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.