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The Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, mentions the name Muhammad four times (3:144; 33:40; 47:2; and 48:29). None of these mentions include any biographical information about the prophet of Islam; all could be using “Muhammad” as a title, “the praised one,” rather than as a proper name.

One of these states: “And those who believe and do good works and believe in what is revealed to Muhammad, and it is the truth from their Lord, he rids them of their sins and improves their condition” (47:2). This is a curious statement to make about Muhammad, as he does not claim to forgive sins; he is, in the words of the Qur’an, only a “warner” (79:45). In the Christian tradition, however, Jesus, does offer forgiveness of sin; was this Qur’anic passage originally a reference to Jesus as “the praised one” forgiving the sins of those who follow him?

A similar question can be asked of 48:29: “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are ruthless against the unbelievers and merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and falling prostrate, seeking bounty from Allah and acceptance. The mark of them is on their foreheads from the traces of prostration. That is their comparison in the Torah and their comparison in the Gospel, like sown corn that sends forth its shoot and strengthens it and rises firm upon its stalk, delighting the sowers, so that he may enrage the unbelievers with them.”

This is reminiscent of the words of Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–33). It also recalls Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–23). Could this Qur’anic passage also have been originally a reference to Jesus, not to the prophet of Islam?

What’s more, contrary to the idea that the Qur’an was finalized long before the traditions about Muhammad were committed to writing, there is evidence that at least some elements of the holy book of Islam were still in flux even two hundred years after Muhammad was supposed to have lived. One such tradition concerns Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the Umayyad governor of Iraq from 694 to 714. An elderly Muslim recounts: “I heard Hajjaj b. Yusuf saying as he was delivering sermon on the pulpit: Observe the order of the (Holy) Qur’an which has been observed by Gabriel. (Thus state the surahs in this manner), one in which mention has been made of al-Baqara, one in which mention has been made of women (Surah al-Nisa), and then the surah in which mention has been made of the Family of Imran.”

Yet in the Qur’an today, al-Baqara is chapter two of the Qur’an, followed by the Family of Imran, which is chapter three, and then al-Nisa, which is chapter four. Yet apparently the idea that the angel Gabriel favored a different order of the chapters persisted even two centuries after the Qur’anic text was supposed to have been standardized.

Another tradition has Muhammad being reminded of sections of the Qur’an he had forgotten. This would have been a handy tradition to have at hand if one had been called upon, even as late as the ninth century, when these traditions first began to appear. They would have been helpful to explain discrepancies in the text of different versions of the Qur’an. Muhammad’s child bride Aisha is depicted as recounting: “Allah’s Messenger heard a man reciting the Qur’an at night, and said, ‘May Allah bestow His Mercy on him, as he has reminded me of such-and-such Verses of such-and-such Suras, which I was caused to forget.’” The Muslim need not worry: Allah guided even the forgetting (or discarding?) of passages of the Quran. In another hadith, Muhammad says: “Why does anyone of the people say, ‘I have forgotten such-and-such Verses (of the Qur’an)?’ He, in fact, is caused (by Allah) to forget.”

The Qur’an thus brings us no closer to encountering the real Muhammad than we were before. Even as Arab armies were conquering enormous expanses of territory, the figure who supposedly inspired them to do so in the first place remained shadowy and elusive.

The material in this article is adapted from the book Muhammad: A Critical Biography, in which you can find out a great deal more about the search for the real Muhammad.