Talk:Historicity of Muhammad

Remove the thing in the lede that the existence of Muhammad is established.

Some serious historians disagree. Even if their views are fringe, the fact that there is some dispute should be stated.

Jasper0333 (talk)

What's the general consensus?

there are general consensus among scholars beyond just "Prophet Muhammad existing". Why is it not brought up here? Why are the fringe views of a very few tiny minority of people is put at the forefront, but not the general consensus? This seems like a weird thing tbh GrandSultanMaeltheGreat (talk) 08:23, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

This information and documents must be incorporated into the article.

https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/inscriptions/earlyislam NGC 628 (talk) 08:00, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

This page is an embarrassment

Denying the Historicity of Muhammad opens to the door to deny the historicity of Alexander, Cyrus and many other figures from history. Anyone could write anything he wants in history if one could just deny such basic historical facts. ~2025-31350-48 (talk) 20:49, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Remove Robert B. Spencer from the article?

Robert Spencer, while having a degree in theology, specialises in christian theology. His works regarding Islam are not peer-reviewed and are often published by conservative institutions and publishing houses. Furthermore, he has a very public anti-islam stance and was even criticised within Catholic Church for his radical Islamophobic views, this happened while he was still catholic.

Given all this, he is hardly an unbiased researcher, I would argue that due to all this and his membership in conservative movements such as anti-jihad, he has a vested interest in criticising Islamic history and institutions, regardless if the criticisms are valid or not RelativeCombinationYeß (talk) 07:04, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Upon further examination, I think that Yehuda Nevo's work should also be removed, the methodology is flawed and authors seem to jump to conclusions and rejecting every traditionally held view in the western historiography. All the positive reviews on his article are from conservative think tanks that are also failing to comment on the content of the article, opting to praise it in vague terms instead.

I fail to see the benefit of adding such fringe and poorly evidenced works that are clearly biased. While there are scholars that doubt the historicity of early Islam, these additions do more to discourage any sort of discussion, since they seem to be politically charged RelativeCombinationYeß (talk) 07:27, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I know that the scholarly consensus is that Muhammad existed. But are there other sources for that claim? In terms of Spencer, is that view is fringe then it probably should be removed. See WP:FRINGE for some guidelines. Ramos1990 (talk) 18:19, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

"conservative institutions and publishing houses" A bit more context is needed here. Does "conservative" here translate to affiliation with a conservative party, or adherence to Christian fundamentalism? The last thing we need is treating religious propaganda as a reliable source. Dimadick (talk) 22:45, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

His book about Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was published by Bombardier Books owned by Post Hill Press, provided is the quote of their mission statement:

"In a time when the media and much of America’s elite tries to limit and stifle debate in the name of sensitivity, safe spaces, and political correctness, now more than ever we need writers with courage and conviction—and the gift to be able to express themselves with intelligence, eloquence, and good humor. Now is the perfect time to unleash a torrent of provocative thought onto the political and cultural battleground.

This is the mission of Bombardier Books. Because sometimes you need to drop rhetorical bombs from 40,000 feet to get people to hear new ideas. Other times you need to target bad policies with laser precision to take them out before they do too much damage. And occasionally you need a tailgunner to defend your comrades-at-arms from sneak attacks."

Why a publishing house employs an openly jingoistinc and militaristic language is beyond me. They also clearly state that they view themselves as soldiers in the culture wars. Not to mention Post Hill Press itself, a Christian fundamentalist publisher RelativeCombinationYeß (talk) 09:06, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

There are a few other sources from other publishers (as you pointed out with Nevo from a questionable antireligion publisher), not just Spencer on such a point. Perhaps some context should be included that nonexistence theories are not considered a mainstream position. Otherwise you still have other sources that push the point. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:08, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@Dimadick: The last thing we need is Muslim editors like the above, and anti-religious editors like yourself, removing sources solely on the basis of personal ideological opposition or animosity to the author(s). ~2026-35823-03 (talk) 06:54, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

So you oppose an edit from a man that has a bias in the article talk page(since I do have a bias, that much I admit), but are ok with leaving an even more biased opinion from a man who makes money from selling his bias in the article itself? If being muslim is enough to disqualify someone from editing this page, then being christian should warrant the same treatment, considering the strong animosity various christian organisations had and still have towards other faiths, Islam included RelativeCombinationYeß (talk) 14:01, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

@RelativeCombinationYeß: His works... are often published by conservative institutions and publishing houses. So what? This has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on their veracity. You're merely betraying your own leftist bias. he has a very public anti-islam stance Again, so what? This has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on their veracity. You're merely betraying your own pro-Islam bias. ~2026-35823-03 (talk) 06:52, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

So what is not a valid answer, considering that he is very openly biased man, writing on topic he has very strong opinions on and being published by a publishing house that specialises in “culture war” and uses phrases that imply its “military” purpose. Not to mention that a lot of books published by them are ahistorical and with amount of mental gymnastics the authors employ should be considered fiction. If he is one of the best authors who writes about ahistoricity of Prophet Muhammad(pbuh), then he is clearly a historical figure RelativeCombinationYeß (talk) 13:53, 20 June 2026 (UTC)