Everyone knows the biography of Muhammad, right? We have all been told that he was born in Mecca IN 570 AD, started to receive the Qur'an in 610 AD, was taken up in the middle of the night on the back of a winged horse called the 'Buraq' in 621 AD (known as the 'Mi'raj'), moved to Medina in 622 AD (referred to as the 'Hijra'), conquered Mecca in 630 AD, and then died of poisoning by his Jewish wife in 632 AD. But where do all these stories come from? You would assume they were all written down by someone who saw what he did, or at least heard what he said during his lifetime, and in the place these events occurred, correct? That is what should have happened, but the historical truth is nothing of the kind. The first person to write down Muhammad's biography (the Sira) was supposedly a fellow named Ibn Ishaq, who died in 765 AD; yet that's over 130 years after Muhammad died. Unfortunately, we don't have any book or manuscript from him at all. The biography we do have was written by Ibn Hisham, who died in 833 AD, which is around 200 years after Muhammad. We then have Al Waqidi's biography who died in 835 AD, followed by 6 authoritative Hadith compilers (what Muhammad supposedly said), such as: Al Bukhari (d.870 AD), Sahih Muslim (d.875 AD), At-Tirmidhi (d.884 AD), Ibn Majah (d.887 AD), Abu Dawud (d.899 AD), and finally An-Nisa'i (d.915 AD). The other two Traditions concern the Tafsir (the Commentaries), and the Tahrikh (the Histories), which were first compiled by Al Tabari (d.923 AD). Notice that all of these compilers of Muhammad's Traditions lived 200 - 300 years after Muhammad died, so it's clear that none of them knew Muhammad or heard what he said, since they didn't even exist in his century. But that's not the only problem, the Islamic Traditions tell us that everything happened in Mecca and Medina (in the Hijaz which is located in Western Central Arabia). Yet, all of the writers of the Traditions listed above worked in Baghdad, which is 1,200 miles to the north of the Hijaz. Ibn Hisham (the compiler of the first Sira) is from Basra (located 1,200 miles from the Hijaz), but he grew up in Cairo (located 990 miles from the Hijaz). Al Bukhari, the compiler of the first Hadith, is from Bukhara, which is located 2,600 miles from the Hijaz, while Al Tabari, the first to compile the Tafsir & Takhrikh, is from Tabaristan, located 1,700 miles from the Hijaz. Clearly, none of these Traditional writers lived or worked in Mecca or Medina. They were too far to the north of Mecca (in the Hijaz), and came from the West and East of Baghdad, which is where the Abbasids originated from. When we compare them with Christianity, we find that all of the Christian writers of Jesus' Traditions were much earlier: The Sira, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, wrote between 70-90 AD, which is within 37-57 years of Christ's death. The Hadith, again, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were compiled within 37-57 years of Jesus' death. The Tafsir was written by Paul between 48-65 AD, which is 15-34 years after Jesus' died. The Tahrikh was written by Luke between 52-62 AD, or around 20-30 years after the crucifixion. What is noteworthy is that all of these New Testament writers lived in the same place Jesus lived, and they either knew him personally, or they got their material from others who saw what he did, and heard what he said. The Traditions of Jesus were compiled 15-60 years after Jesus' death by those who either knew him or took their material from those who did, while the Traditions of Muhammad were all compiled 200-300 years after his death, and written down 100s of miles from where he supposedly lived. Which Traditions do you think are the more authoritative? As a comparison, if we had to depend on sources for Jesus' life and ministry, comparable to what Muslims are dependent on for Muhammad, Jesus would not begin to appear in any writing until the 3rd century! How would we be able to defend him historically? Before we go, there is one correction I need to make...I noted above that the biography of Muhammad was first created by Ibn Hisham in 833 AD. But we don't have any manuscripts from that century written by him at all. So, where did his biography come from? According to the Inarah scholars in Germany, there was nothing written down about Muhammad’s life up to 1819 AD This needed to be rectified, so a German scholar named Heinrich Ferdinand Wustenfeld (who lived between 1808 – 1899), went to libraries and museums in 4 German cities betwen 1858 – 1860 AD and compiled the first Sira ever written down, which is the biography we all use today, first translated into French, and then into English. In 1967 Fouad Sezgin compiled another Sira from documents found in Morocco. So, the biography we all use today to know what Muhammad did was written a little more than 160 years ago, and over 1,000 years after he supposedly lived! © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, July 28, 2023 (83,190) ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=walncNs3sOw