Did Muhammad receive his revelation on Mount Hira? (Dr. Sean Anthony)

Prof. Sean W. Anthony goes through an example of a hagiographical trope that structured the famous cave-revelation story of Muhammad. Muhammad’s revelation beginning in the Cave of Hira is reported in the sirah and ahadith (both deemed authentic by Islamic standards). This may be one example of many connections that exist between the Islamic tradition and pre-Islamic Arabic hagiographical traditions. Question: If Islam's tradition appears to have suffered from such contamination, what precludes the possibility of a similar occurrence in relation to what eventually became Islam's theology proper? For more information: This early Islamic tradition by Ibn Ishaq was narrated from al-Zuhri, who was born in 677/78 AD, shortly after the birthdate of Cædmon in 657 AD. Historical reports indicate that al-Zuhri worked as a judge and scholar in one of the courts of the Umayyads, specifically an Umayyad court in Jerusalem. It is not implausible to suggest that Christian monks from England, or other pilgrims from various regions, embarked on pilgrimages to the Holy Land and subsequently spread their Latin version of this story. It is also possible that Christians residing in Jerusalem were aware of the common hagiographical source of this story and facilitated its dissemination. This could explain how al-Zuhri became acquainted with the shared hagiographical source or its Latin version, thereby accounting for the structural similarities between the Arabic (Islamic) and Latin (Cædmon) versions. Prof. Sean W. Anthony’s book “Muhammad and the Empires of Faith: The Making of the Prophet of Islam”: https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Empir... This is an excerpt from Prof. Gabriel S. Reynold’s recent video on the channel “Exploring the Quran and the Bible”. The full interview can be found here:    • Sean Anthony: The Historical Muhammad, Cru...   #islam #sirah