Duvduv wrote:Robert Price's writing is less dense than that of Ibn Warraq, but the points always stand as clear as day:
What is your conclusion ?1) Mecca was not an important trade town at the time Muhammad allegedly existed.
What is your conclusion ?2) There is no record of the life of Muhammad until about 200 years years after he allegedly died, in the writings attributed to Ibn Ishaq found in the writings of Al Tabari later on.
1. The Qur'an was not finalised until well after Mohamed's death3) It is reasonable to suppose that the Quran was assembled as a text for a doctrine to unite Arab sects AFTER the emergence of the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad and not before that.
2. Much was lost at Yamama
3. Variant Qur'ans existed in the early days
4. The variants were different to modern Qur'ans
5. Abu Bakr collected his version from scraps and memories
6. Abu Bakr's version faded early from importance
7. Uthmann chose Abu Bakr's version for political expediency
8. Uthmann et al. made changes to the new version
9. Muslims criticised Uthmann for destroying the Qur'an
10. Muslims criticised the new version as missing passages
11. Later changes were made to the Qur'an
12. Variant readings of the Qur'an exist to this day
Huon wrote:I suppose that you are speaking of Ibn Warrak's "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad", and possibly Patricia Crone's "Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam".
Please give us some exact quotes.