Muhammad: A Critical Biography By Robert Spencer (Bombardier Books, 352 pages, $35) As the usual pace of American life slowed with the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday, one of the headlines that went unnoticed involved a decapitation. The Daily Mail reported that in France on the Tuesday before the holiday, a Muslim schoolgirl broke down in tears in court over the Oct. 16, 2020, murder of a French schoolteacher. Eighteen-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Chechen asylum-seeker, cut off Samuel Paty’s head. Anzorov was killed by police a short time later. Anzorov was inspired to commit the murder by the social media posts of the girl’s father, Brahim Chnina. The reason? The girl claimed Paty had ordered Muslim students out of the classroom while he showed satirical pictures of the Prophet Muhammad that had originally appeared in the magazine Charlie Hebdo. Paty had shown the pictures in class as part of an ethics discussion but told Muslim students they could turn away if they wished. The girl was not even in the class for the incident. She had been suspended from school for bad behavior and did not want to tell her parents the truth. Hence, the lie about Paty. On Tuesday, she told Paty’s family: I know it’s hard to hear, but I wanted to apologise… I wanted to apologise sincerely. I’m sorry for destroying your life. I apologise for my lie that brought us all back here. Without me, no one would be here. The girl made the statement during the trial of eight adults who are accused of being connected to Paty’s murder. A child lying to her parents about being suspended from school is not remarkable. The murder that resulted from it is — based on beliefs that are hundreds of years in the making. The same can be said of those who chanted “From the river to the sea,” in many cases completely unaware of the river and sea to which they were referring, and who often supported the brutal Oct. 7 attack that launched the latest war in the region. The attack itself was the product of radical Islamist theology. This past Monday, a report surfaced that thugs threw rocks at busses filled with kids from the Jews’ Free School in north London while spewing obscenity-laced anti-Semitic invective at the terrified students. Lest anyone forget, the same mindset that led to the murder of Samuel Paty fostered the 9/11 atrocities. At the same time, I am on nodding terms with the Muslims in my community, at least the men. I have had several pleasant conversations with Muslims in passing. In 2023, conservatives in the U.S. were pleasantly perplexed that many Muslims stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them over the issue of the LGBTQ agenda being inserted into schools. Whether or not one views Islam as a threat, it is definitely a puzzle and has been since the Prophet Muhammad received his first vision circa 610 AD. This puzzle of Islam can be traced directly back to the story of Muhammad himself. In his latest book, Muhammad: A Critical Biography, Robert Spencer attempts to find the man amid the legend. Spencer is well-versed in the study of Islam. He is the director of the website Jihad Watch and the author of 28 books. He has also led seminars on Islam and jihad for a veritable constellation of government agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Central Command, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, to name a few. In this latest book, Spencer takes on the herculean task of separating man from myth in the story of Muhammad. It is worth noting that the Koran itself only mentions the Prophet four times, but the amount of information available about his life is voluminous. Spencer notes that some apologists see a foreshadowing of the Prophet in the Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and the Psalms. Still, much of the material comes from the hadiths or reports about Muhammad’s life. Authentic hadiths are considered on par with Islamic law. Other reports are specifically biographical and referred to as the Sīrah. Spencer contends that many of the accounts of the Prophet’s life have traditionally been accepted as genuine. In his book, he takes issue with that view, pointing out that many of these hadiths contradict other accounts of Muhammad, and many come from dubious sources. The hadiths and Sīrah appear in the 9th century, but as Spencer notes, Muhammad died in the 7th century. Spencer explains that the explosion of material about the life of Muhammad came during the same era in which Arab warriors were starting their conquests, and according to Spencer, the Arab Empire created Islam as a unifying force. Muhammad was then created to provide a central figure for the new faith, one that bore similarities to Jesus and Moses, both of whom make appearances in Islamic theology, along with many other Old Testament notables. The message of the Koran, explains Spencer, is that the people of the Bible were all Muslims who taught Islam, but their teachings were corrupted by their followers, a heresy that Muhammad came to correct. There are also contradictions surrounding the narratives of Muhammad’s birth and that the city of Mecca, Muhammad’s birthplace, was not a bustling center of trade but rather a tiny, backwater town. Spencer also talks about the existence of three Jewish tribes in the area and a story of a Christian delegation that once came to speak with the Prophet, none of which have any basis in history. Spencer also notes that during the Arab conquest, there was no mention of Muhammad, the Koran, or Islam. In the book, Spencer theorizes that Muhammad was likely an amalgam of people whose tales were assembled and grew in the retelling. Muhammad becomes larger than life. When he goes to war, he is practically unstoppable. When he is gracious, he is the epitome of mercy and kindness. With his wives, he is a man’s man. Everything he does, he does better and bigger than anyone else. According to Spencer, some scholars claim that stories that cast Muhammad in a less-than-favorable light actually give credence to the idea that Muhammad existed. In an interview, Spencer cautions against reading these stories through 21st-century Western eyes. Those who wrote stories that were not necessarily flattering to the Prophet did not consider the incidents they were relating to be negative at all. It is only in our day and age that we may find some stories about Muhammad to reflect objectionable behavior or values. Apologists for Islam may also argue that perceived discrepancies arise from people taking the stories out of context. Many Christian apologists contend that the different accounts of the life of Christ found in the Synoptic Gospels and even in the Gospel of John are not conflicting but rather interlocking and thus create a comprehensive record. Might not the same argument be presented for the hadiths and the Sīrah? In that same interview, Spencer discounted this idea on the basis that often the hadiths are flatly contradictory making such an assertion very difficult to justify. Spencer suggests that the hadiths were created to fill in missing information from the Koran or to explain textual discrepancies. In some cases, he posits that some stories about Muhammad were created by different sects of Islam in order to bolster their own positions or beliefs. When Muhammad allegedly made a mistake in doctrine in the episode fictionalized in Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” regarding an incorrect revelation, he rescinded his pronouncement, proclaiming it to be the result of interference by Satan. Allah then canceled the revelation, thereby correcting the mistake. In one case, Muhammad’s forces did not succeed in the Battle of Uhud, circa 625. The defeat was not attributed to military strategy, leadership, or luck. Rather, it was a lack of faith, which, according to Spencer, stoked the fires of fanaticism. The more devout one is the better one’s chances of success in life and warfare. That idea has echoed down through the centuries and resonated on 9/11 and in Israel on Oct. 7. Was the Prophet Muhammad the product of warlords seeking to consolidate power? Did a man create a religion, or did a religion create a man? Spencer asserts that both could be equally true. Was Muhammad a military, social, and religious leader, or an amalgam of people whose stories were woven together to create a central figure around which the faithful could rally? The answer lies somewhere in between. It is no small thing to undertake a critical look at Islam and its prophet. There is no doubt that Spencer’s book will offend members of the Muslim community and even its non-Muslim sympathizers. As a student of religion, I have faced criticism for reading other versions of the Bible and not just the King James Version. I have been taken to the proverbial woodshed for suggesting that the message in the opening chapters of Genesis matters more than the issue of a six-day creation. But as Socrates is said to have remarked, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Can the same be said of faith? Muhammad: A Critical Biography is an excellent companion piece to Spencer’s previous outing, Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. Taken together, they offer the reader a comprehensive look at eras and events that shaped the world. READ MORE from Lincoln Brown: God & Country: Deliver Us From Christian MAGA Distinctly American: Who Are RFK Jr.’s Supporters? The Allegations Against Tim Ballard Must Not Disrupt the Fight Against Human Trafficking The post A Review of Robert Spencer’s <i>Muhammad: A Critical Biography</i> appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.