Islamic Awareness and the reality of research

In my videos I frequently refer to an apologetic site called IslamicAwareness (http://www.islamic-awareness.org). They still make claims ranging from the now obsolete and very tired "scientific miracle" claims to using a group of academics who supposedly say something nice about the Koran. Most have since withdrawn their statements and have declared they were being misrepresented and taken out of context (http://www.youtube.com/user/ThisIsTheTruthUncut). IslamicAwareness ignores this. I suspect this site is made by dreamers for dreamers. Dreamers who try and push reality away as far as possible as long as possible.

This is also the webpage I was told has the most comprehensive collection of evidence for the physical and historically correct existence of Haman as was mentioned in the Koran, which I thoroughly refuted in several videos a year or so ago. This, relatively recent update still tries to push the notion that the guy could have existed in Egypt, by going to extremes and really ridiculous, intellectual lengths. Looking at their latest claims all they have done is added more hot air and padded everything with more fat to further obscure the basic facts. They carry on and on bringing up nonsensical argument after another, thinking that volume will automatically bring about contents. It does not. They have updated their information, using the same professor and using the same quotes that I presented in my video after my research, but continue peddling their illusions. For some reason they ignore the professor's strongest damnation, that of using burnt bricks, and continue pretending theirs is a valid argument. What they have abandoned is the idea that the claim made by Bucaille as to the identity of Haman was accurate, by saying: "however, this is no longer the case". But they maintain that Haman as grand helper of one of the 332 Pharaohs must have existed. Without saying which one or providing evidence.

They are also the ones cited in the highly unethical iERA press release regarding a documentary on UK's Channel 4, using this page as source for the early mentioning of Muhammad and, as another example, coins depicting Muhammad and making it look as though Muhammad was referred to at an early stage in Islam. But do these coins do this?

Well, no!

Let's take a closer look at this claim. The title promises coins from the year 1 to the year 100, ie the first century. But somehow, they start with coins made 40 years after Muhammad first received the revelations and kick-started Islam. They say these coins have, what they call, a "religious content". What religious content?

They manage to issue a taunt and don't see how incredibly childish it is. Similar to what? Material? Date? Size? Value? Who will decide on similarity? This is the typical approach I see so often on Muslim apologetic pages and texts, using the same juvenile methodology and cocky approach. Well, here are similar coins. I declare them similar. Now prove me wrong.

What is interesting is that IslamicAwareness does not even consult basic sources to get a handle on history. The Sassanid Empire was conquered and wiped out by Muslims. The dynasty was wiped out in 651 and a year later a coin is minted with the last Sassanid Emperor on it and this is Islamic? They show a couple of these coins on their page, all saying they depict a fire altar. Are fire altars common in Islam? Not really.

This goes on and on until they come across some coins which seem to mention Allah. And? Allah was a well-known god and simply the word god. Only now, we are in 685CE or 75 years after the first revelation. IslamicAwareness concurs that "This is the earliest occurance of the name "Muh?ammad" in a dated Muslim text." [sic]

So now we know that Islam existed and the name Muhammad, meaning the praiseworthy, chosen or anointed one, was part of this.

Are the texts any better in telling us what happened in the first 10 or 20 years, by providing historically accurate evidence?

There is a European archaeological group called ICAANE (International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East) which includes a section called Islam. Here, 100s of archaeologists convene and discuss their research and findings. Because this was too broad and possibly too much spiritual, some experts came together and founded the Association of Islamic Archaeologists, concentrating on factual findings and the culture, rather than the religion.

Even though the papers can be purchased for anything between 50 and 200 Euros, you can get glimpses if you look hard enough as they are sometimes published in universities around the world.

Have any of these groups found any kind of material which would describe the rising and development of early Islam? If yes, I have been unable to find it.



But IslamicAwareness knows better. They come up with really obscure sources, some of them only available in Arabic and some with a really low hit count, which seems to indicate they are not exactly in high demand. I am unable to judge this as I could not read the texts, so if one of these should really provide historically accurate and valid evidence depicting the eruption of Islam I have to accept this and withdraw my claim that no early accounts exist.

What IslamicAwareness mentions over and over again is the existence of early manuscripts of Koranic origins. While I have no idea what exactly this means, we all agree that the Koran was started off quite early - but does not have a completion date and does not show why or how Arabs became Muslims.

Koranic materials, or to be more precise: sentences which were later found in the Koran, have been identified in manuscripts from the 6th century, well before the existence of Muhammad. The Koran consists to a large degree of Biblical, both Jewish and Christian, stories which were "localized" and made to fit Arabic folklore. So it is no small wonder that these stories made the rounds and some poets or scribes wrote these down. But do they mention Muhammad? No! Even the Koran itself only mentions the name Muhammad by name 4 times.

IslamicAwareness now pulls the same trick they used with coins here with the texts. By insinuating the texts are from 1-100 AH, they make it look as the texts are closer to the origins of Islam than they really are.

Their first example, exhibit 1, so to speak, is dated by them as from 637 CE or 15 AH. But in actual fact it is, even according to their dating, issued some 27 years after Islam supposedly started.



This text, which they claim mentions the prophet Muhammad, stems from a person who witnessed the destruction of some settlements along with the killing of the inhabitants.

... and in January, they took the word for their lives ... Emesa, and many villages were ruined with killing by ... Mu?hammad and a great number of people were killed and captives ... from Galilee as far as Beth [...] and those Arabs pitched camp beside  [...] and we saw everywhe ... and o[...]ive oil which they brought and them. And on the t...th of May went S... cattle [...] [...] from the vicinity of Emesa and the Romans chased them [...] and on the tenth [...] the Romans fled from the vicinity of Damascus [...] many [...] some 10,000. And at the turn [...]ar the Romans came; and on the twentieth of August in the year n[...] seven there gathered in Gabitha [...] the Romans and great many people were ki ... omans, [s]ome fifty thousand [...]

So we have a text which mentions a Muhammad. Which Muhammad? This is a story of a pirate looting villages. We know Muhammad, the messenger of Islam did this, but how can anyone say with any degree of confidence that this is the same guy?

We have some names of villages and months and IslamicAwareness immediately gets some super-natural input that this proves the assumed date of 636 because there was a battle in Yarmuk. Because the mentioning of "turn of the year" only happens once in human history: the year 635. All I see is a note: the fragmentary nature of this note has resulted in scholars advising caution.

What I find interesting is the abundant usage of "appears to have been", "suggested that", "seems to be", appears to be", "appears to have", "suggesting that", "worthwhile cautioning", "unclear or disputable", which do not exactly exude confidence.

I will ignore the next one as it is much of the same, just the location is different.


Their try #3 comes up with a person from Armenia, more than 2000 kilometers away from Mecca, Sebeos, a bishop of the House of Bagratunis. Here, he is said to be writing a mere 50 years after the start of Islam.

Ok, so let's look at Sebeos first. The text quoted by IslamicAwareness is taken from "A History of Heraclius", but unfortunately, "none of the full extant manuscripts of Sebeos predates the seventeenth century". They carry on saying that "Few Armenists today regard the Primary History and "Sebeos" as the work of the same author. Who Sebeos was, and if he really was the author of this history are presently unanswerable questions".

But that does not mean the text is a fake or faulty, just that we should exercise some caution when attributing author, dates and locations.

No, my issue is with the contents.

Heraclius died in 641, so the story must have happened before then. When I read the IslamicAwareness translation I had to laugh as it reminded me so much of the fake Jesus paragraph in Josephus, which also starts off with "there was about this time Jesus, a wise man"... anyway, looking at what is written here we are supposed to believe that the Jews called in their Arab allies and they fended off the Romans together. If I remember correctly, Muhammad broke with the Jews in 624 as is mentioned in the Koran in 2:144, 149-150. Yet here we have him, a couple of years after his death, 1000s of miles from home where he died in 632, conspiring with the Jews. Telling them not that Allah is the one god and Muhammad is his messenger, but laying out the rules for food, drink and sex. This is more a political figure-head than a religious leader.

And then it actually gets quite freaky, because the very same Muhammad who drove out the Jews and killed them everywhere now thinks it's ok they keep their promised land, saying "take the country which God gave to your father, Abraham". Wow, now that is what I call generous. And IslamicAwareness is trying to tell me this is the Muhammad as depicted in the Sunnah? Hmmmm nope, sorry, I don't buy it.

Now IslamicAwareness brings up more and more non-issue texts and going later and later into time. None of these is historically reliable in any way and provides any insight into the early days of Islam.



We now get to their section 3, which seems to be a last, desperate attempt at artificially inserting Muhammad into the early history of Islam.

IslamicAwareness seems to think that piling on claim after claim is the way to go, rather than having fewer and more documented or substantiated arguments. As though the previous claims in section 2 were not embarrassing enough, they mount a last awkward effort, using a text written by a Christian, Jacob. Are they really doing this? Are they seriously suggesting that a thinking person, using both braincells will buy this nonsense? The Greek text is written by a Christian in Palestine sometime between 634 and 640 which has a very strong anti-Semitic character. The story is about some Jews celebrating the death of a military guard and the arrival of yet another messiah, a prophet. The story in the Doctrina Jacobi goes on to say that this messiah arose from within the Saracens. A prophet standing on a chariot brandishing a sword. He is called a false prophet. A prophet holding the keys of paradise.

Does this really fit Muhammad, the messenger?

A false prophet on a chariot holding the keys to paradise and a sword years after his death? Is that the best IslamicAwareness can come up with?

At the beginning of this section we are informed that:

To put Muslim and non-Muslim accounts in a chronological perspective, the death of the Prophet happened in Rabi al-Awwal, 11 AH / June, 632 CE.

Yet here we have a man in his prime leading entire armies, very much undead.

Have we really learnt anything from the many, many words put forward by IslamicAwareness?

No, nothing at all. As per usual it's all hot air, no substance and no facts which would be considered historically accurate. Another site made by dreamers for dreamers. If you want to dream all your life that's fine - however, if reality and the truth is more your line of thinking, I invite you to look at the real world.