Secular Jihadists For A Muslim Enlightenment

There are some things we know about Muhammad—but what's more interesting is what we don't know. The earliest surviving biography of Muhammad, by ibn Hisham, is from over 200 years after his death. That biography is based on an earlier biography by Ibn Ishaq which did not survive to the present day except in fragments, but itself was written over 100 years after Muhammad's death. Almost everything we know about Muhammad aside from the scant details in the Quran, almost every story we hear, is from these early biographies. The first time Muhammad's name ever appeared on any official state document was on a coin, over 50 years after he died. There is no mention of him in any other state documents, including those of the Umayyad caliphate. All six of the "authentic" hadith compilations began a full 200 years after his death, based on oral traditions passed from generation to generation. The only reliable indicator from his lifetime is the Quran, which mentions him only four times by name, but is also remarkably c