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Several viewers have asked this question. Dan Gibson turns aside from his usual archeology study to address the issue of the existence of Islam before the prophet Muhammad.

Transcript

Video #37 This is a general transcript of a Dan Gibson video.

Hello, I’m Dan Gibson, and this is another Question and Answer Video. Today’s question is about the historicity of the religion of Islam.

The vast majority of non-Muslims around the world believe that the religion of Islam was begun by the prophet Muhammad around 610 CE when Muhammad was around 40 years old. They believe that Islam started when Muhammad claimed the angel Gabriel visited him while he was meditating in a cave. During the following years, this angel visited Muhammad multiple times, and each time he gave Muhammad further revelations. In the end, these revelations were gathered into a single collection, known today as the Qur’an.

The question I have been asked is simply this: Did Islam exist before the revelation of the Qur’an to Muhammad? While this is a simple, YES or NO question, the answer is complicated because there are many things to consider.

The reason for this is that many Muslims believe that Islam is the original religion. They believe that it started with Adam and Eve, and that all down through history God chose certain people to be prophets. The belief is that different people were chosen as prophets and they were sent sent books. Some of them received multiple books. And so Muslims believe that Adam was a Muslim, as was Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and many more. And the people who followed these prophets were also Muslims.

Now I think the reason many Muslims have asked me this question, is that they are hoping that there is evidence; some sort of solid archeological evidence, that this is true.

To learn more about the prophets of Islam, we need to turn to Sura 26, Ash-Shu’ara of the Qur’an. Here we find a series of prophets… Verse 108 tells us of Noah. And so Muslims consider Noah to be a Muslim prophet. Verse 126 tells us of Hud, Verse 144 tells us of Saleh, verse 163 tells us of Lot, and verse 179 tells us of Shu’ayb.

This list of prophets will surprise most Christians. For them, Noah was a preacher of righteousness, but they do not consider him a prophet. Most Christians consider Lot, the nephew of Abraham to have been of questionable character; not necessarily a prophet. And the others, Hud, Saleh, and Shu’ayb are unknown to Christians and Jews.

Now the big issue here; is that all three monotheistic religions claim Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon, along with many others. Not only this, some brand new religions like Mormonism also claim them. So this is not just a Muslim issue, this is a much wider issue.

Now as far as Islam is concerned, I have discovered that the word Muslim, or Islam does not appear in any of the writings of Moses, David or Solomon. You see, we have their writings. There are manuscripts that date as early as eight hundred years before Islam, and some parts of the Bible, date as early as a thousand years before Muhammad. In the Dead Sea scrolls alone, there are roughly 800 manuscripts, which represented every book of the Hebrew Bible, except the Book of Esther. So nowhere in any of these scrolls does it mention the name Islam, or Muslim.

Now I get emails from lots of different people who claim that some word or some term sounds like the word Muslim, or Islam, or it sounds like Muhammad. All of these are easy to dismiss when one considers how the word was pronounced in the original Hebrew or Aramaic language, and what its meaning was. And even if someone did find the name Muhammad in the Bible, what does it prove? The prophet Muhammad was not the first person to be named Muhammad. For example, there were men named Muhammad during the time of Abraha, the man who later brought his elephant, Mahmud, to destroy the Ka’ba. This happened before the prophet Muhammad was born.

Now Abraha had in his retinue some men of the Arabs who had come to him seeking his bounty, including Muhammad b. Khuza’i b. Huzabah of the Banu Dhakwan. (Tabari 05 pg 218)

So finding the name Muhammad somewhere, doesn’t prove anything. It was a common name before Muhammad ibn Abdulla became a prophet to the Arabs. And yet, not a single person, named Muhammad is found in the writings of the earlier prophets, nor mention of Islam.

So the question we need to ask next is, What makes someone a Muslim? The typical answer today, is that a person repeats the Shehadda… I testify that there is no God by God, and then the second part, and Muhammad is the messenger of God. This confession is the key part for a person becoming a Muslim today.

But what about the time before Muhammad? There is no reference in any of the earlier materials about any type of Shehada. There is not a single record in manuscripts, or in the thousands and thousands of graffiti written on rocks around the world where a person writes: There is no God but God, and Moses is the prophet of God. None for Abraham, none for David, none for Solomon, not even for Lot!

But when we come to Muhammad, 78 years after the Hijra, we find a complete Shahadda, written on the rocks. A mere 78 years after Muhammad lived. It is all there.

For me, the biggest problem about saying that Adam, Abraham, Moses and the others were all Muslim prophets; is that there is not a single shred of physical evidence for this idea.

Now some have argued, these books have been changed. But no one has explained to me when they were changed, and who changed them… because there is manuscript evidence that goes far back, we can check those records. People memorized these books in the past.

And no, these book were not written 700 years before Christ, in Babylon. There is far too much evidence of early civilizations that had been lost at that time, and ever since, but are not being uncovered. These books have ancient origins, just like people have claimed for thousands of years.

Now I have observed a problem that new religions have. What do they do with people before the their new religion came along? For an example, let’s consider the Mormons. Mormons claim that their prophet, Joseph Smith, and American who lived in the 1800s, received a revelation from God given to him by an angel: Moroni. Joseph Smith even claimed to have received a book, revealed to him by that angel. That is known as the Book of Mormon today.

Now early Mormons had a problem. You see, they were starting a new religion, but what were they to do about the people who lived before Joseph Smith received his revelation?

So Mormons did two things. First, they claimed that the Bible was one of their books. They say that the books of Moses and David and Solomon are their books and they say that the Book of Mormon completed the original message. And so they claim Adam, Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon, and so on were Mormons. So now there are Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons and others that all claim these same early prophets.

But what to do about the earlier people, who lived before the new religion came along? Well, the Mormon leaders had a brilliant idea. Since a person must be baptized into the Mormon religion, (they do not have a Shehadda they say), then Mormons today could be baptized for those who lived before Joseph Smith. And so many Mormons have been baptized multiple times, some many times, for their previous relatives who died before Joseph Smith revealed the Book of Mormon. In fact a whole business developed out of this, as people tried to trace their ancestors. Today that business is known as Ancestory.com. It is very popular. People all over the world use these records to trace their ancestors and make up a family tree, but Mormons are using these records so that they can be baptized to make their ancestors into Mormons.

But in Islam, a different approach was taken. Rather than going back and making the people before Muhammad into Muslims, a much simpler solution was arrived at. By claiming previous people were prophets of God, Muslims are told that they were all Muslims. And they are told that these prophets all were given books, or messages. And so Muhammad is presented as yet another prophet with a book. However they say he is the last prophet.

However, when people questioned why the earlier books were so much different from the Qur’an, and why the earlier books appeared to have a different message, the Muslim answer is simple. All of the earlier books had been changed, and thus the message in them was ruined in some way. And so every one of the earlier books was either ruined or lost. I have heard this from many Muslims. Every time God sent a new book, it was ruined by people, who made changes in it.

God must have been pretty frustrated, because every time he revealed a new book, and gave it to a messenger, people ruined it. This went on for generation after generation, over several thousand years. People seemed to have the power to ruin God’s revelation. It seems God tried over and over again to reveal his message and in the end it failed. This is why I find it hard to accept Surat 15:9 al-Hijr: It is We who have sent down the Qur’an, and it is certainly We who will protect it. So why were the earlier books not protected?

Or were they? Perhaps the writings of the prophets that we have now today are the originals. It certainly looks that way, when we examine the earliest manuscripts. For example, in the Dead Sea scrolls, there was a complete copy of the writings of Isaiah, the prophet. And they are almost completely the same as we have today. The spelling of a few words have changed, and there are some very small differences that appear to be small copying errors. But 97% of the book is exactly the same as what we have today, 2800 years later.

Today, Islam claims that Adam, Abraham and others all received books. As a historian, I find no evidence for many of these books. For instance, none of the later writers even mention that Adam was given any books. Or that Abraham was given a book.

On my computer I have copies of all of the writings of the earlier prophets. And even some who claimed they were prophets. Some of them are in Hebrew, many early copies are in Aramaic, and some are in Coptic language. And there are later Greek and Latin copies.

And not a single one talks about Adam getting books, nor do they talk about Lot getting any books, and Hud, Saleh, and Shu’ayb are never mentioned. And when I read, study, and search through the Tawrat of Moses, the Zabur of David, and the Injil there is nothing about earlier books to Adam or some of these prophets. There isn’t even the idea that prophets had books given to them.

Now I realize that these kinds of arguments will descend into my opinion versus your opinion. For those who are familiar with, and follow closely the Tawrat, the Zabur, and the Injil, they cannot accept the book that Muhammad brought, because the message is so different from the previous books. The Qur’an contains a totally different message.

So what is the solution? It cannot be in my book versus your book. My expert says this and your expert says that. As a historian, I cannot accept that Adam was a Muslim, following the very same religion as what Muhammad brought, when I find no archeological evidence anywhere to support it. The very first Shahada is found scratched on a rock, AFTER Muhammad died. That is perfectly understandable. And since then, the Shahada has been written in all sorts of the places where Muslims live. I understand that.

But I have not found a shred of archeological record anywhere for a Shahada before Muhammad. Not scratched on rocks, not written on the walls of buildings, not even in ancient manuscripts. So Muhammad came says he is revealing the original religion, Joseph Smith came says he is revealing the original religion, and even the Hindus, are finding things in Islam to help support their claim that worship of the Hindu God Shiva was the original religion, and they are claiming that Mecca, and the Black Stone were originally all about Shiva. But the Jews claim that their faith goes back to Adam. So the issue cannot be solved by everyone claiming to be first, and that all the others are lies, or have been changed or have been abolished.

I think in the end, we will have to accept that the great religious faiths of the world are just that: faiths. A faith is something that you believe. While you may have some evidence, it still requires faith to believe it.

Many people follow a certain faith, because they grew up in it. Their parents believed it, and they were taught it and so they believe it, or follow it. They have never really examined it with a questioning mind. They have never had what many people call a “crisis of faith.” This is where they try to find out: “Is what I believe really true?”

That is actually a good place to be, because it gets us started seeking out the truth, and learning to discern what is truth and what isn’t, what is trustworthy and what is not.

There are many voices out there, especially on the Internet. Each voice wants to convince us that they are the truth. And on top of that, many people already know what they want the truth to be, so they just listen to voices that support or reinforce what they already believe or think, and they turn off or reject voices that they don’t want to hear.

So was Adam a Muslim? As far as I can tell, he had no knowledge of Muhammad. But he did have a certain knowledge of God, the creator. If the definition and meaning of the word Islam means to submit, then I think Adam fit that description. I think he was submitted to God. In fact, anyone who is submitted to God could call himself a Muslim.

So if Adam, Abraham, Moses, David were submitted to God, then I too would like to be like them. The question still remains, what to do with the ‘new’ religions? If they are not like the early prophets said or told us to do, then what do we do with them? That is one of the reasons why I set out to study the history of Arabia. Do the later revelations abrogate or replace what was earlier? What I found in my studies changes the traditional understanding of Muhammad and the Ka’ba.

I know many of the viewers are desperately trying to fit a Petra narrative into Islam, but I feel they should also seek to fit the Petra narrative into the message of the previous prophets. All of them spoke of someone who was coming; someone known as the Messiah. He is given many titles, but they all spoke of someone to come. And all down through history people have recognized Jesus as the promised Messiah. His story is found in the Bible. What do the closing words of the Bible say? They tell us that the revelations of God are complete. Listen to the words of Revelation 22:18-22. It was written by John one of the apostles who was with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. Here is what the last words of the Bible say.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.

And that’s the end of the Bible. It also warns against adding anything later. And so Christians all over the world look at these verses and they have a very hard time to accept that a prophet came later bringing yet another book. And now in America, another prophet has come bringing yet another book. What do we do with this? I think, and my faith as I look at it. I think I have to go back and ask What was the message of all of the earlier prophets? And all of them agree, all of them point, to a coming Messiah. And that Messiah has been revealed in Jesus Christ. That is what I believe. Jesus the Christ. The Christ means, is the Greek word for Jesus the Messiah.

I am Dan Gibson and this has been another Question and Answer video.