Islam Watch

Why Does Islam Claim Eternity When It Emerges in the 7th Century?

The audacity of a religion born yesterday pretending to be eternal truth.

Welcome to the Grand Illusion: Timeless Truth From a Time-Stamped Desert

Islam loudly proclaims itself as eternal. Uncreated. Divine since forever. No expiration date, no origin story, just timeless perfection falling from the sky into the Arabian sands. But here's the awkward fact Islamic apologists would rather bury deeper than a pre-Islamic idol: Islam, as we know it, didn't exist before the 7th century.

Let that sting. The religion that screams "eternal guidance for mankind" didn’t make its grand entrance until the days of camels and caliphs. No mention of it in ancient India. Nothing in Pharaonic Egypt. Zip in classical Greece or imperial Rome. Not even a footnote in Jewish or early Christian sources. And yet, somehow, we’re expected to swallow the fairytale that it’s always been there—just invisible, undetected, and totally undocumented.

The audacity is breathtaking. But don't worry—we're here to rip the curtain down and shine cold, historical light on the facts.

Keyword Focus: Islam origins, Islamic historical claims, Islamic eternity myth, 7th-century Islam, Muhammad history, religion and historical facts

Section 1: The 7th Century — Islam’s Documented Birth Certificate

Let’s get the timeline straight. Muhammad began preaching in Mecca around 610 CE. The Qur’an’s first verses allegedly appeared around this time, with the religion formally taking shape over the next 22 years until his death in 632 CE. Prior to that? There was no Islam. Not in any verifiable, cohesive form.

Despite Islamic revisionist efforts to backdate their ideology through phrases like deen al-fitrah ("natural religion") or by hijacking biblical prophets as Muslims before Muhammad, the hard evidence is uncompromising: Islam was born in the 7th century, in Arabia. Period. That’s not polemic; that’s consensus. Historians like Fred Donner, Patricia Crone, and Michael Cook all affirm Islam’s recognizable formation as a post-biblical development—not some eternal flame hiding in the shadows.

"Islam in its canonical form did not exist until it was compiled, codified, and imposed under state control post-Muhammad." — Patricia Crone, "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World"

Archaeology backs this. Coins, inscriptions, and historical documents show no mention of the word Islam or Muslim before the mid-7th century. Even the Dome of the Rock, built decades after Muhammad’s death, doesn’t use the word "Muhammad" as a personal name—it uses it as a title. That’s right: even early Islamic structures weren’t too sure who their prophet was.

Section 2: Islam’s Borrowed Legacy — The Religious Patchwork Quilt

So if Islam didn’t exist before the 7th century, why does it look so... familiar?

Because it’s a remix. A theological Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and pagan Arab customs.

The Qur’an retells stories of Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Mary, and Noah—except with glaring contradictions, timeline errors, and theological gymnastics. Why? Because it borrowed the stories secondhand, often through oral hearsay, and rebranded them as "Islamic."

Example: the story of Jesus speaking from the cradle appears not in the Bible, but in the apocryphal "Arabic Infancy Gospel"—a 2nd-3rd century non-canonical text dismissed even by early Christians. Yet it made the cut in the Qur’an (Surah 19:29–30), presented as revelation. Divine plagiarism? Or historical convenience?

"The Qur’an reveals a striking dependence on sectarian Christian and Jewish traditions of Late Antiquity... many of which were considered heretical." — Gabriel Said Reynolds, "The Qur’an and the Bible"

If the religion is eternal, why does it rely so heavily on ideas floating around late antiquity and nowhere else?

Section 3: The Myth of Primordial Islam

Muslims are taught to believe in something called din al-fitrah—the idea that Islam is the “natural religion” built into every human soul. Supposedly, all prophets preached Islam, even if they didn’t use the word. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus? All Muslims. They just didn’t know it.

This is theological sleight of hand. It allows Islam to piggyback on previous religious credibility without proving its own originality. It retrofits Islamic identity onto figures who never used its terminology, followed its rituals, or heard of Muhammad. It's like Apple claiming Socrates as an early Mac user because he liked asking questions.

Moreover, it begs the question: if Islam was always the true religion, why does history show zero documentation, no practice, no codified law, no rituals, and no mention of the Qur'an until after the 7th century? Not one historical Jewish or Christian record describes a parallel Islamic monotheism or community. Not one Roman historian documents this "eternal truth" in their vast encyclopedic records.

Reality check: if your “eternal” religion needs retroactive editing to look older than it is, it’s probably not eternal—it’s just insecure.

Section 4: The Islamic Calendar — Built on a Myth

Let’s talk about the Islamic calendar. Year 1 AH (After Hijra) marks Muhammad’s supposed migration from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. That’s the official birth of the Islamic era.

But here’s the problem: this isn’t just a calendar—it’s a symbolic backdating of eternity. By turning a political migration into the starting point of all sacred time, Islam anchors history in its own mythology. The implicit message? Nothing before Islam mattered.

That’s not just arrogant—it’s historically delusional. Civilizations had law codes, philosophy, science, governance, and spirituality thousands of years before Islam showed up. Islam didn’t invent morality or monotheism. It inherited them—and in many cases, distorted them.

Section 5: Islam’s “Final Revelation” — A Doctrinal Dead End

Islam claims to be the final revelation—the last word, the perfected message, the divine mic drop. No updates allowed.

This is a clever move to avoid accountability. If you can’t change anything, you also can’t challenge anything. Eternal truth becomes a prison, not a guide.

Why does this matter? Because every time you question a barbaric ruling, an outdated view on women, or a punishment that smells more like medieval sadism than divine wisdom, the response is always the same: “It’s from Allah. Eternal.”

Sorry, but eternity doesn’t equal validity. If anything, locking 7th-century ideas into perpetual relevance is the definition of intellectual stagnation. Civilizations evolve. Science updates. Ethics progress. Only dogma insists its first draft was perfect.

Conclusion: Eternal Claims, Temporal Evidence

Islam screams timelessness from the minaret—but history whispers otherwise. There is no archaeological trail, no documented theology, no liturgy, and no community called Islam before the 7th century. Its content is a mash-up of surrounding traditions. Its emergence is visibly time-stamped in Late Antiquity. Its claim to eternity isn’t grounded in fact—it’s a marketing gimmick for spiritual monopoly.

In the end, the question isn’t why Islam claims eternity. The real question is: Who’s still buying it?

Keywords

Islam historical claims, Islam origins, Islamic eternity myth, birth of Islam, 7th century religion, Muhammad history, eternal Islam debunked, Qur’an historical sources

Disclaimer

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

Bibliography

Crone, Patricia & Cook, Michael. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Donner, Fred. Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam. Harvard University Press, 2010.
Reynolds, Gabriel Said. The Qur’an and the Bible. Yale University Press, 2018.
Nevo, Yehuda D. & Koren, Judith. Crossroads to Islam: The Origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State. Prometheus Books, 2003.
Hoyland, Robert G. Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Darwin Press, 1997.