INVESTIGATING ISLAM

Dead on Arrival

Why Muhammad’s Islam Doesn’t Exist Anymore

Introduction: The Islam That Died with Its Founder

Islam, as practiced today, is a dense web of rituals, rulings, institutions, clerical hierarchies, Hadith volumes, fatwas, and sectarian divisions. But strip away the layers, rewind the historical clock, and a startling question emerges: Did the Islam Muhammad actually preached survive him at all?

The answer—based on forensic textual analysis, logic, and the Qur’an itself—is a decisive no.

What Muhammad taught was not “Islam” in the modern religious sense, nor a codified belief system with rigid sectarian boundaries. It was a call to “submission” (islām) to the one God—an open-ended, decentralized, minimalist moral posture claimed to be rooted in the legacy of Abraham.

But that Islam died the moment Muhammad did. What replaced it was a legal-political empire wrapped in sacred language, retrofitted with fabricated traditions, and enforced by human power—not divine mandate.

This post will trace that transformation. We’ll contrast Muhammad’s original teaching—as preserved in the Qur’an alone—with the sprawling, contradictory system known today as “Islam.” And we’ll prove, with evidence, that the former no longer exists.

1. Islam as a Verb, Not a Religious Brand

The word islām in the Qur’an simply means submission. It’s a noun derived from the verb aslama, which means "to submit" or "to surrender." The root S-L-M conveys peace through submission, not allegiance to a formal religion or sect.

Qur’anic Usage:

In nearly every Qur’anic occurrence, islām refers to the act of submitting to God, not a religion labeled “Islam.” Consider:

“Surely, the [true] religion with Allah is submission (al-islām).” (Qur’an 3:19)

This verse does not name a religion. It defines acceptable relationship with God as surrender—open to all humanity, not exclusive to a sect or prophet.

In fact, the Qur’an calls Abraham, Moses, and Jesus Muslims:

“Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian but was a ḥanīf—one who submitted (musliman).” (Qur’an 3:67)

This exposes the modern anachronism: “Muslim” isn’t a title for members of a religious tribe. It’s a functional label—anyone who submits to God is, by definition, a muslim in Qur’anic terms.

No Rituals, No Institutions

In Muhammad’s Qur’anic message, there was:

No defined prayer ritual (ṣalāh was a general term for connecting with God)
No codified pilgrimage details
No mention of five pillars
No Hadith-based jurisprudence
No clerical caste

All of that came later—many decades or even centuries after Muhammad’s death.

2. The Qur’an Alone Was His Message

Muhammad, per the Qur’an, was commanded to deliver only the Qur’an:

“Shall I seek a judge other than Allah, when it is He who has sent down to you the Book fully detailed?” (Qur’an 6:114)
“Nothing have We omitted from the Book.” (Qur’an 6:38)

The Qur’an repeatedly insists it is:

Clear (mubīn)
Complete (tibyān li-kulli shay’)
Fully detailed (fuṣṣilat)
Self-sufficient as a source of guidance

There is no verse in the Qur’an authorizing any secondary source—no Hadith, no Sunnah corpus, no later opinions. In fact, Muhammad is told explicitly:

“I follow only what is revealed to me.” (Qur’an 6:50)

The post-Qur’anic reliance on Hadith—a massive body of alleged sayings and doings collected over 200+ years after Muhammad’s death—is both ahistorical and anti-Qur’anic.

The moment Islam became Hadith-based, it ceased to be Muhammad’s Islam.

3. Institutional Religion Replaced Personal Submission

The early Qur’anic Islam had no churches, no priesthood, and no legal apparatus. It was personal, internal, and direct.

But after Muhammad’s death in 632 CE, a power vacuum emerged—and it was rapidly filled by empire-builders. Within a single generation, Islam became a political project, not a spiritual one.

Key Transformations:

Qur’anic Islam	Post-Muhammad Institutional Islam
Submission to God alone	Allegiance to rulers, scholars, and caliphs
No intermediaries	Clergy class (ulama) and sectarian imams
No Hadith or secondary law	Sharia law built on Hadith & juristic opinion
No sects	Sunnism, Shiism, Kharijism, Sufism, etc.
No state-enforced religion	Islam as a state ideology under the Caliphate

This transition was not organic—it was engineered. What was once a flexible path of submission turned into a rigid system of power and punishment.

4. The Historical Record Agrees: Early Islam Was Unrecognizable

Even secular historians have noted the rupture between Muhammad’s actual teachings and what developed in his name.

Patricia Crone, in Hagarism, showed that the early Arab conquerors didn’t even refer to themselves consistently as “Muslims.” Nor did they have a coherent religious identity.

Fred Donner in Muhammad and the Believers argues that Muhammad led a movement of monotheists, not a religion called Islam. His followers included Jews, Christians, and ḥanīfs—people of various backgrounds united by the Qur’anic call to surrender to one God.

The term “Islam” as a religious brand did not appear until decades later. The institutional structure came even later still.

5. The Hadith Engineered a Retroactive Religion

The Hadith literature—bulk-compiled between 150–300 years after Muhammad’s death—is the backbone of modern Islamic practice. Yet it is:

Historically unverifiable
Contradictory
Built on chains of hearsay
Often at odds with the Qur’an

For example, the stoning of adulterers—a practice widely accepted in Islamic jurisprudence—is found nowhere in the Qur’an, which prescribes 100 lashes for adultery (Qur’an 24:2). The stoning comes from Hadith.

Likewise, the details of prayer rituals, the exact number of rak‘ahs, the rules of menstruation, the killing of apostates—none of this is Qur’anic.

Modern Islam is Hadith-based. Therefore, it is not Muhammad’s Islam.

6. What Remains Today Is a Religion of Man

What survives today under the label “Islam” is an empire of theology built by men—codified by jurists, transmitted by storytellers, enforced by rulers, and mythologized over centuries.

Its pillars, practices, schools of law, and social codes are mostly absent from the Qur’an.

The real Islam—Muhammad’s Islam—was:

Decentralized
Scripture-based
Spiritually universal
Devoid of intermediaries
Focused on justice, charity, and reflection

That model no longer exists today in any major sect, school, or society.

7. Logical Deduction: Muhammad’s Islam Is Extinct

Let’s break this down logically:

Premise 1: The Qur’an is the only authorized message according to Muhammad (Qur’an 6:114, 6:38, 6:50).
Premise 2: Modern Islam is built on Hadith, sectarian jurisprudence, and state-enforced theology.
Premise 3: Hadith and jurisprudence contradict and go beyond the Qur’an.
Conclusion: Therefore, modern Islam is not the same as Muhammad’s Islam.

Add to that:

Premise 4: The Qur’anic definition of a “Muslim” is one who submits to God, regardless of label or lineage.
Premise 5: Modern Islam defines a Muslim as one who accepts post-Qur’anic doctrines, rituals, and clerical authority.
Conclusion: Therefore, Muhammad’s definition of “Muslim” is extinct in practice.

Final Verdict: Dead on Arrival

By any honest standard of historical, textual, and logical analysis, Muhammad’s Islam no longer exists. It was:

Buried under centuries of Hadith and human intervention.
Hijacked by political and legal interests.
Rebranded as a religion of tribal identity, not universal submission.

Today’s Islam—Sunni or Shia, liberal or Salafi—is a manmade construct masquerading as divine continuity.

The truth? The only “Islam” Muhammad preached was a call to surrender to God alone, without ritual obsession or clerical mediation. That message was dead on arrival the moment it became a state religion.

Disclaimer

This post critiques Islam as an ideology, doctrine, and historical system—not Muslims as individuals. Every human deserves respect; beliefs do not.