Islam: The Untold Story

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Tom Holland points to the “black hole” of the origins of Islam and investigates as a detective on the inconsistencies of muslim sources, the absence of ancient sources, the absence of any mention of Muhammad or Mecca before the end of the 7th century , the very late nature of the 1st biography of Muhammad (dated from 200 years after his death). He meets specialists, scholars and archaeologists (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Patricia Crone, Guy Stroumsa, Fred Donner and Tali Erickson-Gini), visits the sites, contemplates the vestiges, looks for historical material, which he confronts with the Islamic narrative.

Holland looks at the earliest evidence for Muhammad, Mecca and Islam in the first century of the Arab Empire, pointing to a lack of evidence in the historical record to support the traditional account. He points out that there is almost no contemporary historical evidence about the life of Muhammad, with no mention of him at all in historical texts until 70 years after his death. He states that contrary to Islamic doctrine which says Islam was behind the creation of the Arab Empire, Muawiyah I became leader of the Arab Empire in Jerusalem 30 years after Muhammad’s death despite showing little sign of being Muslim, and that no mention of Muhammad or Islam can be found in any of Muawiyah’s inscriptions, coins, or documents.

Holland proceeds to note that with the exception of a single ambiguous reference in the Qur’an, there is no mention of Mecca in any datable text until a century after Muhammad’s death. He points out that in the Qur’an, the Prophet appears to address farmers and agriculturalists while his opponents are described as keeping cattle and growing olives and vines. This appears to describe an environment foreign to Mecca, where there was no agriculture; thus Holland posits that the location attributed to Mecca in the Qur’an more closely fits a city in the Negev desert, in what is now southern Israel.

Holland suggests that under the reign of Arab Emperor Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, Mecca was intentionally yet erroneously portrayed as Muhammad’s home and the birthplace of Islam in order to provide the religion with Arabian origins. Holland argues that in doing so, the faith was dissociated from the Jewish or Christian heritage that would have been self evident at a location in the Negev.

What if instead of Islam giving birth to the Arab empire, the Arab empire gave birth to Islam? Abdullah Ibn Al-Zubair realized what the Roman emperor Constantine had realized long before him—that it no good to lay claim to a prophet of God unless he could demonstrate the cast iron basis on which he was making that claim. Constantine turned to the Christian church. Ibn Al-Zubair turned to Muhammad. The name of Muhammad was used to buttress earthly power.

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Hi there, this is revisionism at its finest and l welcome it as it self-parodies and thus is easily ignored by the casual passerby.

The life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was perhaps the most well documented life ever, at least before the 1900s. The chains of narration of ahadith have contributed to the grading of the ahadith, which also takes in correlation with other ahadith and the teachings of the Qur’an.

The history of Makkah was never doubted by anybody.

Holland’s motivation becomes rapidly clear: Negev, Jewish-Christian heritage etc. etc. and thus he reduces Islam to a derivative “tale of the ancients”

This is nothing new, the pagans used to dismiss Islam in the same way, as noted in the Qur’an:

6:25 Of them are some who listen unto thee, but We have placed upon their hearts veils, lest they should understand, and in their ears a deafness. If they saw every token they would not believe therein; to the point that, when they come unto thee to argue with thee, the disbelievers say: This is naught else than fables of the men of old.

8:31 And when Our revelations are recited unto them they say: We have heard. If we wish we can speak the like of this. Lo! this is naught but fables of the men of old.

16:24 And when it is said unto them: What hath your Lord revealed ? they say: (Mere) fables of the men of old,

23:83 We were already promised this, we and our forefathers. Lo! this is naught but fables of the men of old.

25:5 And they say: Fables of the men of old which he hath had written down so that they are dictated to him morn and evening.

27:68 We were promised this, forsooth, we and our fathers. (All) this is naught but fables of the men of old.

46:17 And whoso saith unto his parents: Fie upon you both! Do ye threaten me that I shall be brought forth (again) when generations before me have passed away ? And they twain cry unto Allah for help (and say): Woe unto thee! Believe! Lo! the promise of Allah is true. But he saith: This is naught save fables of the men of old:

68:15 That, when Our revelations are recited unto him, he saith: Mere fables of the men of old.

83:13 Who, when thou readest unto him Our revelations, saith: (Mere) fables of the men of old.

Also note: the Arabs were not a majorly literary civilisation. They tended only to use writing for commerce.

Finally: the Prophet forbade the writing down of the ahadith about him, l think because he feared people would dogmatise the traditions about him, as well as people inserting forged traditions. We eventually went ahead and wrote them down anyway. This was when Islam had reached far-flung regions where people didn’t have strong Arabic language and not many Islamic teachers, hence great scholars e.g. from Arabia and Central Asia, compiled the traditions into codified books.

These traditions include the history of Islam, hence the history of Islam under the Prophet was not put in writing until later.

How about this: you never did your first and second year at university, because where was your thesis? It only occurred in your third year. That’s Mr. Holland’s logic, not mine. Oh, and therefore we may suppose your university was in Liechtenstein not [wherever you really did your degree] because records show there was a university in Liechtenstein at the time. Bla bla bla.

Also, odd how the entirety of academia and not to mention the ordinary Muslim world, never figured this out. Only Mr. Holland.

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I am a person who believes that the highest forms of religion are non-violent. The notion that perhaps Mohammed himself was actually nonviolent, and that his spiritual vision was distorted by those who came after would make Islam more attractive to me if I could believe it. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking. I do have an affinity with the Sufi non-dual wisdom poetry. I have entertained the hypothesis that Sufism proceeded Islam.

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Hi there, non-violence isn’t a virtue in and of itself. No religion is non-violent. Telling the truth is a virtue and your video is a violent murder of the truth.

Mecca is steeped in landmarks relating to the Prophet’s life, where Muslims have always gone for pilgrimage. E.g. the house of his first wife Khadija (now demolished by the Wahhabis), and his own grave, and the graveyard of all the saints (now majorly demolished by the Wahhabis). The Prophet grew up in Mecca. The fierce persecution of Muslims by pagans happened in Mecca because Mecca was a pagan centre. The flight to Christian Abyssinia occurred because of that persecution. Christian Abyssinia was across the Red Sea from Mecca.

This has ab-so-lutely nothing to do with Petra / Jerusalem. These places are not Mecca. Please, don’t lie. Lying is a vice not a virtue.

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Let me repeat though: In a roundabout way, l want you to continue this strange lie that Mecca was really a city in the heart of Byzantine Christendom. That lie makes my religion clearly true by contrast. I know it’s naughty of me to say that.

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Incidentally, l don’t know why you see no virtue in our Prophet (peace be upon him).

  1. He was known as Al-Amin before Prophethood, meaning “the Trustworthy” as he was such a trustworthy merchant
  2. He was recognised as the awaited Prophet foretold by Christ in the Near East, e.g. a Nestorian Monk named Bahira instantly recognised him, prior to actual Prophethood
  3. Upon meeting the Angel Gabriel he tried to kill himself as he thought he had gone mad, he never planned to lie to people about being a Prophet
  4. As a Prophet, he lost everything: social status, security etc.
  5. He lived in poverty all his life as a Prophet, sleeping on the floor on palm leaves, they would leave an imprint on his back. Still, wealth passed through his hands to be distributed to the poor and needy. As the Qur’an teaches us , those who belie religion are those who repel the orphan and urge not the feeding of the needy (Surah Ma’un, “Small Kindnesses”).
  6. He foretold things with great accuracy e.g. where people would die at the Battle of Badr, the victory of the resurgent Romans over the pagan Persians despite the Romans being in no way fit to fight the Persians. He also gave a lot of prophecies that are coming true today e.g. women would be clothed yet naked, destitute shepherds would vie with one another to construct tall buildings (the Gulf States arose very rapidly like that) etc. etc.
  7. When eventually offered a power-sharing deal with the ruling pagan tribe, such that Allah would be worshipped alongside the pagan pantheon, he refused. He could have profitted greatly and had instant security.
  8. When he died, he had very few possessoins, l think just a metal breastplate for fighting and a few other small items, including something that was security for a debt.
  9. He forbade his own daughters to inherit anything, lest his family become institutionlised and seduced by the world into becoming a materialist power house. He just wanted them to melt away and disappear into the world as they were the people of the next life not this world.
  10. You already know from the Bible that all prophets were slandered. You know the Bible said the Arabs would eventually be blessed. You know the Prophet Muhammad acted like a Prophet after the manner of kingly Prophets. So all things said and done l personally admire him.
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Wasn’t Muhammad a thief and a warrior who took women as sex slaves and consummated with a 9 year old he forcibly married?

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I found Holland’s proposition interesting because it seems to parallel the work of modern critical scholars regarding the historicity of Jesus, wherein many of what were long taken to be historical facts were uncorroborated by and sometimes contradicted by other historical evidence. I was unaware of similar scholarship into the historicity of Muhammad prior to the info I posted by Holland. I’m open to what you have to say on the issue, though I must admit I do find your accusation of lying right out of the box offputting as I posted the info in good faith, and whether Holland is right or wrong I haven’t found reason to inpugn his motives.

On the related topic of Islam nondual consciousness and non violence I found the following in The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley:

“In India, as in Persia, Mohammedan thought came to be enriched by the doctrine that God is immanent as well as transcendent, while to Mohammedan practice were added the moral disciplines and “spiritual exercises,” by means of which the soul is prepared for contemplation or the unitive knowledge of the Godhead. It is a significant historical fact that the poet-saint Kabir is claimed as a co-religionist both by Moslems and Hindus. The politics of those whose goal is beyond time are always pacific; it is the idolaters of past and future, of reactionary memory and Utopian dream, who do the persecuting and make the wars.”

“Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray.”Kabir

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Hi there, it is an obvious lie to say Mecca was not Mecca but Petra or Jerusalem, l’ve explained why. This revisionism - both that around Jesus and this new one about Muhammad (peace be upon him) - amount to the same thing: reducing it to “tales of the ancients” that can easily be dismissed as fable, aka “historicity”.

So, essentially they are accusing Christianity and Islam as being lies root and branch. They do the same about Judaism in that they claim it to be a Canaanite cult, rather than a tribe or two, that migrated from southern Iraq to Canaan. The reasons are obvious, 1. to deny Abrahamic faiths 2. To bring Judaism property rights to Canaan (by forgetting the part where they migrated from Iraq).

Regarding the other fanatic’s jibes (and when one falsely accuses someone, the accusation falls on onesself, and this is more evident as the detractor seems to be fiery, unsettled, disturbed, possibly from viewing images of what he accuses others of doing. his eyes seem cursed), in Islam marriages are made through representatives, in this case Lady 'Aisha’s father and the Prophet. She and her father broke off her previous engagement to a pagan.

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Interesting what you quoted about Sufism in the Indian subcontinent. The Prophet foretold that something good would emerge from the Indian subcontinent:

“It is reported in Hadith that the Holy Prophet would say, “I feel a cool breeze coming from Hind.”

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If you can provide a transcript of the documentary, l’ll be happy to deconstruct all of its claims one by one. Otherwise it’s too much work for me to keep pausing, giving timestamps, writing up the claim, writing up the rebuttal, etc.

I have to say, the documentary is thick with lies. Thick with lies. Right from the start.

It’s not just the spoken words, it’s the awkward camera shots of the least handsome wind-battered nomads the author could find, it’s the sound effects, e.g. the seductive mournful female singing while discussing Christian Constantinople, the heavy metallic thump when discussing its Muslim conquest.

I’ll give a few rebuttals to lies l can recall so far (only saw the first quarter of it or so):

  1. The early Muslims did not say God gave them the Qur’an and God gave them an Empire. Actually, Empires (dynastic rulership) are forbidden in Islam. Monarchies are forbidden.
  2. The conquerors of the Arabia were not nomads. The nomadic bedouin were a part of the conquering armies yes, but by no means the entirety. In fact the nomads are reprimanded in the Qur’an.
  3. It wasn’t the nomadic Arabs that conquered the Near East. This is a classic and deliberate error to delegitimise Islam in the Near East (Arabia). The Arabs were joined by conquered nations e.g. Byzantine converts. Arabic was a language and the Prophet taught us that from now on, anybody that speaks Arabic is an Arab. The definition irrevocably passed from ethnic to linguistic. That is how the Near East became Arabic. They changed their language to the cousin language Arabic. The people were the same people that had always been there.
  4. The documentary begins by closing in on the least handsome aged Bedouin men.
  5. The documentary claims these nomadic Muslims conquered the Promised Land and claimed it for their own, and that they sought legitimacy via Isma’il son of Abraham (peace be upon them both). This makes it seem like we subscribe to the same nationalistic cult as Zionism. It’s not at all true. We did not claim Abraham to be our own instead of Judaism’s founding father. Abraham was not a Jew and he had his own revealed scripture called The Scrolls of Abraham (plagiarised from Islam by the Mormons). Muslims revere Isma’il and Ishaq as prophets, peace be upon them both.
  6. The documentary claims Constantinople was the capital city of a universal Christianity, for a universal Roman empire, and that the Muslims saw this and coveted it and so forumulated Islam as a rival universal religion. This is false. Christianity may have been made universal by Paul but this was not what Jesus (peace be upon him) intended, he only came for Israel. And the documentary thus tacitly admits that Islam was universal, yet earlier it had claimed it was tied to Isma’il’s descent from Abraham. The fact is Islam is universal, the Prophet Muhammad was the only Prophet that came for the entire world as we know it.
  7. Holland describes the time just before birth of the Prophet Muhammad as being at “5 minutes to midnight”. At the start of the documentary he claims to feel like he’s being dragged into a “black hole”. His authorities on the matter all have the most dishonest faces you’ll ever see and they do indeed lie flatulently. All except Syed Hossein Nasr who eloquently answers his question re: can a non-Muslim understand Islam, with “No”. I’m actually going to say: “Yes” It’s possible, but you have to be honest and blot out the vile propaganda against Islam, feed off clean sources. Avoid Wikipedia, every single article is based on Orientalist sources. Muslims don’t bother editing it, we stick to our own sites.
  8. Finally for now, let me get to the crux of the matter: There were no famous Arab polymaths from Mecca or Medina in the Golden Age of Islam, this was because it was the eye of the swirling intellectual hurricane. The holy cities were not places of worldly lore, they were the centre of gravity where religion is wordless. Moreover, Makkah is actually referred to in the Qur’an (as everyone admits) both directly and indirectly:

Directly:
Qur’an 48:24 directly mentions Makkah (elsewhere in the Qur’an it refers to Bakkah):
And He it is Who hath withheld men’s hands from you, and hath withheld your hands from them, in the valley of Mecca, after He had made you victors over them. Allah is Seer of what ye do.

Indirectly as Bakkah (note: the footprint of Abraham is found in Makkah, at the sanctuary built by Abraham and his firstborn, Isma’il, not at any valley near Jerusalem):
3:96 Lo! the first Sanctuary appointed for mankind was that at Becca, a blessed place, a guidance to the peoples;

And indirectly as “The House” (the Ka’aba, the epicentre of Makkah):
Qur’an Surah 106 (Quraysh):
For the taming of Qureysh.
For their taming (We cause) the caravans to set forth in winter and summer.
So let them worship the Lord of this House,
Who hath fed them against hunger and hath made them safe from fear.

The “House” is, and can only ever be, understood as the Sacred House, the Black Box, possibly the first house ever built, albeit drastically changed over time by successive nations.

The Quraysh are the ruling tribe of Makkah in present day Saudi Arabia. So you see, this Qur’anic chapter is absolutely locked on to the Sacred House looked after by the Pagan Quraysh that turned it into the equivalent of the Stock Exchange for Arabia and who weren’t too happy that Prophet Muhammad was bringing their stock exchange down and replacing it with Allah and in fact ending all the wheeling and dealing around the Sacred House just as Jesus tried to do with the Temple of Solomon - hence the Surah was revealed, reminding the Quraysh that Allah has always looked after them so they should now cleave to their first and only only Prophet and accept Monotheism The documentary states it was a desert stronghold when in fact it is an oasis city, you can’t have an ancient city purely in desert sands, there has to be a rich, verdant oasis. Islam is not a desert religion as such, it was originally an oasis city religion.

By the way, Mu’awiyah used existing coins and stamped one side, hence there wasn’t full Islamic coinage in his time, perhaps. There are in fact hoards of Muslim coins with Islamic inscriptions in Scandinavia, dating from circa 770-1050CE.

Also note:


https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/C_1913-1213-1
English King Offa of Mercia issued gold dinar coins dated 773-774 CE, with the Islamic declaration of faith “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Messenger” on one side, and “Offa Rex” on the other. That is 157AH, circa 146 years after the death of the Prophet. Then subtract the time it would have taken for the coin to even reach England - circa 50-100 years - and also subtract the time it would have taken for a Muslim caliphate to establish itself long enough to start minting fresh coins with the Islamic declaration of faith - circa 50-100 years - so that’s way, way, way sooner than the 200 years after the death of the Prophet claimed by the documentary

Also please view this Christian man’s summary of why Bakah / Bacah = Makkah - the part where he discusses Islamic scholars’ opinions, here: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-Valley-of-Baca-in-Psalm-84
I’m unsure about traditional Bible scholarship though. I have read the morphology of the Biblical “Baca” and the Qur’anic “Bakka” may be different, but they may refer to the same type of tree, a balsam tree.

Finally: Check out the mathematical miracles of Makkah, the only Makkah, in present day Saudi Arabia, which l gave as another way of rebutting your video: Two Mathematical Miracles of Mecca (only discovered via Modern Measurements)

I could go on but l swear it’s very hard to catalogue the flatulent lies in this documentary, plus as l say, it’s not just the words, it’s the sound effects deliberately imposed to sway you and the innuendo with the camera shots of world weary ageing bedouins. If you can provide a transcript it would be easier for me.

But please note, all that l’ve given above is a long rebuttal of what is an obvious lie to anybody with common sense. We know where Makkah is.

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I don’t have a transcript and I haven’t looked at the video since June 2024. So I’ll have to see if Tom Holland has published anything on his theory.

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There may be software that can generate a rinky dink transcript. I pledge to pitch in and answer every claim if you can procure a transcript, otherwise it will be too much effort my friend, even reviewing the first 20 minutes was overload for me, too many lies to rebut, and then there were the innuendoes with sound effects and awkward camera shots of half dead haggard old nomads contrasted with the lustful singing of a churched lady when Christianity is referenced.

To whoever is interested in the historicity of the Prophet Muhammad: A charter of protection to a monaastery in the Sinai, now a Muslim pilgrimage site for people to see the Prophet’s handprint:

I haven’t read the entire article and l don’t want to - l read of the charter via alternative sources but l forgot where. Wikipedia is poisonous in all articles about Muslims, so be judicious.

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I just downloaded In the shadow of the sword : the birth of Islam and the rise of the global Arab empire by Tom Holland. I’ll get back to you tomorrow after I have a chance to look at it.

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Sure. Transcripts will be helpful.

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By the way, in lieu of transcripts, you can also just write your own handlist of claims brought forward by the author but l’d say do it with an eagle eye for detail because a lot of what he says is innuendo and fine detail, easily overlooked by someone already evinced of his ideas.

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I note that you seem to be certain about the truth of recorded history. Isn’t it, in fact, always a matter of probability rather than certainty? The question of sources has already presented itself. I have made no effort to resolve it at this point. How can you prove that your sources, whatever they may be, are true and Mr. Holland’s a lie?

As a starter I’ll present two passages for your comment.

  1. Most spectacular and irrefutable sign of God’s favour… was the transformation of Muhammad, in no more than a decade, from refugee to effective master of Arabia. He led twenty-seven campaigns in all, according to Ibn Hisham; and if occasionally there was a defeat, and if the angels, by and large, chose not to fight as they had done at Badr, but rather to serve him as a reserve, then perhaps his ultimate triumph could be considered only the more extraordinary for it. By 632, the traditional date of his death, paganism in Arabia had everywhere been put in shadow. Sweetest moment of all had been the conquest, two years previously, of Mecca itself. Riding into his hometown, Muhammad had ordered the Ka’ba stripped of its gods. A great bonfire had been lit. The toppled idols had been consigned to its flames. The Devil, summoning his progeny around him, had cried out in woe: “Abandon all hope that the community of Muhammad will ever revert to shirk after this day of theirs!” 21 Waqidi:Kitab al-Maghazi, quoted by Hawting (1999), p. 69.

  2. Well might he have yowled. The venerable sanctuary, that pre-eminent bastion of paganism, had been brought at last to a due submission: to “Islam.” This consecration of Mecca to the service of the One True God, however, was far from an innovation. What Muhammad had done, so he revealed to his followers, was restore the shrine to its primordial, pristine state. “God made Mecca holy the day He created heaven and earth. It is the holy of holies until the resurrection day.” 22 Ibn Hisham, p. 555.

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Hello,

Your opening statement is a vague grumble about my historical evidence, casting aspersions that it is somehow subjective. Artifacts are not subjective, they are literally objects, l have shown you photographic images of them. Your objection is nullified and l honestly wonder why you’d grumble about that. I’m wondering if l’m wasting my time now.

I’ll humour you though and continue, but you must not arbitrarily dismiss what l say (i.e. when l show you photos of multiple physical artifacts - one Saxon coin held in the British Museum with the Islamic testament of faith - there is No God but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger - inscribed on the reverse, and apparently also even on the front, with “Offa Rex” stamped by the Saxons in the middle, dating the coin to 773-774 CE, and one treaty kept in the Sinai monastery with multiple copies kept in other locations, authored by the Prophet - which absolutely disprove that Islam was formulated 200 years after the death year of the Prophet Muhammad), otherwise there’s no point in my debating:

  1. The most spectacular and irrefutable sign of God’s favour is debatable. Here the author is talking offhandedly, mockingly. He is traducing. Look the word up.

Moreover, l can’t remember after which battle, but after one of the battles it is said that the angels were to make no further appearances to help Muslims. They were a wildcard that could not be overused, used just enough to engender faith, not overused to the extent that faith is trivialised.

The author then describes paganism as benighted, or “put in shadow” - very loaded terminology, as if paganism were unfairly hard done by.

The author omits the great compassion the Prophet (peace be upon him) had shown in the conquest of Makkah, by pardoning even the woman that had chewed his uncle’s corpse’s liver (Hind bint Utbah). He only rounded up a small bunch of people for punishment (people that were even worse than Hind bint Utbah) - out of a town of tens of thousands that had persecuted him and his followers for over a decade.

Similarly, in the OP documentary, the author describes how the Romans defeated the Persians, but omits that the Persians originally defeated the Romans, and when Heraclius then ook over the Roman empire was in no fit state to ever bounce back and Heraclius wasn’t even a local, he was from north Africa i believe, he was just lost, bewildered, struggling, yet the Qur’an predicted the new leader Heraclius would win and explained that whatever Allah wills happens, i.e. because it seemed highly improbable that the Romans would win, yet the Qur’an correctly predicted they would, within 9 years. This was a great miracle of the Prophet’s truthfulness, and quite symbolic seeing as the Persians were pagans and the Roman Christians were seen as roughly Monotheist, and even the pagan Quraysh were cheering and mocking the Muslims when the Persians defeated the Roman Christians and overran the eastern Roman lands for the umpteenth time in history. The author also omitted in that OP documentary that the Omar ibn al Khattab, the caliph at the time, and a close friend of the Prophet, refused to pray in Christian churches, not because he disdained them as the documentary claimed, but because he feared Muslims would appropriate the Church of the Sepulchre for themselves, so he prayed outside instead, in a place where the Mosque of Omar now stands. The author ignores this and claims that the Muslims made a beeline for the Temple Mount because they wanted what the Jews had, even while the author admits the Muslims allowed the Jews back into Jerusalem! He gives no credit to the Muslims for it and instead accuses them of jealousy!

  1. No contest

Please, bring more claims by the author. But please don’t merely take my answers and say “Zis is nossing” slapping the sheaf of papers l present you with! Dismiss constructively.

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Hi again, l forgot to add, bolstering what l already said about the objectivity of my evidence in the form of physical artefacts (the Saxon coin, the Scandinavian coin hoards, the treaty of Protection authored by the Prophet), there’s also the geometric mathematical miracles associated with the Ka’aba in Makkah - i.e. the Phi Ratio location of Makkah, and the Prophet’s directing somebody to orient any first mosque in Yemen toward the Ka’aba by aiming for Jabal Deyn (Mount Deyn), or rather, the right flank of Jabal Deyn. Only with the advent of modern satellites and mapping, have we been able to ascertain these truths. So you see, the Prophet was real, and Makkah really was his city and always was the centre of Islam, and indeed, the Axis Mundi, the navel of the Earth (the upper Phi Ratio point). Mathematics is the ultimate in objective evidence. My friend, l’d personally try other authors if you want to contend with Islam, Tom Holland is bad quality. Still, l’ll gladly indulge you in rebutting more Hollandaise cavils. I just hope you acknowledge the points l’ve scored.

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I acknowledge that based on the description of the coin given in the caption it was minted 141 years or less after the death of Muhammed and that the Muslim Museum caption states that the coin reads “ There is no God but Allah alone” the significance of which is duly noted. But, according to the caption the inscription does not include the words “Mohammed is his messenger” as you allege. I can independently verify only the words “OFFA REX” on the coin. Otherwise the script is illegible to me, I must rely on the caption. Anyway, Holland acknowledges coins minted with Muhammad’s name on them in 685 or 686 here https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxoESH7cXX5kyD1w_F5YCNv7PIRKN4CWLF?si=vgqUkN2HaHbrvM3Y

As I understand, the explicit claim Tom Holland makes is that the earliest biographies of Mohammad were nearly written 200 years after his lifetime. Do you have a biography that’s earlier than that?

As far as the omissions you note in the stories, it would premature for me to judge at this point since there are only two short passages from Holland on the table.

“By the time that Ibn Hisham sat down to write his biography, it was not only Arabs who faced Mecca as they prayed. Strange peoples of whom the Prophet had possibly never even heard—Visigoths and Berbers, Sogdians and Parthians—could all be seen treading the sands of Arabia: pilgrims bound for the Ka’ba. Although Ibn Hisham himself did not touch upon this phenomenon in his sira, there was no shortage of other scholars eager to relate the extraordinary conquests, far beyond the limits of Arabia, that had followed the death of the Prophet. Such relish was hardly surprising. Back in the wild days of their paganism, nothing had delighted the Arabs more than a spot of loud-mouthed boasting, be it about some heroic feat of arms, some stirring deed of banditry, or some glorious humiliation forced upon a rival. Now, when they blew their own trumpets, it was all in the cause of God. From Badr to the ends of the world, the story of Islam had been one of storming military triumph. Cities infinitely greater than Mecca had been captured; peoples infinitely mightier than the Quraysh obliged to bow their necks. The scale of these victories, won in the teeth of ancient empires and venerable religions, surely furnished all the proof that anyone might need of the truth of the Prophet’s claims. “This is a sign that God loves us,” as one exultant Arab put it, “and is pleased with our faith, namely that He has given us dominion over all peoples and religions.” 23 From a West Syrian Christian text which records a disputation between a monk and “a man of the Arabs.” Although the monk—hardly surprisingly, considering its authorship—ends up decisively winning the argument, the suggestion that God’s approval of Islam had manifested itself in the sheer scale of the Arab conquests was a difficult one for Christians to rebut. The date of the text is unknown, but Hoyland, who quotes it (1997, p. 467), suggests that it is unlikely to be earlier than the mid-eighth century.”

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