The Question of Prophet Muhammad’s motivations often comes to Muslims minds. They claim “How could he have made so much personal sacrifice to gain so little?” I will acknowledge that we will never really know what his motivation was. However we can look at the recorded narrations and try to piece together a narrative to see if it makes sense.

What are the possibilities?

God Exists, God is Allah, and Allah spoke to Muhammad, and Muhammad spoke the truth God Exists but God is not Allah Muhammad was hearing things or self-deluded, maybe narcissistic to the point of really believing God was granting his desires Muhammad was a liar and made up revelations in order for personal benefit A combination of these God does not exist.

From the above, we can see that it does not matter if God does not exist or exists, but what matters is Is God Allah. Meaning, the entity known as Allah, that sent revelation to Muhammad, is he real? Did he really send prophets and speak to mankind through angels and revelation? That is the crux of the matter. If God exists, but he is not Allah, he did not send revelation, he is irrelevant to this conversation.

Position 1 – the Islamic position

Allah is real. He sent the Quran to Muhammad. I would say this is false because the Quran is not accurate. That is the argument I make and justify on this blog.

Position 2- God Exists, God is not Allah

This could be described as deism. There is a creator of the universe, but he did not speak to us. Or if he did, he is not “Allah”. Allah is the pagan deity that Muhammad rebranded as the God of monotheism. If this is the case, god is irrelevant because he did not send revelation.

Position 2a- Muhammad was self-deluded

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

It is possible that Muhammad suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy. This type of sickness causes people to think they are speaking to God. Dr. Mohamed Ghilan, a Muslim academic and upcoming theologian, student of neuroscience states,

“I can give you arguments if you don’t know the background of them, you can explain prophets to be schizophrenic mental illness, where they can function by and large normally ,and there are clinical cases, those who are in neurology know this, you can go to the hospital and see people that speak about God, speak about religion, come up with lengthy treatises that are very profound philosophically… If you don’t know about our prophet, you will be shaken up.” (15:50 in the video Islam Science and Evolution)

It’s interesting that Mohamed Ghilan stated that “they can come up with lengthy treatises that are very profound“. This means that these people are otherwise functioning normally in society. They are not crazy insane people, but otherwise normal people.

Neurologist Dr. Ramachandran also demonstrates this in the following video of a man who thought God was speaking to him after he had this temporal lobe epilepsy

In conclusion Muhammad may have felt he was speaking to God. Or he may have lied. Or it may have been a combination. We may never know.

Renewer of the religion of Abraham

Muhammad may have felt justified to renew monotheism and felt that lying was justified here. There were others who claimed to follow the religion of Ibrahim that lived during the life of Prophet Muhammad or in the same era, such as Zaid bin Amr, who also used to abhor the practices of the arabs – idolatry, killing the infant girls, etc..

Narrated Asma bint Abi Bakr: I saw Zaid bin Amr bin Nufail standing with his back against the Ka’ba and saying, “O people of Quraish! By Allah, none amongst you is on the religion of Abraham except me.” He used to preserve the lives of little girls: If somebody wanted to kill his daughter he would say to him, “Do not kill her for I will feed her on your behalf.” So he would take her, and when she grew up nicely, he would say to her father, “Now if you want her, I will give her to you, and if you wish, I will feed her on your behalf.” Bukhari 3828

Prophet Muhammad also used to think similarly:

Narrated Jabir bin `Abdullah: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, “My similitude in comparison with the other prophets is that of a man who has built a house completely and excellently except for a place of one brick. When the people enter the house, they admire its beauty and say: ‘But for the place of this brick (how splendid the house will be)!” Bukhari 3534