Was Muhammad Originally a Christian?
1) Early Muhammad's view of Jesus and his acceptance of Christianity
Early Qur'an verses that acknowledge Jesus's death and resurrection
There is a startling hypothesis about Muhammad, the founder of Islam: that he may originally have been a "Christian on the fringe" who accepted Jesus as the Christ and believed in his death and resurrection. Look at the early verses of the Qur'an and you find passages suggesting Muhammad naturally accepted Jesus's death and resurrection. In Surah 19:33, Jesus himself says, "Peace be upon me the day I die and the day I am raised alive." And Qur'an 3:55 (Surah Al-Imran) says: "God said, 'O Jesus, I will take you (mutawaffika) and raise you up to Myself...'" If he had planned from the start to deny the crucifixion, verses like these could not exist. To early Muhammad, Jesus was a great senior prophet who, as Christian tradition taught, suffered, died and would rise again. Muhammad was a "pro-Christian" figure who wanted to inherit Jesus's line and have his own legitimacy recognized.
2) Jewish mockery and a doctrinal revision based on Docetism
Denying the crucifixion as a defense in a political crisis
Things changed sharply after the move to Medina. The Jews there, who held considerable power, mocked Muhammad: "We are the people who even executed the Messiah Jesus you admire." The idea that the senior prophet he revered had been miserably defeated by enemies was a major political threat to Muhammad himself. So he played a defensive card: the hastily made declaration, based on the Docetic ideas of the time, that "they did not kill him, it was only made to appear so" (Surah 4:157). Islam has a concept called "taqiyya," which allows concealment for the sake of survival. To protect Jesus, whom he honored as "the Spirit and Word of God," he had to take him down from the cross and raise him straight to heaven.
3) The connection with the Christian elder Waraqa ibn Nawfal
Prophetic legitimacy granted by a translator of scripture into Arabic
Waraqa was a cousin of Muhammad's first wife, Khadija, and a Christian who was translating scripture into Arabic. When Muhammad received his first revelation and was afraid, it was this Christian elder who assured him, "You are the prophet of God."
4) Revelations that changed with politics and private life
A repeated pattern of reversing revelations to overcome crises or justify personal goals
This pattern of revelations reversing to fit circumstances appears again and again around Muhammad's private life and political crises.
•Number of wives:
Ordinary Muslims were limited to four wives, but a special revelation allowed Muhammad himself an unlimited number.
•The adultery rumor about Aisha:
When his wife Aisha was caught up in rumors of infidelity and her honor was damaged, a revelation (Surah 24) immediately declared her innocent and ordered her accusers punished.
•Marrying his adopted son's wife:
To marry the wife of his adopted son, which was a strong social taboo, a revelation justified it by saying an adopted son is not a real son.
•From peace to war (naskh):
When his movement was weak, it said "there is no compulsion in religion," but once he had military power, more aggressive verses about fighting unbelievers were said to abrogate the earlier ones.
5) Borrowing from Gnostic thought to handle a human crisis
Gnostic ideas chosen to overturn the historical record of the four Gospels
Muhammad's early high regard for Jesus and his willingness to accept his death look more like a detailed log of how one man, 1,400 years ago, responded to the crises in front of him. Without this explanation, it is hard to understand how the Qur'an, written some 600 years after the four Gospels, could overturn them. I suggest he may have briefly borrowed the thinking of the Gnostics of that time, who denied that Jesus died.
Conclusion: the growth of Ishmael's descendants and the fulfillment of biblical prophecy
The historical background of the great Islamic empire, in light of God's covenant
"Lift up the boy... for I will make him into a great nation." (Genesis 21:18)
"As for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him and make him fruitful and multiply him greatly. He shall father twelve princes." (Genesis 17:20)
"I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." (Genesis 16:10)
As covered in an earlier post, "DNA Evidence for Noah's Flood and Abraham," the descendants of Abraham today are astonishingly numerous.
