The non-existence of religious prophets
November 19th, 2008 by Torstein Schiøtz Worren
MÜNSTER, Germany — Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany’s first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn’t like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life.So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.
This is the rather entertaining beginning of an article in the Wall Street Journal. The professor, who apparently belongs to the Zaydi branch of Shia-Islam, argues that just as in other religions, the principal Islamic prophet is an idea and principle that has been made into a person in later religious writings to add strength to the religious claims. He interestingly enough points out that there are few reliable sources that mention the rasul (the prophet) until the third Islamic century. A wider discussion and additional information from the German interview can be found in this article.
The interesting thing is not really the fact that someone claims that the prophet never existed, as there has been a small body of academics who’ve claimed this for a while now. What makes it different is that the professor is a convert to Islam and that the critique thus comes from “the inside” and is not part of the often radical and anti-Islamic rhetoric of Western critics and polititicians. Furthermore, it’s an academic work following rules of referencing and citations.
Not suprisingly, he’s been branded a heretic just for making the suggestion and this would probably have been the case had he belonged to the majority Sunni school (and not already belonging to a ‘heretical’ sect). Still, it’s an intriguing thought even if it is just a theory. Hopefully it will trigger constructive debate, although it is more likely to result in rabid rejection and excommunication.