Shadowing Practice: Did Prophet Muhammadﷺ Really Exist? What Historians Actually Say About the Evidence - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Did Muhammad really exist?
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Now you might think this was a silly question
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but in fact online now on YouTube an increasing number of videos have been made mainly I think by missionary
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Christians from a certain background questioning his existence.
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So I thought I'd just do a brief video just surveying
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the historical evidence from a reputable historian just to see what the truth of the matter is
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and I'll just turn again to the wonderful Jonathan AC Brown
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book Mohammed a very short introduction he's a recognized expert on
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this subject chosen by Oxford University Press to share with its
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readers the truth about Mohammed from an historian's point of view
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so I'll just share with you this very question did Mohammed really exist revisionist history
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that's how this section of the book is entitled.
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I'll just read to you what Jonathan Brown has to say.
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Now he gives a long survey at the beginning about the problems
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that some people see with establishing the existence of Muhammad as an historical person
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and then he concludes with what mainstream historians are saying about this subject.
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Modern historians have generally concluded that by reading the Sira in light of the various influences and agendas pursued within the text,
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we can sift out forged reports.
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Looking at the material that remains, we can retrieve an authentic kernel that represents the historical reality of Muhammad's career.
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According to this mainstream scholarly opinion, scepticism about the details of the Sira should not lead us to doubt its overall narrative.
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Some Western historians however have called for more extreme scepticism towards Muslim sources.
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Known as revisionist historians these scholars point out
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that we have no detailed history for Islam or biography of Muhammad for some 150 years after his death.
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Moreover, what we do have is all written by Muslims.
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These Muslims thus had over a century to manufacture whatever history they wanted about Muhammad and his faith.
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How then can we trust any
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Muslim version of his life or the origins of Islam?
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How do we know that Muhammad even existed?
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In a controversial 1977 book entitled Hagerism, the historians Patricia Crone and Michael Cook argued
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that we can circumvent these challenges by relying on non -Muslim sources to reconstruct the origins of Islam.
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Not only were such sources not biased towards glorifying Muhammad,
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they were also much older than our earliest Muslim histories.
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Using Christian sources such as the writings of an Armenian bishop named Sibius from the 1660s CE,
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Cook and Crone contended that
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Islam was really a form of late messianic Judaism.
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Awakened to the Abrahamic roots, Mohammed
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and the Arabs had joined with the Jews of the Hijaz in an apocalyptic movement to retake the Abrahamic homeland of Palestine.
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Crook and Crone conclude from Christian sources that Mohammed was in fact still alive during the Muslim conquest of Syria.
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The scholar John Walnsborough also argued that we can never locate the factual kernel of the historical Muhammad.
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All we can discover is the sacred history constructed by the Muslim community as it gelled in the late 700s
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and early 800s.
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In his books Quranic studies and the sectarian milieu
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Walnsborough argues that it was at this time
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that the Muslims constructed the Quran and the Sira to create a religious vision anchored in 7th century Arabia.
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The life of Mohammed and the Quran were merely cobbled together from elements drawn from the ancient
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Near Eastern religious heritage.
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Based on archaeological evidence, the Israeli historian Yehuda Nivo argued that
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Islam was originally a form of vague monotheism which only solidified into its Mohammedan form after 692 AD.
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He points to a papyrus tax receipt from Egypt dated
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22 hijri which begins with the formula in the name of god but makes no mention of muhammad.
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nevo states
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that we do not see the phrase mentioning muhammad until a
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coin minted in damascus in 72 hijri with the phrase muhammad is the messenger of god
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and then jonathan brown puts in brackets in fact
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there is an earlier coin mentioning his name issued in 66
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hijri after 692 however muhammad's name appears regularly in umayyad coins
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and monumental inscriptions the person of muhammad before
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that time nebo concludes must not have been a significant part of islam
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so nebo concludes that muhammad was not a significant part of islam at all.
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Most modern scholars however object to the revisionist recasting of Muhammad and the origins of Islam.
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In other words they reject these revisionist theories.
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First of all how were Muslims able to orchestrate a conspiracy as massive as rewriting the entire first century of their history?
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We must remember that during this time the Muslim community was wracked by civil wars and sectarian strife.
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Warring Umayyad, Kharijite, Shiite and Abbasid Muslims could not agree on anything let alone join forces to rewrite their collective history.
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As for the absence of archaeological evidence naming Muhammad before 691, it is not conclusive.
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Just because no earlier coins or evidence have survived does not mean they did not exist.
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Perhaps the Arabs continued their tradition of oral commemoration and did not record such things in written form.
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Finally, the Quran itself is the most conclusive evidence that the Muslim narrative of Muhammad's mission is reliable in its overall structure.
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Unlike the Sira, the Quran bears no traces of civil war or sectarian propaganda.
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It never mentions Ali, Abu Bakr or the Umayyads.
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Furthermore, there are no conflicting versions of the Quran.
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If the Quran was not affected by these forces,
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it must have taken permanent form before them this means
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that the Quran consists of material dating back to the time of the prophet
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or soon after his death one person the Quran does mention by name is Muhammad urging his followers over
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and over again to obey God and his messenger Muhammad thus seems to have been very important to Islam indeed.
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We must also be cautious of uncritically accepting Christian descriptions of Muhammad's teachings.
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Christian writers may not have been biased towards Muhammad but they were certainly not objective observers.
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They were describing the faith of the armies that had just steamrolled over them so it is not surprising that they saw
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Islam and Mohammed in an inexact light.
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To rely solely on these Christian sources in writing the history
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of Mohammed would be like writing a history of the Soviet Union during the Cold War using only American newspapers.
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I think that's a rather clever analogy.
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More importantly viewed together these early non -Muslim sources paint a picture of Islam
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that does not actually differ markedly from the major themes of the Muslim version.
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The Greek historian of the first century before the common era
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Diodorus mentions a temple in the Hejaz honoured by the peoples of Arabia
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and the second century AD Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy mentions the Arabian towns of Yathripa and Mecoraba.
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Sound familiar?
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We thus know that Mecca and Yathrib and most likely the Kaaba existed long before Islam.
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Moreover, the Jewish historian Josephus, who died in the first century AD,
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tells us that it had long been held that the Arabs were the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael.
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Non -Muslim sources certainly leave leave no doubt
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that a prophetic figure named Muhammad existed and they provide an unsurprising description of what he meant to his followers.
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An anti -Jewish Christian text written in 634 just two years
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after Muhammad's death notes how the armies of an Arabian prophet had conquered Palestine.
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Writing in the year 687, the Mesopotamian Christian monk John of Fanak wrote
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that the Muslims considered Muhammad to be their guide
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and instructor who taught the Arabs to worship the one god in accordance with ancient law.
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He remarks how strictly they kept to the tradition of Muhammad.
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Another mid -8th century Syriac Christian writer tells us that Muhammad went on caravan journeys to Syria as a youth.
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An anonymous chronicle written in the mid 700s in the Zoukine
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Monastery in northern Mesopotamia calls Muhammad the first king of Arabs who considered him a prophet
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because he turned them in from polytheism to worship of the one God.
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Muhammad gave them laws and they called him the messenger of God."
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So clearly there is an abundance of very early reliable evidence from non -Muslim sources and Muslim sources.
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The Qur 'an itself names Muhammad.
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The Qur 'an is now securely dated in the form even
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that we have it today back to the even the lifetime of the prophet
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or very shortly after his death according to the majority view of western scholars
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and obviously muslim scholars too so
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if you were to come across any youtube videos
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or any other missionary propaganda casting doubt on muhammad's existence
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i do recommend you get a good reliable scholarly analysis of the facts
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from a world -class academic publisher to get the reliable factual information and not rely on missionary propaganda.
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Till next time.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Did Prophet Muhammadﷺ Really Exist? What Historians Actually Say About the Evidence”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: muhammad, muslim, islam, sources, historian. This video has 116 sentences and 1489 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:49. The speaker talks at a steady 126 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 73% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| historian noun | /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ | A writer of history. |
| scholar noun | /ˈskɑlɚ/ | A student; one who studies at school or college, typically having a scholarship. |
| conclude verb | /kənˈkluːd/ | To end; to come to an end. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| reliable adjective | /ɹɪˈlaɪəbl̩/ | Suitable or fit to be relied on; worthy of dependence, reliance or trust; dependable, trustworthy |
| coin noun | /ˈkoɪ̯n/ | A piece of currency, usually metallic and in the shape of a disc, but sometimes polygonal, or with a hole in the middle. |
| prophet noun | /ˈpɹɑ.fɪt/ | Someone who speaks by divine inspiration. |
| rely verb | /ɹɪˈlaɪ/ | To trust; to have confidence in; to depend. |
| messenger noun | /ˈmɛs.ən.d͡ʒɚ/ | One who brings messages. |
| narrative noun | /ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/ | The systematic recitation of an event or series of events. |
| phrase noun | /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/ | A short written or spoken expression. |
| worship noun | /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/ | The devotion accorded to a deity or to a sacred object. |
| mainstream adjective | /ˈmeɪn.stɹiːm/ | Used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of population, market, scientific community, etc. |
| bias noun | /ˈbaɪ.əs/ | Inclination towards something. |
| moreover adverb | /mɔːˈɹəʊ.və/ | In addition to what has been said. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | have been made · is entitled · were merely cobbled |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have been made · have generally concluded · have called |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 4 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'll, I'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: furthermore /ˈfɜː(ɹ).ðə(ɹ)ˌmɔː(ɹ)/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, monotheism /ˌmɑnoʊ̯ˈθiɪzm̩/, polytheism /pɒl.ɪˈθiː.ɪz.əm/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: worship /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/, shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/, establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, bishop /ˈbɪʃəp/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/
- Long words — get the stress right: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, conspiracy /kənˈspɪɹəsi/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/, anonymous /əˈnɒn.ə.məs/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like historian, scholar, conclude.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.