Conclusion: Muhammad the Untouchable 

The Real Center of Islam

Muhammad the Untouchable: Why Islam Depends More on Its Founder Than Its God has laid bare an inconvenient but inescapable truth: Islam is not built solely upon the worship of a transcendent God. It is structurally dependent on one man—Muhammad.

The Cult of the Messenger

Islam’s core creed, the Shahada, does not stop at affirming the oneness of God. It demands recognition of Muhammad’s exclusive authority as a non-negotiable condition for salvation (Schimmel, 1992). Deny God, and you're condemned; deny Muhammad, and you're damned—regardless of your belief in God.

In mystical theology and popular tradition, Muhammad is elevated far beyond a mortal messenger. He is described as the first created being, the cosmic intercessor, and the “Perfect Man” (al-Insān al-Kāmil)—roles that flirt with divinity itself (Chittick, 2000).

Meanwhile, Islamic law enforces total sanctity around Muhammad: depictions are banned, criticism is criminalized, and the harshest penalties are reserved not for blaspheming Allah—but for slighting His prophet (Sardar, 2011).

Why It Matters

This structural dependency has far-reaching consequences:

• Reform becomes impossible—because questioning Muhammad equals heresy.

• Authoritarianism is sanctified—through blasphemy laws and enforced orthodoxy.

• Reason and conscience are sidelined—in favor of total obedience to the Prophet’s persona.

• Moral stagnation is guaranteed—since Muhammad’s 7th-century actions are frozen as timeless ethics.

In short, Islam is not a religion where God is central. It is a personality cult, cloaked in monotheistic rhetoric.

Remove Muhammad — And Islam Collapses

Without Muhammad:

• The Qur’an becomes unintelligible.

• Rituals lose meaning.

• Law loses legitimacy.

• Morality collapses into mimicry.

• Faith itself becomes unrecognizable.

Islamic revelation, practice, and salvation all pass through the bottleneck of Muhammad. He is not just a prophet—he is the lynchpin of the entire system.

Final Reckoning

If Islam claims to be a religion of pure monotheism, it must confront an uncomfortable fact: its founder overshadows its God.

This is not accidental. It is by design.

Until the Muslim world honestly reckons with the untouchable status of Muhammad, the image of Islam as a God-centered faith remains a façade—a theological smokescreen that masks a deeper allegiance: not to Allah, but to the Messenger.

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Selected References

• Brown, Jonathan A.C. Hadith: Muhammad’s Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World. Oneworld, 2009.

• Chittick, William C. The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination. SUNY Press, 2000.

• Cook, Michael. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2000.

• Esposito, John L. Islam: The Straight Path. Oxford University Press, 2002.

• Rahman, Fazlur. Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

• Sardar, Ziauddin. Reading the Qur’an: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam. Oxford University Press, 2011.

• Schimmel, Annemarie. Mystical Dimensions of Islam. University of North Carolina Press, 1992.

That concludes the series.