What is 'weak' is decided upon by the scholars of hadith, just as historians decide upon reliable and unreliable accounts of history.
Great, but when you see how very simplistic the standards they implemented are, resulting in numerous laughable contradictions, then why should I just accept their "scholarship"? I have shown before, many laughable mistakes of both Bukhari and other "scholars" (especialy those in Tafsir).
I don't see any reason why I should bound by their "scholarship"...
This is done by a collective effort, and Bukhari's ahadith stand on their own merits, not because he claimed some divine warrant dictating that his own collection was infallible.
Look, I never blamed Bukhari, by the way.. well, sometimes I do sound frustrated with him, but it's really my frustration with Sunnis who elevate him to the rank of an inspired prophet.
I simply refer to Bukhari's work because it is the one that Muslims regard as being the most reliable.
Practically, Sunnis treat his book as holy (even though they deny it). They simply need to believe in a savior who ended the corruption of Hadith.
And yes the Qur'an mentions how people said that Muhammad was a 'fabricator,' 'sorcerer,' 'poet,' etc. However, the fact that there are accounts of people from whom Muhammad could have learned what he knew makes the criticism stronger. It can't be brushed off as baseless accusation if there's historical evidence that supports the hypothesis.
Historical evidence? The Quran, which I believe in, already confirms there were such accusations, so why would I brush them off?
Given the plurality of religions and sects within Arabia at the time, be it the Sabians, Ebionites, Pagans, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians or whoever else, it's hardly surprising that Muhammad could have heard very varied and numerous myths and stories.
Pagans? Irrelevant. Sabians? Irrelevant, because the Quran was probably referring to an extinct religious group. Ebionites? I'll check that out. Zorostrians? Now, that you mention it, it's weird that he didn't add a distinctively Zoroastrian element to Quran.. why ignore them? Jews/Christians? Now that's relevant... how many sects, how many books, how many were willing to educate him? why he changed most of these? why all the headache, etc, etc, etc.
But there's really nothing unusual about using a load of different sources and stories. Why wouldn't you want to put variation into the Qur'an rather than using just a few sources?
If I'm a fabricator, with no scholarship skills, let alone reading skills, I'd try to keep it simple... very, very simple and limit my efforts to distorting stories from a single source!If Muhammad was trying to persuade people to join his religion, then he's likely going to take stories and practices from the religions of others in trying to convert them. He would want to be inclusive and would not want people to think that they were joining some completely new and alien religion. People would more likely convert if the practices and beliefs of Islam were similar to the ones they already had.
Dude, the Jesus story alone is distorted/tailored from ~10 different Gospels! Why would that attract any of the many sects following only subsets of these books? For example, Satan's fall from grace, was "stolen/distorted" from an obscure Jewish book from Egypt... (I listed a few links in this thread)... why would he do that?
Although Muslims wouldn't actually word it like that, I've seen a number of examples where they've said the like of 'Well, Muhammad was illiterate so how could he possibly have read all these books and plagiarised from them?' In reality, he didn't even have to be literate to know about these things, people have other means of communication.
I already replied to that.
And of course, the pagans of Arabia did in fact believe in Allah, 'the God.' As in Muhammad's name, Ibn Abdullah, 'son of the servant of God.' The idea of the one god was around before Muhammad. The pagans just thought that their idols could intercede on their behalf to Allah. Muhammad simply contradicted this with a more monotheistic religion, but it was not an idea that was completely alien to the pagans.
All you said is true, except he harshly criticized their religion... why couldn't he accept their generous offers?
In this, I think Muhammad had genuinely good intentions. He wanted to do away with the nonsensical beliefs of the pagan idolaters. At the same time, he wanted to abolish the immoral practices of Jahiliyya, such as child infanticide, the treatment of women as property, and so on.
Are you saying he really believed his own false claims? was he hallucinating, then?
He also may have had more self-interested motives. But in any case, I think his desire to bring about much-needed change to Arabian society motivated him, and founding the religion of Islam was the means by which he sought to do this.
So he didn't believe in any gods (who might punish him for claiming he was the prophet of the true ONE God), but he tailored a monotheistic religion only for political goals? Pluasible, but our topic is the insistence, from his part on distorting from too many sources, while lacking basic scholarship (he couldn't even read so why not limit his fabrications to one source only).
And of course, the story of Muhammad's life didn't end with his exile to Medina.
I didn't say it ended there, but there are many Hadiths that say he lived poor (there are contradicting ones as well, well never mind this point, then).
Topic: Story of Moses in the Quran