“Some, indeed, dream of an Islam in the future, rationalised and regenerate. All this has been tried already, and has miserably failed." – Sir William Muir

Was Caliph Abd Al-Malik – not Muhammad – the real author and the prophet of the Quran? A historical perspective

 Muhammad's stole verses from the Bible: http://youtu.be/YkcOuTv27Gc via @youtube

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 Robert Spencer On Islam: http://youtu.be/T1N0XHCrMP4 via @youtube

 Michael Coren Interviews Robert Spencer - Did Mohammed Exist?: http://youtu.be/bRZtUHUifas via @youtube

 Did Muhammad Exist? Robert Spencer & David Wood vs. Anjem Choudary & Oma...: http://youtu.be/Que1xs81Wts via @youtube

Robert Spencer vs. David Wood: Did Muhammad Exist?: http://youtu.be/kXf7uP9lhE8 via @youtube

Many theologians and historians reveal that the historical evidence of Muhammad [571-632AD] does not exist and cannot be verified to have been an active religion in the ME regions the way other religions are verified. There is no mention of Muhammad anywhere from the Middle East during his actual lifetime.  No mention of Muslims living in the area are found either. Buildings and remains show that no reference to Muslims, Islam or Muhammad existed anywhere in the region Muhammad was suppose to have lived in to prove Muhammad’s historical presence.

The first mention of Muhammad doesn’t appear until decades after Muhammad’s presumed death, and only begin to take shape under the active rule of the brutal and conquering Abd al Malik ibn Marwan [646–705AD] the 5th Umayyad Caliph.

The Oldest Quran in the world:
In 1972, during the restoration of the great mosque of Sarna, capital of Yemen, workers discovered a mash of old parchments. Dr Gerd R Puin, a Quranic expert studied the find. Dr Gerd dated it at between 705 and 715 AD. It is the oldest datable Quran in the world but was created 70 years after Mohammeds death. Fragments from nearly 1000 different Quran’s had been studied and compared with the Sarna Quran and the dates could be well established. The Sarna Quran shows that verses and chapters had been changed, reformulated and rearranged. So the Quran was not a single product or a single entity that was fixed by 650 but developed much, much later hence the overlaying of texts in different dialects with over 30 different meanings.
– Abd al Malik, the Umayyad Caliph, compiles the Quran from fragmented plagiarism taken from ancient Christianity, Judaism and Zorohastrian – the common religions of the region during Abd al Malik’s raids and looting sprees.
– The individual words in the oldest Quran   in the world [705-715 AD, seventy years after Muhammad's death], have been washed off and rewritten with layered revisions. Words have been changed, entire chapters re-arranged.
– Original text is unstable and can have over 30 different meanings, showing it was not transferred word by word. Most likely these many different layers and changes come from adapting plagiarized materials Abd al Malik came across in his lootings from existing religions. The identical passages can be found in other religious teachings, which were more than 500 years older than the Quran.
– Abd al Malik then begin to make the first efforts to spread the Islamic teachings, conquering and looting many regions, killing entire tribes and people to invade their towns and areas.
– The prayers towards Mecca was likely established because Abd al Malik was born in Mecca, and was the ruler and wanted to be worshiped and honored as one.
Our claim go even further and claim that Abd al Malik and Muhammad is actually one and the same person. Muhammad was a word/name used as a term of veneration. Leaders in the medieval times were often referred to as ‘divine’ personality to avoid being questioned by the people. Abd al Malik was born in Mecca, like Muhammad. Al Malik invaded Medina with a 12,000 strong Syrian army of which 10,000 died, exactly like Muhammad. Abd al Malik built the Dome of the Rock over the tomb of Abraham in Jerusalem to show his conquest and supremacy over the jews. Why was this necessary if the area was already made Islamic under Muhammad’s invasions over one century earlier?  Muhammad is said to have flown on a winged donkey to Jerusalem. Nut why would Al Malik invade Medina when Muhammad had already done this and presumably turned it Islamic 100 years prior?  Incidentally the description of Abd al Malik and Muhammad are almost identical…
Therefore Muslims are not following the instruction of a prophet, but those of a brutal Caliph.
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Abd al Malik ibn Marwan

Yitzchak Schwartz, Intern, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Posted: Thursday, June 21, 2012

Born in Mecca and raised in Medina, the two most holy sites of Islam, the fifth caliph, Abd Al Malik Ibn Marwan, spearheaded the creation of many of the institutions that centralized the Islamic empire around his capital in Damascus and asserted its independence from Byzantine traditions.
At the time of his ascent to the throne, the caliphate had lost several important wars to the Byzantines, and local rulers had more autonomy. Abd al Malik went to war with several local rulers, reasserting Umayyad control, and established institutions such as a postal service and a new, unified currency based in Damascus. He also oversaw the construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which celebrated the location of the ascent of Prophet Muhammad and proclaimed Islamic dominance over Jerusalem, the holy city of Judaism and Christianity. The Dome of the Rock was also meant to compete with the great Byzantine holy sites in the region.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, completed 691/692. © Scala / Art Resource
Since it allowed trade in the Islamic world to function independently of the Byzantine empire, currency reform proved to be one of the most important of Abd Al Malik’s innovations, and ultimately was a major cause of war with the Byzantine emperor Justinian II. Soon, the new Islamic coinage developed its own iconography, some bearing the likeness of the caliph.

     

Dinar of Arab Type (obverse and reverse), 694/695. Probably made in Damascus. Gold; 13/16 in. (2 cm); wt: 4.5 g. The American Numismatic Society, New York (1970.63.1)
While the transition from Byzantine to Islamic rule in the Near East has often been imagined to have been very abrupt, this exhibition reveals that the process was actually gradual, and that there were many continuities between Byzantine and Islamic rule. Abd Al Malik’s reign was a critical step in the Islamicization of the Southern Mediterranean, even as his developments built on Byzantine precedents and innovations.

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Abd al-Malik depicted on the first coins in history indicating Muslim influence in the Arab world – over 100 years after Muhammad was suppose to have died. al-Malik appears on the coins with the same description given to prophet Mohammed.

A script of elegance and symmetry

by Venetia Porter, curator, British Museum
The gold dinar struck in the year 77 of the Islamic calendar, (AD 696-7) is significant for a number of reasons: it is the first issue of Islamic coinage without pictorial representation and represents a decisive break away from a coinage that hitherto had imitated the coins of the Sasanians and the Byzantines, whose territories had been incorporated into the new Muslim empire.
This dinar was struck by Abd al-Malik, fifth of the Umayyad caliphs (reigned AD 685-705) – the Umayyads being the first great dynasty of Islam (AD 661-750) whose capital was at Damascus in Syria. Abd al-Malik not only initiated the reform of the coinage but was also responsible for the construction of one of the most iconic buildings in the Islamic world, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, part of an ambitious plan to build up and consolidate the Muslim presence in Greater Syria. Quite apart from the significance of this coin for the monetary history of the Islamic world, the style of the coin also tells another important story.
The inscriptions proclaim the very essence of the faith of Islam and include the phrase: ‘there is no god but God, he has no associate, Muhammad is the prophet of God’, in addition to other verses from the Qur’an (Qur’an 9:33 and 112). Qur’anic texts also appear in the Dome of the Rock made of mosaic placed high up on the walls of the ambulatory and they are written in the style of script known as Kufic.
Arabic was an oral language only until the Revelation to the Prophet Muhammad in early seventh century Arabia. It developed as a script in order to set down the words of the Revelation to prevent them being lost. The alphabet adopted was one that was based on a style of Aramaic script used by the Nabateans whose capital was at Petra in Jordan. Early developments evolved into Kufic an exceptionally elegant script characterised by letters that are simple and angular in shape. What is crucial about Abd al-Malik’s dinar is that along with the inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock, they both provide us with the concrete markers we need to understand the evolution of this remarkable script: the dinar is dated 77/696-7 and the Dome of the Rock was completed in 72/692. This tells us that by the late seventh century a script had evolved that was intended to reflect and honour the beauty and power of the Revelation. It was as effective written on a tiny coin as large scale on the walls of the Dome of the Rock.
Script became a defining feature of Islamic art developing, over the centuries, complex rules to create elegance and symmetry. Such is the flexibility of the Arabic script that even today, some 1400 years after the appearance of the Kufic script on Abd al-Malik’s dinar, it continues to provide inspiration for modern calligraphers.
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Comparison of a gold Dinar of the Caliph Abd al-Malik from 693 CE and a ceremonial coin of the Byzantine Emperor Constans II struck 652-654 CE. The connection with the fall of Mecca and the victory over the rival Caliph Abd Allah ibn Zubair in 692 CE.

CONSTANS II. 641-668 AD. AR Half Miliaresion or Siliqua (2.07 g, 6h). Constantinople mint. Struck 652-654 AD. d N CONSTAN TINUS PP AV, Constans, crowned and wearing chlamys, standing facing, holding globus cruciger.
In the 7th century, the silver Milaresion was no longer being issued except for very rare commemorative occasions. The obverse type of this ceremonial issue has only one parallel, in the follis of Constans dated Indictional year 11 (652/3 AD), struck at Syracuse (SB 1108), and is probably contemporary with the miliaresion issue (SB 986) with facing bust. It is uncertain if there is a specific event to be tied to these issues, and they may have simply been distributed to worthy members of the imperial court and important guests. Curiously, this standing figure seems to provide the closest design prototype for a unique miliaresion of Justinian II (SB 1257A) and the subsequent coin struck by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik in 693 CE (77 AH).
Any examples out there of the silver Milaresion of Justinian II (SB 1257A)?
However, the Byzantine Emperor Constans II was one of only two Byzantine Emperors (the other being his father Heraclius, d. 641 CE) who were known for their full, long beards on their coins. If the Muslim Caliph Abd al-Malik needed a prototype for a full bearded figure on a coin, this would have been it. However, there is absolutely no prototype for three figures on the obverse of a coin at this particular period.
These two Byzantine issues were unique, one-of-a-kind commemorative coins. This would also make them an appropriate model for a unique reigious / political statement: The power of the Sunni Umayyad Caliphate over the Shia rebels then current, a different “People of the House” (Pers. “Ahl-i-Bayt”) than the Prophet Muhammad, his cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn Abu Talib, and his daughter Fatima, a Sunni version of this.
There was an even more critical reason to issue a commemorative coin in 693 CE with these particular individuals, the Prophet Muhammad flanked by Abu Bakr and Aisha: In 684 CE, Abd Allah ibn Zubair had proclaimed himself Caliph at Mecca. Abd Allah was a grandson of Abu Bakr’s, and therefore the nephew of Aisha. His mother Asma bint Abu Bakr, Aisha’s sister, was still alive, in her ’90s. In some very important ways Abdullah had a much better claim to the Caliphate than the Umayyads, who had been the early enemies of Muhammad and the leaders of the pagan Meccan opposition to Islam. Mecca, the very heart of Islam, had been occupied for 9 years by a rival bitterly opposed to the Umayyads, who initially met with success in this civil war. Finally, in 692 CE, Mecca fell after a bitter siege, and Abd Allah was slain. The important thing is that Aisha, when she was alive, was the main backer of the Umayyads in the civil war against Ali ibn Abu Talib in the early 650′s and the key figure in the Battle of the Camel, named indirectly after her, that forced Ali to negotiate. So here, we not only have a religoius / political statement against the Shia, but a clear statement of victory over Abdullah ibn az-Zubair, and a sign of the reunification of the House of Islam after many years of civil war, and the final recovery of Mecca for the Damascus-based Umayyad Caliphate.
The story of Asma bint Abu Bakr and the final day of her son Abdullah ibn az-Zubair

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Summary of reasons why this coin must be a portrait of the “Prophet Muhammad” = Abd al-Malik:

In 693 CE, the Byzantine Empire for the very first time issued coins that had Jesus on the obverse, instead of a portait of the reigning emperor or him and his heirs. This image of Jesus was no mere common religious image: This was a copy of the Divine True Image of Christ taken from the sacred relic, the Cloth of Edessa. The very image on the Byzantine coinage was in and of itself a kind of sacred relic, an “image not made by human hands.” This would have caused a serious problem for Muslims: The Byzantine coinage that was in official use by the Caliphate now bore an idolatrous image, a miraculous portrait of Christ as Lord, a kind of holy icon itself worthy of adoration. The legend on the obverse even explicity said “Jesus Christ Lord Savior King of those who rule.” Muslims of course were commanded to destroy all idols and idolatrous images
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This created an immedate need for the Caliphate to issue a coin suitable for Muslims to handle.This substitute for the True Image of Christ was a portrait of the final Messenger of God, in an clearly human fashion, flanked by his closest companion and brother-in-law, and his wife, with the figures shown almost the same size as him. The legend on the obverse even is a part of the very creed of Islam, the Shahada: “Muhammad the apostle of God”, a direct response to the part of the Nicene Creed of Christianity paraphrased on the obverse of the Byzantine coin: “Lord Jesus Christ … his kingdom will never end..&quot
The single pillar on the reverse vs. the cross potent on the reverse of the contemporary Byzantine coinage. The single pillar on steps mounted by a ball, is a symbol of the central tenet of Islam, the unity of God. This is opposed to the three arms of the cross with bars mounted on steps, and also ending in balls, in addition to being a cross are also a symbol of the Holy Trinity.
The central figure both grasping a sword and gesturing as if preaching, as opposed the the Sign of Blessing made by Jesus on the Byzantine Coin. This explanatory gesture on the Muslim Coin is appropriate to a Messenger of God, but not to a portrait of a Caliph.
The need for an iconographic coinage acceptable to the Byzantines to pay the required tribute to the Byzantine Empire after the defeat of 689 CE, yet one that was distinctively Islamic.
The obverse inscription which says “Muhammad the Prophet of God” but which makes no reference to the ruling Caliph as on all later Muslim coinage.
The unique nature of this coin, with the image being entirely different from that of the contemporary “Standing Caliph” issues, both in the portait of the central figure, and the presence of three figures on the coin.
The complete withdrawal from circulation of this issue upon pain of death just 2 years later.The severity of this decree would not be fitting a mere portrait of a Caliph, but points to a new, total restriction of religious imagery of any kind as idolatrous.
The accordance of the features of the portrait of the central figure with the descriptions of the Prophet Muhammad from the Hadith. e.g. the full beard. This is modelled on the Byzantine coin portrait of the Emperor Constantine II, yet the figure is grasping a sword in the right hand as opposed to a globus cruciger, a Imperial and religioius symbol of universal rule.
The female figure is veiled. At the earliest stage of Islam, only the Prophet’s wives were explicily required to be veiled.
This is also a counter to the Shia trilogy of Muhammad, Ali and Fatima. There is the presence on the coin of the first Caliph Abu Bakr, instead of Ali, who was regarded as the first legitimate Caliph by the Shia. His daughter and Muhammad’s wife Aisha was the rallying point of the Umayyads and directly opposed the right of Ali to be Caliph in the struggle between them. Caliph Abd el-Malik’s father himself, the Caliph Marwan ibn al-Hakam, was a key ally of Fatima’s in the battles of the First Islamic Civil War.
There is a portrait of Abu Bakr and his daughter Aisha vs. Abu Bakr and his other daughter, Aisha’s sister and Abdullah ibn az-Zubair’s mother Asma. The revolt of the anti-Caliph ibn az-Zubair in Mecca, Abu Bakr’s grandson, after twelve years, was finally supressed the year before in 692 CE, This recapture of the holy city of Mecca resulted in the final complete reunification of the Islamic Caliphate under the Umayyads.
Finally, the most compelling reason: A woman bearing a sword – a portrayal of a woman unique in the history of Islam. A fitting portrait for the Prophet Muhammad’s wife Aisha, who played a pivotal role in the civil war between the Caliph Ali and the Umayyad governor of Damascus Muawiya, particularly at the Battle of the Camel in 656 CE, a battle which was explicitly [but indirectly] named for Aisha, who personally played a key role in this battle.

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Taboo Numismatics Part IV: Comparison of the coinage of Christian Byzantine Emperor Justinian II, 685-692 CE [L], and that of the Muslim Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik 693 CE (AH 77) [R]

Left: Byzantine Emperor Justinian II Rhinometus. First reign, 685-695 AD. Gold Solidus (4.45 g, 6h). Constantinople mint. Struck 692-695.
Obverse: Facing bust of Christ holding jewelled Gospel; cross behind head, right hand raised in blessing. 692 CE.
Legend: IHS CRIST D S REX REGINORUM
Latin: Ihesus Cristus Dominus Salvator Rex Reginorum = “Jesus Christ Lord Savior King of Those Who Rule”. This is the very first instance this motto being used on coinage..
Reverse: Cross potent on base of four steps. Struck 685-691 CE. Typical Byzantine reverse pre-692. The cross potent on steps is thought to be a portrayal of the great jewelled cross erected in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on site of the Crucifixion.
Legend: VICTORIA AVGuH
Latin: Victoria Augusti = “Victory of the Emperor” a traditional Roman numismatic legend signifying a recent victory in battle by the Emperor, in this case over the Caliphate in Syria in 689. (S 1247; DO 6)
Right: Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan 77 AH (693 CE).. Gold Dinar, Damascus mint.
Obverse: Center: The Prophet Muhammad, flanked on the left by his Companion and First Caliph Abu Bakr, and on the right by his wife and Abu Bakr’s daughter Aisha. All three are grasping swords in their right hands, including Aisha, and Aisha is wearing a veil.
Reverse: Single column with ball on four steps. Legend: “There is no God but God and Muhammad is the Apostle of God.” (The Muslim profession of faith) and “Damascus Year 77″. The single column is a symbol of the unity of God, as opposed to the cross potent, both a symbol of the Crucifixion of Jesus and a symbol of the Trinity.
It certainly seems that the Islamic type here represented is directly modelled on the previous Byzantine type (the reverse) and the obverse is in clear response to the copy of the face of Jesus from the Mandylion, the “Holy True Image”, a portrait believed “not to have been made by human hands”. The unacceptable ot Muslims Christian profession of the divinity of Jesus was replaced by the Muslim profession of failth on the reverse. and a corresponding true-to-life portrait of the Prophet Muhammad, along with his wife and closest companion, to signify the Prophet’s pure humanity, replaced the “divine” portrait of Jesus as Lord and Savior. The motto on the Byzantine coin “King Over Those Who Rule” is a direct attack as well on the Islamic name of the Caliph Abd al-Malik, which means in Arabic “The Servant of the King”. In Islam, Khalifa [Caliph] in Arabic means “successor [to the Prophet]“. Rulers were “Emir al-Muamin”, the “Commander of the Faithful”, or “Successor”, not “King”. There is only one “King” in Islam, God himself, and not his “Son”.
A Bibliography of Recent Work on Syrian Arab-Byzantine Coinage