Was the Prophet Muḥammad really Jesus?

Was the Prophet Muḥammad really Jesus? Responding to the Revisionist Inârah School of Islamic Studies Introduction In 1977 the modern academic study of Islam’s origins took a radical revisionist turn with the publication of two books: John Wansbrough’s Qur’anic Studies, and most significantly, Patricia Crone & Michael Cook’s Hagarism. The latter book argued that Islam was invented some six decades after a man called Muḥammad died, while the former claims that Islam was fabricated in the early ninth century. Moreover, Crone & Cook argue that Muḥammad was reimagined as a scriptural prophet when al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf hurriedly fabricated the Qurʾān around 691/2. But if…
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  • Blinded On Parody

    The problem with parody modal ontological arguments 1. Introduction Suppose a person were to thoroughly understand what it means to be God, would they without the need of any other consideration, conclude that God exists? In an attempt to answer this question in the affirmative, a family of arguments known as Ontological Arguments were born….

  • The Qur’ān and Arguments: An Examination of Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī’s Dialectical Theory in ‘Alam al-Jadhal fī ‘ilm al-Jadal

    Safaruk Chowdhury. Centre for Islamic Knowledge. Received 07 February 2025   Published online 15 September 2025 Abstract This article explores the dialectical theory of the Ḥanbalī scholar Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭūfī (d. 716/1316) through a comprehensive study of his work ʿAlam al-Jadhal fī ʿilm al-Jadal. It begins with a biographical overview, situating al-Ṭūfī within the intellectual and…

  • The place of Muhammad Iqbal in revolutionary and post-revolutionary Iranian thought

    Khamenei argues that Iqbal was scarcely studied before the Iranian revolution of 1979 in Iran; it was only the Islamic government of Iran that realised many of Iqbal’s principles and would then aim to spread Iqbal’s message across Iran through books, ‘paintings’, and musicians rendering his poems into ‘popular tunes’ to reveal the debt the Iranians owed to Iqbal.[1] This reading of Iqbal’s place in Iranian intellectual history evidently serves an ideological purpose; the veracity of its claim must be investigated by sketching the rise of Iranian interest in Iqbal against the backdrop of Iran’s political history.

A tranquil mosque surrounded by lush green trees on a clear sunny day.

Featured Article

Arguing for Religious Values as the Foundation of Environmental Ethics – An Islamic Perspective

Osman Bakar, PhD

This article argues that Qur’anic religious values (al-qiyam al-dīniyya) form the essential theological and metaphysical basis of Islamic environmental ethics (akhlāqiyya al-bī’a). It highlights the broad meaning of al-bī’a, which includes both natural and built environments, and defines environmental ethics as the principles guiding how humans care for nature and shape their surroundings. Identifying religious values with tawḥīdic principles found in the Qur’an and the “Book of Nature,” the article shows how these values inform human attitudes and actions toward the environment. It emphasizes key ecological and moral principles, including nature’s multidimensional utility, and concludes that without spiritual and ethical motivation, humanity lacks compelling reasons to protect the natural world.

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