Robert Spencer challenges the suggestion of Arabic Conquests

“In Did Muhammad Exist? Spencer argues that the whole myth of Muhammad, as a separate person from Jesus, was invented by Arab propagandists between 700 and 730 in order to unify and justify the massive Arab Empire that then existed”. We read this at: https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/did-the-arab-conquests-really-happen-an-alternative-view-on-falsified-history Did The Arab Conquests Really Happen? An Alternative View On Falsified History October 6, 2022 by Emmet Scott In his recently published Did Muhammad Exist? Robert Spencer, quoting some of the most eminent contemporary Middle Eastern scholars and archaeologists, presented a wide variety of evidence suggesting that no Arabian prophet named Muhammad ever existed. He showed for example that the first Arab coins to mention Muhammad, from the time of the Ummayad Caliph Mu'awiya (d. 680), display the figure of a man holding a cross. Since muhammad means “honored one” or “chosen one” in the Syriac and Arabic languages, it is highly likely that the “Muhammad” shown on these coins was none other than Jesus. This is made all the more likely by other evidence, presented by linguists such as Christoph Luxenberg and Günter Lüling, suggesting that the Qur'an began its existence as a Christian devotional text and that it was originally written in the Syriac rather than the Arabic language. The mistranslation of the book into Arabic resulted, said Luxenberg, in almost one third of the Qur'an making no sense whatsoever and the appearance of such strange teachings as the promise of 72 virgins to Muslims who enter heaven, instead of 72 grapes, as it would read in Syriac. The evidence of coins, combined with the linguistic clues in the Qur'an, completely undermine the whole of early Islamic historiography, and suggest very strongly that the life of Muhammad, as presented in Islamic tradition, is a complete fiction. It is no secret of course that the Qur'an is profoundly biblical, and this has only emphasized its Christian origins. Günter Lüling has postulated that it was originally a lectionary of the Ebionites or Nazarites, a Judaizing sect which was declared heretical at the Council of Nicea in 325 and thereafter disappeared from history. Most of its adherents are believed to have migrated into Arabia, and there is no question that Ebionitism was the main, or perhaps the only, Christian group with a wide following in Arabia during the fourth to sixth centuries. Indeed its influence in the Arabian Peninsula during these centuries was profound. The Ebionites accepted Jesus as the Messiah but rejected the notion that he was the son of God. They regarded Jesus as a faithful Jew and follower of the Mosaic Law, and they themselves practised circumcision, as well as the various other rules and regulations stipulated in that Law. Aside from accepting Jesus as a prophet, however, this Arab Christianity had almost nothing in common with the Christianity espoused in Constantinople, Antioch, or Alexandria; though it had very much in common with what later became known as Islam. Indeed, we would perhaps be justified in describing this Arab Christianity as “proto-Islam,” and it would appear that the first “Islam” to appear archaeologically, as evinced in the monuments of Mu'awiya, was precisely this Arab version of Christianity. Muslim coins with Christian cross and the name Mohammed As Spencer notes, there is no mention of Muhammad, the Qur'an, or even Islam, until around 700 or shortly thereafter. In Did Muhammad Exist? Spencer argues that the whole myth of Muhammad, as a separate person from Jesus, was invented by Arab propagandists between 700 and 730 in order to unify and justify the massive Arab Empire that then existed. …. The earliest Islam, as revealed by archaeology, is in fact profoundly Persian; and indeed the first trace of Islam recovered in excavation are coins of Sassanian Persian design bearing the image either of Chosroes II (d. 628) or of his grandson Yazdegerd III (d. 651). On one side we find the portrait of the king, on the reverse the picture of a Zoroastrian Fire Temple. The only thing that marks these out as Islamic is the legend besm Allah (in the name of God), written in the Syriac script, beside the Fire Temple. (The Arabic script did not then exist). According to the Encyclopdaedia Iranica: “These coins usually have a portrait of a Sasanian emperor with an honorific inscription and various ornaments. To the right of the portrait is a ruler’s or governor’s name written in Pahlavi script. On the reverse there is a Zoroastrian fire altar with attendants on either side. At the far left is the year of issue expressed in words, and at the right is the place of minting. In all these features, the Arab-Sasanian coinages are similar to Sasanian silver drahms. The major difference between the two series is the presence of some additional Arabic inscription on most coins issued under Muslim authority, but some coins with no Arabic can still be attributed to the Islamic period. The Arab-Sasanian coinages are not imitations, since they were surely designed and manufactured by the same people as the late Sasanian issues, illustrating the continuity of administration and economic life in the early years of Muslim rule in Iran.” (“Arab-Sasanian Coins,” Encyclopdaedia Iranica, at www.iranica.com/articles/arab-sasanian-coins) ARAB–SASANIAN COINAGE Note the remark: “The Arab-Sasanian coinages are not imitations,” but were “designed and manufactured by the same people as the late Sasanian issues.” We note also that the date provided on these artefacts is written in Persian script, and it would appear that those who minted the coins, native Persians, did not understand Arabic. …. It was only when Yazdegerd died (A.D. 651) [in the time of the Ummayad Caliph Mu'awiya] that some mark of Arab authority was added to the coinage.” (Ibid.) Even more puzzling is the fact that the most common coins during the first decades of Islamic rule were those of Yazdegerd's predecessor Chosroes II, and many of these too bear the Arabic inscription (written however, as we saw, in the Syriac script) besm Allah. …. why continue to issue money in the name of a previous Sassanian king (Chosroes II), one who, supposedly, had died ten years earlier? This surely stretches credulity. ….