Current Events > Why did Muslims believe that Muhammad was a prophet?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Trying to do some research about Islam.

As far as I can tell, he had no supernatural powers like Jesus.

Why did people believe him when he claimed to be a prophet?

I thought Farrakhan was the prophet you aught a listen to

Prophets predict the future. Maybe he said some things that came true?

ForTheGlory posted...

As far as I can tell, he had no supernatural powers like Jesus.

He literally teleported a mountain to himself

We literally have the phrase "sometimes Muhammad must go to the mountain " to mean having to do a difficult task. Referencing this teleportation

A prophet is someone who delivers messages from a god. Having supernatural powers is not part of the definition.

Hornezz posted...

A prophet is someone who delivers messages from a god. Having supernatural powers is not part of the definition.

Thats a good point.

Then to alter my original question, if he was indeed a prophet, how did he convince the people?

Did he make predictions that came true?

Personally I suspect it went a little something like this:

https://youtu.be/9czBBKof7Yo

There are people on CE who will unironically tell you this is a forbidden topic.

pinky0926 posted...

There are people on CE who will unironically tell you this is a forbidden topic.

Why would they think so?

Step 1 - Muhammad
Step 2 -
Step 3 - Prophet

Aressar posted...

Why would they think so?

There was a topic on CE a little while ago discussing images of muhammed and there were more than a few posters who said this is offensive to a degree that it should be against the law and other horrible things. Some of these people were muslims, some of them were lefties seemingly wanting to protect a marginalised group from offense, which I find pretty incredible.

For some reason people give Islam a pass on shit like this, maybe out of fear.

theres a lot more to him than being a prophet, Muhammed had a literal army. Even if you just read the Wikipedia page and no more its easy to gather that he was an extremely charismatic guy and a born leader.

if anything its more of a crazy journey that Jesus teachings lasted throughout all these centuries when his historical version seems to have started and ended without anywhere near such an accumulation of power

I was thinking about the concept of Muhammad being the last prophet, meaning that no other prophets would come after him.

Wondering if this was maybe a misunderstanding.

Last prophet could have also meant newest prophet, as in Muhammad was the most recent prophet that God had spoken to at that point in time.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Uh oh, now you done did it.

MarcyWarcy posted...

theres a lot more to him than being a prophet, Muhammed had a literal army. Even if you just read the Wikipedia page and no more its easy to gather that he was an extremely charismatic guy and a born leader.

if anything its more of a crazy journey that Jesus teachings lasted throughout all these centuries when his historical version seems to have started and ended without anywhere near such an accumulation of power

He was a pedophile.

If I remember my history correct...
Muhammad had a dream with an angel talking to him. He waited for the angel to return, but he never did. His family believed him and were the first muslims.
Time went on without any angels so he started to be depressed, until he dreamed about one years later. After that, he started to spread the word of God and started to get some followers. His hometown, Mecca, had no problems with it. It was run by merchants that sold stuff for pagan parties. After a while they discovered that that new religion didnt have any expensive parties, so they decided to kick out him and his followers.
They went to a Jewish village where they were welcome. Back then, it was pretty close to Judaism, it pretty much only had more prayers. He added stuff from both Judaism and Christianity, but he was pretty good at misunderstanding the things he added. Like believing that Jesus mother was sister to Noah. Or how the Last Supper was about Jesus & CO being hungry so God gave them a table full of food. The Jews laughed behind his back, and children laughed him directly in his face when he tried to teach them about his religion in school. This made him angry, and he created a verse as a "take that" that said something about reading the holy book before laughing at others.
His followers grew bigger and he decided that they should kill all the Jews in the city. After that, he and his followers walked from city to city, killing everybody in them and take them over.
Outside one wellguarded city, he decided to destroy the palms outside the city walls. This made his army angry, because it was an unwritten law to not attack any foodsource in the desert. They would have killed him if he hadnt convinced them that God had told him that it was alright in this case. They decided to attack Mecca, and sent in a rich merchant kid that demanded them access to Mecca so they could pray, or else it would be war.
The kid didnt return, so he started to fire up his men, and just when they were about to run out and attack, the kid returned. He said that it was too short of a notice to allow them in this year, but they would allow them in next year if they promised 20 years of peace. Muhammed accepted it, which made his men sad because they wanted to fight.
They returned home. After some months he decided to attack Mecca because screw peace, and he took it over.

As for why they followed him... the old pagan religions were getting bored and people were looking for a new religion. He appeared at the right time and the right place, and he was good at convincing people that God had told him what they should do.

Foppe posted...

If I remember my history correct...

This is an interesting interpretation of historical record

As for TCs question, even before his claim of Prophethood, Muhammad was known to be exceptionally sincere. Quite a few people accepted based on "he of all people said it, so it must be true" especially at the beginning

You have to remember that Islam was a wartime religion. As Muhammad was gathering followers and conquering Nations he tended to have revelations from God that just happened to line up nicely with what was necessary for his next conquest. So it's less that people started following him because he was a prophet and more that people started following him because he was conquering Nations and after the fact decided to buy in to this idea that he was somehow uniquely blessed by god.

Hornezz posted...

Having supernatural powers is not part of the definition.

Pretty sure all the Abrahamic prophets also had super powers

teep_ posted...

Muhammad was known to be exceptionally sincere. Quite a few people accepted based on "he of all people said it, so it must be true" especially at the beginning

This is an interesting take.

Especially since he was preaching about peace and charity, there was no reason to believe that he was intending to harm anyone.

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

He literally teleported a mountain to himself

We literally have the phrase "sometimes Muhammad must go to the mountain " to mean having to do a difficult task. Referencing this teleportation

I'm pretty sure TC is referring to stuff that actually happened, not the made up stuff that religious texts come up with to justify their beliefs.

I hope I don't get moderated for the controversial belief that Muhammed did not actually teleport a mountain, but who knows.

ForTheGlory posted...

This is an interesting take.

Especially since he was preaching about peace and charity, there was no reason to believe that he was intending to harm anyone.

Yeah, at the end of the day it's charisma and the power of personality. We are acutely aware in the modern era the power that Cults of Personality can have over a population--Enough, at least, to move mountains literally. Look at Pope John Paul, Donald Trump, Joel Osteen, Putin, Mao Zedong, ect. I'm sure there were plenty of delusional people back in the day, as there are now, claiming to know the truth of God and the nature of reality. Very few of them were charismatic and convincing enough to sway the minds of man, however.

My two favorite Muslims are Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson.

https://youtube.com/shorts/-nhg0Tkxq7A?feature=share

I believe that Jesus is God.

For that reason, I dont share their beliefs.

ForTheGlory posted...

This is an interesting take.

Especially since he was preaching about peace and charity, there was no reason to believe that he was intending to harm anyone.

I thought the whole deal was that he was exiled from Mecca for "preaching falsehood" and and he and his followers went to Medina and eventually returned with an army and took Mecca. Mohammad himself died before the Caliphate even spanned all of Arabia, IIRC. It was successors who invaded the Eastern Roman and Sassanid Empires (which had conveniently recently spent a few decades fighting a fruitless war with each other, meaning they were both severely weakened).

Interestingly, the Ka'aba already existed in pre-Islamic times: Mohammad simply repurposed it.

The origins of Islam are fascinating, because both Judaism and Christianity were well-represented in the Arabian peninsula and there was an Arabic kingdom called Himyar which made Judaism its state religion and began persecuting Christians, so Ethiopia invaded them, defeated them, and installed a Christian as king. Lots of shit was going on down there. In a sense, Islam is an Arabified synthesis of the two other Abrahamic faiths which incorporates traditional Arabic folklore with the mythoses of Judaism and Christianity.

Is is true when he was 40 he was a poor incel who got married to a rich old lady which upped he standing in life?

MarcyWarcy posted...

if anything its more of a crazy journey that Jesus teachings lasted throughout all these centuries when his historical version seems to have started and ended without anywhere near such an accumulation of power

The key to Jesus' popularity was that his teachings were all written down even though it was 3rd and 4th hand information from after his death. Every other holy man or magus didn't have that luxury. It also meant his teachings could be spread far and wide to anyone who was literate. It was also gripping reading for the time period.

Another factor included Near Eastern religions such as Judaism becoming trendy within the Roman Empire at the time in the same way Asian philosophies are trendy in Hollywood today. Christianity had the lowest threshold for admittance as well as adherence - such as not having to be circumcised or having a special diet. Mithraism was Christianity's main competitor and it too was a Near Eastern religion with a low threshold for admittance.

Finally, Christianity targeted women, slaves, and the poor, who together made up the vast majority of the Roman Empire's population. Most religions at the time favored wealthy and powerful men. Christianity's early benefactors and leaders were wealthy Roman women. A lot of this was covered up by the later Church to make it's origins more reputable. But before that, Christianity was usually slandered by the Roman elite aware of them as being a religion of slaves and women.

Islam was predominantly spread by conquest. So why did Muslims believe? Fear of being killed if they didnt convert, super high taxes as well for non-converters.

R1masher posted...

I thought Farrakhan was the prophet you aught a listen to

Fight the power!

Why do Chrisitans think Jesus was white or had "supernatural" powers?

Norman_Smiley posted...

Islam was predominantly spread by conquest. So why did Muslims believe? Fear of being killed if they didnt convert, super high taxes as well for non-converters.

They didnt convert Jews or Christians by the sword, and the jizya was assessed in lieu of military service. Hell, it took centuries for Zoroastrianism to fade away! IIRC, the logic was that Muslims need not worry about dying, whereas the Koran kind of seems waffly on what happens to dhimmi. So only Muslims were supposed to be employed in Islamic armies.

In fact, the Jews opened the gates of Jerusalem to the Arabs, mostly because they hated the Romans, and the Muslims did typically treat Jews better than the Christians did.

Also Hindus probably became dhimmi primarily because Muslim sultans realized they could get rich off of taxing them. The jizya likely discouraged state efforts to convert people, but it did motivate non-Muslims to convert on their own to get out of paying it.

Not entirely related but it's pretty amusing how easy it is to "convert" to Islam vs say, converting to Judaism.

@bio1590

What evidence do you have for that claim?

ForTheGlory posted...

@bio1590

What evidence do you have for that claim?

The fact that it's literally true? "Formal" conversion to Judaism is a HUGE process and it's pretty much as intentionally difficult as possible.

Interstella5555 posted...

Why do Chrisitans think Jesus was white or had "supernatural" powers?

i've never met a christian who actually thought Jesus was white. What an odd argument you are trying to make. Love the movie your username is based off, though.

Ikzai posted...

i've never met a christian who actually thought Jesus was white. What an odd argument you are trying to make. Love the movie your username is based off, though.

Seems like a bad faith argument when literally every depiction of Jesus has him looking like a member of lynyrd skynyrd

pinky0926 posted...

Seems like a bad faith argument when literally every depiction of Jesus has him looking like a member of lynyrd skynyrd

uhhhh

https://faithhub.net/christ-around-the-world/

Ikzai posted...

uhhhh

https://faithhub.net/christ-around-the-world/

1) this kind of disproves your original point and 2) i was being slightly hyperbolic. But go Google Jesus and see how popular white Jesus is in media

Well I was arguing against your statement that most Christians think Jesus was white. They don't. Most Chinese dont think he was Chinese. People know he was a dark skinned man if they are of that religion. I don't do well with people being hyperbolic unless you have a time chamber to go in! HA HA.

How did a topic about Islam turn into a debate over how whitewashed Jesus is?

s0nicfan posted...

How did a topic about Islam turn into a debate over how whitewashed Jesus is?

Jesus is a part of Islam.

Jesus is the son of god. He got to choose his appearance in the character creator and wasnt stuck with the default class skins.

Its also worth mentioning not all strains of Islam are iconoclastic. The tradition is old and may have partially been a reaction to Roman Orthodox Christianity, which was big on icons of saints being a prominent part of ceremonies (a tradition that survives in Orthodox Christianity in modern times). But many schools of Islam are fine with depictions of the Prophets. The Mughals were especially fond of depicting scenes from the lives of the Prophets, for example.

However, the Ottoman Empire tended to promote conservative schools that emphasized obedience to state authority and, of course, Wahhabism is infamously conservative (and utter shit) and the Saudis very actively promote it throughout the Muslim world, to the grief of all.

Hornezz posted...

A prophet is someone who delivers messages from a god. Having supernatural powers is not part of the definition.

If they have no supernatural gift you must assume them false.

That is like 101 with prophets of God.

Norman_Smiley posted...

Islam was predominantly spread by conquest. So why did Muslims believe? Fear of being killed if they didnt convert, super high taxes as well for non-converters.

So if you denied he was a prophet what eould happen to you AND your family?

Priere posted...

Jesus is the son of god. He got to choose his appearance in the character creator and wasnt stuck with the default class skins.

Lol, great post.

Do we have any Muslims on CE?

I cant wrap my mind around the idea that Islam rejects the idea that Jesus was crucified.

So basically Muhammad is calling Jesus a liar?

If one prophet can just claim that another prophet was a liar, then why should we believe anything Muhammad says?

ForTheGlory posted...

Do we have any Muslims on CE?

I cant wrap my mind around the idea that Islam rejects the idea that Jesus was crucified.

So basically Muhammad is calling Jesus a liar?

If one prophet can just claim that another prophet was a liar, then why should we believe anything Muhammad says?

Did he call Jesus a liar...
...or Christans because they spread lies in their version of Jesus?

MabusIncarnate posted...

Step 1 - Muhammad
Step 2 -
Step 3 - Prophet

Step 1 - Muhammad
Step 2 - Mohammed says he's a prophet and some people believe him, then others believe the word of his followers
Step 3 - Prophet

People are gullible AF.