I think that the evidence offered in the essay I linked above are reliable although they don’t have to be final in this regard, that Muhammad existed.
And I wonder if some of these pieces of evidence were covered by Townsend?
When I generally check about the first 50 pages of Townsend’s book, I notice a repeated emphasis on “hundreds of years after Muhammad’s death”. Although the author doesn’s seem to openly claim that the only verifiable historical sources demonstrating the historicity of Muhammad are from hundreds of years after his death, he ‘might’ be trying to create and feed that impression. Apparently, this “two hundreds years later” emphasis is about the emergence of some Hadith collector-compilers and the systematization of the Islamic practice. This is of course a good subject of debate about the “weirdness” of Islamic history but not really reliable when it comes the historicity of its prophet.
I watched the video of a debate between Robert Spencer and David Wood about “Did Muhammad exist?”
Both of them seem to have some good points for defending their positions. I currently think like Mr. Wood, who argues, among others, something like, “If some people made up a Muhammad for people to recognize and follow as a Prophet, then why did they include in his story so many factors that would ‘embarrass’ him and/or his would-be followers?”
For instance, when he apparently gets his first contact from the source of ‘revelations’, he says something like, “Oh, something bad happened to me, this must be an influence of a black magic.” There’s also the “Satanic Verses” issue.
According to the alleged historical narration, he took so many wives for himself, more than Islam seems to allow for other Muslim men, and in fact he got a revelation allowing this ‘privilege’. There are other ‘apparently condemnable’ things about his marriages, including the one with the former wife of his freed-slave and son-in-law.
Another striking example from many others that really appear embarrassing for Muhammad and his followers is that after killing many Jews in the battle of Khaybar, he happened to accept food/meat from a Jewish woman, whose family had just been killed in the battle, and who wanted to kill Muhammad by putting poison in the food. Although the poison didn’t kill him as he apparently sensed it after taking one or two bites, it is believed that he got serious health problems because of it until his death.
Numerous similar examples can be provided. So, if some people made an organized (?) effort for creating the figure of Muhammad, why are all these details, many of which have been putting Muslims in a difficult position in their defense of their prophet? Although this alone doesn’t prove that Muhammad existed, it is a signficant factor to consider.
