for Umar or who have you to claim credit for the supposed Prophet’s victories like that but not necessarily impossible as Thutmose III showed). I certainly have no reason to believe he was Prophet of God or a Perfect Man. But here is still a Muhummad-shaped—hole in the historiography otherwise that would be best filled by someone or some people acting out rather similarly to how Muhummad is claimed to be doing so.

In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood noticed how useful the baseless political smear homophobia has been to shut people up or, failing that, discrediting them so others are afraid to listen to them they invented a word that would have the same effect.

After all, they couldn’t and can’t yet demand we adopt Sharia blasphemy and slander laws. In all schools of sharia slander includes but is not limited to lying. It also includes telling a truth that a Muslim (or group of Muslims) does not want known.

It dovetails perfectly with the hate speech laws the left has imposed in Europe. The truth is no defense.

Hello, misinformation, disinformation, and especially malinformation (information our rulers are forced to admit is true but they claim is “harmful”)!

In further double standards news, it’s ok for Hamas supporters to blame all Jews everywhere for the perceived injustices of Israel. Jews are being assaulted in Piccadilly Square in London (like we should expect less in Siddiq Khan’s London) for the crime of being identifiably Jewish. Just as Jewish students are threatened on college campi from coast to coast in the U. S.

By the same Mensa members/theologians who say collective punishment is a war crime when Israel does it.

Muslim: one who submits (to Islam).
Mujahid: one who wages jihad.
Musharik: one who commits the unforgivable sin of shirk (assigning partners to Allah).
Ergo…
Muhammad: one who is praiseworthy.

The title goes back to a word in Ugaritic which can mean precious, desirable, chosen (as in the chosen one or the chosen people), glorified, or praiseworthy. It became a loanword in the semitic languages that evolved into Hebrew, the Aramaic variants, and later Arabic. First as a word, then a title.

If you doubt me, do what I did. I can’t copy and paste anything from my phone. So I’ll give the search terms I used: “Hebrew word machmad Song of Solomon altogether lovely.” You should get a result referencing Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon. The reason this is important is that the Quran says the prophet of Islam is predicted in the Torah and the Gospel. Muslims have been desperately searching for that prediction for 1200 years. They haven’t been able to find it because, like seventh century Islam, it doesn’t exist. So out of desperation they’ve seized on this, not caring that the Song of Solomon isn’t part of the Torah. They’re wrong, but the Hebrew machmad and Arabic Muhammad do descend from the same 3k y.o. loanword.

The Doctrina Jacobi a seventh century source written about 634-640 refers to a Muhammad that couldn’t possibly be the prophet of Islam. There are coins in the British museum in London depicting a Christian ruler, with a cross on his crown and staff, inscribed Muhammad.

But Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem from Jerusalem from 634-638, writes in great details about the conquering Arab armies. The called themselves many things; saracens, Ishmaelites, Hagarines, etc. But never Muslims. Nor did they ever talk about having a prophet Muhammad nor mention a holy text called the Quran. Odd, don’t you think, if these armies were conquering out of a zeal born of their new religion.

Sophronius, like the later John of Damascus, thought their religion was some sort of Christian heresy. It may well have been. Those coins I referred to earlier might have been minted by, and depicted, the first umayyid Caliph Mu’awiya. Yet if you go to his Wikipedia page you’ll see depictions of coins minted in his name (which I knew about) and there are no Christian symbols. True enough. But if Islam came before the conquest what is Mu’awiya’s image doing on the obverse of the coin? Explain the Zoroastrian symbols on the reverse.

I mention Sophronius because he’s an outside, hostile source. Just like the Doctrina Jacobi. The authenticity of that document is doubted because that Muhammad raided into Gaza two years after the Muhammad of the Islamic creation myth died in 632. This is only a problem if we treat the Islamic creation myth the same way Reuters, the AP, and the WaPo treat casualty figures from the ‘Gazan Health Ministry. ” As if the information 100 percent reliable and is coming from an unbiased source. Why?

We know nothing about how Muhammad and his followers treated the Jews of Arabia because all we have are Islamic sources that weren’t written until 200 years or more after the mythical Muhammad died. Is there any archeological evidence, any evidence, outside the Islamic sources there were even Jews in Yathrib? No. There are Jewish burial sites in the north of Saudi Arabia, but not in the Hijaz.

If we look at the Islamic texts themselves the evidence is clear. None of the oldest quranic manuscripts date back to Uthman, the Caliph who supposedly compiled the Quran about 652. Two Turkish Muslim scholars who were allowed exclusive access to the Topkapi manuscript in Istanbul, and also access to the Samarkand in Tashkent, the Husseini in Cairo, and the Sana’a from Yemen confirmed this fact. Given the fact that the Islamic “settler colonizers” remain in control of the “stolen lands” they “illegally occupied” (to use the left’s terms) if these texts that Uthman supposedly compiled and distributed to the provinces ever existed the Muslims could produce at least one. They can’t because Islam didn’t exist in the seventh century. All of these Qurans were begun in the eighth century, and were heavily edited for decades.

Ibn Ishaq supposedly wrote a biography of the prophet Muhammad, to distinguish between this Muhammad and the others, but we don’t have it. We only think we know it existed because the first biography we do have was written by ibn Hisham in 833 and he claims it existed. But ibn Hisham also tells us he only kept the parts he liked. So throw out ibn Ishaq; he did. The first biography of Muhammad was written 200 years after Muhammad died. The first Hadith collection, Sahih al Bukhari, was compiled in 870. 240 years after Muhammad supposedly died.

They were making this up as they were going along. Again, go to Mu’awiya’s Wikipedia page and look at that Persian-style coin. Normally I don’t use Wikipedia as a source but I have absolutely no reason to doubt the authenticity of those coins. Everything else on the page maybe but not the coins. No doubt he was issuing Byzantine-style coins for his new subjects in the former Roman-controlled regions. That obviously couldn’t go on forever. He and his successors needed one religion to tie the whole new empire together.

To be sure, crying “wolf” to gain perceived political advantage has a long—and repulsive—pedigree…

Pay attention to what’s actually happening then, and you won’t wonder. Anti-Semitism is very real, and has a very long and violent history.

Islamophobia is not and does not.

Also, the Jews and Israel are judged by double standards and held to standards higher than any other people and country on earth. The Muslims the opposite in the double-standards game: held to standards lower than other people.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20414/france-skyrocketing-threat

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20414/france-skyrocketing-threat

The only consolation is that when only the Islamists and their Marxist apologists remain, the scimitars will be unsheathed.

Yes, “Islamophobia” is a make-up word to preempt criticism. But lately I’ve noticed that the recent uptick in screaming about “antisemitism” seems to be running parallel. Suddenly, everything is antisemitic. I’m starting to wonder about that.

Again i say islamognosos like spencer like gabriel like any of those who have witnessss what it wrought