Most existing works by Muslims on the early sources and history of Islam, including the Qur’an, the Hadith (reports on life and teachings of the Prophet), the Sirah (story of the Prophet’s life) and the history of the early Islamic period, were written more than a century after the purported death of the Prophet and the beginning of the Islamic conquests. None of these works have reached us in their original forms. Moreover, the works themselves suggest that different versions of certain works, including the Qur’an, had existed at different times, and attest to the turbulent nature of the times in which the works were collected, to the haphazard nature of the collection process itself, and to widespread ideological motivations on part of the collectors and their sponsors. Therefore, the authenticity of these works, in the sense that they actually relate factual accounts of the times and events they purport to cover, is as dubious as that of the Christian gospels and the Old Testament.

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