This is a question I have pondered for a while. As I understand it, he was from a family tradtiionally associated with Meccan paganism, but details of his early life are very scarce. One important influence on Muhammad's views was supposedly a Nestorian monk, Bahira, from modern-day Syria.
But is it plausible that Muhammad was simply a Christian to begin with (or even considered himself one later on as well? As is often noted, Paul and Jesus never considered themselves anything but Jews, Luther thought himself a good Catholic, and so on; the splits were accentuated by their followers and successors.)? A lot of his converts apparently were, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how dominant Christianity was in that region at that time. Some counter-arguments have been made that Muhammad "misunderstood" Christianity, but on the other hand Nestorian and Ebionite Christianity, especially back then, differed markedly from the religion as we know it today.
I'm not very knowledgeable on the early history of Islam (compared to what I know about Christianity), so I would be interested in finding out.
But is it plausible that Muhammad was simply a Christian to begin with (or even considered himself one later on as well? As is often noted, Paul and Jesus never considered themselves anything but Jews, Luther thought himself a good Catholic, and so on; the splits were accentuated by their followers and successors.)? A lot of his converts apparently were, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how dominant Christianity was in that region at that time. Some counter-arguments have been made that Muhammad "misunderstood" Christianity, but on the other hand Nestorian and Ebionite Christianity, especially back then, differed markedly from the religion as we know it today.
I'm not very knowledgeable on the early history of Islam (compared to what I know about Christianity), so I would be interested in finding out.
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