Post 6: The Birth of Islam – A Political Invention, Not a Prophetic Revelation

Introduction: From Revelation to Revolution

Islam claims to be the final, complete, and universal revelation of God to mankind. According to Islamic theology, the Quran was revealed to Muhammad over 23 years by the angel Jibril (Gabriel), making him the “Seal of the Prophets.”

But what if Islam did not begin with divine revelation at all?

What if Islam was not born in a spiritual vacuum, but rather emerged as a political consolidation tool, a post-hoc religious justification for Arab tribal dominance, expansionism, and centralized power?

This article critically examines the historical, geopolitical, and textual evidence to argue that:

Islam was not revealed from above — it was constructed from below.

It was a political project, not a prophetic calling.

Section 1: The Myth of Sudden Revelation

Islam teaches that Muhammad was an illiterate man in pagan Arabia who received divine revelation from 610 to 632 CE, producing the Quran as a verbatim word from Allah.

But history paints a very different picture.

🔍 Problems with the Traditional Narrative:

The Quran was not compiled during Muhammad’s life.
There was no complete Quran until at least 20 years after his death.
The biography of Muhammad (Sira) was written over 100 years later.
The Hadith collections (Sahih Bukhari, Muslim, etc.) were compiled 200–250 years later.
Mecca, the alleged center of revelation, is absent from contemporary records.

A massive gap exists between the events claimed and the records we possess.

Section 2: Islam’s Sudden Emergence on the World Stage

Between 622 and 750 CE, something remarkable happened:

Arabia was unified.
The Islamic empire expanded across the Middle East, North Africa, and into Europe.
The caliphate system was established.
A new religion, with a new holy book, legal system, and identity, was forged.

But the early historical evidence of this new religion is shockingly scarce.

📜 Inscriptions, Coins, and Documents:

The Dome of the Rock (691 CE) inscription makes no mention of:
- Muhammad as a prophet
- The Quran
- Islam as a religion
Early coins under Caliph Abd al-Malik bear Christian symbols and titles.
Early papyri and inscriptions use ambiguous terms like “believers” or “mu’minun”—not Muslims, and not Islam.

This suggests that the religion of Islam, as we know it, did not exist in full form during Muhammad’s lifetime—or even shortly after.

Section 3: The Role of the Umayyads – Builders of a Religion

After Muhammad’s death, the Umayyad dynasty (661–750 CE) rose to power.

They faced multiple challenges:

Uniting diverse tribes under one banner
Justifying Arab imperial expansion
Legitimizing their political authority

The solution? Construct a religio-political identity that provided:

A common language: Arabic
A common law: Sharia
A common prophet: Muhammad
A common scripture: The Quran

Historians like Patricia Crone and Michael Cook argue that early Islam was less a religion and more a state ideology crafted over time.

The result was not revelation, but codification.

Section 4: The Quran as a Constructed Text

Muslim tradition says the Quran is the exact word of God, unchanged since revelation.

But textual evidence says otherwise:

The Sana’a Manuscripts, discovered in Yemen in the 1970s, contain:
- Variants of Quranic verses
- Corrections
- Overwritten text
Scholar Gerd Puin concluded: the Quran underwent textual evolution.
Early qira’at (readings) of the Quran included differences in:
- Words
- Grammar
- Meaning

The Quran was not a preserved revelation—it was an edited compilation.

Even Islamic scholars admit multiple versions existed before Uthman ordered their standardization (and destruction of all others) around 650 CE.

This is not divine preservation. This is political canonization.

Section 5: The Creation of Muhammad as a Prophetic Figure

The earliest Islamic inscriptions and documents barely mention Muhammad.

His biography was written over a century later by Ibn Ishaq (d. 767), and only preserved through Ibn Hisham.

His character, miracles, and military campaigns are all recorded in later Hadiths, compiled generations after the fact.

Muhammad was likely a real historical figure—but the Muhammad of Islamic tradition is a literary construction:

Perfect, sinless prophet
Military strategist
Political unifier
Legal source
Moral example

He became what the empire needed him to be.

The prophet was shaped by the politics, not the other way around.

Section 6: Petra vs. Mecca – The Geographic Controversy

Historian and archaeologist Dan Gibson has argued that:

Early mosques’ qiblas (prayer directions) point not to Mecca, but to Petra.
Mecca lacks pre-Islamic archaeology, while Petra was a known religious and commercial center.

This raises the question: Was Islam relocated from Petra to Mecca to fit a new narrative?

If Mecca is the center of Islam from the beginning, why:

Is it missing from ancient trade routes?
Does no pre-Islamic inscription mention it?
Is the Kaaba absent from Jewish or Christian records?

This supports the theory that Islam’s geographic origin was retrofitted for theological reasons.

Section 7: The Myth of Unity – Islam’s Early Fragmentation

If Islam were revealed as a complete, perfect religion:

Why did Muslims split almost immediately after Muhammad’s death?
Why was there a civil war within a generation (Ali vs. Muawiyah)?
Why are Sunni, Shia, Kharijite, and other sects so radically different?

These divisions show that Islam wasn’t delivered whole. It was negotiated, contested, and politicized from the beginning.

A divine revelation should have produced unity. Islam produced instability.

Section 8: Islam as a Tool of Imperial Legitimacy

Islam served to:

Justify conquest: Expanding Arab control under the banner of jihad
Unify governance: Providing religious law where tribal customs once ruled
Delegitimize rivals: Supplanting Judaism and Christianity with a “final” revelation

The Hadith literature reflects this goal:

It codifies Muhammad’s actions as binding legal precedent (Sunnah).
It inserts him into every domain—marriage, war, economics, hygiene.
It turns him into the ultimate authority, replacing tribal chieftains, Roman law, and Persian kings.

In short, Islam provided the ideological glue that held the Arab empire together.

Section 9: Formal Logical Analysis

Claim:

Islam is a revealed religion, not a constructed one.

Premises:

A revealed religion should have consistent historical, textual, and geographic evidence.
Islam lacks early textual and geographic continuity.
Its scripture was compiled after the fact, with variant versions.
Its prophet’s biography was written generations later.
Its holy city is archaeologically silent.
Its early unity was a political myth.

Conclusion:

Islam was constructed over time for political purposes, not divinely revealed in full.

Conclusion: Islam Was Engineered, Not Revealed

The narrative of Islam as a complete, perfect, heavenly religion revealed to Muhammad is historically and logically unsustainable.

The evidence shows:

A gradual evolution of belief, law, and scripture
Political forces shaping religious dogma
Mythologizing of Muhammad over time
Textual and geographical manipulation to fit later needs

Islam wasn’t born of a night in a cave. It was forged in the halls of power.

The real story of Islam is not revelation—it is reconstruction.

Disclaimer

This post critiques Islam as an ideology, doctrine, and historical system—not Muslims as individuals. Every human deserves respect; beliefs do not.

Refuting Islam

Thursday, August 28, 2025