professor samatar is writting about documented history not on islamic theology. the two things are different one is based on history and rational thinking the other is based on personal belief and blind faith. so there is really no reason why you people should condemn professor samatar's scholarly work just because contradicts your beielf!
Not only is your understanding of "Islamic theology" poor but your understanding of history begs a lot to be desired. Touch up on both and understand for yourself why that criticism is applicable to Christianity not a Faith that is congruent with history as Islam is.
.... ok mate islam is based on true scientific and historically foundations not on a belief in the supernatural and the miraculous like christianinty soma ma aha and only enlightened clever theologians like you can understand it.
As always, hiding the intellectual deficiency behind sarcasm.
This has less to do with comparing Christianity and Islam theologically but whether historically, the chronicle of the two religions testifies to their stated reality. History does not testify to Christianity's stated reality which is why more Europeans are non-religious than Christian today; because they study their history and know the Council of Nicea drafting the holy trinity moots the divinity with which it is cloaked with. After all, if this is God's religion why does history lay our fingerprints all over it and as sane, logical, rational, thinking beings how can we justify the holy nature of the religion when it is a product of our own creation? In essence, where is the "God" part in our practice of this religion.
Islam is different. How do we know for example that Muhammed was illiterate and not actually the author of the Qur'an? Well, because we have Persian, Byzantine, Egyptian, etc records who testify to the existence of this illiterate man who neither can read nor write from their own observation and dealings with him. In essence, history justifies the stated reality of the Muslim faith because history reinforces the authenticity and central existence of the "God" part in the religion as a faith not of production by man. What Islam says about history is not theology as in discussing the navigational path of the solar system but what is actually recorded in discourses around the world. History and Islam are mutually inclusive and not exclusive.
That's Christianity you are talking about. Which is why the people who made Christianity that way are majority non-religious today and Islam is the fastest faith in their lands.
