As
@Augustus notes, near contemporaneous sources written by non-Muslims seem to make mention of Muhammad or a prophet of the Arabians, so there does appear to be a historical Muhammad - just not the Muhammad of the Hadith.
The first extant source mentioning Muhammad is that of
Thomas The Presbyter, 19 AH / 640 CE (AG 945, indiction VII), it reads:
AG 945, indiction VII: On Friday, 4 February, [i.e., 634 CE / Dhul Qa‘dah 12 AH] at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Mụhammad [Syr. tayyāyē d-Ṃhmt] in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician YRDN (Syr. BRYRDN), whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.
However, there is a potentially slightly earlier source even than that, while not mentioning the name 'Muhammad', refers to a Prophet of the Saracens (Muslims). It is presumed by most scholars that this was Muhammad:
Doctrina Iacobi Nuper Baptizati, 13–20 AH / 634–640 CE.
When the candidatus was killed by the Saracens, I was at Caesarea and I set off by boat to Sykamina. People were saying "the candidatus has been killed," and we Jews were overjoyed. And they were saying that the prophet had appeared, coming with the Saracens, and that he was proclaiming the advent of the anointed one, the Christ who was to come. I, having arrived at Sykamina, stopped by a certain old man well-versed in scriptures, and I said to him: "What can you tell me about the prophet who has appeared with the Saracens?"
He replied, groaning deeply: "He is false, for the prophets do not come armed with a sword. Truly they are works of anarchy being committed today...But you go, master Abraham, and find out about the prophet who has appeared." So I, Abraham, inquired and heard from those who had met him that there was no truth to be found in the so-called prophet, only the shedding of men's blood. He says also that he has the keys of paradise, which is incredible.
Orthodox Muslims adhere to a set of Hadith chains (which vary significantly between Sunni and Shia) that purport to detail the major events of Muhammad's life and teaching career outside the Qur'an, which are known collectively as "
the Sunnah".
These sources for the life of Muhammad are, unfortunately, not trustworthy. Western scholars don’t consider them even remotely reliable.
There is basically nothing in
Bukhari, the most trusted chronicler, that can in anyway be viewed as conclusively reaching back to Muhammad himself. There is no mention of any Mecca, for example, in any datable text for a century after Muhammed's death.
Of course, that doesn’t matter so much as what Muslims believe about the authenticity of the Sunnah but we are talking here about a yawning gap of
more than 200 years - and that's for the
EARLIEST hadith.
For that reason, I tend to focus on the Qur'anic witness alone when evaluating his teachings. The accounts of his life are almost entirely legendary, since the earliest non-Islamic references to the Prophet portray his career very differently to how the much later Muslim sources do.
Even in terms of the Qur’an itself, there is the not insignificant exegetical problem raised by the fact that the
mushrikun (the unbelievers of whom Muhammad engages with throughout the text) are clearly described as being agriculturalists.
Agriculture and lush vegetation feature prominently in the Qur’an, something that is historically anachronistic if the events alluded to really did take place in the arid deserts of Mecca and Medina during the lifetime of the Prophet, a time before irrigation and dams had been installed (which they were by later Caliphs), as the Sunnah would have us believe.
Since this casts the traditional story of Muhammad's life in even greater uncertainty, we don't really know that much about the original Prophet behind the Qur'anic revelation.
Muhammad, whomever he was, showed evident concern for social injustice when he condemned the Arab practice of female infanticide in a number of Qur'anic verses (
3:35-36;
81:7-9). I commend this as progress in the context of late antiquity Arabia.
Moreover, according to some
hadith chains, the
Last Sermon of Muhammad at Mount Arafat in 632 AD included a powerfully worded criticism of discrimination based upon race or skin colour:
“An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab ... a white person has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over white except by piety and good action.”
Again, highly commendable.
There are, nevertheless, teachings attributed to him that I find much less appealing - some even objectionable - but which can largely be explained on the basis of the time period in which he lived and the overarching cultural milieu.
So, in sum, I have no clear position on the Prophet. There are elements of his teaching I commend and elements that I don't. Evidently, he must have been an incredibly charismatic person and managed to persuade many people to back his cause. Ultimately, he founded a world religion that would go on to become one of the great fulcrums of human civilisation.
