I was brought up to believe that Muhammad lived his life in the full glare of history and was a well known and accepted figure and that this was authenticated/supported from multiple non-Islamic historical sources. I always believed that his birth, life, family, miracles, message, battle and death were a matter of historical record.
I have been reading into this and it seems that everything we know about Muhammad comes from Islamic sources. There are no independent references to Muhammad during his lifetime from Byzantine, Persian or Roman sources. All the details we know about his life come from Islamic sources.
So this leads to the question of whether Muhammad existed at all or whether he is a concocted personality embodying the philosophy and teaching of Islam created to give these ideas more relevancy or impact.
I would be interested in a list of non-Islamic sources from Muhammads lifetime which detail Muhammad's life, message and battles. Does anyone know of any?
I have been reading into this and it seems that everything we know about Muhammad comes from Islamic sources. There are no independent references to Muhammad during his lifetime from Byzantine, Persian or Roman sources. All the details we know about his life come from Islamic sources.
So this leads to the question of whether Muhammad existed at all or whether he is a concocted personality embodying the philosophy and teaching of Islam created to give these ideas more relevancy or impact.
I would be interested in a list of non-Islamic sources from Muhammads lifetime which detail Muhammad's life, message and battles. Does anyone know of any?