Did Muhammad derive many of his religious ideas from personal contact with Jews and Christians?

Answer 1

Answer 1: Non-Muslim Perspective

Yes. The Qur'an is a composite of several previously existing traditions that Mohammed merged and aggregated. Probably the most central basis of the Qur'an is Jewish tradition. This does not mean that the Qur'an lifted phrases only from The Bible, but rather that the Qur'an repeated stories or paraphrases of Jewish sources the commented on the Bible and that existed by 500 C.E. -- over 50 years prior to Qur'anic Revelation.

Some of these verses include:

• Q: 5:31 which corresponds to a story in Targum Y. ben Uzziah -- A raven scratches the ground to tell a dumbfounded Cain how to dig a burial pit for his murdered brother.
• Q: 5:32 which corresponds to Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 -- This is the famous line that killing one person is like killing the entire world. Both specifically related this story to Cain because the bloods of Abel cry out.
• Q: 21:50-71 which corresponds with Midrash Breishit 38:11-13 -- Abraham is breaking idols in his father, Terah's workshop. The idolmakers get furious and demand that Abraham be punished. Abraham protests saying that the idols are meaningless because there is only One God and He is not in the idols. The idolmakers decide to burn him alive for desecrating the idols, but Abraham miraculously escapes being burned alive.
• Q: 24:24 which corresponds with Chagigah 16, Taanith 11 -- Both sources allege that the various body parts (specifically hands and feet) of a person will testify against him when he arrives in heaven by literally speaking to God.
• Q: 27:16-44 which corresponds with Targum Esther -- Solomon speaks to a large and powerful bird who informs him that there is a Queen in a remote land, which happens to be the Queen of Sheba in Ethiopia. Solomon demands that the bird bring her a message to come and treat with him. The Queen complies and believes Solomon to be a very wise king.

In addition to the numerous Qur'anic verses that have origins in Jewish belief, the entire system of Islamic Jurisprudence (Fiqh) is modeled in the same manner as Rabbinic scholarship. Holy Texts are read and interpreted to give meaning and discretion to current situations and these are debated by jurists (Faqih) until such a time as an answer is created and a religious decision (fatwa) published. (Judaism is the same, but replace Fiqh with Oral Law, Faqih with Rabbi, and fatwa with responsum.)

Additional similarities between the religions include that both Judaism and Islam reject the Trinity as the Godhead, are based in orthopraxis (doing over believing), have a form of religious jurisprudence based on their holy books, have dietary restrictions, and pray in distinct holy languages at set intervals during the day.

Islam also takes a number of its views about Jesus from Early Christian heresies that dominated in Arabia at the time. The most prominent such view is that Jesus was not properly crucified. As recounted by Church Father Iranaeus in Against HeresiesChapter 24 - Doctrines of Saturninus and Basilides: Wherefore he [Jesus] did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them. For since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible to all. Those, then, who know these things have been freed from the principalities who formed the world; so that it is not incumbent on us to confess him who was crucified, but him who came in the form of a man, and was thought to be crucified, and was called Jesus, and was sent by the Father.

Gnostic Christians, another Christian heretical sect held much the same view. Additionally, Q: 5:116 implies that the Christian Trinity is composed of the Father, the Son, and Mary (not the Holy Spirit). Although the Qur'an was put together between 610-632 CE, and the Nicene Creed of 325 CE already established the correct Christian Trinity, this misinterpretation makes sense when you take into account that several Christian heretical groups had the same Trinity. The Qur'an was responding to "local Christians" as opposed to all Christians. Many of the more mystial elements of the Jesus' life from Gnostics and other Heretical groups were also taken by the Qur'an and centralized.

We can also see clear clerical errors in the transmittal because of personal confusion. For example, in Q: 9:30, it claims the Jews believed that Ezra/Ozair was the Son of God, when no Jewish document corroborates this belief. Another example is when the Qur'an confuses Moses' sister Miriam with Jesus' Mother Mary (who are both Maryam in Arabic) in the line: Q:19:27-28, even though these two people would have lived over 1000 years apart.